“’Bout time. What you been doing?”
“Just talking to the kid.”
“Vern, we got a damn job. You stay away from her while we work, you hear. The Old Man’d be plenty ticked if he knowed you’se been mooning on that damn kid when you’se supposed to be man hunting.”
“When it comes, it comes. Sometimes you don’t get a second shot. You got to take it. Things is swell here.”
“I’m going to piss.”
Vern sat dreamy-eyed and disconnected at the window. He didn’t see the cars across the parking lot or the building they fronted, or the steps up to the doors. He saw himself and Hannah Ng in the bathroom, he saw his easy way with her, how he’d have his way, how good it would feel. He told himself she’d like it too. The more he thought about it, the better it seemed.
Ernie came back.
“Goddamn, Vern, there he is!”
Vern snapped out of the hot and sleazy place his brain was in, and reentered the known world. There indeed, not twenty-five yards away, was the tall, older man named Swagger who was their quarry. He’d parked, now he got out and peered about carefully, making certain he was unfollowed and unnoticed.
“See, he’s a careful one.”
“Yeah, he is. He ain’t no pushover.”
“But he’ll go down hard, like any man.”
The man then went to the stairwell, climbed past second- and third-floor landings, and on the fourth, took out a key, opened the door to an apartment, and stepped in.
“Now we really got to watch. Vern, you can’t-”
“I know, I know.”
“Better call the Old Man.”
“Yeah, yeah,” said Vern, taking out his cell. He punched in the number.
“What, Vern?” asked the Reverend.
In the background, Vern could hear hubbub, as the boys sold water and Reb hats and T-shirts to pilgrims going to the race. Vern could tell that business was land-rush scale.
“Reverend, he done showed. Just arrived. He’s there.”
“Oh, that’s good, that’s fine, that’s swell.”
“Yes sir. We could go over there right now, kick in the door, be in, out in five seconds, and it’d be done.”
“No, no,” said the Reverend. “You never can tell. Long as he’s in there, he ain’t doing us no harm. You just watch and wait. If he don’t never leave, you wait till we go at eleven or so, then you go. That way, what the hell, the laws have situations at both ends of town with a massive traffic mess in between ’em. They won’t never git it sorted out. That’s when you do ’em. Or, if for some reason, he decides to go somewhere. You see him come out and go to his car. Then we can’t know where he’s going, then you go out and while he’s in that car starting up, you pop his ass good and hard. Drop that hammer. Nail that boy to the wall. Yes sir, bappity-bap-bap and you all done. Then you go. It’s so far off, no laws will figure it has nothing to do with anything else. But that’s my second choice. Best wait till our fun commences before y’all go settle Grumley accounts. Got that, Vern?”
“I do, Pap.”
God,” said Ernie, “this is turning into an Adam Sandler movie. Dopey-stupid and crazy. Someone else just arrived. What’s next, the circus?”
The two boys watched as, indeed, someone went up the four landings and knocked at the old man’s door. After some time the door was answered, and an awkward transaction took place.
“Them guys always come at the wrong time,” said Ernie as the UPS man walked down the steps and returned to his brown van.
TWENTY-NINE
“Well, you look older and dumpier,” said Bob. Nick had indeed thickened some, and let his crewcut grow out a little. The years of service had engraved wary lines in his face, and now he wore glasses, horn-rims. He still wore the uniform, the black suit, white shirt, and red tie, and if you looked you saw his handgun printing high on his right hip. He now replaced it, as Bob replaced his.
“So do you. What’s with the hair? You must have seen a ghost.”
“Reckon so. It just went in two weeks. I had a rough spell in Japan. These folks kept trying to cut me down, so to get their attention, I cut them down. I’d tell you more about it except you’d have to arrest me.”
“Since I haven’t seen any Interpol circulars on them, you seem to have gotten away with it again. By the way, do you have a license to carry that gun?”
“No.”
“Good. Same old Bob. Just checking.”
“How’s that tough little wife of yours? She still want to put me in jail?”
“More like a mental home. Anyhow, Sally’s with the U.S. Attorney’s office in D.C. now.”
“She never liked me much. But then few do, why should she be any different?”
“I never liked you much either, if it matters.”
“Well, what I liked about you was, you’se so far down the totem pole, I could say ‘ain’t’ and ‘it don’t’ without any career harm. And, by the way, what’re you doing standing in the middle of my daughter’s living room?”
“How is she?”
“You know what happened to her?”
“As of two days ago, pretty much everything. I know she’s awake with a groggy memory, which is why there’s no sense talking to her. But I will. And that’s why even as we speak, a team of U.S. marshals has taken over security at her hospital. She’s a valuable federal witness, even if she doesn’t know it.”
“Looks like we’ve got a spell of talking to do. Mind if I get something to drink?”
“You shouldn’t drink and carry. Not a good idea.”
“Don’t mean that kind of drinking. Drink as in fruit juice or a nice Coke, something wet. You want one?”
“No, I’m fine.”
Bob got himself a fruit juice from the refrigerator and when he got back, Nick had sat down on the sofa. He reclined in a chair.
“Okay, old friend. Let’s talk. By the way, I’m really glad you’re here. This thing is very complex, and I ain’t got it half figured out. But why didn’t you call me back?”
“Because I’m looking for a very smart guy. I don’t know his capabilities, but he’s a highly organized criminal with amazing technical skills. He might know about the task force and he might have penetrated it. Just a precaution.”
“The driver, right?”
“Yeah, the driver. The guy who tried to kill your daughter. The car guy.”
“He came damn close.”
“You don’t know how lucky your daughter is. This is a very bad actor. He’s killed nine federal witnesses and six federal officers over the past seven years. He did a family in Cleveland three years back. The father was an accountant who was going to testify against a teamster local, money laundering and extortion. Never happened. The driver hit them and they were gone in a second. Mother, father, three kids. He may even have more kills that we don’t even know about; he also freelances for various mob franchises, even some overseas outfits-we have Interpol circulars on him. But we’re in this because of the federal angle.”
“You have a name?”
“We don’t have a name or even a face. All we have is a modus operandi, and it took years before we were even on to that. What we’ve been able to learn is that he’s some kind of genius with automobiles. Genius driver, genius mechanic, genius car thief, genius on automotive electronics. He can break into any car he wants in about six seconds, drive off in three more. He seems to like Chargers. He’ll steal a car, plates, and so forth. He sets the car up with a heavy-duty suspension, tunes the engine for max power. Then he scopes his quarry out. Waits till they’re on the highway. He understands the physics of the accident, what it takes to knock a car out of equilibrium, where to hit it, which angle to take, that sort of thing. It usually takes only one pass. He hits ’em hard, they overcorrect to keep control, and they lose it. The car flips. It rolls, it bounces, and everyone inside is whiplashed to death in seconds. He’s gone in a flash, the car is never found, there’s no prints, no DNA, nothing. Just paint samples that lead back to a stolen car.”