"You might have something in your car to pop the trunk with. You know, with the jack?"

"You think Foley backed out?"

"I don't know-he doesn't exactly confide in me." Glenn straightened again, hugging himself.

"I'm freezing my ass off."

"You want to get out of here," Karen said, "run, it'll warm you up. But listen, Glenn?"

"What?"

"If you're lying to me…"

"I know, you'll find me. Jesus, I believe it. I keep thinking, if you hadn't driven me to federal court last summer…"

"We wouldn't keep running into each other?"

"You wouldn't even know who I am."

Karen said, "If I didn't know you, Glenn, by tomorrow you'd be in jail or dead. Look at it that way."

People were leaving as Foley and Buddy arrived. They found the table, White Boy and a black guy sitting there. Maurice came down from the stage. He said, "Where you been?" an edge to his tone.

"You miss the big boys, come in time for the walkout fights. Well, shit, you may as well pull up a chair." He said to the black guy,

"Kenneth, this is Mr. Jack Foley and this is Mr. Buddy, famous bank robbers and jailbirds, say they want to help us out."

Foley put his hand on a raincoat draped over the back of a chair at the table.

"Who's sitting here?"

"Your homie, Glenn," Maurice said.

"Only thing, he went to the men's about an hour ago and never came back."

Foley gave Buddy a look.

White Boy, grinning at them, said, "I think he must've fell in."

"I sent these two looking for him," Maurice said.

"They come back shaking their heads."

"Glenn have a car?"

"One he brought from Florida. We all come here in it this evening."

"Well, if he left his coat," Foley said, "and he's been gone an hour..

."

"Hey, I know what you're saying. Glenn didn't want nobody to know he was leaving. Man, I know that. I sent White Boy back out again, see was the car still there, check it out. White Boy had the keys, but knowing Glenn's habits I thought it good to check. You understand? The car's still there and Glenn ain't nowhere to be found."

Foley said, "Everybody's somewhere, Snoop. Where's Glenn staying?"

"My house." Maurice turned his head toward the ring, watched a few moments and yelled, "Reggie, push off and hit, man. Push him off." He turned back to Foley.

"Why don't you and Buddy sit down and have a drink with me. What you want?"

"We're leaving," Foley said.

"The fuck you talking about?"

"Snoop, if you don't know where Glenn is…"

"The man changed his mind, that's all, so he left. Decided he can't take the heat."

"Glenn's pussy," White Boy said.

"He never done shit last night but watch."

Buddy said, "Where was this?"

A waitress came as he said it and asked if they'd like something. Foley shook his head; Buddy did too. The waitress dumped the little tin ashtray in a napkin and left and White Boy said, "You read the paper you'd have seen it."

Maurice said, "White Boy, that's another business. You understand? Has got nothing to do with us here."

"He keeps looking at me," White Boy said, nodding at Buddy.

"I can't help it," Buddy said.

"I hear the Snoop call you White Boy, I'm trying to figure out why you let him."

"It's what they call me at Kronk, from when I trained there."

"You used to fight, huh?"

"Right here and out at the Palace."

"You any good?"

"You want to find out?"

Buddy said, "You ever done time?"

"He's asking do you gouge eyes," Maurice said.

"Do you bite off ears. White Boy's got his own moves. But that's enough of that shit. Look," Maurice said, taking Foley by the arm and moving off a few steps to stand with their backs to the table.

"What you worried about Glenn for? What's he know?"

"I thought everything," Foley said, watching the fighters jabbing and juking each other, one of them patient the way he moved in, the other taking wild swings and missing.

"Glenn knows everything we suppose to do tomorrow," Maurice said.

"Snatch the man he comes out of his club, drive home with him. Glenn could tell somebody that, yeah, but it don't mean shit. You understand? I changed the plan. Glenn don't know it, 'cause while we waiting for you he left. For whatever reason it don't matter. It ain't happening tomorrow."

Foley, watching the fighter, said, "This fight isn't going four rounds."

Maurice glanced over.

"Ain't even going two."

"You're not saying it's fixed."

"Don't have to fix nothing to know who's gonna win. It's in the matchmaking, how you match 'em up, who you bring in to fight the home boy. You understand?"

Foley kept his gaze on the ring.

"If it isn't happening tomorrow, when is it?"

"Tonight," Maurice said.

"Soon as we leave here. Stop home to pick up what we need and go do it."

Foley said, "Give me a minute," and motioned to Buddy as he turned to the table. Behind him, he heard Maurice say:

"You got two minutes, that's all. Make up your mind."

Foley turned back to him to stand in close.

"I wasn't asking permission. Buddy and Fre going up to the bar. We're gonna take however long it takes. We may keep walking. We do come back, it's understood this deal cuts fifty fifty half for us. How you cut your half is up to you."

"We can talk about it," Maurice said.

"No, that's the way it's gonna be, Snoop."

Foley walked away and Buddy followed him to the bar, this dark area away from the ring lights.

"He wants to do it tonight."

"What's the difference, tonight or tomorrow?"

"Glenn. He could be setting us up."

"Glenn's always a risk," Buddy said.

"We've come this far."

TWENTY-THREE.

Aren told her dad she couldn't sleep. He said, "Is that right? I was doing pretty good myself, till the phone rang. There was nothing on the news about my little girl, so I guess I dozed off.

Now I see I've missed Letterman. What's going on?"

She told about tracking down Glenn Michaels and getting him to tell what he was up to, her dad saying, "That's some deal you offered him.

You let him go?"

"I bring Glenn to the First Precinct for stealing a car in Florida,"

Karen said, "have to explain to a lieutenant or a sergeant what I'm doing here? He could look at me and think-I don't know what, but probably think he should take over. You know what I mean? Not only he's never seen me before, I'm a girl waving a marshal's star at him, a fed trying to tell a street cop about a planned home invasion. He'd have to check me out. There'd be nothing to charge the other guys with; all I've got is a stolen car. So I let him go and called Raymond Cruz."

"The one you saw the other day."

"Yeah, and told him the whole story. I was concerned with jurisdiction. If these guys are breaking into a home in Bloomfield Hills, Oakland County, should I get in touch with the police out there, the sheriff's department or what? I didn't see anything federal about it, so why would I call the FBI. Right?"

"Sounds logical."

"I told you Raymond's an inspector, he's over crimes persons, crimes property and sex crimes."

"I recall that."

"He also heads the Violent Crimes Task Force and they're hooked into all the local police around, the county sheriffs and the Bureau. The Bureau's involved, also aTF., because in almost all of the home invasions they're busting into dope houses after cash and guns. That's all, in and out."

"But this one's different," her dad said.

"As far as we know or can assume, yeah. This guy Ripley's home in Bloomfield Hills isn't likely to be a dope house, even if he has done time. You remember Ripley?"

"Dick the Ripper, the inside trader. Yeah, I think he's the land would have cash in his house."