Blood risk

said. "I picked each piece myself, spent a couple of weeks honing them where that was necessary, made up the belt and the pouches in my brother's shoe-repair shop."
        Harris scratched his blackened chin, looked at the tips of his fingers, said, "You think we'll have to break in, then?"
        "If all the main doors and unlocked windows look too damn inviting," Tucker said, "we'll make our own entrance."
        Harris nodded.
        "One more thing," Tucker said. He got the khaki tote bag that Paul Norton had given him that afternoon, opened it and took out two compact walkie-talkies. He gave one to Shirillo and took one himself, strapped it to his shoulder and let it hang down against his right biceps. He explained the operation of the radios to Shirillo, insisted that they test them, was finally satisfied that the boy knew what he was doing.
        "I don't get one?" Harris asked.
        "You're already carrying the machine gun," Tucker pointed out. "It may be necessary to split up and be out of each other's sight. I won't, however, have us cut into three separate units. You'll always be with either Jimmy or me, and when we've gone two different ways, we can keep in contact with these. Later on, of course, we'll need them to get in touch with Paul."
        "The copter jockey?" Harris asked.
        "Yes."
        "I'm anxious to meet him."
        "You will before long."
        They gathered up everything that had not been in the Buick when they stole the car-the clothes they had taken off, the attaché case in which the three pistols had lain, the bags the clothes they were now wearing had come in, the black greasepaint, all the sales slips-stuffed everything into the tote bag that the walkie-talkies had been in. The bag was filled to bulging.
        "Back in a jiffy," Tucker said.
        He took a five-minute walk into the woods, much deeper than the car had gone, and, when he felt he was far enough away from the Buick, he heaved the tote bag away into the dark trees. It glanced off a pine trunk, struck something else, landed with a crash in deep greenery and was still. Good enough, then. He went back to the others.
        They took ten minutes to wipe down the Buick, inside and out, until they were sure no one would pick up any prints from it. They had not worried about prints on the stolen Chevy and Dodge that had been wracked up in Baglio's estate the day before, because they knew that Baglio would have those wrecks tucked away and that the police would never have a chance to go over them. This was different, for the Buick would be abandoned here and would eventually be returned to its proper owner. Though Harris's fingerprints were on file, neither Shirillo nor Tucker had been inked into public records yet. Shirillo was too young to have been caught yet; Tucker was simply too careful. Also, Tucker had never been printed in his real identity as the man with the penthouse apartment on Park Avenue, and he most likely never would be; the rich are seldom subjected to that kind of humiliation unless the case against them is as tight as an angry fist, and Tucker intended to be perfectly law-abiding in his real identity. Printed as Tucker, then, his true name and background could be kept a secret, even if he was arrested and had to serve time-although, once out on bail, he could ditch the Tucker name forever and slip back into the Park Avenue world without much worry about being traced and apprehended. As Tucker, however, having his prints on file would severely limit his mobility.
        Tucker shut the last open door of the Buick, using his handkerchief to keep it clean. He put the handkerchief in his pocket and turned to Shirillo. "Time?"
        Shirillo looked at his watch in the pale yellow glow of the flashlight, and he said, "A quarter to three."
        "Plenty of time," Tucker said.
        Around them, the darkness was complete when Shirillo flicked off the light. The thickly criss-crossed boughs of the pines even held back the dim brightness of the stars.
        Tucker said, "Have we forgotten anything?" He knew that they had not, but he wanted to give Pete Harris the feeling that he was helping to guide the operation.
        No one responded.
        Checking the flimsy rubber surgical gloves which they'd all put on when they'd changed clothes, Tucker said, "Let's go, then. We've got a good piece of walking to do, and we can use the flashlight for only about half of