Still works okay in spite of a few years in the bag. It’s pretty dark already, but the scope amplifies the streetlight a couple of thousand times and gives me a good view of the bar Faber is striding towards. It’s an upscale joint called The Brass Ring. A place I probably would never make it past the door, unless I decided that I really wanted to go in. Faber flings his keys at some poor schmuck doorman and bulls straight past. I know how the schmuck feels.

Goran and Deacon back into an alley and quickly settle into stakeout positions. Slouching down, cracking open the windows. Two minutes later, smoke curls from both sides. Give it another fifteen and Deacon will make a coffee run.

Their plan is as dumb as yours, Ghost Zeb points out. What happens now? We sit here wasting time?

You’re not here. I’m not arguing with you.

Real mature.

I whistle a few bars to distract him.

What is that song?

Come on. What are we doing right now?

Ghost Zeb’s chuckle whines through his nose, my mind displaying its attention to detail.

Elvis Costello. ‘Watching the Detectives’. Very good.

And that keeps him quiet for a while.

The blues call it stakeout and the army call it reconnaissance but it amounts to the same thing. Waiting and watching.

Two hours later and Faber is still in the club, and I can’t seem to find a position on the spicy mound that doesn’t involve a rock or root poking my groin.

Maybe you like having a root stuck in your groin.

I don’t dignify this with a reply.

Goran and Deacon are feeling the strain. The junior detective is out of the car stomping her feet against the cold and mouthing off. Goran wears a put-upon-mommy expression, riding out the tantrum.

With the Starlight I can almost read lips, and what I can’t make out, I make up.

Come on, Josie. Let me go in there, see who Faber is talking to.

No. We do this right. Hang back, make a case.

Fuck that. This is our man. You see how he freaked out? Started threatening us and shit.

We hang back, Detective.

Something along those lines.

Or maybe not.

The seriousness of the situation escalates suddenly and alarmingly. Deacon turns her back to her superior, shoulders hunched, agitated cigarette hand tracing jet trails in the air.

Jet trails? Not bad for a doorman.

There is no time for a back-and-forth with Ghost Zeb. Goran has slipped quietly from the passenger seat and drawn a pistol from her ankle holster. A throwdown. Shit.

I could be wrong. Maybe I’m misreading the situation.

Goran pulls a silencer from her handbag and casually twists it on to the barrel, all the time her lips moving, keeping the conversation smooth, no warning signs.