He got out and locked up, but then had a feeling that maybe he was tempting fate, leaving the gun where it was. Probably job number two for most thieves: break the window, and then check the glove compartment. He didn’t want to help someone graduate from cars to liquor stores.

He opened the trunk. A couple of wrenches and a cardboard box full of jumper leads on an oil-stained drop-sheet. He put the gun beside the taillight, and covered it with his backpack. Then he locked up and walked back down to the corner by Deacon’s.

The Cuban was still out front, and gave him a long, cool appraisal, arms folded. Vincent waited for the light and then crossed the street and headed out along the wharf.

The air smelled like fish and ocean, and beside him the cars in the vehicle lane made a low thrum along the timber boards as they passed. Below on the beach, two girls maybe twenty years old, hippyish in long dresses and beaded hair, were sculpting a mound of sand into the body of a fallen soldier.

Vincent glanced back at Deacon’s and saw the little Cuban still fixated on him. He took his phone from his pocket and dialled Bluesmoke as he walked—Beauden Ash’s private line.

Beauden said, ‘How’s your first week been?’

‘Had its moments. You get my message?’

‘Yep. I can see it sitting there, waiting to be listened to.’

Vincent said, ‘Do you have to give back your recruitment fee if I quit tomorrow?’

‘Funny.’

Vincent said nothing.

‘Oh, shit. Really?’

Vincent stopped and put his elbows on the rail. There was a guy ten feet away with a rod and a box of tackle, baiting a hook with a chunk of something bloody. Ahead of him the waterline stretched west, the boardwalk matching its curve and the palm trees above it like a long rank of pom poms waiting to cheer the wind.

Vincent said, ‘I’m worried he’s into something. He’s got full-auto AR-15s in the house, and a three-fifty-seven Python in the car.’

Beauden said nothing.

Vincent said, ‘He’s got this routine, right?’

He told Beauden about the breakfast-and-then-golf habit.

‘Sounds okay.’

‘Yeah. Nice for some, right? Anyway, we show up for his meal this morning, there’s three guys waiting for him.’

‘What sort of guys?’

Vincent turned around, his back to the rail now, and looked at the street. A hundred and fifty yards away, the Cuban stood hand-to-wrist, staring at him. He said, ‘If they showed up at your mother’s funeral, you’d want them to leave.’

‘Right. And where are you now?’

The fisherman was offering his rod. ‘You want to reel it in? Five bucks.’