Chapter 16

This was probably a stupid risk, but it would put my mind at ease.

I was across the street from Trixie's apartment when her light went out at 9.30 that night.

The sky still had a bluish tint to it because that was just how things were in the merry month of June,

but it was just barely dark enough for her to have believably gone to sleep,

which as of yet I had no actual proof she was not doing.

But if she wanted a piece of this idiocy badly enough to visit Freddy, I had to believe that she was in.

Somewhere down at street level, there would be an unmarked car with two of Sabian's finest in it.

Cops hate this kind of duty, and in general they are pretty terrible at it.

At any given moment, the police have too much to do and not enough manpower to do it.

They carry a caseload, they work overtime, they are by training and by nature ill-suited to inaction.

They get bored easily and stick out like sore thumbs.

Two guys in nondescript clothing, sitting for hours on end in a nondescript automobile,

and looking more bored than a little boy in church.

They wouldn't be hard to spot.

And in some ways, they weren't really trying to be hard to spot, of course.

It wasn't really their job.

Their job was to keep an eye on Trixie Dixon

and follow her wherever she went

in case she happened to make contact with her fugitive partner,

Jack Justice, suspected cop killer.

Watching Trixie was their task,

...