Chelsea, Massachusetts February 13, 1979

One hour and counting until dusk, the time of the day Curtis Black liked best. The time when the distant sky left the illusion of light, but the enveloping haze provided the cover of dark. A time when if you knew what you were doing, if you knew how, and you knew why, the visual, visceral uncertainty of the moment served as your most reliable ally. For Curtis Black, it was a time of day to make his mark.

Black shook his Johnnie Walker along the top of the rickety Formica table, the cubes of ice smashing softly against each other and the side of the glass. He did this when he was nervous, and yes, he was nervous now. His eyes drifted vacantly across the diagrams spread out before him, then out the window at the waning afternoon light, then back to the diagrams, then at his watch. He took a small sip of Scotch.

Good help is hard to find. That's what he kept thinking, over and over again, that one thought interfering with his ability to concentrate on the task at hand. Good help is hard to find and harder still to keep.

Kind of ironic, but the better you do, the quicker guys are to move on, to take their experience, the lessons they learned under you, and set out on their own. To succeed you have to keep moving, taking on new people, and every new person represents a new risk, every single time.

But what else are you going to do? Go it alone? Go straight? Black took another sip and bore in on the closest diagram.

The armored truck would come down Prince Street and take a right on Hanover, then drive two blocks through what would be relatively heavy, early rush-hour traffic.