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Back Just Thieves Save as PDF
Chapters (42)
  1. Cover
  2. Other Titles
  3. Dedication
  4. Epigraph
  5. 1
  6. 1
  7. 2
  8. 3
  9. 4
  10. 5
  11. 6
  12. 7
  13. 8
  14. 9
  15. 10
  16. 11
  17. 2
  18. 12
  19. 13
  20. 14
  21. 15
  22. 16
  23. 17
  24. 18
  25. 19
  26. 20
  27. 21
  28. 22
  29. 23
  30. 24
  31. 25
  32. 26
  33. 3
  34. 27
  35. 28
  36. 29
  37. 30
  38. 31
  39. 32
  40. 33
  41. 34
  42. ACCOMPLICES AND EASY MARKS

My percentages were covered; I could just walk away and leave it all up to her. Denise and I were done. It had all been a big mistake, but it wasn’t about her. It was about the kid. I thought I should do something. Denise tried to let me off the hook. I wouldn’t let myself off, not at first anyway.

“I don’t have to be anything but the kid’s father,” I said, “but at least let me be that.”

I brought her the money every payday and spent time with the baby, but that didn’t last long, and then she met this other guy. I never met him; she never talked about him. I just knew I was out.

“I don’t want you coming around,” she told me.

I knew she was using. The other guy had introduced her to the harder stuff. She liked to tell me that it was none of my business. We had a few fights and she called the cops. It was bad enough that she got a restraining order. She made it a bigger thing than what it was. But I’m not blaming her.

I know I’m responsible for most of the bad in her life. I’m sure that if she could do it all over again she never would have leaned over and talked to me in class. You never know how things are going to turn out. I feel bad for her. But I will also say this: I wanted to be part of her life, to be there for her and the baby. She didn’t want it; she thought she could do better than me. She could have. Easy. But she didn’t. And that was a problem that got put on me and kept me away from them because of a judge and all that. That’s when I called Froehmer. And I was done with her for a while, but it all led me back to her, back to Eva, trying to make up for something, trying to cover some percentages.

8

THE GOAT

I DON’T CARE HOW MUCH PREPARATION YOU DO, YOU CAN NEVER ANTICIPATE THE UNEXPECTED. “I’m not saying you eliminate it, but you minimize its impact,” Frank argued. And I might give him shit about his prep, his cautions, his superstitions, but Frank’s real talents come into play on the rare occasions when things don’t go as planned. The job is easy, I always say; it’s everything else that’s hard. The job was easy, if you define the job only as taking what we came for. If you define the job as delivering the thing to the man who hired you, well, that’s the story here. That’s where things got hard.

“We should wait another day,” Frank said.