“I’m fine with that,” I said.

“I’m not fine with it.”

“There’s nothing to worry about. Nothing for you to worry about.”

“We’ll see,” Froehmer said. “For now, we’ve got to get some distance. Mobley will tell you what to do. Listen to him. It’ll help, but I don’t know how much. There’s only so much we can do. The rest is on you, understand. Listen to Mobley.”

Mobley told me to get over to a warehouse and do whatever needed to be done. He told me that I’d been working there for four weeks. He handed me some old pay stubs. He said they had timecards to show I’d been working at the time the kid was killed.

“Froehmer’s done his part,” Mobley said, “now all you’ve got to do is yours.”

Froehmer had it all figured out. I was sure the cops would know everything too. I had fucked up, really fucked up. But then knowing something and proving it are two entirely different things. That was the only play I had. But Mobley wasn’t done.

“But this is it,” he said, and I didn’t know if he was talking on behalf of Froehmer or for himself. “You screw this up and you’re on your own.”

He still wasn’t done. “If you know about the thing you were supposed to deliver, you should let us know. If you know where it is. You should produce the thing, like you were supposed to, if you can.”

“You know as much as I do about it,” I said. “Probably more.”

I wondered if Mobley was above me or below me in Froehmer’s organization. He didn’t do anything more than whatever Froehmer told him to do, nothing that required any thinking on his own. He did what he was told. Maybe that placed him ahead of me. When he spoke, he spoke for Froehmer, that definitely put him ahead of me, but he couldn’t be trusted on his own, not the way I was. Or so I thought. But I could do what I was told too. So I reported to the warehouse and they put me to work.