"I'll get it started," she said. "But there was trouble downtown with one of the marches, a bunch of people are being arrested. Lot of them. That'll be the big story tomorrow…"
"Tell them about this cop getting killed," Lucas said. "Tell them ' tell them he was left behind when they torched the motel. Tell them we don't know if the guy was dead. That'll catch them."
"Was he dead?"
"Yeah, probably. We really don't know," Lucas said. "We need to stress that, Carol-we don't know. Maybe he burned alive. We need the attention."
Lucas stayed until the reports came back from the adjoining hotels: nobody in any of the rooms in question had checked out.
"Nothing there," the chief said, as though Lucas had screwed up somehow.
"There's something there," Lucas said. "We just haven't found it yet."
"Yeah, well' any more ideas?" the chief asked. "One," Lucas said.
Cohn and Lindy headed west on I-94 toward the Cities, and as soon as they were clear of Hudson, across the bridge in Minnesota, Cohn got on his cell phone and called Cruz.
"I talked to the boys and told them to stay put at least until tonight," Cruz said. "They're cleaning out their rooms, wiping everything down. Do you know where you're going?"
"I get off at the Sixth Street exit? Is that right? Then straight ahead to the parking structure."
"Do not take the elevator," Cruz said. "There's only one, and if there's anybody waiting for a ride, they'll see you, and we can't afford that anymore. You've got to keep out of sight until we can change your appearance. I'll get some hair dye, we'll give you black hair and a mustache, no beard. We can wipe down the condo tonight and get out of here."
"Okay. Maybe. When are you coming over?"
"I'll be a half hour behind you," she said. "I've got to get that dye."
"See you then."
While he was talking, Lindy had organized all the loose stuff into the two sheets, then flattened them and pushed them onto the floor of the backseat, and pulled their two suitcases over them. When she'd tidied up, she waited until Cohn had passed a semi-trailer, then squeezed over the seat back, into the front again. "I hope he was dead," she said. "I hope he didn't burn alive."
"Shut up. I'm sorry, but I've got to think." He thought for two minutes, then said, "Cruz said they had my picture. Where'd that come from? How'd they get it? How'd they know? Jesus Christ, how did that happen?"
"Somebody ratted you out," Lindy said.
Cohn turned his cool gaze on her, saw her sudden nervousness, then smiled: "Thank you, dear. That makes me think you weren't the one."
"If that jerk Spitzer was here, I'd say he's the one," Lindy said. Cohn was silent for a moment, calculating, then said, "He was here."
"He was?" She was surprised. "Where is he?"
"He went away," Cohn said.
"But then, maybe he's pissed…"
"He went away," he said again. His voice had an icicle in it.
Ah. Now she had it. She looked straight ahead and said, "Good." Then, "Maybe before he went away."
"If he was going to do it, he could have told them exactly where we were at, and when we'd be there."
More silence, then Lindy said, "I can't believe it was the boys."
Cohn shook his head: "I can't either. For one thing, they helped us take down a couple of people already, and I can't believe they'd do that, if they were talking to the cops. Or if they did, we'd already have been busted. I mean, they were all there when Spitzer went away."
"Even Rosie, or whatever her name is," Lindy said.
"Yeah, even her." But he remembered Cruz's objection to the murder, and then her explanation, which now seemed less convincing.
Lindy said, "The thing about Rosie is, she might not just be ratting you out. You know what I mean?"
"I think so," Cohn said. "But say it."
"Maybe she's playing some other game that we can't see. She's really' complicated. Where does she get all this information? What is she really doing?"
"She's done a lot of jobs with us," Cohn said. "And three with Jerry, before Jerry's accident."
"Wonder whatever happened to the guy who got Jerry's heart?" Lindy asked.
"I don't know…" Cohn shook his head. "I have to think about Rosie. You're right, she wouldn't just give us up, because we could give her up. She sure as hell didn't tell them that she planned a robbery that ended in a couple of cop killings. Three cop killings, now. If she's the one, why'd she warn us? No-something else is happening."
Lindy pointed: "Exit's coming up."
"That's what I'm afraid of," Cohn said.
The new spot was their disaster hole, a last-ditch hideout that Cruz had arranged, in a condominium building that was half-empty. When she rented the furnished model unit for a month, from the developer, she'd warned him that he couldn't show it: "I haven't shown a unit in three months," he said, ruefully. "I got another model to show if I need to."
The developer was under the impression that Cruz worked with the Republicans, that the model would be used for secret meetings, and she didn't disabuse him. Cruz had had to buy sheets and a couple of blankets, towels and soap and toilet paper, but most everything else had been there, as part of the model.
Cohn pulled into the parking ramp and punched in the key-code, and went down through the ramp and around to their private parking spaces. Then they were out and climbing the interior stairs, five floors. They opened the lobby door and peeked, saw nobody moving-of the six condos on the floor, only two others were occupied-then hurried down to 402, unlocked it and went inside.
As soon as they were in, Cohn called Cruz, who was in her car, heading toward St. Paul.
"The motel looks like a cop convention back there," she said. "You did that guy?"
"I had to," Cohn said. He was looking out the window, over a small park, where a cluster of twenty or thirty peace demonstrators were wandering around, as if they'd lost something: peace, maybe, he thought. A young girl pushed a bike along the sidewalk, on the opposite side of the street, leaned it against a parking meter, walked over to a white van with Channel 3 on the door, and knocked on the window. Cohn had gotten nothing but silence from Cruz, but he waited her out, and finally she said, "I'll see you in ten or fifteen minutes."
Across the street, whoever was in the TV van opened the door and the young girl got in.
Frank and Lois were in the back of the van, eating pizza, and Frank said, "If you leave the bike like that, somebody's gonna run up and steal it."
"You think?" Letty asked.
"I think," he said. "Look at the crowd."
So Letty got back out and unwrapped the cable lock from around the seat tube, cinched it around the parking meter, got back in. Lois, a tall thin woman with spiky, close-cut black hair, said, "Mushroom and pepperoni."
Letty took a slice, realized that she was starving to death, took a bite, and turned to Frank. Frank had short curly hair and a round face and rimless glasses, a short fleshy nose, and thin, delicate pink lips in a rust-colored beard now going gray. Aside from being an excellent cameraman, he was somewhat famous for having gotten a blow job from a low-rent hooker on University Avenue. In his Sebring convertible. With the top down. At noon. He not only got caught, he got videotaped.