Frank slammed a fist into the steering wheel. His right hand twitched by the gearshift where it had been for several hours, waiting for an opportunity to grab the revolver in the console and wave it around. Rick had convinced him not to enter the building. There were too many burly guys armed with machetes in restaurant kitchens. He was pretty sure that the unarmed half of a two-man team wouldn’t make it out alive in that environment.

“He must have left out of a back entrance.” Rick pointed to the alley abutting Banque Gauche’s brick exterior.

“We would have seen him. It only exits out onto this street. There are dumpsters at the back, pressed against a brick wall.”

Rick turned his head toward the passenger window, not wanting Frank to witness his surprise. He hadn’t expected that his partner would have done any reconnaissance for this confrontation. Part of him had thought that Frank was simply venting his fury. He’d figured stewing in a car for a couple hours would make his partner simmer down, and he still believed they should try negotiating again without Frank’s new toy. Brandishing a gun and demanding to talk about their investment—hours after the man who’d introduced them to the business “opportunity” had been shot to death—would send anybody straight to the cops.

Rick heard the click of locks releasing. Frank pulled the weapon from the console and slipped it into his peacoat pocket before cracking the door. A blast of cold wind barreled through the opening.

“You coming?”

In Rick’s opinion, their little stakeout had been ridiculous, and whatever Frank wanted to do next would surely prove more so. He had other things to worry about. His wife, for one. Her divorce attorney, for another. Moreover, the weather outside was bitter. It was bad enough that they’d been idling in the car as the temperature dropped, occasionally running the engine to keep the interior at a manageable level of unpleasant.

“What’s the point?” Rick asked, his focus flitting from Frank’s furious expression to the pocket concealing his weapon.

“Maybe he didn’t get past us,” Frank said. “He might have seen the car and decided to hole up in there.”

Rick pulled his own wool coat tighter around his neck and began closing the top button. “Let’s talk to him tomorrow when our heads are clear and we’re not worked up about Nate.”

Frank’s brow lowered. He had a big square head atop a short body made blocky by too many business lunches. Usually, Rick found Frank comical-looking, a real-life Lego man. There was nothing funny about the look on Frank’s face, though.

For the first time, Rick wondered how new the gun in Frank’s pocket really was and whether it had been used before.