Right as Rain

'I don't know, Derek. You askin' me?'

'I'm makin' a point.'

'You gotta relax,' said Quinn. 'Guy your age, you could stroke out…'

'Aw, fuck you, man.'

A block ahead, a Crown Vic cruiser rounded the corner and headed east, driving slowly by the Junkyard.

'That our friend?'

'I'd bet it,' said Strange, narrowing his eyes. 'Ain't nothin' I hate worse than a sold-out cop.'

'What did you find out?'

'Just got the pictures back last night.' Strange thought of the packet of photographs Janine had left on his desk and something stirred in his head.

'You gonna run the number?'

'Got a friend working on it now.'

'We better get out of here,' said Quinn. 'He'll be turning around, I expect.'

'I was thinkin' the same thing. Those rednecks, when they leave, most likely they'll be drivin' out of here the same way they came.'

'I'd go back over to North Capitol and park it there.'

Strange ignitioned the Chevy and said, 'Right.'

Quinn sipped coffee from the cup of a thermos and stared out the windshield. Strange uncapped a bottle of spring water and drank deeply from the neck.

'Me and Juana,' said Quinn. 'We broke up.'

'What's that?' said Strange. He had been thinking of Janine and Lionel.

'I said, me and Juana are through.'

'That's too bad, man.'

'She told me I was too intense.'

'Imagine her thinkin' that.' Strange shifted his position behind the wheel. 'That's a wrong move, lettin' a together young lady like that get away from you. It have anything to do with your color difference?'

'It did.' Quinn tried to smile. 'Anyway, like my old man used to say, women are like streetcars; you miss one and another comes along sooner or later. Right?'

'It sounds good. You're puttin' on a good face, but you don't see too many streetcars rollin' down the street lookin' like Juana. And you don't find too many with her heart, either.'

'I know it.' Quinn looked across the bench at Strange. 'Since you're givin' me the benefit of a lifetime of wisdom-'

'Go ahead.'

'When are you gonna marry Janine?'

'Marry her? Shit, Terry, I'm long past thinkin' about marrying anybody.' Strange capped his bottle and looked down at his lap. 'Anyway, she deserves better than me. But thanks for the advice, hear?'

'Just tryin' to help.'

'So you got a father. You know, that's one of the first personal things you've told me in the time I've known you. He alive?'

'My parents are both dead,' said Quinn. 'I got a brother out in the Bay Area who I almost never hear from. What about you?'

'It's just my mom now.'

'No brothers or sisters?'

'I had a brother. He's been gone thirty-one years.'

'That was about the time you left the force, right?'

'That's right,' said Strange, and he didn't say anything after that.

'Here they come,' said Quinn, as the Ford Taurus approached from the east.

'Pa and Son of Pa Kettle.'

'You got a full tank?'

'Yeah.'

'They don't exactly look like they're from around here,' said Quinn. 'I got a feeling we're in for a long ride.'

They drove out of the city to the Beltway, then hit 270 north. The Taurus, a nondescript vehicle to begin with, had the same basic body style as half the other cars on the road. The driver of the Taurus did the speed limit, and Strange stayed ten car lengths back, unconcerned that they would be burned. The heavy traffic was their cover.

'Don't you have one of those homing devices in this thing?' said Quinn.

'Yeah,' said Strange. 'Let me just go ahead and bring up their vehicle on the Batscreen.'

'I figured, you know, that you got everything else. All those things you hang on your belt line, and those night-vision goggles you got in that bag back there. You get those out of a cereal box or somethin'?'

'Don't go makin' fun of my NVDs, man.'

'What're we gonna do when we get there?'

'Wherever they're goin', that's where we're gonna find Chris Wilson's sister.'

'Because some junkie snitch told you?'

'You go with what you got.'

The traffic lessened as cars got off the highway at the exurban exits of Gaithersburg, Germantown, and Darnestown, the innermost fringes of the new megalopolis that was Washington, D.C. Strange eased off the gas and kept the Lumina farther back than it had been. Ten miles later, he saw the right-turn signal flare on the Ford up ahead. Strange took the off-ramp, keeping the Taurus in sight.

'We lose 'em?' said Quinn.

'I don't think so,' said Strange. They were on a long curve that ran along open country and then dense forest. When they came out of the curve and hit a straightaway, the Taurus was up ahead. The driver had parked it at a gate of some kind on a gravel path cutting a break in the woods.

'Drive past 'em,' said Quinn. 'Don't even slow down.'

'I look like Danny Glover to you? Do I look like white America's pet African American sidekick, man? I'm in charge of this investigation, Terry, case you've forgotten.'

'Drive past 'em,' said Quinn. 'Punch it, man.'

'What the fuck did you think I was gonna do?'

They blew past the Taurus. The short one, standing at the wooden gate and putting a key to a padlock, glanced up as they passed, giving them a brief and unfocused hard look.

'Boy is cross-eyed,' said Quinn. 'You see that?'

'Uh-huh. Noticed when I was looking at 'em through the lens. The older one has the same look, too. Got to be his daddy, right?'

They went into another long curve running beside more woods. Strange pulled over on the shoulder, cut the engine, and grabbed his day pack off the backseat.

'Let's go,' he said.

They walked into the woods, dense with oak and pine, past a No Trespassing sign affixed to a tree and peppered with buckshot.

Quinn said, 'This way,' and pointed northeast. There seemed to be a trail of sorts, and they followed it.

'Looks like there's a break in the woods up ahead,' said Strange.

'I see it. But we can't get too close to 'em, if that's where they are. This time of year there's no foliage on these trees. We got no cover.'

'Right.'

'And watch where you walk. Don't go snapping too many branches, 'cause the sound travels in the open country. This isn't the city, Danny. I mean, Derek.'

'Funny,' said Strange.

Quinn looked over his shoulder and made a halting sign with his palm. Both of them stopped walking. Quinn looked around and motioned with his chin to a deer blind that had been built in the low branches of an oak. He pointed to the blind, and Strange nodded his head.

Quinn went up first, using the ladder of wooden blocks that had been nailed to the trunk of the tree. Strange tossed his bag up to Quinn and followed. The platform was narrow and shifted a little under their weight.

'This gonna hold us?' said Strange, keeping his voice low.

'I guess we'll find out.'

They looked through the trees to a clearing, about one hundred and fifty yards away. They could see the father and son getting out of the Ford, parked between a pickup and a motorcycle in a cluttered yard. Past the vehicles was a large barn with a ramshackle house beside it. Strange looked through the lens of the AE-1, snapping photographs of the son as he took a gym bag from out of the trunk.

'I can't see anything,' said Quinn. 'My eyes are going on me, man.'

'Got a set of ten-by-fifty binos in the bag. Help yourself.'