Thinner(78)

Everything suddenly clicked together in Billy's mind.

He looked up from the ID. 'You wanted the Buick because it looked more like -'

'Like a government car, sure. Big unobtrusive sedan. I didn't want to show up in the rolling tuna-fish can the Avis guy tried to give me, and I surely didn't want to show up in Farmer John's drive-in f**k-machine.'

'This - one of the things your associate brought up on his second trip?'

'Yes.'

Billy tossed it back. 'It looks almost real.'

Ginelli's smile faded. 'Except for the picture,' he said softly, 'it is.'

For a moment there was silence as Billy tried to grope his way around that one without thinking too much about what might have happened to Special Agent Stoner, and if he might have had kids.

Finally he said, 'You parked between two police cars and flipped that ID at a state cop five minutes after you finished digging a set of car keys out of a corpse's pocket in a gravel pit.'

'Nah,' Ginelli said, 'it was more like ten.'

As he made his way into the camp, he could see two guys, casually dressed but obviously cops, on their knees behind the unicorn camper. Each of them had a small garden trowel. A third stood, shining down a powerful flashlight while they dug through the earth.

'Wait, wait, here's another one,' one of them said . He picked a slug out of the dirt on his trowel and dropped it into a nearby bucket. Blonk! Two Gypsy children, obviously brothers, stood nearby watching this operation.

Ginelli was actually glad the cops were there. No one knew what he looked like here, and Samuel Lemke had seen only a dark smear of lampblack. Also, it was entirely plausible that an FBI agent would show up as a result of a shooting incident featuring a Russian automatic weapon. But he had developed a deep respect for Taduz Lemke. It was more than that word written on Spurton's forehead; it was the way Lemke had stood his ground in the face of those .30-caliber bullets coming at him out of the dark. And, of course, there was the thing, that was happening to William. He felt it was just possible that the old man might know who he was. He might see it in Ginelli's eyes, or smell it on his skin, somehow.

Under no circumstances did he intend to let the old man with the rotten nose touch him.

It was the girl he wanted.

He crossed the inner circle and knocked on the door of one cif the campers at random. He had to knock again before it was opened by a middle-aged woman with frightened, distrustful eyes.

'Whatever you want, we haven't got it for you,' she said. 'We've got troubles here. We're closed. Sorry.'

Ginelli flashed the folder. 'Special Agent Stoner, ma'am. FBI.'

Her eyes widened. She crossed herself rapidly and said something in Romany. Then she said, 'Oh, God, what next? Nothing is right anymore. Since Susanna died it's like we've been cursed. Or -'

She was pushed aside by her husband, who told her to shut up.

'Special Agent Stoner,' Ginelli began again.

'Yeah, I heard what you said.' He worked his way out. Ginelli guessed he was forty-five but he looked older, an extremely tall man who slumped so badly that he looked almost deformed. He wore a Disney World T-shirt and huge baggy Bermuda shorts. He smelled of Thunderbird wine and vomit waiting to happen. He looked like the sort of man to whom it happened fairly often. Like three and four times a week. Ginelli thought he recognized him from the night before -it had either been this guy or there was another Gypsy around here who went six-four or six-five. He had been one of those bounding away with all the grace of a blind epileptic having a heart attack, he told Billy.

'What do you want? We've had cops on our asses all day. We always got cops on our asses, but this is just . . .f*cking ... ridiculous. P He spoke in an ugly, hectoring tone, and his wife spoke to him agitatedly in Rom.

He turned his head toward her. 'Det krigiska jag-haller,' he said, and added for good measure: 'Shut up, bitch.' The woman retreated. The man in the Disney shirt turned back to Ginelli. 'What do you want? Why don't you go talk to your buddies if you want something?' He nodded toward the crime-lab people.

'Could I have your name, please?' Ginelli asked with the same blank-faced politeness.

'Why don't you get it from them?' He crossed slabby, flabby arms truculently. Under his shirt his large br**sts jiggled. 'We gave them our names, we gave them our statements. Someone took a few shots at us in the middle of the night, that's all any of us know. We just want to be let loose. We want to get out of Maine, out of New England, off the f**king East Coast.' In a slightly lower voice he added, 'And never come back.' The index and pinky fingers of his left hand popped out in a gesture Ginelli knew well from his mother and grandmother - it was the sign against the evil eye. He didn't believe this man was even aware he had done it.

'This can go one of two ways,' Ginelli said, still playing the ultrapolite FBI man to the hilt. 'You can give me a bit of information, sir, or you can end up in the State Detention Center pending a recommendation on whether or not to charge you with the obstruction of justice. If convicted of obstruction, you would face five years in jail and a fine of five thousand dollars.'

Another flood of Rom from the camper, this one nearly hysterical.

'Enkelt!' the man yelled hoarsely, but when he turned back to Ginelli again, his face had paled noticeably. 'You're nuts.'