His brother lit a cigarette.
`You know,' his brother said, `this is going to create a hell of a mess.'
`That was the idea.'
`When are you leaving?'
`Four.'
`That's cutting it awfully close. I'm getting out at three.'
`To Vegas?'
His brother nodded. `You?'
`Chicago.'
`You better hope nothing delays that plane on the ground.'
`There's another flight at four thirty. I'm booked on that one as well.'
His brother nodded.
Down the road they saw a car approach. It was black and white, a sedan. They couldn't see it clearly, but as it came closer they saw the configuration better. A police car.
`Shit,' Peters said.
His brother lit another cigarette. `What if he wants to look in the suitcase? What if he -'
`We haven't done anything wrong,' Peters said. He glanced at his watch. It was almost ten o'clock. Where the hell was the pickup?
The police car came closer.
`I don't like this at all,' his brother said.
`We haven't done anything wrong,' Peters said again.
The police car approached them and put on its blinker.
`The bastard's pulling over.'
But the car did not pull over. Instead, it drove onto the ramp and merged with traffic. The cop hardly glanced at them.
They sighed.
`What time is it?'
`I have ten, on the nose.'
In the distance a car got off the far ramp and made a U turn under the freeway. It was a Cadillac convertible with a woman driving. She came around and started up the ramp, going back the way she had come. She stopped when she saw them.
`I took the wrong turnoff. Can I give you fellows a lift?,
'We're going to Phoenix,' Peters said.
`No kidding,' the woman said. `That's my home town.'
`No kidding,' Peters said. `Which part?'
`The right part,' she said.
The two men exchanged glances, then got into the car, placing the suitcases in the back seat. The woman said, `Sorry I'm late,' and drove off. Nothing else was said.
HOUR 7
The voice crackled over the telephone line. `Fucking around with the computers,' Phelps said, `is not my idea of a. joke.'
Graves sat in the hotel phone booth and stared across the lobby at Lewis and a marshal. Lewis was gesturing to Graves to get off the phone. `It wasn't intended as a joke.'
`How was it intended?' Phelps said, his voice heavy with sarcasm.
`It was intended as an attempt to recall my own file.'
`You're not supposed to do that.'
`There are a lot of things I'm not supposed to do.'
`And you seem bent on doing all of them,' Phelps said. `Have you picked up Wright yet?'
`No.'
`You've certainly had time; it's ten -'
`I want to play him a little. Besides, I have somebody else.'
`Oh?'
`Timothy Drew.'
`Where?'
`Upstairs. We've got him in a hotel on Third.'
`We've been looking for him for forty-eight hours,' Phelps said. `And I mean looking hard. How did you find him?'
'Wright led us to him,' Graves said. That was the only thing that bothered Graves. It was too much like a setup, as if Wright were giving him Drew.
`How convenient,' Phelps said. `When are you going to arrest him?'
`He's already arrested. The federal marshals are up there with him.'
`I mean Wright.'
`Later in the day,' Graves said.
`You and your goddamned poker games,' Phelps said. `I want you to call me in an hour.'
`All right.'
`Stop agreeing with me. Just do it.' And he hung up.
Graves left the phone booth. Lewis came over with his notebook open. They headed for the elevator.
`What've you got?' Graves said.
`It's pretty strange,' Lewis said. `At Sanderson's today, Wright bought a Model 477 scintillation counter. Retail price, two hundred forty-seven dollars.'
`A scintillation counter?'
`Yeah. It's apparently a kind of high-grade Geiger counter. Reads radiation.'
`Does it have any other uses?'
`Nobody knows of any.'
`What else?'
`The machine shop ground three fittings for him to custom specifications. All high-grade stainless steel. Two of them are on-off pressure valves with special handles. The third is a T coupling which brings together two hoses into a common outlet.'
`What's special about the valve handles?'
`The handles have a series of perforations, presumably so the valves can be turned on and off by some sort of machine.'
`Any information about what kind of machine would be used to turn the valves on and off?'
Lewis shook his head. `But they said the handles are spring-loaded. A moderate pressure will snap them from full shut to the full open position.'
`Now that's really interesting,' Graves said. `You mean there are no intermediate positions for the valves?'
`Yes. It's either full shut or full open.'
The elevator came. Graves pressed the button for the sixth floor.
`When did Wright order these custom fittings?'
`Last week. Rush order.'
`Really interesting,' Graves said. `What about the plastics store?'
Lewis scratched his head. `Three weeks ago Wright ordered two pressure-moulded plastic tanks from them. Long tanks roughly a foot in diameter and eight feet long. Specified as triple-laminate things able to withstand pressures up to five hundred pounds per square inch. The shop was surprised to get the order.'
`Well, the guy said nobody orders tanks like that in plastic. It's too dangerous. All high-pressure tanks are metal and seamless. There's no advantage to plastic, even in weight. Plastic tanks, if they're triple-thickness, are heavier than metal.'
'Wright wouldn't order something that had no advantage.'
`Well,' Lewis said, `the guy thought Wright was a pretty strange customer. Not only did he want these plastic tanks, but he wanted them made out of allacron.'
`Which is?'
`A very tough resilient plastic, but highly combustible. It burns like a bastard, so it isn't used much.'
`Have the tanks been finished?'
`They were delivered a week ago to a private airfield hangar in El Cajon, about twelve miles from here.'
`You have the address?'
`Yeah. I tried to call; no telephone there.'
Graves frowned. He was more convinced than ever that Wright was playing with him, leading him on a chase, daring him to put the puzzle together.
Two high-pressure tanks of combustible plastic.
Special steel fittings, including a T nozzle.
Two steel hoses, flexible.
All that made a kind of sense. You had two tanks, and two hoses that joined in a T nozzle, so that the contents of the two tanks - liquid or gas, presumably - would come together at the T nozzle and then be expelled as a mixture.
That was easy to visualize.
But what was the point? And what was the point of the skin-diving tanks, and the rubber strips, and the Geiger counter?
The elevator stopped at the sixth floor. They both got out and walked to Drew's room.
`Where is Wright now?'
`I just checked with 702. He's in that apartment on Alameda.'
`The one he rented last week?'
`Right.'
The newly rented apartment was also a puzzle. Wright had apparently leased it on the spur of the moment. It seemed to coincide with nothing, except with the fact that one girl had been seen leaving his old apartment near the Cortez hotel three mornings in a row. This was unusual enough to suggest that Wright was going to set her up as his mistress.
`702 talked to the doorman. Wright told the doorman they'd be moving furniture into the apartment later in the day.'
`Hmmm.' That seemed totally unreasonable to Graves. Wright wouldn't spend time supervising domestic arrangements for a girl. It was beneath him.