I couldn’t hear any of their conversation because the coffee bar had a sound track with a loud bass thumping. The two men were going over a set of papers in a manila folder, and the man running the meeting was tapping the papers with his thumb. He wasn’t happy with the work Alito had given him. I pulled out my cellphone and took a quick shot of the two of them while pretending to be texting. When they got up, I waited until they were almost to the building lobby before I followed them.

As they reached the lobby, they separated without looking or speaking to each other. The meeting commander headed for the exit, while Alito studied the door to a FedEx shop near the coffee bar. I knelt on one knee to adjust my socks. Alito may have been a crappy cop, but he’d spent three decades studying wanted posters and he might recognize me close up despite my disguise. From my kneeling position on the floor, I looked out at the plaza and saw that the commander was going into the building where the Krumas campaign had its offices.

Alito’s phone rang, and I stood, moving behind him to a newsstand where I picked up a pack of gum. “Yeah,” he said into the phone, “Les already told me, and I know what he wants. You think I’m some kind of retard, you have to double-check everything I do? … Oh, the same to the horse you rode in on!”

He snapped his cellphone shut and stormed through the revolving door. “Les” had told him, had he? That man with the sandy hair and cold eyes: that was Les Strangwell.

I took my coffee out onto the plaza and sat in the shade. What line connected Strangwell to Alito? Of course, ex-cops do freelance work all the time, but what kind of security work did the Krumas campaign … George Dornick. Dornick was advising Brian on terrorism and Homeland Security issues. He was Alito’s ex-partner. Maybe Dornick was throwing some crumbs his way.

But what crumbs? I thought of my apartment. Someone who knew how to pick locks in a sophisticated way had gotten in there. A cop would have access to all kinds of tools. And George Dornick, with his special security services, had access to even more. But what could I have that Dornick, let alone Les Strangwell, might want? The picture of my dad’s softball team? Larry Alito had been in it, as had Dornick, Bobby Mallory, and a lot of other guys.

Alito was proud of his police service. It defined him. I couldn’t imagine any reason why he would want the picture unless it was pure spite against me. But there wasn’t any reason for that, either.