The Hanged Man's Song

But it looks like this tailing job might take some help. He’s gonna spot our people if they can’t switch out more often. You go on.”
    Something was up, and Marvel knew it. She squinted at him, and seemed about to say something, but he shook his head and she said, “All right.”
    “Don’t do anything stupid, like try to follow us,” he said. “We need you back at the house.”
    >>> TWO minutes later, she’d gone one way and we another, at right angles to each other, and even from a mile away, we could see the plume of gravel dust she left behind her as she headed back into Longstreet.
    “He’s at the RayMar Motel in Bradentown,” John told me. “He’s in his room, so he’s gonna be cracking the laptop pretty soon. We’ve got two cars on him now and another two coming in.”
    “How far?”
    He looked at his watch. “If we’re not lazy about it, we can be there in half an hour.”
    “What’s the layout like?”
    “One-level mom-and-pop, an office at one end and then a long string of rooms in a straight line. Not busy. I don’t know the people that run it, but black folks stay there—no color line, so we won’t be too noticeable.”
    >>> A HALF-HOUR later, we were still not there and my phone rang. I dreaded picking it up, but had no choice.
    “You motherfucker,” Carp shouted. “You cheated me.” You could hear the spit flying.
    “We’ve just been at the crossroads, James, so don’t tell me about cheating. I can tell you where to get a set of keys—and I would have done it if we’d found Rachel—but now . . . I’d say your head’s in trouble. You remember what I told you.”
    “I want the fuckin’ keys,” he shouted. “You want the girl back, you better cough ’em up.”
    “Are you still close to Universal?” I asked.
    “Never mind where I am,” he said. He was slowing down now. “How are we gonna do this? I don’t want the kid to die, I got nothing against her, but I’ll leave her out there if I don’t get the keys.”
    “Can’t figure out a way to trust you, James.”
    “I’ll tell you—”
    “I’ll tell you, James,” I said. “I’m still out here in the woods. I’ve been driving around, hoping I was at the wrong place, hoping I’d find that abandoned schoolhouse. I’m gonna hang up now and see if I can think of something. It’s gonna have to be something weird.”
    “She’s out in the woods, on a chain,” he said.
    “Call me back in half an hour,” I said.
    >>> FIVE minutes later, we were parked down the block from the RayMar, in front of the Bradentown Bakery. Bradentown was just as hot as Longstreet, and smaller. Nothing stirred under the midday sun. I got out, went inside the bakery, and bought two Diet Cokes and two apple strudels, mostly to keep the cashier behind her counter. Back outside, I found two of John’s friends in the backseat of the car.
    “We got it figured out,” Henry said to John. “If you want to go in, we can get him.”
    “He has a gun,” I said.
    “We can be on top of him in three seconds,” Henry said. “We need somebody to go into the office and talk to the clerk while we go in.”
    They all looked at me, and I shook my head. “I need to talk to Carp. I need to hear what he says. One of the other guys’ll have to talk with the clerk.”
    They did a quick eyeball vote and John finally said, “Kidd’s okay. Let’s get Terry to talk to the clerk. He’s a bullshit artist.” The other two glanced at each other and Henry nodded and took a cell phone out of his pocket. “Terry, you’re going in to talk to the clerk. Park right in front where he can see your car, and don’t touch anything when you get inside. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Whatever, you make it up.”
    He hung up and nodded to John. “We’re good.”
    I said, “His room doesn’t connect to another one, does it?”
    Henry said, “Nope. None of them connect.”
    >>> TERRY took a few minutes to get organized, and then we saw his car pull in to the RayMar. We backed out of our parking space, and as soon as Terry went through the motel’s office door, we started down the block. Another car, an old Chevy, pulled into the parking lot a few doors from the end of the line of motel rooms.
    “He’s in the second room from the end,” Henry said. “Pull in right next to Bob’s car, the Chevy, and wait.”
    Henry and the other guy—I never knew his name—got out and walked over to Bob’s Chevy, and Bob got out one side, and a guy named Rote on the other.