“How did we miss him come out?”
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.
“Come on,” Frank snorted. “Neither of us could give a shit about Nate, and you know it. He hadn’t been bringing in anything but trouble for years.” Frank patted his pocket. “And I told you. I’m done talking.”
Frank slammed the door and started across the street. Rick watched him step up to one of the restaurant’s massive windows and press his face to the plate glass. Were it not for the expensive cut of his coat and the patent leather loafers on his feet, someone might think he was trying to rob the place.
He turned around and waved frantically for Rick to join him. A curse escaped Rick’s lips. It hung in the air, a cloud of hot breath carrying his bad language. Frank had seen something in that window—maybe the man himself.
Rick climbed out of the Porsche’s low bucket seat and onto the sidewalk. Before he slammed the door, he glanced inside for the key. It would be like his partner to jump out, leave it inside, and then blame him for getting an eighty-thousand-dollar sports car stolen and stripped for parts.
He didn’t see a fob in the console. Rick raised his hand and waved until he got Frank’s attention. He pressed his fingers together and jiggled his wrist, communicating his question without shouting.
Frank patted his other coat pocket and then tossed his hand in the air, perhaps telling him to forget it or, maybe, to kiss off. He started toward the alley.
Rick shut the door and hustled to catch up. “You saw him?” The question came out in a theatrical stage whisper. Though Rick didn’t want this confrontation to occur, he definitely didn’t want to tip anyone off that it might happen.
“I’m telling you, he couldn’t have gotten past us.” Frank rounded the building’s corner, disappearing into the alley.
Rick peered inside before following. The space was lit by the streetlamp and a floodlight over the restaurant’s side door. As Frank had said, there were dumpsters, though they were pressed against the other side of the alley, not against the back wall that turned the alley into a dead end.
Frank stood at the restaurant’s side door, gloved hand wrapped around the knob. He jostled it aggressively.
The door didn’t budge.
Rick felt his shoulders lower. “He locked up and went home.”
Frank paced back and forth beneath the light, a lion in a spot-lit pen. “What is he, a damn magician?” Frank pointed at the wall. “You think he scaled that thing?”
The barrier was only about six feet high. Rick imagined that an extremely fit man could reach the top and pull himself over. The easier way would be to push over the dumpster, climb on top, and then amble over the wall, but the dumpster’s position indicated that it hadn’t been commandeered as a stepstool.
“It’s possible.” Rick shrugged. “I don’t think he’s the type, though. He always struck me as the kind of guy who wouldn’t run from a fight.”
Rick studied Frank’s face, hoping that his partner’s expression would betray some healthy fear at his warning. Instead, Frank’s bottom lip pushed up his top, giving him the look of an angry bulldog. His hands dove into his pockets.
He withdrew the gun in one fluid motion as he whirled toward the door. Before Rick could stop him, Frank pointed it at the floodlight and fired. The shot reverberated against the brick, turning the pistol’s pop into a shotgun blast. Glass rained down on the pavement. The alley went pitch dark.
“What did you do that for?” Rick yelled in spite of himself. He needed to be quiet. With luck, there hadn’t been a cop within earshot, and they could still make it back to the car without being charged with vandalism or, worse, attempted burglary.
“He needs to know,” Frank shouted back. “I’m done fucking playing. I want our money back, and I’m not going to sit tight until he spends it all trying to keep this shithole in the black—’cause there won’t be anything to recover then, even if the courts say he owes us. You can’t get blood out of a stone. We need to squeeze him now.”
Rick realized that both his hands were on his hips, the classic dad-scolding stance. But Frank wasn’t some kid he could shame into better behavior. “He’ll probably think this was an attempted robbery gone wrong,” Rick said.
“Then we’ll just have to do something that leaves no doubt,” Frank countered.
Rick heard footsteps and felt the thud of Frank’s shoulder bumping into his own.
“Like what?”
The fear in his voice was palpable. Rick guessed that Frank could hear it as well, because he turned around. The streetlamp beyond outlined Frank’s square body in light, casting his face in shadow. It was difficult to see, but Rick was almost certain that he could make out Frank’s expression. His partner was smiling.