“No, honestly. I did not think anyone would ever find out. Certainly not so soon. And to think you have even accessed the web.”
“Everybody thinks cops are dumb.” Moody settled himself deeper into the seat. “It’s the shows. Cops on the vid are always overlooking the obvious and then they have to compensate by shooting all their suspects. That’s not police work any more than trials are lawyers making big speeches in court all the time. It’s mostly legwork, dull and plodding. Me, I’m weird. I happen to like research. That’s how you really catch people.”
“But not how you keep them,” Gaggii responded. “You realize that you cannot tie me to Kettrick’s death. I know that you were not recording any of our conversation in the house. I would have been warned if you had been and would have comported myself accordingly. Since you were not, I felt free to talk. I enjoy talking.”
Ooljee shook his head sadly. “You may know a lot about mollys and webs, but you do not know shit about legal procedure. At least one secretary and two security guards witnessed you arguing with Kettrick in his Tampa office. Also, as an important businessman, Kettrick recorded all his conversations. Voiceprinting will identify you easily.”
“Arguments supply a possible motive, but they are not grounds for a murder conviction.” Gaggii was confident. “Nor can you connect me to the wiping of the insurance company files in Atlanta.”
“We’ll see,” said Moody, adding offhandedly, “then there’s our eyewitness, the one who saw you enter Kettrick’s house the night of the killings.”
This time it took their prisoner a while to reply. Moody was pleased at having finally gotten under his skin, howevei minutely.
“You are bluffing,” Gaggii said finally. “You may be a good card player, detective, but I know I entered unobserved. There is no such witness.”
“Oh, good.” Moody shrugged indifferently. “Then you’ve got nothing to worry about, right? Shoot, I’m just a big oF fat liar from the sticks. There’s no witness, so you can just relax in your holding cell until the time comes for you to appear before a magistrate. Be tough for the local D.A. to prove anything because there’s no such witness. See, I just made it all up, just to bug you.”
Out of the comer of his eye Moody could see that his partner was fighting to keep from smiling. When Gaggii spoke again there was a hint of uncertainty in his voice. He was trying hard to maintain his former aplomb.
“It will not work, this bluff. You can prove nothing. Search my house all you wish. You’ll find nothing to confirm your suspicions. If you attempt to access my molly, the database will self-destruct.”
“Hell, why would we bother with your work?” Moody was enjoying himself now, knowing that he shouldn’t be. “It don’t mean shit. All we want to do is tie you to Kettrick’s murder. Don’t y’all worry none about that. We’ll manage.”
“I see. Then, if I’m to be put away you don’t mind if I amuse myself while I have the time?” He began to sing, softly and liltingly, to himself.
They were coming up on the main road. Moody looked back over his shoulder. “Amuse yourself another way. I don’t want to have to listen to that all the way back to Ganado.”
Gaggii paused momentarily. “Why, detective, it is only a song. A little something to pass the time. As you point out, it is a long drive down the mountain.” He resumed singing.
“It would not be so bad if you could carry a tune.”
Ooljee was concentrating on the track ahead. “So do as my friend says and—He broke off abruptly, staring into the rearview mirror.
Moody tensed. “What is it?” Gaggii ignored them both, concentrating on his song.
“Bracelet. Left wrist.”
Moody whirled, the seat complaining beneath him. His gaze went straight to the specified piece of jewelry, a thick band of traditional turquoise and silver. Except that the turquoise wasn’t copper ore and the silver was an alloy of something else.
There was more than enough metal in the bracelet to form a strong receiver-transmitter, just as the chunks of blue which Gaggii was toying with moved too freely in their bezels for stones that should have been firmly epoxied in place. Several of them shone with a faint inner light.
Moody drew his service pistol and aimed it through the mesh. “Put a clamp on it right now, Jack, or you won’t have to worry about a trial.”
“Easy now, detective.” Gaggii cautiously moved his right hand away from the bracelet. “What are you worried about? That 1 might be signaling friends? I have no friends. That I might be calling up the gods? That is superstition, suitable only for troubling the sleep of children. ” The bracelet continued to glow.
“I don’t care if you’re trying to pick up local radio,” said Moody threateningly. “Stop it.”
“Ah, it doesn’t matter, does it? You have your witness, sergeant. So I think it only fair that I invoke mine.” Ooljee uttered a violent curse. The pickup swerved wildly as something immense filled the windshield. Its surface was as yellow as the sun and its eyes boiled crimson.
CHAPTER 15
The truck swung off the dirt road and went bouncing and squealing through the forest. Ooljee wrestled wheel and suspension, somehow avoiding the army of trees that loomed dangerously in front of them.
A vast pulsating shape struck repeatedly at the careening pickup. Sparks flew from the composite frame every time contact was made. Lowering his window, Moody tried to get a better look at the impossible manifestation.
It had to have come from the alien web, the web that was all around them. They walked through it, breathed it. It imperceptibly thickened the fabric of existence. Now something denser had coalesced out of that region of rainbow threads and animate explosions, some kind of program sucked up by Gaggii’s manipulations to harass and frighten them. At which it was succeeding admirably.
Moody flinched as the glowing head twisted toward him. He fired reflexively, suspecting even as he did so that his shells were unlikely to have any effect on the force field or database or whatever the hell it was. But he’d been trained to return fire during an attack. Besides which, it was the only response at his disposal.
He remembered how Kettrick and the housekeeper had died. Here before him, twisting and contorting madly in midair, was the instrument of their death immensely enlarged. The tinier version Gaggii had invoked that night on Steel Key had killed two people. Its monstrous relative was trying to destroy their truck.
He recalled what Ooljee had told him about a hatathli being able to utilize one portion of a sandpainting. Gaggii was using a small part of the alien web. It was a device an ancient Anasazi might have found useful in dealing with an enemy, something formulated in familiar terms—if one could call a fifty-foot-long yellow and red serpent familiar. It continued to strike at the hood and sides of the fleeing pickup, trying to smash its way in.
Moody fired again. It was impossible to miss the gigantic writhing shape. The shot had about as much effect as he expected. It was like trying to kill a breeze. The snake was more concept than creature, a tenebrous serpentine program dredged from the depths of some hatathli’s thou-sand-year-dead imagination, a realized representation of old legends.
Meanwhile Ooljee was cursing in an extraordinary mix of English, Navaho, and Japanese as he struggled to keep them from compacting against the nearest ponderosa pine. This he succeeded in doing for a commendable length of time.
Forward motion ceased abruptly and without warning, accompanied by a tremendous metallic clang. Moody felt like the clapper inside a gigantic bell. His head swung forward to smack the dash.