Lemons Never Lie

Grofield, sitting there, waiting for Myers to come back out, thought of an old story he'd heard one time. There was a large factory that made a lot of different products, and every day this one worker would go out the main gate pushing a wheelbarrow full of dirt. The gate guard was sure the worker was stealing something, and he kept searching the dirt, but he never found anything. After twenty years, the guard stopped the worker one day and said, 'I'm retiring tomorrow, this is my last day. I can't leave this job without knowing what you're up to. I won't turn you in, but you've got to tell me. What are you stealing?' The worker said, 'Wheelbarrows.'

Myers and Brock were inside for nearly an hour, and there was no trouble when they left. Grofield started the Chevy and followed. Because of the rain he had to stay fairly close, but he didn't expect that to cause any problems. He was sure Myers felt safe and pleased with himself. He'd cut the route Dan Leach had taken, and he must feel he had time to run this operation and get a stake. It had been a narrow thing, Grofield getting there in time. It had needed Myers to keep pushing this plan even after an overwhelming number of professionals had told him it was no good. It had needed Myers to scrape the bottom of the barrel to find a string to work the job with him, and even then to come up with somebody smart enough to walk out. And it had needed that somebody to know somebody who knew Grofield, and who was willing to talk to him because of the friendship in the middle.

The Rolls took a turn a block from the brewery and headed toward the middle of town. Monequois was an old town with an Indian name, just a few miles from the Canadian border. It was built over and around several small but steep hills, and even the main downtown street was at a steep slant. There were no streets wider than two lanes, plus parking lanes, and the result was a perpetual daytime jam-up in the downtown area. The buildings along the main street were brick or stone, old and grimy and ugly, and the houses out around them were mostly clapboard, poor but neat. Monequois was a backwater, on no through routes, and strangers would tend to be noticed, which was the flaw in Myers' routine with the Rolls. It was a bad idea to cause attention to yourself in an area where you were going to pull a job. Grofield, the night before, had stolen a couple of New York State license plates to put on the Chevy instead of the legal Indiana plates it normally carried. The New York plates had differing numbers on them – Grofield having taken them from two different cars – but they both began 4S and had a sequence of four more numbers after that; the likelihood that any one would notice the discrepancy was very small. And the advantage was that neither of those plates was likely to be reported as stolen. When both plates are taken from a car, the owner knows damn well he's been robbed, but when one plate is gone he'll tend to believe it fell off. He'll report the loss to the Motor Vehicle Department, but won't report a theft to the police.

The Rolls now headed directly into Clinton Street, the town's main shopping street, where traffic was stop-and-go and it could take five minutes or more to travel one block. Grofield, three cars back, composed his soul in patience and hummed melodies to the rhythm of the windshield wiper.

The Colonial Hotel was on the main street, and that was where the Rolls stopped. Myers got out, wearing a black raincoat and a black hat, and hurried across the rainy sidewalk and into the hotel. The Rolls moved on.

Was Myers actually staying at the local hotel? It was incredible the number of things the man was doing wrong. Grofield remembered Myers claiming he'd cleared the job with the local mob up here – another weird idea – and wondered if Myers thought that made him immune from the normal laws of police activity.

He would have preferred to stay with Myers now, to stake out the hotel and see what Myers did next, but there was nothing in this crowded rainy street to do with the car. Having no choice in the matter, he went on following the Rolls.

It took another quarter of an hour to get clear of downtown – it was like pulling yourself loose from an octopus – and then the Rolls turned off onto a narrow unnumbered blacktop road that took them quickly out of town and away from all other traffic. Grofield hung farther and farther back, hoping the rain would keep Brock from seeing too clearly in his rear view mirror. He knew that Brock was more stupid than Myers, but he suspected Brock was the more professional of the two. It would be Brock who would think to check the possibility that he was being followed.

Grofield wasn't sure, but he had the feeling they were now traveling north. If so, they were on their way to Canada, which was only about three miles north of town.

They traveled seven miles, taking another right turn after four, onto an even smaller and narrower road. They were traveling mostly past woods now, with an occasional rectangle of cleared farmland and an even more occasional building. There were no advertising posters, no road markers. It was impossible to tell which country they were in.

Grofield and the Rolls were the only cars in sight, and Grofield was hanging back so far now that most of the time he couldn't see the Rolls at all. He would crest a rise, come out the other end of a curve, and catch a glimpse of the Rolls up ahead. The occasional glimpse was all he wanted right now.

But the result was, he very nearly missed the turn. He came around a curve, and ahead there was a farm flanking the road. The house, on the left, had burned down some time ago, the charred sticks poking up in the rain, abandoned and desolate. The barn, on the right, had a sagging roof and some missing siding, but was mostly still in one piece. A dirt track led from the road through a gap in a crumbling fence across to the doorless wide entryway into the barn, and it was only the tail lights glowing because Brock had his foot on the brake that attracted Grofield's attention. He caught a glimpse of the two red dots inside the darkness of the barn, and quickly accelerated to be absolutely sure that was Brock in there. He took a rise, saw half a mile of road twisting and turning through a valley ahead, and it was empty of traffic.

Fine. Out of sight of the barn, Grofield turned the Chevy around and headed back. Up on the rise, he saw the barn now on his left, with the beige trunk of an automobile now jutting out the entrance. But the Rolls was black.

Grofield slowed as he went past the barn, peering at it through the rain. The driver's door of the beige car was standing open, with no one behind the wheel. Which meant Brock was in there jockeying the Rolls around, having moved the other car out of his way.

There was no question in Grofield's mind but that Brock would be heading back toward Monequois now. He drove along slowly, watching the rearview mirror, and all at once the beige car splashed into view. Grofield eased off the accelerator, slowing even more, and the beige car shot by him, arcing a sheet of water across the windshield.

It was a Buick. It had Quebec plates. Brock was at the wheel, alone in the car.

Grofield let him go on out of sight, and didn't catch up again until after the turn back onto the road that led to town. There was an occasional car or milk truck on this road; Grofield had to pass three vehicles before seeing the Buick up ahead once again.

And damned if they didn't go downtown again; Myers must have all the time in the