Mobley shrugged. “He knows what you need to do. The kid can come back on us just the same. Froehmer’s done more than he should have for you. That’s what you don’t get.” He leaned toward me until I could see the anger in his face. “You and your boyfriend…” he started to say, then started again. “You gummed it all up going down there and talking with everybody. You might as well have a sign on your back. You need to do whatever you’re told to make this right.”

“I don’t see how this would make it right.”

Mobley shrugged again. “I’m not begging anyone. You could stay picking up trash for all I care. You won’t get far with Froehmer with that though.”

Everything was quiet. Everything was empty.

“I told him you’d do what needed to be done.”

“I know. You’re never slow sticking my neck out,” I said, but he didn’t take it. He kept on with what he wanted.

“And there’s that unfinished job from the start. The one your partner fouled up.”

“I don’t get you.”

“Don’t play innocent; you know what we want,” Mobley said and came to the point.

“You find it and I’ll get it,” I said.

“You were there. You didn’t take it?”

“It was already gone.”

“And you don’t know where it is.”

“If I knew, I’d have it already,” I said.

“Seems to me this is still on you,” Mobley said.

I didn’t know how much of this was coming from Mobley and how much was coming from Froehmer. I wanted to talk directly to him, but I could see that was becoming less likely.

“This is how he wants it corrected,” Mobley said. “This is how it works out.” He handed me a photograph with an address written on the back. “You need to take care of this guy, the way we want, and then you’ll be square. That’s the way it is. The only way it’s going to be.”

Okay.

“Leave it in the open,” Mobley said. “That’s it.”

“I’m not sure I know how to go about this.”

“You’ll figure it out,” Mobley said.

Everything was empty. My car sitting in front of us, the dark fields around us, the earth and the sky were empty, no lights, no stars, just darkness. There was an emptiness in Mobley and what he said, an emptiness between us, inside me and what I thought and the words I didn’t say. There was an emptiness everywhere, where I lived and where I worked. It had not been there before, but everything had been emptied out. And it all had to be filled again, one way or another.