As it heats up, I dump a scoopful of cooked, cooled, shredded roast beef into a small camping skillet. I sauté the meat in its own fat until it gets warm and juicy. My car soon fills with the tantalizing scent of garlic, onion, and Cajun spices. Once the beef is heated through, I carefully stack it onto a baguette. Then I drown the meat with “debris gravy”—made from simmered beef scraps—kept warm in a Thermos. Lastly, the fixings: sliced tomatoes, chopped cabbage, diced pickles.

The first bite of my creation is … divine. So is the second, the third, the fourth. I swear the sandwich is as good as if I made it in the truck. Although maybe after ten hours of boring, fruitless waiting, my mind—and tongue—are starting to play tricks on me.

I take another bite, wondering how Marlene did today with the truck. I chickened out and texted her early this morning, telling her that my old aches and pains were still throbbing from my earlier baseball-bat-related energies, and that I was taking the day off.

Poor Marlene.

I glance back down the road at the modest red-brick bungalow I’ve been keeping my eye on all day. After my quick, sweet meeting with Vanessa, I spent most of the day working the phones, talking to old reliable sources and even some private investigators who owe me favors. Eventually my work paid off, and last night I managed to get a hold of the Farzats’ former landlord. After telling him I was from an insurance company, looking to pass on a settlement check to the family—making him eligible for a finder’s fee—he gave me their latest mailing address.

So here I am. But thus far, I haven’t seen a sign of either of them.

And I know it’s insane to focus all of my attention on him, but without any added info from Cunningham, for now, Farzat is all I got. And if I’m going to seriously surveil Farzat, tracking his comings and goings, mapping his network of associates, obviously I need to find the guy first.

Back when I was on the force, we used to hide motion-activated GPS sensors under the bumpers of suspects’ cars. That let us keep an eye on their movements from the comfort of, well, anywhere. Today, I don’t have that luxury. I can’t even pull up the state DMV records, so I have no way of knowing which of the beat-up cars parked on this quiet street are his.

So it’s back to basics. Putting in some quality “ass time,” as we used to call it. Waiting and watching. Twiddling my thumbs and crossing my fingers.

Hoping my silent phone eventually rings with something, anything, from Cunningham.