FIFTY

FIFTY

SPECIAL AGENT FRANCIS BLAIR opens an extra button on his flannel shirt, revealing more of the black T-shirt underneath. Checks his cover outfit once more in the bathroom mirror. He looks the part of a trucker, a longtime union guy who's now a crook, a thief.

He'll be glad when this is over. All the rigmarole a UC has to go through — living in a different apartment, not his own; memorizing his cover; looking over his shoulder every time he steps out of his cover and returns to his normal life; wondering, every time he enters the FBI building on Roosevelt, whether someone might snap his photo.

It's been eleven months now, living in this shitbox of a rental unit in Ukrainian Village. The heist is next week. He can't wait for the sting to go down so he can return to his normal life and just be Special Agent Francis Blair.

Or does he? He looks again in the mirror — a fifty-fiveyear-old man, a guy who should be a special agent in charge by now, or at least an ASAC, but he's not even a supervisor. Nothing more than a line agent at his ripe old age, a washout, relegated to undercover on a Customs task force, a promising young agent whose career was derailed by a mobster named Michael Cagnina.

He hears his phone buzz — not his cover phone but his real one, plugged into a charger in the small kitchen area. He's surprised when he sees the name on caller ID.

"Ollie Grafton?" he answers. "How long has it been?"

"Special FX!" Ollie replies.

Right — he forgot that Graf used to use that nickname for Blair, riffing off his initials. They go through some small talk, Graf ribbing Blair about still being in Organized Crime, Blair asking him if he's worn out the rocking chair yet in retirement down in Chatsworth.

"Listen, reason I'm calling," says Graf, "seeing as how you're the only one from the Cagnina team still at the Bureau. There's a cop from Hemingway Grove just paid me a visit the other day. Followed up with a phone call today. Asking some interesting questions."

Hemingway Grove? That doesn't sound good.

"Questions about none other than Silas Renfrow," says Grafton. "Is that a blast from the past or what?"