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 of me, staring under the Bentley, looking for my feet.