His partner still had his hand on the car door. His glance was darting back and forth. Then his other hand was going for his pocket. So I jackknifed my weight back and rolled around my guy’s gun hand and threw him against the car. And then I ran like hell. In five strides I was lost in the crowd. I dodged and barged my way through the mass of people. Ducked in and out of doorways and ran through shrieking and honking traffic across the streets. The two guys stayed with me for a spell, but the traffic eventually stopped them. They weren’t taking the risks I was taking.

I GOT A CAB EIGHT BLOCKS AWAY FROM WHERE I HAD started and made the six o’clock non-stop, La Guardia to Atlanta. Going back it took longer, for some reason. I was sitting there for two and a half hours. I thought about Joe all the way through the airspace above Jersey, Maryland and Virginia. Above the Carolinas and into Georgia, I thought about Roscoe. I wanted her back. I missed her like crazy.

We came down through storm clouds ten miles thick. The Atlanta evening gloom was turned to pitch black by the clouds. Looked like an enormous weather system was rolling in from somewhere. When we got off the plane, the air in the little tunnel was thick and heavy, and smelled of storm as well as kerosene.

I picked up the Bentley key from the information counter in the arrivals hall. It was in an envelope with a parking claim. I walked out to find the car. Felt a warm wind blowing out of the north. The storm was going to be a big one. I could feel the voltage building up for the lightning. I found the car in the short-term lot. The rear windows were all tinted black. The guy hadn’t gotten around to doing the front side glass or the windshield. It made the car look like something royalty might use, with a chauffeur driving them. My jacket was laid out in the trunk. I put it on and felt the reassuring weight of the weaponry in the pockets again. I got in the driver’s seat and nosed out of the lot and headed south down the highway in the dark. It was nine o’clock, Friday evening. Maybe thirty-six hours before they could start shipping the stockpile out on Sunday.

IT WAS TEN O’CLOCK WHEN I GOT BACK TO MARGRAVE. Thirty-five hours to go. I had spent the hour thinking about some stuff we had learned back in Staff College. We’d studied military philosophies, mostly written by those old Krauts who loved all that stuff. I hadn’t paid much attention, but I remember some big thing which said sooner or later, you’ve got to engage the enemy’s main force. You don’t win the war unless you do that. Sooner or later, you seek out their main force, and you take it on, and you destroy it.

I knew their main force had started with ten people. Hubble had told me that. Then there were nine, after they ditched Morrison. I knew about the two Kliners, Teale, and Baker. That left me five more names to find. I smiled to myself. Pulled off the county road into Eno’s gravel lot. Parked up on the far end of the row and got out. Stretched and yawned in the night air. The storm was holding off, but it was going to break. The air was still thick and heavy. I could still feel the voltage in the clouds. I could still feel the warm wind on my back. I got into the back of the car. Stretched out on the leather bench and went to sleep. I wanted to get an hour, hour and a half.

I started dreaming about John Lee Hooker. In the old days, before he got famous again. He had an old steel-strung guitar, played it sitting on a little stool. The stool was placed on a square of wooden board. He used to press old beer bottle caps into the soles of his shoes to make them noisy. Like homemade tap shoes. He’d sit on his stool and play that guitar with his bold, choppy style. All the while pounding on the wooden board with his noisy shoes. I was dreaming of him pounding out the rhythm with his shoes on that old board.

But it wasn’t John Lee’s shoes making the noise. It was somebody knocking on the Bentley’s windshield. I snapped awake and struggled up. Sergeant Baker was looking in at me. The big chrome clock on the dash showed ten thirty. I’d slept a half hour. That was all I was going to get.

First thing I did was to change my plan. A much better one had fallen right into my lap. The old Krauts would have approved. Tactical flexibility was big with them. Second thing I did was to put my hand in my pocket and snick the safety off the Desert Eagle. Then I got out of the opposite door and looked along the car roof at Baker. He was using his friendly grin, gold tooth and all.

“How you doing?” he said. “Sleeping in a public place, around here you could get arrested for vagrancy.”

I grinned a friendly grin right back at him.

“Highway safety,” I said. “They tell you don’t drive if you’re tired. Pull off and take a nap, right?”

“Come on in and I’ll buy you a cup of coffee,” he said. “You want to wake up, Eno’s coffee should do it for you.”

I locked the car. Kept my hand in my pocket. We crunched over the gravel and into the diner. Slid into the end booth. The woman with the glasses brought us coffee. We hadn’t asked. She just seemed to know.

“So how you doing?” Baker said. “Feeling bad about your brother?”

I shrugged at him. Drank my coffee left-handed. My right hand was wrapped around the Desert Eagle in my pocket.

“We weren’t close,” I said.

Baker nodded.

“Roscoe still helping the Bureau out?” he said.

“Guess so,” I said.

“And where’s old Finlay tonight?” he asked.

“Jacksonville,” I said. “He had to go to Florida, check something out.”

“Jacksonville?” he said. “What does he need to check out in Jacksonville?”

I shrugged again. Sipped my coffee.

“Search me,” I said. “He doesn’t tell me anything. I’m not on the payroll. I’m just an errand boy. Now he’s got me running up to Hubble’s place to fetch him something.”

“Hubble’s place?” Baker said. “What you got to fetch from there?”

“Some old papers,” I said. “Anything I can find, I guess.”

“Then what?” he said. “You going to Florida too?”

I shook my head. Sipped more coffee.

“Finlay told me to stick them in the mail,” I said. “Some Washington address. I’m going to sleep up at Hubble’s place and mail them in the morning.”

Baker nodded slowly. Then he flashed his friendly grin again. But it was forced. We finished up our coffee. Baker dropped a couple of bucks on the table and we slid out and left. He got into his patrol car. Waved at me as he drove off. I let him go ahead and strolled over the gravel to the Bentley. I rolled south to the end of the dark little town and made the right turn up Beckman Drive.

26

I HAD TO BE VERY CAREFUL ABOUT WHERE I PUT THE BENTLEY. I wanted it to look like it was just casually dumped. But it had to be left so nobody could get past it. I inched it back and forth for a while. Left it at the top of Hubble’s driveway with the wheels turned away. It looked like I’d driven up in a hurry and just slewed to a stop.

I wanted the house to look like I was in there. Nothing is more obvious than an empty building. That quiet, abandoned look is a giveaway. There’s a stillness. No human vibrations. So I opened the front door with the key from the big bunch Charlie had given me. Walked through and turned on some random lights. In the den, I switched the television set on and left it at a low murmur. Same thing with the radio in the kitchen. Pulled a few drapes. Went back outside. It looked pretty good. Looked like there might be someone in there.

Then the first stop was the coat closet off the main hallway. I was looking for gloves. Not easy to find in the Sunbelt. Not much call for them. But Hubble had some. Two pairs, lying neatly on a shelf. One was a pair of ski gloves. Lime green and lilac. Not much good to me. I wanted something dark. The other pair was what I wanted. Dressy things in thin black leather. Banker’s gloves. Very soft. Like a second skin.