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“I’ll tell you what,” Rome said. “Somebody has a serious f.u.c.king hankering for McDonald’s.”

They’d been watching an ATM on Mack Avenue, looking for an easy mark. This guy had walked up on foot and taken out money. Looked like a lot of money. Rome and Jamall then watched him go into McDonald’s. Five minutes later he’d walked out with the two big bags. The man turned south on Orleans and had been walking for fifteen minutes straight. Rome even drove a block past Orleans, to St. Aubin, then several blocks south to get ahead of the man, then cut back on Lafayette and finally up the other side of Orleans. Here the street was barren, a parking lot on one side, the long stretch of trees on the other. He’d parked and they’d waited, seeing if the man was stupid enough to keep walking down such a deserted area.

He was.

It just didn’t get any easier than this. And that made Rome nervous. “Am I missing something?” he asked after the man had gone a half block past the Delta 88. “For real, this guy is alone?”

“He’s just going straight,” Jamall said. “Not even enough sense to walk on a main road. Dude must be in a hurry.”

“No one here,” Rome said.

Jamall nodded. “No one. You said you wanted a sure thing, man. It don’t get more sure than this. We gonna do this, we gotta move. Let’s go get paid.”

Jamall and Rome got out of the car and left the doors slightly open. That wouldn’t give them away, because the dome light didn’t work. They pulled their guns, Rome a simple .38 revolver, Jamall his fancier Glock. They ran across the empty street and came up on the man from behind.

He heard them, because he turned—and when he did, he found two guns pointing at his face.

“Gimme your wallet!” Rome said. He held the .38 in his right hand. His left he held out, palm up.

The man just stared at him.

Jamall made a show of pulling back the Glock’s slide, then pointed it at the man’s face again. “You give my man that wallet, or it’s your a.s.s. And put them bags down—we’re takin’ those, too.”

The man turned to stare at Jamall. White as a sheet, big red beard—he couldn’t possibly look more out of place. Had to be a tourist or something like that. Or maybe a r.e.t.a.r.d, because he didn’t look scared. Not even a little bit.

“No,” the man said.

Fury crossed over Jamall’s face. Rome got nervous. Jamall didn’t like it when people told him no. Especially white people. Rome chanced a quick look up and down the street. No one there, but this was already taking too long.

“I’m only gonna tell you one more time,” Jamall said. “Put down those bags and give my boy your wallet. If there’s enough money in it, I won’t kill you.”

“No,” the man said. “I can’t. I still have to get ice cream bars. Chelsea will be mad if I don’t come back with ice cream bars.”

Jamall took two steps forward and put the barrel of the gun on the man’s forehead.

“I don’t give a f.u.c.k about your ice cream bars,” Jamall said. “Put down the motherf.u.c.king bags.”

The man knelt a little and set the bags on the snow-covered gra.s.s, then stood. He still didn’t look scared. Rome didn’t like this s.h.i.+t, not at all. Usually people c.r.a.pped their drawers when you pulled a gun on them. This guy looked like he’d had a gun to his face so many times it bored him. f.u.c.k the money, Rome wanted out of there.