It took me a few minutes to get inside, longer than I could afford. Luckily, the box was right there in the open. I ran to the den, grabbed it, and got the hell out of the house, convinced that cameras had come back online. I told myself not to care; they wouldn’t find me. They wouldn’t see my bland face; they wouldn’t know who I was. I was gone.

I got back to the car, and there was Frank, sitting in the driver’s seat, holding a bag of Chinese takeout. I took the food and he drove.

“I knew you didn’t need my help,” Frank said.

He glanced at the box and said, “That’s a good twenty-thousand-dollar box of toys.”

“I needed your help,” I reminded him. “I needed you. I’m shocked I got out of there, that’s how much I needed you. Let’s get this box to Froehmer before the cops get to us.”

“Let’s give him the food instead.”

We could hear sirens in the distance. They were getting closer.

“It’s not for you,” Frank said.

“A couple more jobs and Froehmer will let me out.”

“You think he’s going to let you out? You really think that?”

“He has to. If I want out, I’ll be out.”

“Do you?”

“I don’t want things like this.”

Frank waited for the sirens to fade.

“I’m ready to get back in,” he said.

I wondered if Frank only came back because he knew Froehmer would never keep his end of the deal, that there would always be another job. “You’re too good of an earner,” Froehmer had said. Maybe Frank knew I’d get caught sooner or later without him. Maybe I never really wanted to stop in the first place. Maybe Frank knew that too. I didn’t really care; he was back. And we could go on, better than before.

16

THE CALL

“FRANK SHOWED UP,” FROEHMER SAID OVER THE PHONE.

“With the thing?”

“No,” he said and I knew it was no good.

“He never made it back,” he said.

“What does that mean?”

“I got a call,” Froehmer said. “Frank OD’d. I’m sorry about that.”

“Where? When?”

“Not long after he left you, I guess. Took the thing and sold it and bought enough stuff to drop a couple of Philip Seymour Hoffmans.”

I didn’t correct him. I wasn’t thinking about that. I just wanted Froehmer to keep talking, to tell me what I didn’t want to know.

“Where is he?”

Maybe he said “morgue,” I don’t really remember. I know he was oddly direct and oddly vague at the same time. “Never left the city. Got his fix and another hotel room, they told me.”

“Who told you?”

Froehmer knew people. Somebody who knew somebody, maybe. Froehmer knew how to find things. Then he had me go and get them.