Richie Moats's initial foray into armed robbery is blemished when his mask slips off mid-heist, revealing his face to the two acquaintances--collectors picking up the weekly take from Rudy Fontana's string of massage parlors--he's in the process of robbing. A week or so later, Richie's uncle, Denver waterbed king Marty Moats, asks Streeter, the one-named bounty hunter who's apparently a neighbor of CJ Floyd (see above), to take a trip down to San Ignacio to check out the State Department's story that Richie's Blazer, with Richie's bloodstains, has turned up without Richie. Streeter obligingly fences with the Mexican officials, but just as he's turning up evidence that Richie and his ladylove Tina Gillis, the exotic dancer Rudy made his Girl Friday, haven't gone south of the border after all, Marty calls him home, and Streeter's left without a case. Back home, though, it turns out that Marty isn't the only one who'd like to set his mind at ease about Richie. Rudy's silent partner, Grover Royals, is seriously interested in Richie and Tina and the money they boosted from him, and won't give them a safe-conduct back home from Florida unless they agree to make a little extra delivery of Quaaludes and Tupperware. Fans of Streeter's first two cases (A Long Reach, 1997, etc.) won't be surprised that from here on in, things get a little complicated. Though you'll need a diagram to keep track of the double-crosses, Stone's dry, unfussy narration keeps two things perfectly clear throughout: Everybody's into everybody else, and everybody's going to get burned.
