'What gives with Rackstraw?' Scarlett asked.
Just then a tall black man about thirty years of age walked out the front door of the studio. Tipple picked up some binoculars from the dash. As he watched, the man stopped on the pavement in front of the building, put one index finger to his left nostril to breathe in sharply a couple of times, then walked to a blue Corvette and drove away.
'They were in there all night recording, and then half of the day. You should have heard the racket,' the Corporal said.
'Who's in there now?'
'Just Rackstraw, I guess.' Tipple punched a button and flicked a toggle switch. A speaker in the van cut in and Spann stirred on the cot. They could hear the sound of someone humming to himself.
'How does the bug transmit?' Scarlett asked.
'Radio wave hookup. All the room bugs feed into a small transmitter attached to the left side of the building and buried behind an evergreen bush. It's protected from the rain by the eaves above.'
As he spoke it had suddenly started to pour, the force of the drops hitting the roof of the van rapidly building up sound. Water ran in rivulets, then streams, then a steady sheet across the tarmac of 12th Avenue.
Scarlett said: 'Why don't you go home and catch some shuteye, Bill? I'll take it from here.'
Tipple nodded. 'Anything important and I want to know. Make sure I'm in for the kill.'
'For sure,' the other man said, and the Corporal moved to the back. He opened the rear doors of the van and jumped out onto the street.
4:45 p.m.
'Fuck this noise,' Rick Scarlett said.
He removed his Smith and Wesson.38 from its holster and flipped open the cylinder. He checked the action, and that it was loaded, then snapped it shut. They were both now sitting in the front of the van.
'What's eating you?' Katherine Spann asked.
'I don't like farting around. And I don't like being conned.'
'So spit it out,' she said.
'Look, I know Hardy's the Headhunter and so do you. Rackstraw knows where he is. Yet while we sit around here with our thumbs stuck up our asses waiting for Rackstraw to lead us to Hardy. Hardy could be out there somewhere hacking off a head. Okay, I played it your way and we got in touch with Tipple. Now I'm going to play it mine.'
'Meaning what?'
'Meaning make that fucker talk.'
'Uh uh,' Spann said. 'That could be professional suicide.'
'Hardy's screwed us. Rackstraw's screwed us. Wentworth's screwed us. And I've had enough.'
'Rick, we're both frustrated. But you know what Chartrand said after the McDonald Report came down? What you're suggesting could cost us our jobs. Plus a criminal charge as well.'
'If you can't take the heat, woman, stay out of the kitchen. You stay here.'
Scarlett climbed out into the rain and began to cross the street.
Katherine Spann followed.
4:48 p.m.
No sooner had Genevieve closed the door than she remembered the seminar. She walked to the phone in the living room and dialed the number of the student who was to host it. No one was home.
Earlier that afternoon, Genevieve DeClercq had decided to cancel this evening's class and had made up her mind to spend the time with her husband. Dead-tired from her night without sleep she had nevertheless spent the afternoon down at the public library reading up on police techniques in criminal investigation. This knowledge had now been combined with what she had learned at brunch this morning, and the woman felt ready to discuss the case with Robert.
But Robert was not at home.
A little surprised and a little worried the woman searched the greenhouse and the rest of their home. She noticed that nothing had been changed or moved since this morning: all the files on the Headhunter case were just as she had left them.
Her concern was heightened, however, by the fact that there was no note. He always left her a message if he was going out. Then she remembered that his car was parked at the top of the driveway, so he couldn't have gone very far. Eventually she crossed through the greenhouse and, with her shoulders hunched against the rain, went down to the sea.
But Robert wasn't there.
And neither was their boat.
4:52 p.m.
Rick Scarlett reached behind the evergreen bush and found the radio transmitter. He flicked the switch on the side that cut the power off. Then he returned to where Spann was standing and the two of them moved toward the studio door.
With what Rick Scarlett had in mind. Big Brother should not be listening.
And definitely not recording.
38
4:59 p.m.
Steve Rackstraw was sitting in front of a mixing-board with a large pair of headphones over his ears, humming inaudibly to himself. Around him there were lights and dials and recording-level meters. The studio itself was not very large. One side was reserved for technicians, the other half for musicians. A booth in the far corner set the drummer off by himself.
Right now — except for Rackstraw — the studio was empty. Not aware that Spann and Scarlett had jimmied the front door with a piece of celluloid, he removed a small silver coke-spoon shaped like a bone from his pocket and dipped it into a glassine envelope filled with white powder. Scarlett waited till the man had finished his snort before he stepped out into the open.
Rackstraw dropped the coke-spoon the second he saw the man. He ripped the headphones from his head.
'Well if it isn't Sergeant Preston and his sidekick, Dickless Tracy. You got a warrant?' he asked, recovering quickly.
'No,' Scarlett said.
'Then get the hell outa here, before I call my lawyer.'
Scarlett crossed over to the man and seized the glassine envelope. 'You were going to produce Hardy,' he said.
'Get out.'
'Where is he?'
'Get out, I said.'
'Blow it out your ass!'
Rackstraw reached for a telephone, but stopped the moment that Scarlett put the.38 to his head. The spreading effect of the cocaine helped him visualize a third eye in his face.
'Get up!' Scarlett ordered.
'Hey, man. Take it easy. What sort of shit is this?'
