“What?”
“Well, I’m just trying to say that it don’t matter where a source comes from.”
“What?”
Franks briefly looked at the others. “He got wax in his ears or something?”
“Let me put it another way. You want us to go investigate a tip you got from someone, who just gave us another tip that didn’t pan out?”
“Just because the guy gave us one that didn’t work out doesn’t mean the next one will be bad too. Gotta investigate them all equally.”
“Seriously, how big a waste of time is this gonna be?”
“Look, when I told you about the last one, I said the guy told me he didn’t know how legit it was. In fact, he put the odds on it panning out at less than twenty percent. I said all that upfront.”
“So you did. And you told us to go with that one first because…?”
“Well, that one had the better odds of success.”
Jacobs sighed again. “C’mon, Eddie. The one at less than twenty percent had the best chance of working, so then you give us another one? From the same guy?”
Franks shrugged. “Hey, man, I just give it to you as I get them.”
“On a delay.”
“Well, that’s not important. What’s important is we got another place to check out. And just because the first one didn’t work out, doesn’t mean this one won’t too.”
Jacobs raised his eyebrows. He looked less than enthused to be hearing about this, not to mention actually moving on it. “Really? And what are the odds we place on this one?”
“What’s in a number? All that matters is there’s a chance. And any chance is better than none at all. Isn’t it?”
“That depends.”
Thrower looked on, and while he wasn’t especially excited at the prospect of uncovering another empty building, Franks was right in one aspect. Any chance was better than none. “Maybe we should move on it.”
“You really wanna go out there again and look for a needle in a haystack?” Jacobs asked.
“Well, like Eddie said, it’s a chance.” Thrower looked over at Tiffany, making sure that Jacobs noticed him glance at her. “And we’re running out of them before certain other things have to be done.”
Jacobs glanced at Tiffany as well, knowing they had only a few more days before their deal kicked in, which he wasn’t excited about at all. “Yeah.”
“Besides, every now and then, someone finds that needle. Maybe it’s our turn.”
“Wishful thinking, I think.”
As much as he didn’t feel like going back out again, Jacobs knew they had to. Anything that would lead to an end to this—before having to put Tiffany out there exposed—was something that had to be investigated, no matter what the odds were of actually finding something.
“All right, let’s suit up again,” Jacobs said. He looked over at Gunner, who was lying in front of the couch. “You ready to do this again?”
Gunner perked his head up and barked. He was always ready.
Jacobs turned his attention to Franks. “You better give us the lowdown on this new place.”
“Listen, my guy says this place might have been used by Mallette recently.”
“Might have.”
“You want the lowdown on this place or not?”
Jacobs rolled his eyes. “Yeah, go ahead and give it to me.”
“At one point this place was like a… whatchamacallit, a pharmacy or something. A little mom and pop shop. Anyways, that was more than a few years ago. The owners were a little older, retired, nobody ever took control of the building again.”
“Eddie, I don’t need to know the history of the building. I just need to know where it’s at, how it connects to Mallette, and the layout. That’s it. I don’t need a history lesson.”
“Well, sometimes a history lesson can be good for you. It can get you in the know for how things went down at a certain point.”
“Just the details on how this pertains to us now. Please.”
“OK, OK, fine. Word on the street is that this was one of the places Mallette was using as a meeting place. Whether he’s still actively using it or not…” Franks threw up his hands. “Who knows?”
“And where is it?”
“It’s like, at the end of a strip-center-type place.”
“Weird place to do business,” Thrower said. “The other businesses there still active?”
“As far as I know. And not everything is held in completely deserted places, you know. Sometimes the best way to blend in is doing it with a lot of other people around. The whole, um, whatever it was I was thinking… ah, don’t matter. Anyway… what was I saying? I forget. Anyway, that’s the deal.”
Jacobs went over to his laptop on the table and turned it on. He put in the address that Franks had told him so they could start looking at pictures of the place.
“There it is,” Franks said, as soon as the pictures of the building appeared on the screen.
“This is gonna be a waste of time again,” Jacobs said. “There’s only two ways in. The front door and the back door.”
“Isn’t there always a front and back door?”
“Usually with bigger buildings and in more remote locations. I don’t see how we’re getting in there without being seen.”
“How ‘bout the roof?”
“I’m not going through the roof.”
“Maybe we should just go, stake it out a bit,” Thrower said. “See what transpires. We don’t actually have to break in. We just have to monitor it a bit and see if anyone shows up. Or is already there and leaves.”
Franks snapped his fingers and pointed at Thrower. “There you go. That’s cooking with the old noggin.”
Jacobs went over to the couch and picked up his gear. “Let’s do this, even if I think there’s not going to be anything worth doing.”
“Positive attitude, man. Positive attitude. It’ll take you far in life. Remember that.”
“Uh-huh.”
“And who knows? Maybe we’ll get lucky. Speaking of lucky, I got an appointment with Lucy and Deb soon. Let me know how it goes.”
Jacobs looked at Thrower. “So we get the boring
