One night I sat in the car, struggling to focus on the target house, my mind wandering across the mistakes of my past, wondering if I’d made another one. I hadn’t thought about Frank ever leaving, but I wondered if he would again. Why would he stay? I thought, if he was going to go, it was better now than later. He could go back to his life at the clinic and whatever else he did, and I hoped I could go back to mine. I wondered if it could be that easy. I wasn’t smart enough to know the answer. I wondered if I was smart at all. I thought about a line from Hunter Thompson, “in a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity.” I didn’t know if it was true, and I know I hadn’t shown many smarts at the important stuff of life, but I’d been sure about Frank. I convinced myself that he had it figured out, and I wasn’t going to like the way he’d figured it.

Things went on like that for another week, almost two, each of us living in those separate spheres that rarely intersected. Somehow I didn’t screw up anything, still delivered for Froehmer, but I became convinced it was only a matter of time before I fucked up in a big way. I hated the dread I dragged around, my drifting thoughts that only reinforced my doubts. I didn’t have time to wait for it to pass. Something had to be done.

—

I called Froehmer and told him I wanted out. Well, not entirely. I told him that I wanted to go back to construction work. He told me to meet him at the diner.

I met him in the parking lot, but we didn’t go in. Instead, I got in the back seat and we drove around. Froehmer was in the front passenger seat, and his guy Mobley drove. He was almost a mascot, like a family pet you’re used to seeing in the same place, a dog curled in the corner that you know will bite sooner or later.

It was like a bad version of On the Waterfront, and Mobley looked like a low-rent Charley Malloy. Only I wasn’t his brother, and he didn’t do any of the talking. Froehmer did most of that, telling me what a good job I was doing, even with the one incomplete, which he brought up more than twice, holding it over me like it hadn’t been repaid. I kept as quiet as Mobley and listened until he was done with the compliments and complaints. Then I told him again that maybe it would be better if I went back to the construction sites.

“Where’s this coming from?” he said. “You, or your friend?”

“I think I can be better help to you if I go back where I was.”