The Fool's Run

took two seconds per key.
    The next day we looked at another prospect in the suburbs. The husband was an engineer who specialized in fiber optics as they applied to airframe control. The wife was a real estate agent who sometimes came home at odd hours in the middle of the day. The neighbors on one side had a half dozen kids, and there were more kids in the house across the street. It was possible, but dangerous.
    We got back to the Durenbargers’ at five o’clock. Jason Durenbarger arrived promptly at six, as he had the night before. His wife was only a minute behind him.
    “They’re young; they ought to go out,” LuEllen said. “They won’t stay in two nights in a row.”
    The day before we’d picked out what we thought was their apartment. The lights went on a minute after Jason went inside, confirming it.
    “Here we go,” LuEllen said half an hour later. The Durenbargers walked out the front door of the building, around to the side toward the parking lot. We were on the opposite side of the block. I hurried around the boulevard to get behind them, and moved too fast. They still hadn’t come out of the driveway as we approached. LuEllen ordered me over to the curb.
    “Fuck it. Just wait,” she said.
    There’s a technique for following another car. You never get too close, you stay in an adjacent lane rather than directly behind the car you’re following, and you memorize the other car’s taillights. A good surveillance man will risk losing the car before he risks being spotted.
    And here we were, illegally parked fifty feet from their drive, in plain sight. A good surveillance man would have been weeping in disgust. It didn’t matter, because they pulled out with barely a glance up the street. We memorized the taillights, gave them some distance, and followed them onto Interstate 295 and across the river to Georgetown. As they got off the main streets, we were forced to close up, but I managed to keep a car or two between us. Finally they slowed and turned through a curb cut beside a nice-looking, redwood-and-fieldstone restaurant.
    “Oh, God, get in behind them. Quick. Right now,” LuEllen said, almost shouting. “Look at the valet. Oh, shit.” I didn’t know what she was talking about, but her tone was clear enough, and I eased in behind the Durenbargers. Jason walked around the front of the car, took a tag from the valet, and they went inside. The valet put a flat hand out to us, telling us to wait, and drove the Durenbargers’ car back into the lot.
    “Get out and stand by the car and wait for the valet. I’m going to get out and go over to his hutch. I’ll call him over to talk before he gets to you,” LuEllen said in a rush, slipping out the passenger side. I got out on the driver’s side and waited there. The valet was back in fifteen seconds and swerved toward his hutch when he saw LuEllen standing beside it.
    She said something about the little girls’ room, and he smiled and pointed at the door and motioned sharply around to the left. At the same time, he casually reached into the hutch and hung the Durenbargers’ keys on a peg. LuEllen thanked him and started away. He handed me a tag and slid into the car. As soon as he was out of sight, LuEllen was back. With a quick look around, she reached into the hutch, took the Durenbargers’ keys, and led me into the restaurant.
    “The bar,” she said. We got a booth and ordered cocktails. When the waitress had gone, LuEllen opened her hand to show me the key ring. There were five keys—two car keys, two that might be apartment keys, and one that looked like it might fit a suitcase. She took out the Sucrets tin, made her impressions, and wrote down the code for each key. We finished the drinks and left.
    “Make it?” the valet asked with a grin.
    “Just barely,” LuEllen said. I gave him the tag and as he went after the car, LuEllen hung the Durenbargers’ keys back on the hook.
    “We’re in,” she said, a light in her eyes.
    Dace was at his own apartment when we returned. LuEllen phoned him and asked where we could get some key blanks with no questions asked. He called around, and ten minutes later we had the name and address of a locksmith. The voice on the other end of the phone said he’d be around for an hour yet.
    It took almost an hour to find the place. It was a dingy dump in a shopping center, sandwiched between a brightly lit but empty Laundromat and a vacant storefront that had last housed a used-clothing