“Who’s Blind Blake?” Roscoe asked.
“Singer,” Finlay said.
“Guitar player, Finlay,” I said.
Sherman Stoller had been flagged down by a sector car for exceeding the speed limit on the river bridge between Jacksonville and Jacksonville Beach at a quarter to midnight on a September night, two years ago. He had been driving a small panel truck eleven miles an hour too fast. He had become extremely agitated and abusive toward the sector car crew. This had caused them to arrest him for suspected DUI. He had been printed and photographed at Jacksonville Central and both he and his vehicle had been searched. He had given an Atlanta address and stated his occupation as truck driver.
The search of his person produced a negative result. His truck was searched by hand and with dogs and produced a negative result. The truck contained nothing but a cargo of twenty new air conditioners boxed for export from Jacksonville Beach. The boxes were sealed and marked with the manufacturer’s logo, and each box was marked with a serial number.
After being Mirandized, Stoller had made one phone call. Within twenty minutes of the call, a lawyer named Perez from the respected Jacksonville firm of Zacarias Perez was in attendance, and within a further ten minutes Stoller had been released. From being flagged down to walking out with the lawyer, fifty-five minutes had elapsed.
“Interesting,” Finlay said. “The guy’s three hundred miles from home, it’s midnight, and he gets lawyered up within twenty minutes? With a partner from a respected firm? Stoller was some kind of a truck driver, that’s for sure.”
“You recognize his address?” I asked Roscoe.
She shook her head.
“Not really,” she said. “But I could find it.”
The door cracked open and Baker stuck his head in again.
“State police on the line,” he said. “Sounds like they got a car for you.”
Finlay checked his watch. Decided there was time before Teale got back.
“OK,” he said. “Punch it through here, Baker.”
Finlay picked up the phone on the big desk and listened. Scribbled some notes and grunted a thank-you. Hung the phone up and got out of his chair.
“OK,” he said. “Let’s go take a look.”
We all three filed out quickly. We needed to be well clear before Teale got back and started asking questions. Baker watched us go. Called out after us.
“What should I tell Teale?” he said.
“Tell him we traced the car,” Finlay said. “The one the crazy ex-con used to get down to Morrison’s place. Tell him we’re making some real progress, OK?”
THIS TIME FINLAY DROVE. HE WAS USING AN UNMARKED Chevy, identical to Roscoe’s issue. He bounced it out of the lot and turned south. Accelerated through the little town. The first few miles I recognized as the route down toward Yellow Springs, but then we swung off onto a track which struck out due east. It led out toward the highway and ended up in a kind of maintenance area, right below the roadway. There were piles of asphalt and tar barrels lying around. And a car. It had been rolled off the highway and it was lying on its roof. And it was burned out.
“They noticed it Friday morning,” Finlay said. “Wasn’t here Thursday, they’re sure about that. It could have been Joe’s.”
We looked it over very carefully. Wasn’t much left to see. It was totally burned out. Everything that wasn’t steel had gone. We couldn’t even tell what make it had been. By the shape, Finlay thought it had been a General Motors product, but we couldn’t tell which division. It had been a midsize sedan, and once the plastic trim has gone, you can’t tell a Buick from a Chevy from a Pontiac.
I got Finlay to support the front fender and I crawled under the upside-down hood. Looked for the number they stamp on the scuttle. I had to scrape off some scorched flakes, but I found the little aluminum strip and got most of the number. Crawled out again and recited it to Roscoe. She wrote it down.
“So what do you think?” Finlay asked.
“Could be the one,” I said. “Say he rented it Thursday evening up at the airport in Atlanta, full tank of gas. Drove it to the warehouses at the Margrave cloverleaf, then somebody drove it on down here afterward. Couple of gallons gone, maybe two and a half. Plenty left to burn.”
Finlay nodded.
“Makes sense,” he said. “But they’d have to be local guys. This is a great spot to dump a car, right? Pull onto the shoulder up there, wheels in the dirt, push the car off the edge, scramble down and torch it, then jump in with your buddy who’s already down here in his own car waiting for you, and you’re away. But only if you knew about this little maintenance track. And only a local guy would know about this little maintenance track, right?”
We left the wreck there. Drove back up to the station house. The desk sergeant was waiting for Finlay.
“Teale wants you in the office,” he said.
Finlay grunted and was heading back there, but I caught his arm.
“Keep him talking a while,” I said. “Give Roscoe a chance to phone in that number from the car.”
He nodded and carried on to the back. Roscoe and I headed over to her desk. She picked up the phone, but I stopped her.
“Give me the gun,” I whispered. “Before Teale is through with Finlay.”
She nodded and glanced around the room. Sat down and unclipped the keys from her belt. Unlocked her desk and rolled open a deep drawer. Nodded down to a shallow cardboard box. I picked it out. It was an office storage box, about two inches deep, for holding papers. The cardboard was printed with elaborate woodgrain. Someone had written a name across the top. Gray. I tucked it under my arm and nodded to Roscoe. She rolled the drawer shut and locked it again.
“Thanks,” I said. “Now make those calls, OK?”
I walked down to the entrance and levered the heavy glass door open with my back. Carried the box over to the Bentley. I set the box on the roof of the car and unlocked the door. Dumped the box on the passenger seat and got in. Pulled the box over onto my lap. Saw a brown sedan slowing up on the road about a hundred yards to the north.
Two Hispanic men in it. The same car I’d seen outside Charlie Hubble’s place the day before. The same guys. No doubt about that. Their car came to a stop about seventy-five yards from the station house. I saw it settle, like the engine had been turned off. Neither of the guys got out. They just sat there, seventy-five yards away, watching the station house parking lot. Seemed to me they were looking straight at the Bentley. Seemed to me my new friends had found me. They’d looked all morning. Now they didn’t have to look anymore. They didn’t move. Just sat there, watching. I watched them back for more than five minutes. They weren’t going to get out. I could see that. They were settled there. So I turned my attention back to the box.
It was empty apart from a box of bullets and a gun. A hell of a weapon. It was a Desert Eagle automatic. I’d used one before. They come from Israel. We used to get them in exchange for all kinds of stuff we sent over there. I picked it up. Very heavy, fourteen-inch barrel, more than a foot and a half long, front to back. I clicked out the magazine. This was the eight-shot .44 version. Takes eight .44 Magnum shells. Not what you would call a subtle weapon. The bullet weighs about twice as much as the .38 in a police revolver. It leaves the barrel going way faster than the speed of sound. It hits the target with more force than anything this side of a train wreck. Not subtle at all. Ammunition is a problem. You’ve got a choice. If you load up with a hard-nose bullet, it goes right through the guy you’re shooting and probably right on through some other guy a hundred yards away. So you use a soft-nose bullet and it blows a hole out of your guy about the size of a garbage can. Your choice.
The bullets in the box were all soft-nose. OK with me. I checked the weapon over. Brutal, but in fine condition. Everything worked. The grip was engraved with a name. Gray. Same as the file box. The dead detective, the guy before Finlay. Hanged himself last February. Must have been a gun collector. This wasn’t his service piece. No pol
ice department in the world would authorize the use of a cannon like this on the job. Altogether too heavy.
I loaded the dead detective’s big handgun with eight of his shells. Put the spares back in the box and left the box on the floor of the car. Cocked the gun and clicked the safety catch on. Cocked and locked, we used to call it. Saves you a split-second before your first shot. Saves your life, maybe. I put the gun in the Bentley’s walnut glove compartment. It was a tight fit.
Then I sat for a moment and watched the two guys in their car. They were still watching me. We looked at each other from seventy-five yards away. They were relaxed and comfortable. But they were watching me. I got out of the Bentley and locked it up again. Stepped back to the entrance and pulled the door. Glanced back toward the brown sedan. Still there. Still watching.
ROSCOE WAS AT HER DESK, TALKING ON THE PHONE. SHE waved. Looked excited. Held her hand up to tell me to wait. I watched the door to the rosewood office. Hoped Teale wouldn’t come out before she finished her call.
He came out just as she hung up. He was all red in the face. Looked mad. Started stamping around the squad room, banging his heavy stick on the floor. Glaring up at the big empty bulletin board. Finlay stuck his head out of the office and nodded me in. I shrugged at Roscoe and went to see what Finlay had to say.
“What was that all about?” I asked him.
He laughed.
“I was winding him up,” he said. “He asked what we’d been doing, looking at a car. I said we weren’t. Said we’d told Baker we weren’t going far, but he’d misheard it as we’re looking at a car.”
“Take care, Finlay,” I said. “They’re killing people. This is a big deal.”
He shrugged.
“It’s driving me crazy,” he said. “Got to have some fun, right?”
He’d survived twenty years in Boston. He might survive this.
“What’s happening with Picard?” I asked him. “You heard from him?”
“Nothing,” he said. “Just standing by.”
“No possibility he might have put a couple of guys on surveillance?” I said.
Finlay shook his head. Looked definite about it.
“No way,” he said. “Not without telling me first. Why?”
“There’s a couple of guys watching this place,” I said. “Got here about ten minutes ago. Plain brown sedan. They were at Hubble’s yesterday and around town this morning, asking after me.”
He shook his head again.
“They’re not Picard’s,” he said. “He’d have told me.”
Roscoe came in and shut the door. Held it shut with her hand like Teale might try to burst in after her.
“I called Detroit,” she said. “It was a Pontiac. Delivered four months ago. Big fleet order for a rental company. DMV is tracing the registration. I told them to get back to Picard up in Atlanta. The rental people might be able to give him the story about where it was rented. We might be getting somewhere.”
I felt I was getting closer to Joe. Like I was hearing a faint echo.
“Great,” I said to her. “Good work, Roscoe. I’m out of here. Meet you back here at six. You two stick close together, OK? Watch your backs.”
“Where are you going?” Finlay said.
“I’m going for a drive in the country,” I said.
I left them there in the office and walked back to the entrance. Pushed the door open and stepped outside. Scanned north up the road. The plain sedan was still there, seventy-five yards away. The two guys were still in it. Still watching. I walked over to the Bentley. Unlocked the door and got in. Nosed out of the parking lot and pulled out onto the county road. Wide and slow. Drove slowly past the two guys and carried on north. In the mirror I saw the plain sedan start up. Saw it pull out and turn in the road. It accelerated north and fell in behind me. Like I was towing it on a long invisible rope. I slowed, it slowed. I sped up, it sped up. Like a game.
18
I DROVE PAST ENO’S DINER AND ROLLED ON NORTH AWAY from town. The plain sedan followed. Forty yards back. No attempt to hide. The two guys just cruised behind me. Gazing forward. I swung west on the road to Warburton. Slowed to a cruise. The plain sedan followed. Still forty yards back. We cruised west. We were the only things moving in that vast landscape. I could see the two guys in the mirror. Gazing at me. They were spotlit by the low afternoon sun. The low, brassy light made them vivid. Young guys, Hispanic, loud shirts, black hair, very neat, very similar. Their car sat steadily in my wake.
I cruised seven or eight miles. I was looking for a place. There were bumpy earth tracks off to the left and right, every half mile or so. They led into the fields. Looped around aimlessly. I didn’t know what they were for. Maybe they led to gathering points where farmers parked machinery for the harvest. Whenever that was. I was looking for a particular track I’d seen before. It led around behind a small stand of trees on the right-hand side of the road. The only cover for miles. I’d seen it from the prison bus on Friday. Seen it again driving back in from Alabama. A sturdy stand of trees. This morning it had been floating on the mist. A little oval copse, next to the road, on the right, an earth track looping behind it, then joining up with the road again.
I saw it a couple of miles ahead. The trees were a smudge on the horizon. I drove on toward it. Snapped the glove compartment open and lifted the big automatic out. Wedged it between the squabs on the seat next to me. The two guys followed. Still forty yards back. A quarter mile from the woods I slammed the selector into second and floored the pedal. The old car gulped and shot forward. At the track I hauled the wheel around and bounced and slewed the Bentley off the road. Hurled it around to the back of the copse. Jammed it to a stop. Grabbed the gun and jumped. Left the driver’s door swinging open like I’d tumbled out and dived straight left into the trees.
But I went the other way. I went to the right. I danced around the hood and hurled myself fifteen feet into the peanut field and flattened into the ground. Crawled through the bushes and put myself on a level with where their car would have to stop on the track behind the Bentley. Pressed myself up against the brawny stalks, low down under the leaves, on the damp red earth. Then I waited. I figured they’d dropped off maybe sixty or seventy yards. They hadn’t tracked my sudden acceleration. I snicked the safety catch off. Then I heard their brown Buick. I caught the noise of the motor and the groan of the suspension. It bounced into view on the track in front of me. It stopped behind the Bentley, framed against the trees. It was about twenty feet away from me.
They were reasonably smart guys. Not at all the worst I’d ever seen. The passenger had gotten out on the road before they turned in. He thought I was in the woods. He thought he was going to come at me from behind. The driver scrambled across inside the car and rolled out of the passenger door on the far side from the trees. Right in front of me. He was holding a gun and he knelt down in the dirt, his back turned to me, hidden from where he thought I was by the Buick, looking through the car at the woods. I’d have to make him move. I didn’t want him to stay next to the car. The car had to stay driveable. I didn’t want it damaged.
They were wary of the copse. That had been the idea. Why would I drive all the way to the only woods for miles, and then hide in a field? A classic diversion. They’d fallen for it without even thinking. The guy by the car was staring through at the woods. I was staring at his back. I had the Desert Eagle lined up on him, breathing low. His partner was creeping slowly through the trees, looking for me. Pretty soon he’d get right through and come right out into view.
He arrived after about five minutes. He was holding a gun out in front of him. He dodged around the back of the Buick. Kept distance between himself and the Bentley. He crouched down next to his partner and they exchanged shrugs. Then they started peering at the Bentley. Worried that I was lying on the floor or crouching behind the stately chrome radiator. The guy who’d just come out of the woods crawled along in the dirt, keeping the Buick between himself and the trees, right in front o
f me, staring under the Bentley, looking for my feet.
He crawled the whole length of the Bentley. I could hear him grunting and gasping as he hauled himself along on his elbows. Then he crawled all the way back and knelt up again beside his partner. They both shuffled sideways and slowly stood up next to the Buick’s hood. They stepped over and checked inside the Bentley. They walked together to the edge of the copse and peered into the darkness. They couldn’t find me. Then they came back and stood together on the rough track, away from the cars, framed against the orange sky, staring at the trees, their backs to the field, their backs to me.
They didn’t know what to do. They were city boys. Maybe from Miami. They wore Florida clothes. They were used to neon alleys and construction sites. They were used to action under raised highways, in the trash-filled lots the tourists never saw. They didn’t know what to do about a small copse standing alone in a million acres of peanuts.
I shot them both in the back as they stood there. Two quick shots. Aimed high up between their shoulder blades. The big automatic made a sound like hand grenades going off. Birds wheeled into the air from all around. The twin crashes rolled over the countryside like thunder. The recoils pounded my hand. The two guys were hurled forward off their feet. Landed on their faces sprawled against the trees on the far side of the earth track. I raised my head and peered over. They had that slack, empty look that is left behind when life has departed.
I held onto the gun and stepped over to them. They were dead. I had seen a lot of dead people, and these two were as dead as any of them. The big Magnum shells had caught them high up on their backs. Where the big arteries and veins are, going on up into the head. The bullets had made quite a mess. I looked down at the two guys in the silence and thought about Joe.
Then I had things to do. I stepped back to the Bentley. Clicked the safety on and tossed the Desert Eagle back on the seat. Stepped over to their Buick and yanked the keys out. Popped the trunk. I guess I was hoping to find something in there. I didn’t feel bad about the two boys. But I was going to feel better still if I found something in there. Like a silenced .22 automatic. Or like four pairs of rubber overshoes and four nylon bodysuits. A few five-inch blades. Things like that. But I didn’t find things like that. I found Spivey.
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