I don’t know what I said. Maybe I didn’t say anything to Mobley. I took the photograph and went back to my car. He turned on his headlights and practically blinded me, two suns boring directly into me. I had to wait a minute for my eyes to adjust, and I waited until the dark blankness came back. It was the same as before, dark and empty and still. There was nothing. But at least now I could see it. I hoped that Mobley would drive out first. But he didn’t. He waited for me. I drove home, occasionally glancing at the photograph in the passenger seat.

—

I didn’t know the first thing about doing what Froehmer wanted done. It’s one thing to take something from somebody; it’s different when you have to take everything. You see it all the time in movies and shit like that, but how do you know if that’s how it works in real life? I suppose it was no different from anything else. Not much different from my usual jobs. You plan and prepare, and pay attention to the details. Maybe it was as simple as that. So I did what I knew how to do. After work at the warehouse I drove to the address on the back of the photograph and watched and waited. I looked at the house a long time; it didn’t look as if it had any money in it, or ever would again. No one came and no one went. I waited all night. There wasn’t enough coffee and Chinese food to keep me awake. In the empty silence inside and outside of the car I dozed at least twice, almost twenty minutes the second time. I had a small camera on the dash just in case, and I looked at what had been recorded when I was asleep. Nothing. I had to go to work in a few hours and had done nothing but waste a night. That was all right, I’d done that before, but not by myself in a long time. I was out of practice and it made me impatient. I waited as long as I could and then had to leave to go back to the warehouse.

I struggled to get through the day. I almost fell asleep on my stupid orange cart, careening around the aisles like a drunk driver. I had to pull over and try to get my shit together. It wasn’t even lunchtime. When it was time for my break I stayed on the cart and fell asleep. More than an hour later someone shoved me awake.

“You all right,” he said. I’d never seen him before. He wasn’t wearing an orange vest, so I figured him for a supervisor somewhere.

I nodded. “I’ll be all right.”