Doc and Luke pulled up about a block away from the cleaning plant, parked the car, and sat back to consider their tactics.
Doc was staring hard at a van about a hundred yards up.
“That’s a federal van. No doubt.”
“Yeah. They’re all around. You know this area at all, Doc?”
“Yeah.”
“Any suggestions?”
“When’s Grizzly gonna call?”
Luke looked at his watch. “Fifteen minutes.”
Doc was quiet for a time. Luke looked over at him. Doc’s face was set and blank. “Doc …?”
“You ever afraid, Luke?”
That rocked him.
“Afraid … hey, Doc. Fear is my shadow. Ease up, okay? We’re just gonna—all I want is to spook them. They show me where they’ve got Rona hidden away, and I twist Reed Endicott’s balls until somebody eases up on Aurora.”
“We’re not gonna try anything stupid?”
“What, like jerk Rona out of the custody of Treasury agents? No, all I want is clear unequivocal proof that they have him, and that they’re playing Hide the Floppy with an escaped rapist and conman.”
Doc rubbed his face with his hands. “Okay. I hope that’s how it works out.”
“You all right, Doc?”
“Yeah. I think I need something to eat. I feel a little weird.”
“Hey, look, let’s call this—”
“No. Look, there’s a Chinese restaurant across the street from the cleaners. Cheong Sammy’s. Sammy Kwong owns it. Give me five minutes, I’ll take a post there.”
“Why don’t I do that? You stay here.”
Doc shook his head.
“Tell you the truth, Luke, I’d rather be off to the side when you jump out of the woodwork and Bolton Canaday wets his pants. You let Grizzly Dalton make his call, I’ll be somewhere out of the way where I can see it all go down and not get any on my shoes. That’s the way I want it.”
He picked up one of their two mobile radios.
“I’ll be on channel two, check?”
Luke set his radio at channel two. “Where do you want me?”
“Right here,” said Doc. “One of us has to be mobile. When they get a call—if they get a call—they’ll bundle Rona into a mobile unit and take off. I’ll get onto the radio, let you know which way. You can go—do whatever.”
“You’re pissed. Am I right?”
“A little. This started out just as kind of interesting. Now we’re staking out a Treasury stake-out, we’re playing games with a federal snitch, and somewhere out in the wilderness there’s a guy who makes me think of wooden stakes and silver bullets. Plus my career is on the line if we step on our dicks—”
“The only dick that’s gonna get stepped on is Reed Endicott’s.”
Doc settled down a bit. “Okay.… Well, any way it goes, I want to be out of the Ten Ring. I want some deniability when the CO straps me down on a gurney and reaches for a power tool. Give me five minutes.”
“Double-click me when you’re in position?”
Doc lifted his radio, nodded, and got out of the car. Heat flowed in around his big body, heavy with city fumes and the scent of rotting garbage, and the car was full of street sounds, horns, cars and trucks, tires on blacktop, the stamp and shuffle of the people going by. A traffic chopper was passing high overhead. Its blades hammered at the hot damp air, and the sound came down around them, a deep pounding thrumming syncopation, like a massive heart beating. They both listened to it for a moment.
“Saigon,” said Doc, his face breaking up into crazy angles as he smiled broadly back at Luke. “Shit. I’m still only in Saigon.”
“PBR Street Gang, this is Almighty.”
Doc smiled again, closed the door with a wave, and walked quickly away up North Capitol Street. He didn’t look back.
Luke watched him go, and then looked up toward the tops of the buildings, at the ragged lines of the roofs, and then into the lemon-yellow sky. A flock of pigeons blew up from a roof down the block, wheeled, soared skyward in a burst of feathery fluttering, like debris from an explosion.
Did Treasury have people on the rooftops?
Well, Doc was a pro.
Doc would find out.