Sacrifice

'Find him? I thought he was locked up on another charge.'

She looked at me squarely, faint traces of disbelief in her face. 'He made bail— they never set high bail for beating up a woman.'

I offered her a smoke. She shook her head, rummaged in her purse, came out with one of her own. I lit it for her.

'This won't take long today,' I promised.

The cab rolled along. Felt like we were still on the highway.

'How did you know…about the water?' she finally asked me.

'I figured it out,' I told her. Meaning: the mother hadn't told me.

She dragged on her smoke, pale eyes focused on something not inside the cab. 'You started this… investigation, it was a job, yes?'

'Yeah.'

'To find the baby?'

'Yeah.'

'So the job's over…?'

'Un-huh.'

'And you're not looking for Emerson?'

'I didn't even know he was out. How come all the questions?'

'You know now. The way most people would look at this, we'd need her testimony to convict him, understand?'

I nodded.

'We don't. What we need, we need his testimony to convict her. The only way they both get dropped for this is for them to point the finger at each other. Try them separately.'

'Okay.'

'Yes, okay. That means, we want to find this Emerson. If he turns up in the water himself…if he just disappears, it might get her off the hook.'

'Why tell me?'

'You have different…reputations, Mr. Burke. Depending on who's talking.'

'My record speaks for itself.'

'Very funny. We've got records too. Like the visitors' logs from the jail.'

'So?'

'So you visited a man named Kenneth Silver three times over the past couple of months.'

'He's an old friend.'

'He's an assassin. For a white supremacist gang. The way the prisons are today, he may be more dangerous inside than out.'

'You don't understand the way things are in there. It's not politics, it's survival. I've known him since I was a kid. We went different ways, he got caught in a cross, but I'm not gonna turn my back on him when he's down.'

'Is that loyalty…or peer pressure?'

'You put a lot of guys in there, but you don't know how it works. Inside the walls, what you call peer pressure, it's as sharp as a knife sometimes…You understand what I'm saying?'

'Better than you think. Like I said, about Emerson…'

'You think I'm some kind of vigilante?'

'No. I think you're some kind of mercenary. And I think you do what you're paid to do.'

'Nobody hired me to do Emerson. I'm not looking for him.'

She ground out her cigarette. 'I'm sure you're not, you say so. But if you happen to run across him in your travels, give us a call, okay?'

'Okay.'

131

The cab's rhythm changed. In the city now. Harsh, hypertense traffic sounds. We'd have picked up our outriders by now. If Max spotted a car too interested in us, he'd flash his high beams— maneuver so he was first off at a light. The driver of the car trailing us would never see it coming, wouldn't even have time to wonder why a pack of Chinese teenagers dressed in bright silk baseball jackets would be trying to clean his windshield. Never hear the ice picks puncture his tires.

Wolfe never glanced at her watch. Didn't make comments like she would if she was trying to give a tape recorder some clues. She'd know— no matter where we held the meeting, she wouldn't find Luke there again.

The cab was down to a crawl now, swivel-hipping its way past the potholes. One final turn, and it came to a stop. I heard Max shut off the engine.