'Why?'
'Because I don't like him.'
'Screw you. Describe the car.'
I closed my eyes, tried to flip through the pictures in my mind. 'Strip tail lights. Red-white-red. License plate between, not below. The plate was dark. Covered with something.'
'You see the color?'
'Dark.'
'No shit.'
'Come on, Mac.'
'Anything else?'
'Something shiny above the left light. Auto club sticker, something like that.'
'Okay. Does Antonelli have any enemies?'
'Probably. But not this kind.'
'You said Grice. Tell me what this has to do with the fight Monday night.'
'I don't know. Why don't you ask Grice?'
'You're a pain in the ass, Smith, you know that? Anyhow, maybe it wasn't Antonelli they were after. Maybe it was you.'
I said, 'Maybe it was.'
'You got enemies of your own?'
'I've got nothing but. But if someone thinks I'm worth killing, I don't know why. Except that bastard with the broken wrist. He may be annoyed about that.'
'Otis Huttner? A guy with a cast on his wrist can't drive and shoot at the same time. But I'll pick him up anyway, just for practice.'
'Maybe he had someone with him. That other bastard.'
'So I'll pick them both up.'
'Frank Grice doesn't like me, either.'
'Smith, you want me to pick up Grice, you'd better have a damn good reason. You have one?'
'I have the one I've always had. I think he killed Wally Gould, or he knows who did, and I think he knows I think that. Maybe he thinks I know more than I do.'
'That's not good enough. He pays his lawyer too much for me to pick him up because you think he thinks you think he did something that even if he did he knows I can't prove.'
The headache that had been sitting quietly in the bruised place behind my left ear suddenly threw its arms around my head and held on tightly, as if MacGregor scared it. 'Mac,' I said, 'I don't even want to understand that.'
He hesitated. 'How's Antonelli doing?'
'He's in surgery. They haven't told me anything yet.'
'You think he saw who it was?'
'He could have.'
'I'll send someone over, to be there when he wakes up.'
'You've got someone here now.'
'Who? Donnelly?'
'Yeah.'
'He should've been Highway Patrol. He drives great, but he doesn't think so good.'
'Does the Highway Patrol know you feel that way?'
'Yeah, and so does Donnelly. Smith, listen—'
An electronic voice interrupted him, asked me for more money. I fished around past the gun in my pocket for quarters, shoved them in the slot. I said, 'I'm listening.'
'Whatever it is you've been sitting on, I want it. Don't give me client confidentiality, don't give me it's not police business. I've got one dead body and I might—I almost had another. I cover three counties here, Smith. This is more homicides than I had all last year. So your time's up. Give.'
'I can't, MacGregor.'
'You can, and you will. If you don't, I'll send somebody over there to pick you up. You won't like my jail, Smith. It's not nice and comfy like the ones you've got in the big city.'
A nurse squeaked down the hall on crepe-soled shoes.
'Oh, Christ,' I said. 'Yeah, okay, Mac. But tomorrow, okay? I want to stay here until—until I know something. And I'm beat. I'll come in the morning.'
