Parker said, ‘Call in.’
Turley seemed surprised. ‘What do I say, I’m bringing you in?’
‘You followed me into that cargo building, I abandoned the red car. You’ve got the car, but you don’t have me. You figure I’m hiding in that building somewhere.’
‘And I’m standing by?’
‘That’s right,’ Parker said. ‘Waiting for backup.’
Turley snorted. ‘That’ll buy you maybe thirty seconds,’ he said.
‘Just do it.’
Turley did it, saying it the way Parker had told him to, adding nothing, the dispatcher brisk, in a hurry. Putting the microphone back on its hook, Turley said, ‘I’ll look like a real idiot, once I finally do bring you in.’
Parker said, ‘I didn’t take your gun.’
Turley looked at him sideways, looked at the road ahead. ‘Meaning what?’
‘I’m not out to make you feel bad about yourself,’ Parker told him. ‘It’s just that it’s time for me to get to some other part of the world.’
‘And you figure,’ Turley said, ‘if I’m your chauffeur, but you don’t disarm me, I didn’t lose my weapon to you, that way I’ve still got my dignity.’
‘Up to you,’ Parker said.
‘And I’ll be easier to control,’ Turley said, ‘if I’ve still got my dignity.’
‘Up to you.’
Turley laughed, not as though he meant it, and said, ‘Here I was telling you all about game theory. We could have had some nice discussions, back in Stoneveldt.’
‘I don’t think so,’ Parker said.
‘I knew you had something in mind, back there,’ Turley told him. ‘I had my eye on you, just not enough.’
‘I felt the eye,’ Parker assured him.
‘I hope so,’ Turley said. ‘There’s a gate up there.’
Ahead, there was an open guarded gate where the delivery trucks drove in. Four rent-a-cops were on duty there. ‘Flash the badge,’ Parker said.
‘Naturally.’
A gasoline truck was just pulling out when they arrived. Turley lowered his window, dangled the leather folder that held his badge, and Parker put his other arm over the Terrier in his lap as the rent-a-cop leaned down to say, ‘Help you guys?’ He was in his fifties, surely a retired cop himself.
‘Undercover work,’ Turley told him. ‘Baggage thefts.’
The rent-a-cop gave an angry laugh. ‘We can slow em down,’ he said, ‘but nothing will ever stop em.’ He stepped back and waved them through.
A two-lane road ran along the chain-link fence outside the airport property. Closing his window, Turley said, ‘Which way?’
‘Left.’ Which would be away from the main bulk of the airport.
This was the flattest part of this flat state, where they’d chosen to put the airport. Miles away to the right, as they rode along beside the fence, Parker could see Stoneveldt looming. So could Turley. He said, ‘Want me to drop you off there?’
‘I don’t think so.’
The radio squawked. Turley looked at it, looked at Parker. ‘They’re calling me,’ he said.
‘Don’t answer.’
‘I don’t have anything cute to say, throw them off the scent?’
‘There’s nothing cute,’ Parker told him. ‘There’s just me, going away from here.’
The radio squawked again, and Parker said, ‘Shut it off. There’s nothing we need to hear.’
Turley switched the radio off, stopping the voice in midsquawk. They drove a minute in silence, and then Turley said, ‘I’m state, as I guess you know, but this is a local car we’re in.’
‘Working together to get the bad guys,’ Parker suggested.
‘That’s right,’ Turley said. He seemed serious about it. He said, ‘A couple years ago, the city police union put a proposal on the table, to city government, install locators in all the cars. You know, bounce off the satellite, tells you exactly where you are, also tells the dispatchers at headquarters exactly where you are.’
Parker said, ‘The politicians didn’t want to spend the money.’
‘You know that’strue,’ Turley said. ‘They said, you boys are local law enforcement, you knowexactly where you are.’
‘If they’d spent the money,’ Parker said, ‘I’d have to do something else now.’
‘If they’d spent the money,’ Turley corrected him, ‘andif I told you about it.’
‘You’d tell me,’ Parker said. ‘You don’t want me surprised.’
