I sat and watched the house for a few hours, watched them all leave the way they did every morning, first the father, then the son, then the mother. They were all out the door and gone before a quarter past eight. I sat and waited anyway. I almost drove off. I wasn’t sure I wanted to go in and get the trophy, wasn’t so sure I wanted to undo what Frank had done. He’d put it back, why should I go and take it. It was like I was stealing from him. I tried to put that thought out of my mind. That would get me nowhere. I had to do it for Frank, to correct what we’d done wrong, to finish what we’d been hired to do. That’s all there was to it. I could be in and out in less than five minutes. Less than three, I bet. But I sat and thought about it. I could have done it twenty times for all the time I sat and thought. Superstition had gotten the better of Frank; I couldn’t let it get the better of me.

—

Finally, I had the trophy in my hand and was good to go, but stopped and looked around the room. There was a framed photo on the wall I hadn’t noticed before, a grainy, yellowed image of athletes shaking hands after a game, guys in shorts and jerseys, some with helmets still on. It was an old newspaper clipping, with the caption cut off. I studied the faces, thinking one of them looked familiar. It was a faded face in the background, partially obscured by other faces, but I kept coming back to it. He looked like someone I knew. It was impossible to tell, but I thought he looked like Froehmer. I looked at the face until it became nothing but disconnected dots. Maybe it was a young Froehmer, maybe not. It was impossible to tell. There was no date on the photo, not even an indication what paper it came from. I didn’t even notice the team names on the jerseys. That never occurred to me, I guess. I was looking only at the faces, and then I forgot about it. I had other things to think about.