shape and movement. Then things started to make sense again. I squinted, made out Lydia's black-wrapped form kneeling between two boulders. She squeezed a shot out of Jimmy's Winchester, pulled back, and reloaded fast as a bullet chipped the stone at her shoulder.
'What the hell are you two idiots doing here?' I coughed on stone dust.
'Christ, he's crabby,' Jimmy said to Lydia.
'He gets like that when he doesn't feel well,' Lydia answered. She took aim, shot again. I heard glass shatter.
'I got my goddamn ass busted trying to save yours,' I told them. 'You were supposed to be gone by the time we got here.'
'They weren't going to keep hauling you around if Jimmy was gone,' Lydia pointed out. 'They'd've killed you and dumped you here.'
'So now they'll kill us all. I don't suppose it occurred to you two superheroes to go for help?'
'Not to me. Jimmy?'
'Uh-uh.' He shook his head. Then he grinned at me. 'I mean, not after we put it out on the CB.'
The CB. Oh, beautiful consumer audio technology. 'You called for help?'
Jimmy grinned again. 'Man, I was so scared, I told the guy who picked it up to call the sheriff. Brinkman, man. Me—I called the fucking sheriff!'
But it wasn't Brinkman whose car came rocketing up the truck road, scaring a cloud of dust into the air.
Since the first storm of shots, Grice and his boys hadn't moved out from behind the Ford. They had reasons not to. Lydia was a deadly accurate shot. Otis and Ted were cowards. And Arnold was out of the picture, stretched still as stone where Lydia's first bullet had dropped him.
But we couldn't go anywhere either, and we had only one gun. Sooner or later, if we had to keep sniping to keep them pinned, our box of shells would be empty. They would know that moment, and that moment would be theirs.
We had no escape; we needed a rescue.
So fifteen minutes later, when we heard the whine of a heavy engine, the screech of brakes echoing off the stone walls, they were good sounds. 'The fucking marines!' Jimmy cheered.
But Lydia, peering around a boulder, said, 'It's not a cop.'
She was wrong, but she was right.
'Civilian,' she said. 'One man.' She whipped her head back as a bullet spewed stone chips into the air. She took aim, fired back, pulled her head in again. 'He's out of the car. I can't see him now. He must be behind the other car with Grice.' She reloaded, inched her head out. 'Nothing.' A pause. 'But maybe he is a cop. There's a red light on the dash, the portable kind.'
'What does he look like?'
'I couldn't really see. Thin face, reddish hair.'
A cold shock hit me. I heard a wordless sound of surprise and sorrow; I realized it had come from me.
This was the piece I hadn't had.
'Smith!' MacGregor's voice burst, loud and distorted, from the electronic bullhorn all state cop cars carry, even unmarked ones. 'Don't shoot. I'm coming up there.'
Lydia turned to me. I said, 'Let him come.'
I heard MacGregor scramble up the rocks, watched as he appeared, crouching, in the narrow cleft we occupied. His face darkened when he saw me, the cuffs, the blood.
'What happened?' His voice was tight, cold.
'Your friends.'
'They're no friends of mine.'
'Crap, MacGregor.' A shiver overtook me. 'You're Grice's hip-pocket cop. You're why he's always a step ahead.'
MacGregor exploded. 'I warned you, you son of a bitch!' His voice was driven, full of fury. I squinted to look at him. 'I begged you, stay out of this fucking case! I told you to go the hell back to New York!'
'That's true,' I agreed quietly. 'You tried. And I smelled something wrong with the way you did it. But I didn't add it up. I guess I didn't want to know.'
'Oh, Christ, Smith, don't get holy on me! Small shit, that's all it is. I pass on what I hear. I bury a file or take a guy off something before he gets too close. So what? I don't have the manpower to go after every crook around. Someone's going to get away with something. What's the difference if it's Grice?'
'Uh-huh,' I said. 'And the kids shooting up in the Creekside? And guys who're barely squeezing out a living, then splitting their chickenshit take-home with Grice so they don't get their legs broken? That's okay with you, Mac?'
'Oh, come off it! If it weren't Grice it would be somebody else!' His face was purple with anger, but in his eyes there was something like pleading.
'And Ginny Sanderson?' I said softly. 'That's okay with you?
MacGregor looked quickly from Jimmy to me. 'What about her?'
'She's dead. Grice shot her. I think you'll find her if you drag the quarry.' I looked at Jimmy. He was white as
