Shaw tailed the dealer into Erin’s Tavern, a scuffed and pungent bar. Above the door was a sign informing patrons that it had been founded in 1972. Shaw didn’t doubt it. The cobwebs in the corners and grime on the walls and ceiling were easily that old.

After waving to the bartender, Trimbeaux sat at a table with four other men, who greeted him with fist bumps and bro hugs. One was Anglo and about twenty-five, two were Black and in their thirties and one appeared to be Latino and was in his forties or fifties.

When he was working, Shaw favored black jeans and dress shirts and dark sports coats or jackets, as he’d worn earlier today. Now, though, he’d picked a shabby watch coat. He had not shaved in two days, an intentional choice. He wore too a logo-free baseball cap. He blended.

At the bar he ordered a Jack Daniel’s and a ginger ale, in separate glasses. He sipped the soft drink, not the bourbon, and pretended to examine his iPhone screen while watching Trimbeaux and the others in the dark mirror behind the bar.

They were laughing, gesturing to the greasy TV screen occasionally, complaining to the bartender about the temperature, and one-upping each other with stories about street exploits. Trimbeaux’s mood would change abruptly, from giddiness to anger to paranoia. Most others at the table were clearly afraid of him. Shaw noted that the Latino was not. He wasn’t one of the crew; Shaw guessed he was with another gang or a supplier.

There were few other patrons and Shaw noticed that several of the men at the table, including Trimbeaux, glanced his way occasionally. Shaw had wanted to stay longer but decided it was prudent to leave.

Never assume your enemy isn’t suspicious . . .

He finished the ginger ale, poured the whisky into the taller glass, to hide that he hadn’t drunk any, and paid and left.

As a reward-seeker, Shaw did a great deal of surveillance. Which meant that he also had a sense of when he was being followed. Now, in the deserted streets of this harsh portion of Canton, he believed someone was tailing him. After unbuttoning his jacket to ease drawing his conceal-carry Glock, he aimed his phone, in video camera mode, behind him. He stopped and looked at the vid. Too dark, too hard to tell for sure, but it was possible that a figure was following, sticking to the shadows.

He returned to his car near Trimbeaux’s, climbed in and made a quick U-turn. There was no one that he could see, but if the person had been following, he could have slipped into a narrow alley between a restaurant up for bankruptcy sale and a vaping store. He drove past Erin’s and glanced in the window.

Trimbeaux and most of his crew were still there. The Latino was not.