Ghazi now feared the U-Stor-It. “Too close,” he said. “Over what? Toys.” They recounted the night many times. At first Aziz could not understand how Ghazi had taped back all the boxes. Ghazi explained he had sealed each one almost as soon as he opened it, to make a fast escape easier. He had tripped and slid down the back exit on the wet macadam with his trash bags of gear. The crowbar broke through one, spilling bobby pins, pliers, and Mourad’s stun gun. He saw lights coming behind him and ran. When it got dark again, he crept around the chain-link fence until he reached the front parking lot. The Brighton Moving truck was gone. The subcompact was there. When Aziz told him what he had said to Kamal, how Kamal had driven off, Ghazi was amazed Aziz had not panicked. Aziz could see Ghazi had trouble reconciling the cell phone bumbler with the quick thinker who scared Kamal.

There was one other mystery. Mourad never mentioned his missing stun gun. Ghazi had never found it on the wet driveway. Then one day Aziz saw it, or one just like it, in their bedroom next to the billy club.

Kamal was scared, but not about Aziz. Aziz could wait. Kamal’s girlfriend had flown to São Paulo in May and never called. Kamal by June had put her social security number to work. He succeeded in spending more than $250,000 over the summer, with the help of an experienced identity thief of Guatemalan heritage named Freia. Credit under Freia’s capable hands extended and extended. Treasury agents came in navy blazers to arrest Freia at dawn a day after Kamal’s U-Stor-It encounter with Aziz. Freia, in federal custody, told them about Kamal.

Kamal was easy to find. He had been greedy. He had been sloppy. He scolded himself as the cuffs closed on his wrists. But in time he got another chance. It came from a treasury agent named Hank Bridges.

Chapter 17

17

Aziz, always the busboy, usually the dishwasher, now was a waiter. Ghazi had wheedled John Hill like an old woman. “Give him a try . . . . A fighter, this one. . . . Look at his hands. This man is a waiter.” One day in November, Hill agreed. There was no raise. That would come if Aziz did well. With Ghazi in Hill’s ear, Aziz felt luck was with him.