I wandered off without saying a word. I went back to the room and didn’t tell Frank anything about the wheelchair. He didn’t need to know about that gear of his machine. “The whole block was out,” I told him. “Twenty minutes, tops.” It went out again, flickered then went black before the emergency lights kicked on and the alarms sounded again. We went back to bed. The job had to wait. Frank could wait, wait for the gears to move smoothly again.

“We’re engaged in criminal activity,” Frank liked to argue in regard to his superstitions. “Criminals get caught because they don’t pay attention, don’t plan enough, don’t see the problems until it’s too late. I don’t want surprises. We need to avoid them.” That’s why I put up with him. Besides, you couldn’t argue with our success. We’d never been caught. But then Frank had luck on his side, more than he’d ever admit.

We were thieves. We stole anything, paintings, cars, coins, guns, houseplants, it didn’t matter. We stole a pair of sneakers (only twenty-three ever made, Frank said); they were just around the guy’s closet, tangled with slippers and flip-flops. “The rich always get what they want,” Frank said afterward, “but they usually don’t want it once they get it.” That’s where we come in.

We never stole anything for ourselves. It was all strictly by request. A guy said, “I need this,” and we went and got it. We were small-timers with small jobs. I’d been doing it for a while before I met Frank, but business was better once he joined. I knew what I was doing, but Frank had an expertise in things. Plus, Frank had a good face for it. Good-looking without standing out. He had a calm, friendly way about him. Pleasant. People wanted to like him. Frank could walk into a bakery and walk out with twenty loaves, unnoticed. He could stand across the street from our target and no one would think twice. “I’m going to rob that house tonight,” he could have told them and they’d nod and say, “That’s nice.” Because of his face, and the way he had about him. People trusted him. I trusted him for a long time.