The Fool's Run

walking around at ten o’clock in the morning with tennis rackets,” LuEllen said while we were buying the equipment. “We put the crowbar and the bolt cutters, the gloves and your tools and the electronic stuff in the bottom of the bags. If there’s a problem, we ditch the bags and jog back to the car. Jogging is one way you can run in the ’burbs without a single soul paying attention to you.”
    The Ebberlys lived in Falls Church, Virginia, in a neighborhood of upper-middle-class ranch homes and bungalows. The streets had names like Willow Lane and Crabapple Court, and twisted endlessly back on each other like a ball of twine. There were sailboats in the side yards, basketball hoops on garages, heavy, black barbecue grills on brick and stone patios. The houses were separated by tall hedges and lines of weeping willows.
    We drove by the Ebberlys’ home and LuEllen looked it over.
    “It feels empty,” she said. The house was a two-story, split-entry design with evergreen bushes on either side of the front door. She was pleased by the layout.
    “I like those shrubs. They cut off the view from the side. These streets are good, too, with the curves. There’s nobody right across the street looking at the target’s front door. Gives you some extra privacy to work.”
    We went by a second time. She took out a pair of compact Leitz binoculars and scanned the place.
    “You look for lumps of dark green grass in the backyard, especially along the fences,” LuEllen said idly. “If they have a dog, and he does his business in the yard, there’ll be dark clumps of grass, like pimples. It’s not a sure thing, but it can warn you off.”
    There was nothing. Satisfied by the house, we drove six blocks out to a convenience store, where we had seen a drive-up phone. Checking the list from Bobby, she called the Ebberlys at their separate offices. Samantha came on, and LuEllen rattled the receiver a few times and hung up. Frank wasn’t in his office, but had been just a minute ago. He was probably down the hall for coffee, according to the woman who answered the phone, but he had an appointment coming up so he should be right back. LuEllen promised to call in fifteen minutes.
    “Get my bag,” she said. I reached into the backseat for her bag, as she dropped another coin into the phone. “Who now?” I asked.
    “The house.” She listened while the Ebberlys’ house phone rang thirty times, then glanced around the parking lot. Sure that nobody was watching, she took a pair of compact bolt cutters from the tennis bag and nipped off the phone receiver.
    “Let’s go,” she said, tossing the receiver in the backseat. “Let’s do it.”
    “You’re sure?”
    “Goddamnit, let’s do it,” she snarled. LuEllen carries no excess fat, and now her face muscles stood out in bundles. She slipped a packet of white powder out of her purse, carefully tipped some on a matchbook, and snorted it up.
    “You want some?”
    “No.”
    “Good stuff,” she said. “It’ll give you an edge.”
    “I’ve got an edge,” I said.
    “Then drive.”
    As I pulled out of the parking lot, she retrieved the amputated receiver from the backseat and stuffed it out of sight in the glove compartment.
    “If you cut the receiver off, nobody will try to use the pay phone,” she explained. “That means nobody will hang it up, so the phone should still be ringing at the Ebberlys’ when we get there.”
    “If there’s nobody home.”
    “Right.”
    We stopped at a neighborhood park two blocks from the target. Both tennis courts were occupied. We did some stretches, got the bags, and walked down the street toward the Ebberlys’.
    “When we get there, we turn right in. I knock. If somebody comes to the door, we ask where the park is. If we hear the phone, and nobody answers the knock, you back up so I can get at the door. I pop it, and we go in. Keep everything slow,” she said quietly. As she talked, her head turned from the street up to me, and back to the street. Her smile switched on and off, the perfect rhythm for a friendly husband-wife talk on the way home from a tennis game. The streets were eerily quiet for a nice summer day. No kids, no cars.
    “It’s an older suburb, one of my favorite situations,” LuEllen said. “Young families can’t afford it. The people who moved here when the houses were cheap are in their forties and fifties. Their kids are growing up. There’s nothing to do here during the day, so the teenagers