I wasn’t sure I’d need a gun, but it seemed like a good idea.
I was almost aboard the jet going to Phoenix when Zavala got back to me. My hunch was right, as I knew it would be. Tarkauskas and Gerhardt had filed their flight plan for Flagstaff. They would get there before me, of course, but if they were going there for the reason I thought, they wouldn’t be able to do anything until morning.
My guns came through safely. In Flagstaff, I rented as nondescript a car as I could find, a dark green Ford Escort. Discreet enquiry (a detection trade term of art, that, by which we mean being sneakier than an alley cat at a canary convention) had led me to find out that Tarkauskas had likewise rented a vehicle, predictably a black Escalade, so I spent some time riding around Flagstaff looking in hotel parking lots until I found their car. Then I hunkered down to wait. I knew they’d be up early.
It was before dawn when I saw Tarkauskas, Amber Gerhardt, and one of his bovine thugs climb into the Cadillac. It was the first time I’d actually seen Gerhardt, but this time she wasn’t dressed up like a slutty starlet condescending to get loaded in a trendy nightspot. Instead, she was in a khaki ensemble that included a military-cut short-sleeve shirt and a pair of tight shorts revealing her shapely bronze legs, and looked like a stripper’s take on Indiana Jones — the effect was only partly spoiled by her big Wolverine hiking boots. Zavala was right, she was cute in a kittenish way, more like a high-school cheerleader than some sultry, sophisticated vixen already out of professional school. I would never have pegged her as an attorney.
I let them get a couple of blocks ahead before I started to follow them. I knew their destination, after all. Grand Canyon National Park, the place where Buddy cashed in.
Once they exited I-40 to AZ-64 North, I fell further back until they were out of sight. There wasn’t anywhere else they could go. I picked them up again near the entrance to the park.
The ranger on duty there asked me if I was carrying any firearms. I lied and said no. There’s an old saying that sometimes it’s easier to beg forgiveness than ask permission, and I didn’t want to spend several hours in conversation with park rangers debating whether packing heat really was a good thing.
I followed them to a convenience mart in Grand Canyon Village, and while I was there I bought a cheap nylon knapsack and four one-liter bottles of water that just fit inside, being careful to keep a counter or two between myself and them the whole time. The goomba wanted some beer and Tarkauskas told him not to be an idiot, an order which was clearly impossible for the goomba to obey. They left. I climbed back into the Escort and headed out right behind them as they pulled out, leisurely going eastward past the road back to civilization, onward for several miles until they stopped at Yaki Point.
I drove past them for a couple of minutes and then doubled back. Yaki Point marks the trailhead of the South Kaibab Trail, the most direct route down from the South Rim to the Kaibab Bridge and Phantom Ranch at the bottom. In the pellucid morning light, the view was awe-inspiring. You can’t be an atheist in the Grand Canyon.
There were clouds at several altitudes, big cottonballs of roiling cumulus, shining pink and ochre and dazzling white, like titanic sheep grazing in a sea-blue pasture, and speeding above them were high threads of coral-tinged silver mare’s-tails. The layered buttes and plateaus of the Canyon’s brittle walls, softened by the mist, rose out of the morning fog, reminding me of the strange crags and mountains in Chinese paintings. The warm air caressed me, as comforting as a child’s sweet-scented blanket.
In the parking lot, I found their black Caddy SUV sitting like a lump of tar on the asphalt. They couldn’t be more than three or four minutes ahead of me on the trail.
They had come to destroy evidence of murder, I was certain. Malone had figured out how they had done it, and that it somehow involved Buddy’s backpack — Buddy had not been found with a backpack, but the idea of taking a long hike in the Grand Canyon without one is absurd. That’s what his note on the legal pad had meant.
I wasn’t sure about Malone’s question about water — maybe he thought they had dumped the backpack in the Colorado River, expecting it to be lost. Anyway, it was a sure bet that they were now going after it. I didn’t know if they would bring it back with them or get rid of it somewhere in the wilderness, but I couldn’t take the chance. I had no choice but to follow.
I had brought a handheld GPS receiver about the size of a cell phone with me from L.A. Not fancy, but I can read a lat/long, and I had the map the park rangers had faxed to Malone showing where Buddy’s corpse had been found. I’d taken the precaution of entering the location as a way point in the little receiver. I made sure it was working and then went after them.
I wasn’t half an hour down the trail when I realized that somebody was quickly cranking up the thermostat. I’d had to sprint a little to get Tarkauskas and company within sight, and now I was starting to regret it, even though I had no choice. I could tell that they were using the goomba as a pack mule while Tarkauskas and the girl carried smaller packs.
My shirt stuck to my back beneath the cheap knapsack, and I felt perspiration drip from my armpits down my sides. A fine mist of sweat glistened on my arms. It didn’t take me long to polish off the first liter of water. I realized I should have brought a hat.
A couple of hours farther down and the headache started. I almost missed it when they left the trail. Checking my GPS, I could see that they were headed toward where Buddy had been found some miles to the west. For some reason the LCD on the little unit was hard to read. Man, it was hot. I drank another liter, careful not to be too greedy.
I followed them along the thin, winding trail leading down into the baking vertical wilderness, careful to remain just hidden. Once I missed my footing and went down like a blubber boy doing a belly flop in a community swimming pool. Luckily I wasn’t near the precipice, but I waited for several minutes before picking myself up, in case they had heard me, and when I did stand up, I felt a surge of sickening vertigo that nearly sent me down again. I squatted until I felt better, and reached for another bottle of water.
Somehow I’d lost track of how much I’d drunk. The last bottle was only about one third full. I polished it off. What time was it? My watch wouldn’t stay in focus, but I finally realized it was about 2:30 P.M.
I had to hurry to pick up their trail. I couldn’t believe the temperature. Engine blocks don’t get that hot.
I was mentally drifting, putting one foot in front of the other, when I nearly knocked Tarkauskas over the edge.
He recovered quicker than I did. He stared at me, his face hard with surprise, and he shouted, “Amber! Trouble!”
I pulled out my gun and leveled it at his chest.
He smirked. “The Sig Sauer, I see.”
“It’s a Beretta, cacasenno,” I said. It was hard to hold the gun steady. “I told you I was Italian.”
Amber Gerhardt somehow appeared beside him. I switched my aim point to her.
“Look at him,” she said. Her voice irritated me. It was high and nasal. She laughed, a bubbling schoolgirl giggle, and it made me even angrier. My head was buzzing.
“Just let him drop,” she said.
“Amber, we can’t,” Tarkauskas said. “Not twice. We’ll get caught.”
“All we have to do is make sure that this body is never found,” she said. “It was only dumb luck that somebody found Pincus.”
I dropped to one knee. It wasn’t on purpose.
“The wop’s got a partner, Amber. He’ll come looking.”