Fucking Chuck. Rooney should have known better. He and Tanya were doing fine on their own, a hit-and-run kind of operation where they’d rent a room in a Holiday Inn, buy some stuff, and then move on to the next town a couple days later. The money hadn’t been great, but it was okay. Then they’d met Chuck at the Indian gaming casino in Tampa.

An older guy. Tanya said he reminded her of her granddad. They’d had dinner and some drinks and some laughs. Good old Chuck was quite the storyteller. Probably that’s why he and Tanya hit it off so well. Next thing you know, Chuck invited them to stay at his girlfriend’s motel on the beach, over in St. Pete.

The beach. That was all Tanya had to hear. A couple days turned into a week, and before Rooney knew it, Chuck was a full partner. They ran ads on Craigslist and in the local shopper papers. Chuck put up flyers in nearby shopping centers, in laundromats and barbershops and nail salons, at the Moose Lodge and the senior center. Rooney had to hand it to him, the old bastard knew their demographic.

Sellers were banging down the door of their motel room, lining up like sheep ready to be fleeced. Things were going so well that a week turned into two weeks, and that, ultimately, was their downfall.

Rooney wanted to move on. The motel owner’s son was a cop, a fact Chuck conveniently forgot to mention. Cops gave Rooney the hives. But Tanya was sick and tired of the nomad life. Literally, she was sick. And tired. And Rooney was already remembering his old man’s advice: He travels fastest who travels alone.

That last night, he and Chuck decided to hit the greyhound track. Rooney had a hot streak running—every dog he bet on finished in the money. Tanya started calling around eight, but he finally just turned the phone off. They drove across the bridge to Tampa, hit the Seminole Indian casino, where their streak continued. Chuck knew of a strip club near MacDill, the air force base. They were on their way when Rooney glanced down at his phone and saw the text from Tanya that he’d missed hours earlier.

OMG WHERE ARE YOU? THE COPS ARE HERE.

He’d shown the message to Chuck. They drove back to the beach, cruised slowly past the Murmuring Surf, where the parking lot was full of police cruisers. On their second pass they spotted Tanya, being led into the parking lot in handcuffs, by a black female patrol officer.

“Keep driving,” Chuck advised.

“But the stuff—all the stuff we were going to take to the refinery. I’m not driving away from my money,” Rooney objected.

“Don’t worry. I hid it. The cops will never find it. As soon as things cool down, we’ll go back.”