The deputy nodded, and looked at the other deputies, and shrugged. He put his nightstick under his left arm and took a pair of cuffs off the back of his belt.
“We got to do it,” he said to me. “Hard or easy, up to you.”
I said, “Hard, I think.”
The deputy shrugged again, took the nightstick out from under his arm, and Martin Quirk walked into the cell. Everybody stopped in mid-motion and stared at him. He was as immaculate as always. Blue blazer, white Oxford button-down, maroon and navy rep striped tie, maroon show hankie, and gray covert slacks. He had his badge in his left hand. And he held it out so people could see it.
The partner had gotten himself upright, still breathing heavily, and turned so he was leaning his back on the wall.
“Who the fuck are you?” he said.
“Detective Lieutenant Martin Quirk, Commander, Homicide Division, Boston, Massachusetts, Police Department.”
“We’re in the middle of an investigation, Lieutenant,” the partner said. “And, you know, this isn’t Boston.”
He had his breathing under control again, but he still leaned on the wall. And when he moved he did so stiffly. Quirk looked at him. There was something in Quirk’s eyes. The way there was something in Hawk’s. It wasn’t just dangerous. I’d seen that look in a lot of eyes. It was more than that. It was a contemptuous certainty that if there was any reason to he’d kill you, and you had no part in the decision. Under all the tight control and the neat tailoring, and the pictures of his family on his desk, Quirk had a craziness in him that was terrifying when it peeked out. Here in the cellar of the Alton County Courthouse it not only peeked, it peered out, and steadily.
“I don’t care what you shit kickers are doing,” Quirk said, and what you saw in his look you could hear in his voice. “I want this guy, and I’ve come to get him.”
Vest, who hadn’t caught the look, and was too stupid to hear the sound in Quirk’s voice, spoke while still looking at me.
“Hey, Lieutenant,” he said. “Tough shit, huh? He’s our prisoner and we are in the middle of interrogation. Whyn’t you wait outside? Huh? Or maybe wait in Bahston.”
Quirk stepped in front of Vest and put his face about an inch away from Vest’s.
“You want to fuck around with me, dick breath?” Quirk said softly.
Vest stepped back as if something had pushed him. Quirk glanced around the cell.
“Before I came down here to this hog wallow, I talked with the U.S. Attorney in Boston, who put me in touch with the U.S. Attorney in Columbia. They both know I’m here.”
He looked at me, and jerked his head. “Let’s go,” he said.
“Certainly,” I said.
And we walked unhurriedly out of the cell and down the corridor under the ugly ceiling lights and up some stairs and into the Alton County Sheriff’s substation. Quirk demanded, and got, my personal stuff, including my gun, and we walked unhurriedly out onto the courthouse steps, where the sun was shining through the arching trees and the patterns of the heavy leaves were myriad and restless on the dusty street.
chapter twenty-four
QUIRK HAD PARKED his car in the fenced-in county lot back of the courthouse. We got in, and he pulled the car out the only exit, and parked on a hydrant across the street. He let the engine idle.
“How’d you get in there?” I said.
“Bullied the desk clerk,” Quirk said.
“You’re a scary bastard,” I said.
“Lucky for you,” Quirk said.
We were quiet.
“This a rental?” I said. Quirk shook his head. “Federal guys in Columbia lent it to me.”
“So why are we sitting here in it?”
“I thought we ought to see if we could get a read on the two suits in there,” Quirk said. “I’d like to know who sent them.”
From where we parked, we could see the front door of the courthouse and the parking lot entrance on the side street.
“We going to follow them?”
“Yeah.”
“And they spot us?”
“They won’t spot us,” Quirk said. “I’m a professional policeman.”
“Sure,” I said.
Quirk grinned. “And if they do,” he said, “fuck ‘em.”
Some cars came and went from the parking lot, but none of them contained Vest or the Partner. People went in and out of the courthouse, but they weren’t ours.
“Why didn’t you send Farrell?” I said.
“He’s got some time off,” Quirk said. “Trouble at home.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“Guy he lives with has AIDS,” Quirk said.
“Jesus,” I said.
Quirk nodded, looking at the courthouse.
“How about him?” I said.
“He’s okay,” Quirk said.
“So you came because Farrell couldn’t?”
“Right, and Belson’s tracking down the other Olivia Nelson, or the real Olivia Nelson, or whoever the fuck that is in Nairobi, and the case is getting to be sort of a heavy issue… and I figure I better come down and save your ass, so Susan wouldn’t be mad.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“You’re welcome,” Quirk said. “I called Hawk and he said he’d keep track of Susan until this thing shook down a little.”
“You think someone might run at her to get to me?”
Quirk shrugged.
“Being careful does no harm,” he said.
The two suits walked down the steps of the courthouse, came down the side street and into the parking lot. In a minute they exited the lot in a green Dodge, and passed us, and headed out Main Street. Quirk let his car into gear and followed them easily, letting several cars in between. Quirk was too far back to stay with them if the suits were trying to shake a tail. But they weren’t. They had no reason to think they’d be followed. Quirk and I should be lickety-split for home. In ten minutes, they pulled into the parking lot of a Holiday Inn, out near the little airport, where Cessnas and Piper Cubs came and went several times a day, carrying Alton’s heavy hitters to and from important events. Quirk and I dawdled in the parking lot of the Piggly Wiggly across the street, while the suits got out and went into the motel. Then we pulled over to the motel and parked. Quirk adjusted his gun onto the front of his belt so that it showed as he let his coat fall open. Then we went into the lobby and walked briskly to the desk clerk. Quirk flashed his badge, and put it away. It could have said Baker Street Irregulars on it, for all the clerk had a chance to read it.
“Lieutenant Quirk,” he snapped, “Homicide. I need the room number of the two men who just came in here.”
The desk clerk was a middle-aged woman with a lot of very blonde hair. She looked blank.
“Come on, Sis,” Quirk said, “this is police business, I don’t have a lot of time.”
“The two gentlemen who just passed through here?”
Quirk looked at me.
“Is she a smart one?” he said. “Is this one a quick learner?”
He looked back at her.
“That’s it, Sis. The two guys just passed through here. Room number and make it pretty quick.”
He drummed on the counter softly with his fingertips.
“Yes, sir,” the clerk said. “That would be Mr. O’Dell and Mr. Grimes. Room 211.”
“Okay, we’re going up.” Quirk said. “If you do anything at all, except mind your own business, I’ll close this dump down so tight it’ll squeeze your fanny.”
“Yes, sir,” the clerk said. “Stairs at the end of the corridor, sir. Second floor.”
“No shit,” Quirk said, and turned and hustled down the corridor toward the stairs with me behind him.
“So tight,” I said, “it’ll squeeze your fanny?”
We were going up the stairs.
“Cops are supposed to talk like that,” Quirk said.
“I liked `The Killers’ bit from Hemingway.”
“ ‘Is she a smart one?’ Yeah, I use that a lot.”