Killing Floor (21 page)

“What should I tell Teale?” he said.

“Tell him we traced the car,” Finlay said. “The one the crazy ex-con used to get down to Morrison’s place. Tell him we’re making some real progress, OK?”

THIS TIME FINLAY DROVE. HE WAS USING AN UNMARKED
Chevy, identical to Roscoe’s issue. He bounced it out of the lot and turned south. Accelerated through the little town. The first few miles I recognized as the route down toward Yellow Springs, but then we swung off onto a track which struck out due east. It led out toward the highway and ended up in a kind of maintenance area, right below the roadway. There were piles of asphalt and tar barrels lying around. And a car. It had been rolled off the highway and it was lying on its roof. And it was burned out.

“They noticed it Friday morning,” Finlay said. “Wasn’t here Thursday, they’re sure about that. It could have been Joe’s.”

We looked it over very carefully. Wasn’t much left to see. It was totally burned out. Everything that wasn’t steel had gone. We couldn’t even tell what make it had been. By the shape, Finlay thought it had been a General Motors product, but we couldn’t tell which division. It had been a midsize sedan, and once the plastic trim has gone, you can’t tell a Buick from a Chevy from a Pontiac.

I got Finlay to support the front fender and I crawled under the upside-down hood. Looked for the number they stamp on the scuttle. I had to scrape off some scorched flakes, but I found the little aluminum strip and got most of the number. Crawled out again and recited it to Roscoe. She wrote it down.

“So what do you think?” Finlay asked.

“Could be the one,” I said. “Say he rented it Thursday evening up at the airport in Atlanta, full tank of gas. Drove it to the warehouses at the Margrave cloverleaf, then somebody drove it on down here afterward. Couple of gallons gone, maybe two and a half. Plenty left to burn.”

Finlay nodded.

“Makes sense,” he said. “But they’d have to be local guys. This is a great spot to dump a car, right? Pull onto the shoulder up there, wheels in the dirt, push the car off the edge, scramble down and torch it, then jump in with your buddy who’s already down here in his own car waiting for you, and you’re away. But only if you knew about this little maintenance track. And only a local guy would know about this little maintenance track, right?”

We left the wreck there. Drove back up to the station house. The desk sergeant was waiting for Finlay.

“Teale wants you in the office,” he said.

Finlay grunted and was heading back there, but I caught his arm.

“Keep him talking a while,” I said. “Give Roscoe a chance to phone in that number from the car.”

He nodded and carried on to the back. Roscoe and I headed over to her desk. She picked up the phone, but I stopped her.

“Give me the gun,” I whispered. “Before Teale is through with Finlay.”

She nodded and glanced around the room. Sat down and unclipped the keys from her belt. Unlocked her desk and rolled open a deep drawer. Nodded down to a shallow cardboard box. I picked it out. It was an office storage box, about two inches deep, for holding papers. The cardboard was printed with elaborate woodgrain. Someone had written a name across the top. Gray. I tucked it under my arm and nodded to Roscoe. She rolled the drawer shut and locked it again.

“Thanks,” I said. “Now make those calls, OK?”

I walked down to the entrance and levered the heavy glass door open with my back. Carried the box over to the Bentley. I set the box on the roof of the car and unlocked the door. Dumped the box on the passenger seat and got in. Pulled the box over onto my lap. Saw a brown sedan slowing up on the road about a hundred yards to the north.

Two Hispanic men in it. The same car I’d seen outside Charlie Hubble’s place the day before. The same guys. No doubt about that. Their car came to a stop about seventy-five yards from the station house. I saw it settle, like the engine had been turned off. Neither of the guys got out. They just sat there, seventy-five yards away, watching the station house parking lot. Seemed to me they were looking straight at the Bentley. Seemed to me my new friends had found me. They’d looked all morning. Now they didn’t have to look anymore. They didn’t move. Just sat there, watching. I watched them back for more than five minutes. They weren’t going to get out. I could see that. They were settled there. So I turned my attention back to the box.

It was empty apart from a box of bullets and a gun. A hell of a weapon. It was a Desert Eagle automatic. I’d used one before. They come from Israel. We used to get them in exchange for all kinds of stuff we sent over there. I picked it up. Very heavy, fourteen-inch barrel, more than a foot and a half long, front to back. I clicked out the magazine. This was the eight-shot .44 version. Takes eight .44 Magnum shells. Not what you would call a subtle weapon. The bullet weighs about twice as much as the .38 in a police revolver. It leaves the barrel going way faster than the speed of sound. It hits the target with more force than anything this side of a train wreck. Not subtle at all. Ammunition is a problem. You’ve got a choice. If you load up with a hard-nose bullet, it goes right through the guy you’re shooting and probably right on through some other guy a hundred yards away. So you use a soft-nose bullet and it blows a hole out of your guy about the size of a garbage can. Your choice.

The bullets in the box were all soft-nose. OK with me. I checked the weapon over. Brutal, but in fine condition. Everything worked. The grip was engraved with a name. Gray. Same as the file box. The dead detective, the guy before Finlay. Hanged himself last February. Must have been a gun collector. This wasn’t his service piece. No police department in the world would authorize the use of a cannon like this on the job. Altogether too heavy.

I loaded the dead detective’s big handgun with eight of his shells. Put the spares back in the box and left the box on the floor of the car. Cocked the gun and clicked the safety catch on. Cocked and locked, we used to call it. Saves you a split-second before your first shot. Saves your life, maybe. I put the gun in the Bentley’s walnut glove compartment. It was a tight fit.

Then I sat for a moment and watched the two guys in their car. They were still watching me. We looked at each other from seventy-five yards away. They were relaxed and comfortable. But they were watching me. I got out of the Bentley and locked it up again. Stepped back to the entrance and pulled the door. Glanced back toward the brown sedan. Still there. Still watching.

ROSCOE WAS AT HER DESK, TALKING ON THE PHONE. SHE
waved. Looked excited. Held her hand up to tell me to wait. I watched the door to the rosewood office. Hoped Teale wouldn’t come out before she finished her call.

He came out just as she hung up. He was all red in the face. Looked mad. Started stamping around the squad room, banging his heavy stick on the floor. Glaring up at the big empty bulletin board. Finlay stuck his head out of the office and nodded me in. I shrugged at Roscoe and went to see what Finlay had to say.

“What was that all about?” I asked him.

He laughed.

“I was winding him up,” he said. “He asked what we’d been doing, looking at a car. I said we weren’t. Said we’d told Baker we weren’t going far, but he’d misheard it as we’re looking at a car.”

“Take care, Finlay,” I said. “They’re killing people. This is a big deal.”

He shrugged.

“It’s driving me crazy,” he said. “Got to have some fun, right?”

He’d survived twenty years in Boston. He might survive this.

“What’s happening with Picard?” I asked him. “You heard from him?”

“Nothing,” he said. “Just standing by.”

“No possibility he might have put a couple of guys on surveillance?” I said.

Finlay shook his head. Looked definite about it.

“No way,” he said. “Not without telling me first. Why?”

“There’s a couple of guys watching this place,” I said. “Got here about ten minutes ago. Plain brown sedan. They were at Hubble’s yesterday and around town this morning, asking after me.”

He shook his head again.

“They’re not Picard’s,” he said. “He’d have told me.”

Roscoe came in and shut the door. Held it shut with her hand like Teale might try to burst in after her.

“I called Detroit,” she said. “It was a Pontiac. Delivered four months ago. Big fleet order for a rental company. DMV is tracing the registration. I told them to get back to Picard up in Atlanta. The rental people might be able to give him the story about where it was rented. We might be getting somewhere.”

I felt I was getting closer to Joe. Like I was hearing a faint echo.

“Great,” I said to her. “Good work, Roscoe. I’m out of here. Meet you back here at six. You two stick close together, OK? Watch your backs.”

“Where are you going?” Finlay said.

“I’m going for a drive in the country,” I said.

I left them there in the office and walked back to the entrance. Pushed the door open and stepped outside. Scanned north up the road. The plain sedan was still there, seventy-five yards away. The two guys were still in it. Still watching. I walked over to the Bentley. Unlocked the door and got in. Nosed out of the parking lot and pulled out onto the county road. Wide and slow. Drove slowly past the two guys and carried on north. In the mirror I saw the plain sedan start up. Saw it pull out and turn in the road. It accelerated north and fell in behind me. Like I was towing it on a long invisible rope. I slowed, it slowed. I sped up, it sped up. Like a game.

18

I DROVE PAST ENO’S DINER AND ROLLED ON NORTH AWAY
from town. The plain sedan followed. Forty yards back. No attempt to hide. The two guys just cruised behind me. Gazing forward. I swung west on the road to Warburton. Slowed to a cruise. The plain sedan followed. Still forty yards back. We cruised west. We were the only things moving in that vast landscape. I could see the two guys in the mirror. Gazing at me. They were spotlit by the low afternoon sun. The low, brassy light made them vivid. Young guys, Hispanic, loud shirts, black hair, very neat, very similar. Their car sat steadily in my wake.

I cruised seven or eight miles. I was looking for a place. There were bumpy earth tracks off to the left and right, every half mile or so. They led into the fields. Looped around aimlessly. I didn’t know what they were for. Maybe they led to gathering points where farmers parked machinery for the harvest. Whenever that was. I was looking for a particular track I’d seen before. It led around behind a small stand of trees on the right-hand side of the road. The only cover for miles. I’d seen it from the prison bus on Friday. Seen it again driving back in from Alabama. A sturdy stand of trees. This morning it had been floating on the mist. A little oval copse, next to the road, on the right, an earth track looping behind it, then joining up with the road again.

I saw it a couple of miles ahead. The trees were a smudge on the horizon. I drove on toward it. Snapped the glove compartment open and lifted the big automatic out. Wedged it between the squabs on the seat next to me. The two guys followed. Still forty yards back. A quarter mile from the woods I slammed the selector into second and floored the pedal. The old car gulped and shot forward. At the track I hauled the wheel around and bounced and slewed the Bentley off the road. Hurled it around to the back of the copse. Jammed it to a stop. Grabbed the gun and jumped. Left the driver’s door swinging open like I’d tumbled out and dived straight left into the trees.

But I went the other way. I went to the right. I danced around the hood and hurled myself fifteen feet into the peanut field and flattened into the ground. Crawled through the bushes and put myself on a level with where their car would have to stop on the track behind the Bentley. Pressed myself up against the brawny stalks, low down under the leaves, on the damp red earth. Then I waited. I figured they’d dropped off maybe sixty or seventy yards. They hadn’t tracked my sudden acceleration. I snicked the safety catch off. Then I heard their brown Buick. I caught the noise of the motor and the groan of the suspension. It bounced into view on the track in front of me. It stopped behind the Bentley, framed against the trees. It was about twenty feet away from me.

They were reasonably smart guys. Not at all the worst I’d ever seen. The passenger had gotten out on the road before they turned in. He thought I was in the woods. He thought he was going to come at me from behind. The driver scrambled across inside the car and rolled out of the passenger door on the far side from the trees. Right in front of me. He was holding a gun and he knelt down in the dirt, his back turned to me, hidden from where he thought I was by the Buick, looking through the car at the woods. I’d have to make him move. I didn’t want him to stay next to the car. The car had to stay driveable. I didn’t want it damaged.

They were wary of the copse. That had been the idea. Why would I drive all the way to the only woods for miles, and then hide in a field? A classic diversion. They’d fallen for it without even thinking. The guy by the car was staring through at the woods. I was staring at his back. I had the Desert Eagle lined up on him, breathing low. His partner was creeping slowly through the trees, looking for me. Pretty soon he’d get right through and come right out into view.

He arrived after about five minutes. He was holding a gun out in front of him. He dodged around the back of the Buick. Kept distance between himself and the Bentley. He crouched down next to his partner and they exchanged shrugs. Then they started peering at the Bentley. Worried that I was lying on the floor or crouching behind the stately chrome radiator. The guy who’d just come out of the woods crawled along in the dirt, keeping the Buick between himself and the trees, right in front of me, staring under the Bentley, looking for my feet.

He crawled the whole length of the Bentley. I could hear him grunting and gasping as he hauled himself along on his elbows. Then he crawled all the way back and knelt up again beside his partner. They both shuffled sideways and slowly stood up next to the Buick’s hood. They stepped over and checked inside the Bentley. They walked together to the edge of the copse and peered into the darkness. They couldn’t find me. Then they came back and stood together on the rough track, away from the cars, framed against the orange sky, staring at the trees, their backs to the field, their backs to me.

They didn’t know what to do. They were city boys. Maybe from Miami. They wore Florida clothes. They were used to neon alleys and construction sites. They were used to action under raised highways, in the trash-filled lots the tourists never saw. They didn’t know what to do about a small copse standing alone in a million acres of peanuts.

I shot them both in the back as they stood there. Two quick shots. Aimed high up between their shoulder blades. The big automatic made a sound like hand grenades going off. Birds wheeled into the air from all around. The twin crashes rolled over the countryside like thunder. The recoils pounded my hand. The two guys were hurled forward off their feet. Landed on their faces sprawled against the trees on the far side of the earth track. I raised my head and peered over. They had that slack, empty look that is left behind when life has departed.

I held onto the gun and stepped over to them. They were dead. I had seen a lot of dead people, and these two were as dead as any of them. The big Magnum shells had caught them high up on their backs. Where the big arteries and veins are, going on up into the head. The bullets had made quite a mess. I looked down at the two guys in the silence and thought about Joe.

Then I had things to do. I stepped back to the Bentley. Clicked the safety on and tossed the Desert Eagle back on the seat. Stepped over to their Buick and yanked the keys out. Popped the trunk. I guess I was hoping to find something in there. I didn’t feel bad about the two boys. But I was going to feel better still if I found something in there. Like a silenced .22 automatic. Or like four pairs of rubber overshoes and four nylon bodysuits. A few five-inch blades. Things like that. But I didn’t find things like that. I found Spivey.

He’d been dead a few hours. He’d been shot through the forehead with a .38. From close range. The revolver barrel must have been about six inches from his head. I rubbed my thumb across the skin around the bullet hole. Looked at it. There was no soot, but there were tiny gunpowder particles blasted into the skin. They wouldn’t rub off. That kind of tattooing means a fairly close range. Six inches will do it, maybe eight. Somebody had suddenly raised a gun and the slow heavy assistant warden hadn’t been quick enough to duck.

There was a scab on his chin where I’d cut him with Morrison’s blade. His small snake eyes were open. He was still in his greasy uniform. His white hairy belly showed through where I’d slashed at his shirt. He had been a big guy. To fit him in the trunk, they’d broken his legs. Probably with a shovel. They’d broken them and folded them sideways at the knee to get his body in. I gazed at him and felt angry. He’d known, and he hadn’t told me. But they’d killed him anyway. The fact that he hadn’t told me hadn’t counted for anything. They were panicking. They were silencing everybody, while the clock ticked slowly around to Sunday. I gazed into Spivey’s dead eyes, like there was information still in there.

Then I ran back to the bodies on the edge of the copse and searched them. Two wallets and a car rental agreement. A mobile phone. That was all. The rental agreement was for the Buick. Rented at the Atlanta airport, Monday morning at eight. An early flight in from somewhere. I went through the wallets. No airline tickets. Florida driver’s licenses, both with Jacksonville addresses. Bland photographs, meaningless names. Credit cards to match. Lots of cash in the wallets. I stole it all. They weren’t going to spend it.

I took the battery out of the mobile phone and put the phone in one guy’s pocket and the battery in the other’s. Then I dragged the bodies over to the Buick and heaved them into the trunk with Spivey. Not easy. They weren’t tall guys, but they were floppy and awkward. Made me sweat, despite the chill. I had to shove them around to get them both in the space Spivey was leaving. I scouted around and found their revolvers. Both .38 caliber. One had a full load. The other had fired once. Smelled recent. I pitched the guns into the trunk. Found the passenger’s shoes. The Desert Eagle had blown him right out of them. I threw them in the trunk and slammed the lid. Walked back into the field and found my hiding place in the bushes. Where I’d shot them from. Scrabbled around and picked up the two shell cases. Put them in my pocket.

Then I locked up the Buick and left it. Popped the Bentley’s trunk. Pulled out the bag with my old clothes in it. My new gear was covered in red mud and streaked with the dead guys’ blood. I put the old things back on. Balled up the muddy bloodstained stuff and shoved it in the bag. Threw the bag in the Bentley’s trunk and closed the lid on it. Last thing I did was use a tree branch to sweep away all the footprints I could see.

I drove the Bentley slowly back east to Margrave and used the time to calm down. A straightforward ambush, no technical difficulty, no real danger. I had thirteen years of hard time behind me. I should be able to walk through a one-on-two against amateurs in my sleep. But my heart was thumping harder than it should have been and a cold blast of adrenaline was shaking me up. It was the sight of Spiveylying there with his legs folded sideways that had done it. I breathed hard and got myself under control. My right arm was sore. Like somebody had hit my palm with a hammer. It jarred all the way up to the shoulder. That Desert Eagle had a hell of a recoil. And it made a hell of a noise. My ears were still ringing from the twin explosions. But I felt good. It had been a job well done. Two tough guys had followed me out there. They weren’t following me back.

I PARKED UP IN THE STATION HOUSE LOT, FARTHEST SLOT
from the door. Put my gun back in the glove compartment and got out of the car. It was getting late. The evening gloom was gathering. The huge Georgia sky was darkening. Turning a deep inky shade. The moon was coming up.

Roscoe was at her desk. She got up when she saw me and walked over. We went back out through the door. Walked a few paces. Kissed.

“Anything from the car rental people?” I asked her.

She shook her head.

“Tomorrow,” she said. “Picard’s dealing with it. He’s doing his best.”

“OK,” I said. “What hotels you got up at the airport?”

She reeled off a list of hotels. Pretty much the same list you got at any airport. I picked the first name she’d listed. Then I told her what had happened with the two Florida boys. Last week, she’d have arrested me for it. Sent me to the chair. Now, her reaction was different. Those four men who had padded through her place in their rubber shoes had changed her mind about a lot of things. So she just nodded and smiled a tight grim smile of satisfaction.

“Two down,” she said. “Good work, Reacher. Were they the ones?”

“From last night?” I said. “No. They weren’t local. We can’t count them in Hubble’s ten. They were hired help from outside.”

“Were they any good?” she asked.

I shrugged at her. Rocked my hand from side to side, equivocally.

“Not really,” I said. “Not good enough, anyway.”

Then I told her what I had found in the Buick’s trunk. She shivered again.

“So is he one of the ten?” she asked. “Spivey?”

I shook my head.

“No,” I said. “I can’t see it. He was outside help, too. Nobody would have a slug like that on the inside.”

She nodded. I opened up the Bentley and got the gun out of the glove box. It was too big to go in my pocket. I put it back in the old file box with the bullets. Roscoe put the whole thing in the trunk of her Chevy. I got the carrier bag of stained clothes out. Locked the Bentley up and left it there in the police lot.

“I’m going to call Molly again,” I said. “I’m getting in pretty deep. I need some background. There are things I don’t understand.”

The place was quiet so I used the rosewood office. I dialed the Washington number and got Molly on the second ring.

“Can you talk?” I asked her.

She told me to wait, and I heard her get up and close her office door.

“It’s too soon, Jack,” she said. “I can’t get the stuff until tomorrow.”

“I need background,” I said. “I need to understand this international stuff Joe was doing. I need to know why things are happening here, if the action is supposed to be overseas.”

I heard her figuring out where to start.

“OK, background,” she said. “I guess Joe’s assumption was it’s maybe controlled from this country. And it’s a very difficult problem to explain, but I’ll try. The forging happens abroad, and the trick is most of it stays abroad. Only a few of the fake bills ever come back here, which is not a huge deal domestically, but obviously it’s something we want to stop. But abroad, it presents a completely different type of problem. You know how much cash is inside the U.S., Jack?”

I thought back to what the bank guy had told me.

“A hundred and thirty billion dollars,” I said.

“Right,” she said. “But exactly twice that much is held offshore. That’s a fact. People all over the world are holding onto two hundred and sixty billion dollars’ worth of American cash. It’s in safety deposits in London, Rome, Berlin, Moscow, stuffed into mattresses all over South America, Eastern Europe, hidden under floorboards, false walls, in banks, travel agencies, everywhere. And why is that?”

“Don’t know,” I said.

“Because the dollar is the world’s most trusted currency,” she said. “People believe in it. They want it. And naturally, the government is very, very happy about that.”