It wasn’t until we got to the station that they realized I hadn’t done anything. I didn’t have anything on me, not even the car keys (I left them in the glove compartment). All I had was about a hundred bucks in my pocket. They didn’t care. They wanted to ask me some questions. I didn’t say a word. They wanted my name. Nothing. They wanted my address. Nothing. They wanted to know what I was doing in that part of town. Nothing. They took me to a room and both cops sat me down and asked me the same questions all over again, and I gave them the same answer. I sat and didn’t open my mouth.

They left and came back with another cop. He tried a different approach. “You’re not in any trouble,” he told me. “Not yet anyway. We just want to get some information. We had a tip and maybe it’s just a case of you being in the wrong place at the right time, something like that. Maybe you could help us out here.”

I thought about quoting Bartleby, the Scrivener but even that was too much to give them. I exercised my right and remained silent. God, does that piss them off.

“We can hold you here until we get some answers,” the third cop said.

I let them try to threaten me for a while, then I spoke. Just one word, which I repeated three different times. “Lawyer.” “Lawyer.” “Lawyer.”

They all left the room again. After sitting by myself for almost an hour they came back one last time. And let me go.

I had to take a car back to get the rental. I figured they knew who I was anyway, or at least knew the car, and the name I’d rented it under. Frank would burn that identity immediately. I would too, but it had to wait. I texted Froehmer. He’d need to know that the job was off. “Blown,” I wrote. I could see he’d read it and that the message was deleted, but there was no reply. That would wait too.

—

I had to meet Froehmer at the diner. It was like being called to the principal’s office. He’d waited a day to summon me. I figured he knew what had happened before he asked me. “No luck?” he said.

“It wasn’t right,” I told him. “Someone was staked out on the street.”

“You saw them?”

“You couldn’t miss them.”

Froehmer sat back and drank his coffee.

“That’s all of it?”

“I could go back,” I said.

He shook his head. “You did right. Another time.”

“I want to see this through. I don’t want to make it a habit.”

“You didn’t get caught though, did you?” Froehmer said. “That’s the habit I want.”

“How’d they know to be there?”

“Do we even know who they were?”