He took a couple of left turns and drove down the next parallel street. The houses here were similar to the one where Alisha had sought sanctuary. Single-level clapboard homes with peaked roofs, kids’ toys or abandoned vehicles left to rot in the front yards. Occasionally a house looked like its occupants were attempting to stave off the destitution of the neighborhood by planting shrubs and flowers to brighten their garden. But these were the exception to the norm.

Rickard drove by the house back-to-back with the drug dealer’s place. Guards were placed there as well. He suspected that other spotters would be farther afield watching for unmarked police cars. He continued on to the end of the street and this time took a right. Up along on the left he noticed the burnt-out shell of a house. He turned the Taurus into the garden, maneuvered around a pile of shattered and scorched furniture piled on the sun-bleached lawn and parked under a tree. A rope hung from one of the branches, frayed at the end. In some neighborhoods this would have been a child’s swing, but here he guessed that a large dog would once have been tethered. He checked his weapons, gun and knife, then climbed out of the car.

As soon as he walked out from under the tree he saw trouble. A teenage black kid on a cycle was wheeling circles in the road. The boy watched him with baleful animosity. The kid had made him: not necessarily as a cop, but as someone who had no business being here. Rickard walked toward him, feet crunching through brittle grass. The boy immediately rode away, watching Rickard over his shoulder. He stopped fifty yards away. Standing with his legs splayed on either side of the cycle he watched Rickard turn and head off away from him. When Rickard next checked, the kid was gone. Rickard picked up his pace. There were no guarantees, but the kid could simply be a local child with the inherited distrust of strangers. Or maybe he was a spotter for another dealer. Place like this, there would be more than one outfit peddling narcotics, he thought. It was still a good idea to get to the target house before the alarm was sounded.

When he rounded the bend on to the street running parallel to the one he wanted, two men were waiting for him. They were the guards stationed in the garden of the house behind the one Alisha hid in. Rickard saw that one of them was holding a mobile phone to his ear—probably getting an update from the kid on the bike. They were scrawny men, like rejects from The Jerry Springer Show, but they were packing guns, so they were still dangerous. Going for Rickard was the fact that they thought he was a cop. They could intimidate and run him off without fear of immediate retribution.