Persuader

again, like we could see through the trees and spot a car idling on the shoulder of a distant parallel road.
    "It's how I'd do it," Duffy said.
    I nodded. It was a very plausible scenario. There would be technical disadvantages. With up to two miles of lateral displacement any slight fore-aft discrepancy due to traffic would make the signal drift in and out of range. But then, all they wanted to know was my general direction.
    "It's possible," I said.
    "No, it's likely," Eliot said. "Duffy's right. It's pure common sense. They want to stay out of your mirrors as long as they can."
    "Either way, we have to assume they're there. How far does Route One stay close to I- 95?"
    "Forever," Duffy said. "Way farther than New London, Connecticut. They split around Boston, but they come back together."
    "OK," I said. Checked my watch. "I've been here about nine minutes now. Long enough for the bathroom and a cup of coffee. Time to put the electronics back on the road." I told Eliot to put the transmitter in his pocket and drive Duffy's Taurus south at a steady fifty miles an hour. I told him I would catch him in the truck somewhere before New London. I figured I would worry about how to get the transmitter back in the right place later. Eliot took off and I was left alone with Duffy. We watched her car disappear south and then swiveled around north and watched the incoming ramp. I had an hour and one minute and I needed the soldering iron. Time ticking away.
    "How is it up there?" Duffy asked.
    "A nightmare," I said. I told her about the eight-foot granite wall and the razor wire and the gate and the metal detectors on the doors and the room with no inside keyhole. I told her about Paulie.
    "Any sign of my agent?" she asked.
    "I only just got there," I said.
    "She's in that house," she said. "I have to believe that." I said nothing.
    "You need to make some progress," she said. "Every hour you spend there puts you deeper in trouble. And her."
    "I know that," I said.
    "What's Beck like?" she asked.
    "Bent," I said. I told her about the fingerprints on the glass and the way the Maxima had disappeared. Then I told her about the Russian roulette.
    "You played?"
    "Six times," I said, and stared at the ramp.
    She stared at me. "You're crazy. Six to one, you should be dead." I smiled. "You ever played?"
    "I wouldn't. I don't like those odds."
    "You're like most people. Beck was the same. He thought the odds were six to one. But they're nearer six hundred to one. Or six thousand. You put a single heavy bullet in a well-made well-maintained gun like that Anaconda and it would be a miracle if the cylinder came to rest with the bullet near the top. The momentum of the spin always carries it to the bottom. Precision mechanism, a little oil, gravity helps you out. I'm not an idiot. Russian roulette is a lot safer than people think. And it was worth the risk to get hired." She was quiet for a spell.
    "You got a feeling?" she asked.
    "He looks like a rug importer," I said. "There are rugs all over the damn place."
    "But?"
    "But he isn't," I said. "I'd bet my pension on it. I asked him about the rugs and he didn't say much. Like he wasn't very interested in them. Most people like to talk about their businesses. Most people, you can't shut them up."
    "You get a pension?"
    "No," I said.
    Right then a gray Taurus identical to Duffy's except for the color burst up over the rise of the ramp. It slowed momentarily while the driver scanned around and then accelerated hard straight toward us. It was the old guy at the wheel, the one I had left in the gutter near the college gate. He slammed to a stop next to my blue truck and opened his door and heaved himself up and out in exactly the same way he had gotten out of the borrowed police Caprice. He had a big black-and-red Radio Shack bag in his hand. It was bulky with boxes. He held it up and smiled and stepped forward to shake my hand. He had a fresh shirt on, but his suit was the same. I could see blotches where he had tried to sponge the fake blood out. I could picture him, standing at his motel room sink, getting busy with the hand towel. He hadn't been very successful. It looked like he had been careless with the ketchup at dinner.
    "They got you running errands already?" he asked.
    "I don't know what they got me doing," I said. "We got a lead seal problem." He nodded. "I figured. Shopping list like that, what else could it be?"
    "You done one before?"
    "I'm old-school," he said. "We did ten a day,