“Call me if any bank trucks show up at the gate,” I said.

“They won’t get thirty feet past the gravel,” Frank said.

I walked out to the parking lot and set the blue pocket ledger on the passenger seat of the 1998 Ford truck.

The odometer read 184,000 miles.

I turned the key in the ignition and drove across town to the strip mall.

Arthur Vance was already at his desk when I got to his office at eight thirty.

The blinds were tilted halfway down against the morning sun, leaving yellow bars across his open leather binder.