Persuader

roof was a little distorted. We carried the dead guys one at a time and folded them into the load space. They almost filled it. I went back to the shoulder and retrieved my bundle and carried it over and put it in on top of them. There was a parcel shelf that would hide everything from view. It took both of us to close the hatch. We had to take a side each and lean down hard. Then we picked up our coats off the road and shook them out and put them on. They were damp and crushed and a little torn up in places.
    "You OK?" he asked again.
    "Get in the car," I said.
    We sprung the door mirrors back into place and climbed in together. I turned the key. It wouldn't start. I tried again. No luck. In between the two tries I heard the fuel pump whining.
    "Leave the ignition on for a moment," Villanueva said. "The gasoline drained out of the engine. When it was upside down. Wait a moment, let it pump back in." I waited and it started on the third attempt. So I put it in gear and got it straight on the road and drove the mile back to where we had left the other Taurus. The one that Villanueva had arrived in. It was waiting right there for us on the shoulder, gray and ghostly in the moonlight.
    "Now go back and wait for Duffy and Eliot," I said. "Then I suggest you get the hell out of here. I'll see you all later." He shook my hand.
    "Old school," he said.
    "Ten-eighteen," I said. 10-18 was MP radio code for assignment completed. But I guess he didn't know that, because he just looked at me.
    "Stay safe," I said.
    He shook his head.
    "Voice mail," he said.
    "What about it?"
    "When a cell phone is out of service you usually get routed to voice mail."
    "The whole tower was down."
    "But the cell network didn't know that. Far as the machinery knew, Beck just had his individual phone switched off. So they'll have gotten his voice mail. In a central server somewhere. They might have left him a message."
    "What would have been the point?" Villanueva shrugged. "They might have told him they were on their way back. You know, maybe they expected him to check his messages right away. They might have left him the whole story. Or maybe they weren't really thinking straight, and they figured it was like a regular answering machine, and they were saying, Hey, Mr. Beck, pick up, will you? " I said nothing.
    "They might have left their voices on there," he said. "Today. That's the bottom line."
    "OK," I said.
    "What are you going to do?"
    "Start shooting," I said. "Shoes, voice mail, he's one step away now." Villanueva shook his head.
    "You can't," he said. "Duffy needs to bring him in. It's the only way she can save her own ass now." I looked away. "Tell her I'll do my best. But if it's him or me, he goes down." Villanueva said nothing.
    "What?" I said. "Now I'm a human sacrifice?"
    "Just do your best," he said. "Duffy's a good kid."
    "I know she is," I said.
    He hauled himself out of the Saab, one hand on the door frame, the other on the seat back. He stepped across and got into his own car and drove away, slow and quiet, no lights. I saw him wave. I watched until he was lost to sight and then I backed up and turned and got the Saab straddling the middle of the road, facing west. I figured when Beck came out to find me he would think I was doing a good defensive job.
    But either Beck wasn't trying the phones very often or he wasn't thinking very much about me because I sat there for ten minutes with no sign of him. I spent part of the time testing my earlier hypothesis that a person who hides a gun under the spare wheel might also hide notes under the carpets. The carpets were already loose and they hadn't been helped by being turned upside down. But there was nothing at all under them, except for rust stains and a damp layer of acoustical padding that looked like it had been made out of old red and gray sweaters. No notes. Bad hypothesis. I put the carpets back in place as well as I could and kicked them around until they were reasonably flat.
    Then I got out and checked the exterior damage. Nothing I could do about the scratches in the paint. They were bad, but not disastrous. Nothing I could do about the dent in the door either, unless I wanted to take it apart and press the panel out. The roof was a little caved in. I remembered it as having a definite dome shape. Now it was fairly flat. But I figured I could maybe do something about that from the inside. I climbed into the back seat and put both palms up flat on the headliner and pushed