“That's not a road,” Lucas said, peering at his atlas. “Doesn't even show up here; I think it must go down to the river.”
“Maybe she's going canoeing,” Flowers said. “This is a big canoe river.”
Lucas said into a live radio, “Ah, holy shit.”
“What?”
“It's the Cannon River, man.”
“Yeah?”
“The money that got laundered in Las Vegas, on the quilts-it went to Cannon, Inc., or Cannon Associates, or something like that.”
Shrake came back: “Dust cloud stopped. I think she's out of her car; or lost. What do you want to do?”
“Watch for a minute,” Lucas said. “Flowers, you're wearing boots?”
“Yup.”
“I got my gators,” Shrake said. “I didn't think we were gonna be creeping around in a cornfield.”
“Gators for me,” Jenkins said.
“You guys get a truckload deal?” Flowers asked.
“Shut up,” Lucas said. “Okay, Flowers and I are gonna walk in there. Jenkins and Shrake get down the opposite ends of the road. If she comes out, you'll be tracking her.”
“How do we hide the cars?” Flowers asked.
“Follow me,” Lucas said. He went on south, a hundred yards, a hundred and fifty, found an access point, and plowed thirty feet into the cornfield. The corn didn't quite hide the truck, but it wouldn't be obvious what kind it was, unless you rode right up to it. Flowers followed him in and got out of his state car shaking his head. “Gonna be one pissed-off farmer.”
“Bullshit. He'll get about a hundred dollars a bushel from us,” Lucas said. “Let's go.”
Flowers said, “I got two bottles of water in the car.”
“Get them. And get your gun,” Lucas said.
“The gun? You think?”
“No. I just like to see you wearing the fuckin' gun for a change,” Lucas said. “C'mon, let's get moving.”
Hot Day. Flowers pulled his shoulder rig on as they jogged along the rows of shoulder-high corn, ready to take a dive if Anderson suddenly turned up in the car.
“Looks like she's down by the water,” Flowers said. They could see only the crowns of the box elders and scrub cedar along the river, so she was lower than they were, and they should be able to get close. At the track, they turned toward the river, panting a bit now, hot, big men in suits carrying guns and a pound of water each, no hats; the track was probably 440 yards long, Lucas thought, one chunk of a forty-acre plot; but since it was adjacent to the river, there might be some variance.
“Sand burrs,” Flowers grunted. Their feet were kicking up little puffs of dust.
They RAN the four-forty in about four minutes, Lucas thought, and at the end of it, he decided he needed to start jogging again; the rowing machine wasn't cutting it.
When the field started to look thin, and the terrain started to drop, they cut left into the cornfield and slowed to a walk, then a stooped-over creep. The corn smelled sweet and hot and dusty, and Lucas knew he'd have a couple of sweaty corn cuts on his neck before he got out of it.
At the edge of the field, they looked down a slope at a muddy stream lined on both sides with scrubby trees, and a patch of trees surrounding a shack and a much newer steel building. The access door on the front of the building was standing open; the garage door was down. Anderson's car was backed up to the garage door. The building had no windows at all, and Lucas said, “Cut around back.”
They went off again, running, stooping, watching the building. They were down the side of it when they heard the garage door going up, and they eased back in the cornfield, squatting next to each other, watching.
Anderson came out of the building. She'd taken off the long-sleeve shirt, and was now wearing a green T-shirt; she was carrying two paintings.
“Got her,” he muttered to Flowers.
“So now what?”
“Well, we can watch her, and see what she does with the stuff, or we can go ahead and bust her,” Lucas said.
“Make the call,” Flowers said.
“She's probably moving it somewhere out-of-state. Dumping it. Cashing it in. Getting ready to run.” He sat thinking about it for another thirty seconds, then said, “Fuck it. Let's bust her.”
Anderson had gone back inside the garage and they eased down right next to it, heard her rattling around inside, then stepped around the corner of the open door, inside.
The place was half full of furniture, arranged more or less in a U, down the sides and along the back of the building. The middle of the U was taken up by an old white Chevy van, which had been backed in, and was pointing out toward the door.
Lucas felt something snap when he saw it, a little surge of pleasure: Anderson had her back to them and he said, “How you doing, Amity?”
She literally jumped, turned, took them in, then took three or four running steps toward them and screamed “No,” and dashed down the far side of the van.
Flowers yelled, “Cut her off,” and went around the back of the van, while Lucas ran around the nose. Anderson was fifteen feet away and coming fast when Lucas crossed the front of the van and she screamed, “No,” again, and then he saw something in her hand and she was throwing it, and he almost had time to get out of the way before the hand-grenade-sized vase whacked him in the forehead and dropped him like a sack of kitty litter.
He groped at her as she swerved around him out into the sunlight, then Flowers jumped over him. Lucas struggled back to his feet and saw her first run toward her car, and then, as Flowers closed in, swerve into the shack, the door slamming behind her.
Lucas was moving again, forehead burning like fire-the woman had an arm like A-Rod.
Flowers yelled, “Back door,” as he kicked in the front, and Lucas ran down the side of the house in time to see Anderson burst onto the deck on the river side of the house. She saw him, looked back once, then ran, arms flapping wildly, down toward the river. Lucas shouted, “Don't!”
He was five steps away when she hurled herself in.
Flowers ran down to the bank, stopped beside Lucas, and said, “Jesus. She's gonna stink.”
The river was narrow, murky, and, in front of the shack, shallow. Anderson had thrown herself into four inches of water and a foot of muck, and sat up, groaning, covered with mud. “You got boots on,” Lucas said to Flowers. “Reach in there and get her.”
“You got longer arms,” Flowers said.
“You're up for a step increase and I'm your boss,” Lucas said.
“Goddamnit, I was hoping for a little drama,” Flowers said. Anderson had turned over now, on her hands and knees. Flowers stepped one foot into the muck, caught one of her hands, and pried her out of the stuff.
Lucas said to her, “Amity you are under arrest. You have the right to remain silent…”
Flowers said, “Cuffs?” Lucas said, “Hell, yes, she's probably killed about six people.
Or helped, anyway.”
“I did not,” Anderson wailed. “I didn't…”
Lucas ignored her, walked up the bank toward the steel building, turned the radio back up and called Jenkins and Shrake. “Come on in. We grabbed her; and we got a building full of loot.”
Flowers checked Anderson for obvious weapons, removed a switchblade from her side pocket, put her on the ground at the front of the car, and cuffed her to the bumper. She started to cry, and didn't stop.
Lucas put the switchblade on top of Flowers's car, where they wouldn't forget it, and walked around to the trunk. Inside were three plastic-wrapped paintings and an elaborate china clock. Small, high-value stuff, he thought. He looked at the backs of all three paintings, found one old label from Greener Gallery, Chicago, and nothing else.
Flowers had gone inside the steel building, and Lucas followed. “Hell of a lot of furniture,” Flowers said. “I could use a couple pieces for my apartment.”
“Couple pieces would probably buy you a house,” Lucas said. “See any more paintings? Or swoopy chairs?”
“There're a couple of swoopy chairs…”