After they thanked the local guys—and Pete Gruwchyk in particular—they bundled a very subdued and highly purple-ized Wu Xsin Gi into the back of Rico Groza’s vehicle—Rico’s was fitted with a prisoner cage and was intended for transport like this—cuffed and strapped him to the floor hook, exchanged jokes and business cards, shook hands all around, and then the three cars rolled slowly away up the main street of Tully.
A few people had come out of their homes or apartments, attracted by the lights and sounds of the radios. Now at least thirty people were lined up on the sidewalk as the three cars formed a kind of procession.
In the lead car Grizzly Dalton put a tape into the tape player installed in his service vehicle. Grizzly had wired in a pair of huge speakers in the back seat, and now he turned the volume up to stun and rolled down all his windows.
The tape began. It was the theme song to the television show Cops, called “Bad Boy,” by Inner Circle. The rap-reggae rhythms boomed out into the streets, echoing off the walls, soaring into the black velvet and snowflake night. People began to applaud. Grizzly beamed hugely, and Walt Rich stuck his head out the side window and waved to all the women.
They kept the music on all the way into the darkness beyond the edge of town. It was a good moment.
It was fun.
Well, man does not live by the gun alone.
Luke, in the trailing car, enjoyed the theatrics a great deal. Walt Rich was now blowing kisses to the people, and Grizzly was doing that slack-wristed wave the Queen of England always used, and Luke was smiling broadly himself. He was prepared to bet that even Rico Groza—who he was beginning to think of as a kind of cold-blooded Hispanic monk—was having a good time. He was certain that the prisoner, who was headed for a state police lockup to await a Marshals van for transport to a federal lockup, was not sharing in the general amusement.
He managed to stay in a very good mood for about three miles, at which point they were passing a florist’s shop, and although the storefront was darkened, Luke could still read the signs stuck in the front window, hand-painted ads for various kinds of bouquets, roses at ten bucks a bunch, lilies, cut flowers, and it hit him extremely hard—a Mag-Lite blow to the back of his memory—that he knew the name Roderigo Gardena very well.
Very damn well.
He picked up the handset and switched it on.
“Grizzly, got a minute?”
“Certainly, my son. Damn, that was fine, hah?”
“Yeah … can you turn down the music?”
“Sure.… There.… Walt says hello.”
“Hello Walt. Grizzly, you remember last May, I called you, asked you to send out a flare on NCIC?”
“Yeah, I remember. What about it?”
“How’d you do it? I never asked.”
“I know you didn’t. Leave it that way, okay? Why the sudden interest?”
“You remember a guy named Roderigo Gardena?”
“No—wait … What? Yeah?… Walt does. He says Roderigo Gardena was one of the a.k.a.’s listed for Paola Rona.… He says you guys … you guys looked it up on Walt’s NCIC set, the evening before Doc had his heart attack. Is that right?”
“Tell Walt thanks. Ten-four, out.”
“Ten-four, Luke. Out.”
Luke put the handset down but did not turn it off. He waited for a good fifteen minutes, but nothing came back. Whatever he was thinking, Rico Groza had clearly made a decision to say nothing.
Fine, said Luke, watching the red taillights weave and fade into the velvety blackness, the snowflakes spiraling crazily around his car, making him feel like a man falling through a universe of stars toward a strange conclusion.
Let Rico have his game.