'Big reward,' Brown said. 'A million bucks. We can get it. We put a million bucks on her-we'll have her in twenty-four hours.'
'I thought, uh, that was a problem,' Lucas said. 'If you can get the money, I'm all for it-though I don't think Patsy Hill would turn her in. She really can't.'
'The Hill thing is just a theory,' Brown said, twiddling a yellow pencil between his fingers so fast that it looked blurred, like a propeller.
'Well, Jesus, you gotta work on something,' Lucas said. 'You can't sit around a fuckin' mahogany table and pull on your weenies.'
'There's Levy and Ross,' Mallard objected. 'We got that going.'
Lucas jumped in: 'I'll tell you something else that's not a theory.'
Brown: 'That'd be a goddamned relief.'
'Clara Rinker is gonna come after our ass,' Lucas said. 'I promise you. She was nuts this afternoon.'
'What's she gonna do?' Mallard asked. He sounded curious, rather than skeptical.
'She's gonna kill somebody, or try to,' Lucas said. To Mallard, he said, 'If you've got any family that she can figure out, or if Malone has any… She mentioned Malone the first time I talked to her, so she remembers her from Minneapolis.'
Mallard and Malone were both shaking their heads. 'Not really,' Malone said. 'I've got my folks, of course, but I don't know how she could figure them out. She'd have to pull my file at the Bureau, and all that stuff is pretty locked up. We've had some pretty tough hackers make a run at it.'
'She's gonna do something,' Lucas insisted. 'If she figures out that we've got a net around Levy and Ross, she might try to hit one of the guys on the net. They've gotta be warned, and we've got to set up some kind of reaction procedure in case that happens. So we're not just running around in a circle waving our arms.'
'We'll talk to everybody right now,' Malone said. 'I think that's a good point.'
Even Brown nodded, but he added: 'We're not being proactive. We gotta be more proactive. We gotta find something…'
Andreno said, 'Hey… we're listening.'
Malone: 'Washington's gonna come up with some ideas if we don't. They're getting anxious.'
Snarling, Lucas thought, like a pack of yellow dogs.
RINKER AND POLLOCK had watched the street when they got home, had seen the big cars trolling by, way too many of them, and talked about Pollock's life. 'So nobody knows where you're at,' Rinker said.
'Not exactly where I'm at,' Pollock said. 'My folks know I'm around somewhere. I think they know it's St. Louis. I call them every once in a while.'
Rinker looked around, felt the house closing in on her, a rat trap. 'You call them? From here?'
'No, of course not,' Pollock said. 'I go out.'
'How far?'
Pollock thought for a minute, then said, 'Up to the gas station, the minimart, you know.'
'Close by.'
Pollock thought again, and finally said, 'Shoot. That's it, isn't it? They looked up all the phone calls to my mama, and they figured out that they all came from down here.'
They thought about the implications of that, and then Rinker said, 'Ah, jeez, Patsy, I'm sorry. They never would have come looking if it weren't for me.'
'We don't know…'
'It's Davenport. I'm gonna wax his ass one of these days. I swear to God.'
'The guy you danced with.'
'Yeah. He's lucky.' Then she said, sadly, 'You're gonna have to run again. They'll be going house to house.'
But Pollock shook her head and said, wryly, 'Naw. I ain't gonna run. I'm gonna turn myself in.'
'Sounds like a plan,' Rinker said, her eyebrows up.
'I can't stand this shit anymore,' Pollock said, sinking into a couch. 'I can't stand my job, I can't stand this place-I'd just as soon be in prison and get it over with.'
'You never been in prison, you don't know what you're talking about.'
'I've read about it, all kinds of things, at the library,' Pollock said. 'I been thinking about it for three or four years now. I talked to my folks about it, and they're for it. Did I ever show you my back?'
'Your back?'
'I kinda hide it… I'm not a swimsuit girl.' Pollock stood up, turned around, and pulled her blouse up. Rinker didn't know exactly what she was looking for, then noticed what seemed to be a large, paler birthmark on Pollock's pale back.
'What the heck is that?'
'What does it look like?'
'It looks like… an iron,' Rinker said.
'Rick held me down on the bed one day and ironed me. And I got scars from a few more cuts and burns. Cigars, mostly. I think, after all these years, if I turned myself in… I kinda think I'd either get off, or they wouldn't put me away too long. And I want to go home, Clara. I know you don't like it down there, Springfield, and I don't blame you, but I want to go home someday and see my folks and be able to walk down the street without worrying.'
RINKER TOOK A quick turn around the living room, intent now. 'You know what? If you're gonna do this, if you really want to, you gotta do it now, right away, and you've gotta turn me in.'
'What?'
'Yeah. That'll alibi you. You tell them I showed up and insisted on staying, and you got scared and ran for it, and decided to turn yourself in. You could use that in a trial, good faith and all that. Do you know an attorney?'
Pollock nodded. 'I got a name from the Memphis magazine-she's a criminal attorney and she's a big feminist deal down there. She's got a reputation for defending women who were beat up, and did something about it.'
'Is she good?'
'The magazine says she is. She was like a winner in their mover-and-shaker issue.'
'Okay, then. This could work. This could work. But you've got to think about it harder. I've got money, we could get you out of here. Seattle, or somewhere really out of it.'
'Nah…' Pollock looked around. 'I hate this place. Everything's gray, nothing's mine. I never felt like I could hang a picture, because Old Lady McCombs would get pissed about me hammering a nail in the wall. If I go somewhere else, it'd be the same thing all over again.'
Rinker looked at her for a long moment and then said, 'Let's think about it.'
'You think…?'
'I think it's reasonable,' Rinker said. 'Tell me about this attorney.'
THEY TALKED THE rest of the afternoon, and then Pollock went out and brought groceries and a bottle of wine, and they had fish and white wine and a nice spinach salad. Halfway through, Pollock started to sob, and Rinker said, 'You're gonna be scared for a while.'
'Ah, jeez.'
'And it's a risk. The papers say first-degree murder.'
'It's no risk. I'm dying right here, one inch at a time.'
'Then let's run with it.' Clara grinned at her, the first smile since she heard about Gene. 'But not until tomorrow. I got a couple of things to do tonight. You could call the lawyer tomorrow morning and head down to Memphis in your car.'
'I'd like to talk to Mama first.'
'I shouldn't go out until after dark-things'll be safer on the street then,' Rinker said. 'We can make the call from the gas station.'
THEY WENT OUT after dark, both wearing skirts and dark blouses, hoping to look like old women. They went downtown first, to the Heartland National Plaza. Rinker found a Federal Express station and took an envelope. She called a cab from a pay phone, then put the booby-trapped cell phone in the envelope with a note she'd written that afternoon, and walked out to the sidewalk and waited.
