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driveway next to it. An oxidizing jungle gym was where the grass should have been. The swing on the jungle gym dangled by a single chain, just yards away from a toppled death-trap refrigerator, its door still on. A hyena-like dog beset by an advanced case of mange paced the area inside the rusted chain-link fence. There was a brand-new DirecTV dish mounted on the south side of the buckling roof, of course. People are the same the world over; they’ll live in squalor as long as they have a flat screen and channels.
    The place was a survival course for the children living inside, of which there were two, as far as Behr could tell from his surveillance, both young boys, poorly dressed for the weather. He hadn’t seen any sign of Jonesy over the past two days. The guy had either been inside the whole time or away. Behr wasn’t sure exactly what to look for besides the face either. Six foot two and 290 was certainly large, but it could be flab or it could be jacked, and there was a big difference.
    Behr had door-knocked the dump on day one, and a massive mocha-skinned woman had answered, a hearty baby clad only in a diaper cocked on her hip. Before he could even run a pretext on the woman, who was Samoan or Hawaiian or Fijian as far as he could tell, she started right in.
    “He don’ do nothing.”
    “Ma’am—”
    “He not here and he don’ do nothing.”
    “Okay, look—”
    “He don’ violate his parole and he don’ do a damn-damn thing.”
    The woman was practically violent in her assertions. Behr tried to peek into the house and learn something of value while she ranted, which was difficult for two reasons: the first was her size—she filled almost every inch of the doorframe—and the second was the mess inside. The living room was like an interior version of the yard.
    Behr didn’t even bother with his “assessor with a potential reduction in property tax” gambit. Instead he retreated and found an inconspicuous vantage point down the block from which to monitorthe house. Proper discipline on a stakeout required engine off, windows closed, no music. It wasn’t pleasant, but it was a protocol that was best followed. Cops and Treasury agents with windows down and radios on had been rewarded with bullets in the back of the head. A closed window didn’t offer much protection, maybe bullet deflection at best, but it was better than a muzzle pressed against the temple. It got bitter cold in the car before long, but it beat extreme heat.
    After he’d spent the bulk of forty-eight hours on the sit, less three thirty-minute breaks to say hello to Susan and Trevor, use the bathroom, and reload on sandwiches and water, Behr had to admit Jones wasn’t home. He’d also had ample opportunity to feel foolish about the case itself and did his best to push these thoughts from his head.
    At one point the woman went out, piloting a beat-to-shit Honda Odyssey from the cluttered one-car detached garage, apparently on a shopping trip with the kids. Behr considered making entry to the house but decided against it. He had nothing concrete to look for, and he didn’t feel like getting arrested or contending with the dog. The woman and kids returned an hour later with a bunch of bags from Target. Sometimes patience was the only thing that worked, and every time Behr lost his he pictured his son, and that kept him rooted to his spot.
    It was almost dark on the second day when he was rewarded. A matte black F350 rolled up, and getting out of the passenger seat was a tree trunk dressed in work pants, boots, and a Dickies jacket. Behr checked the mug shot he’d sat with for two days. It was Jonesy. And unfortunately Jonesy had not been sloughing off when it came to the gym time. He moved around the truck to the driver’s side with surprising dexterity and slapped five with the driver, who took off in a spray of loose gravel as Jonesy headed for his house. Behr watched him go in and waited five minutes. Cutting off a man before