“No,” Connie said automatically. “Not feed—drink.”
“The guy’s an alcoholic on top of everything else?” Agent Jim Farland was pretending to speak into a cell phone.
“Well, I don’t think so, no. I’ll tell you later about his drinking habits.”
Agent Jim Farland said into his cell phone, his voice loud enough to be heard ten feet away, “Hello, Mom. Yeah, we’re going to go over to section twenty-seven, where all the former slaves are buried…. Yeah, that’s where all the pre–Civil War dead were buried again after 1900. Listen, Mom, I’ve gotta go, a funeral is expected in twenty minutes. See you soon.”
Ron said to Connie, “They put this op together so fast I’m not sure I’m clear on all the details. We’re supposed to hang out here acting like tourists until Moses Grace and Claudia show up, for whatever reason we don’t know, Pinky Womack in tow?”
“Yeah, that’s what the psycho snitch told me. Ruth said Rolly’s never let her down. He’s reliable and we’
ve got to go with that, until we know for sure. The only reason I’ve got her cell phone is because I’m a woman and Rolly doesn’t relate well to guys. Anyway, time for us to get ourselves moving.”
Ron said with a smirk, “I like that pillow tied around your belly, Ashley. Hey, how many kids you got?”
Connie waved both of them off and paused to rub her back. It wasn’t just for show. She’d been walking around the cemetery for almost two hours, stopping to listen in at a funeral, speaking briefly to other agents, all of them dressed as tourists strolling through the huge cemetery. She’d read in her brochure the astonishing fact that more than two hundred and sixty thousand people were buried here. She wondered if she’d walk by every marker and monument and memorial before she was through. She thought of Ruth, hoped she was having a better weekend than she was. She would have liked to be in the wilds of Virginia with her rather than here, waiting for a crazy old lunatic to appear. Many of the agents and all of the snipers were from the Washington, D.C., field office, the snipers posted wherever they could find cover in the cemetery, in position since eight o’clock that morning. Savich stood by the Memorial Gate in section 30 speaking on his cell to Deputy Assistant Director Jimmy Maitland, his boss. “There’s no sign of them yet.” Just as there hadn’t been an hour before when he’d reported in, but he didn’t say that. “There aren’t that many real tourists around, understandable given the weather, and that’s good since we can’t do anything about it in any case. We’re keeping an eye on them, while we all try not to do anything Moses Grace could spot easily.”
Maitland sighed. “One of my boys is playing basketball today, his first time starting as Maryland’s forward, and here I am sitting in a damned van waiting for a psychopath crazy enough to detonate a bomb on top of my agents in a frigging motel to show up here in the nation’s biggest cemetery. I doubt Pinky’s still alive. You agree, Savich?”
“You’re right, not likely. Anyone who would pull that stunt at Hooter’s Motel wouldn’t bother to keep Pinky alive. I didn’t tell that to Ms. Lilly, though. She’s still hopeful. Pinky’s such a piece of work, no harm in him, not really, just a big mouth, always saying the wrong thing to the wrong person. I’ve got an incoming call I should get. I’ll call you back in an hour with a status report. Can you get your basketball game on the radio?”
“I’m counting on it, Savich.”
Savich raised his face to the steel-gray sky, breathed that fresh wild air deep into his lungs. He could feel Moses Grace was close. He punched up the incoming call. “Savich here.”
“Hello, boy. This here’s your nemesis. Ain’t that a grand word? Claudia read it to me out of a book, said that’s what I am to you.”
Savich stilled, his mind working furiously. He knew, he simply knew. “Who is this?”
“Why, this is the poor old man you’re trying to hunt down and kill, and bury real deep, Agent Savich. I saw you on TV after our fun at Hooter’s Motel—on a local channel, real early this morning. I’ll bet you didn’t get much sleep, did you? I’ll tell you, I was impressed, no question about that. But you see, you’ve got all these rules and you stick to them like a stupid lemming. That’ll do you in when it’s crunch time between you and me. But hey, you sure talk good, boy, all cool and calm for someone who almost got himself blowed up. Too bad you didn’t break your damned neck when you jumped off that balcony at old Ray’s motel. Would have been easier. Claudia, that sweet little girl of mine, said you was an athlete, made her want to jump your bones. Flat-out embarrassed me the things she said she wanted to do to you. As for Pinky, I wouldn’t say he’s in such good shape now.”
“What about Pinky?”
“Let’s say the little schmuck is where he deserves to be.”
Savich felt disgust, his belly slick with nausea. He wanted to squeeze the life out of this man, to shut up that illiterate drawl. “And where is that?”
Moses Grace’s scratchy laugh made Savich’s flesh crawl. Could the evil old monster be watching him now?
“Well, it’s like this, Agent Savich. Pinky is already underground. Why don’t you find Private Jeremy Willamette’s gravestone; young fellow died in Korea, aged eighteen. Exactly Claudia’s age. She’s the one who picked the spot where Pinky would reside until you guys hauled his carcass off to cut it up.”
“How did you get my cell phone number?”
“From Pinky, of course. Turns out Ms. Lilly gave it to him, and guess what?”
Savich remained silent. He was thinking of Pinky, how he’d probably been dead since they hauled him out of Hooter’s Motel. They buried him with a soldier?
“You want me to spell it out for you, boy? Well, here it is. No one beats me, particularly a loser cop like you.” He laughed and Savich could hear the spittle hurtling out of his mouth. “You know Rolly, that little pervert who snitches to your agent Warnecki? I think you’ll have a much harder time finding him.
“I hear that little redheaded agent who’s standing over there is your wife. I told Claudia those cops had more guts than brains but she wasn’t listening. Too excited about all this and who can blame her? Looks like you’ve gone to a lot of trouble to catch me, and I really appreciate that. It makes me feel important. How many of you are there? Twenty? Forty? All for me and Claudia.”
The words were out of Savich’s mouth before he could begin to censor them. “You’re right about one thing, you crazy old man. I’m going to kill you and bury you real deep.”
The old man guffawed and cleared his throat. Savich could hear a sticky liquid sound. Was he sick?
“Nah, you wouldn’t shoot me for revenge, that’s one of your dumb-ass rules. You’d take me in all polite and proper. You’d even help me get a nice ACLU-type lawyer who’d claim I heard the voice of my long-dead mother who locked me in a cellar until I was sixteen, and so I’m not responsible for anything. You wouldn’t want to be cruel to a mentally disturbed person, would you? I might even end up in a nice hospital with a bunch of cute little nurses swinging their asses in my face. My, I do believe this sounds familiar, almost like day-ja vou.
“Thing is, boy, you don’t have the guts to kill me, yet. Hey, would you look at your wife, so serious and alert, all that lovely red hair, thick and real soft, I bet. Claudia doesn’t like her at all. Maybe I could fit her right in with Pinky once Claudia was done with her.”
Then there was silence. Moses Grace had punched off.
Savich called Sherlock, who was checking the names on the markers against a list she was carrying, a pencil in her hand. Moses was looking at her. She’d walked away from the Rough Riders Memorial in section 36, stopped to study the markers around her. Not three yards from her was a real tourist all bundled up in the cold morning, blowing on her hands as she stood in front of a marker and stamped her feet.