Keeping Quiros in sight, Lathrop brushed back his hair and put on the Nike baseball cap resting on his dash. His first law of disguise, a baseball cap was the perfect standby, as long you didn’t wear one with a team logo that might stick in anyone’s memory. Costume beards, wigs, facial prosthetics, and other materials of that sort were great tricks of the trade, but preparation was needed to use them effectively, and Lathrop had been working on the hoof.
He added the AR glasses last, plugging them into the hidden microcomputer belted around his waist.
Within minutes after Quiros left his car, Lathrop made his own exit and trailed behind him to the carousel, where the slinky blonde had been waiting for Enrique near the ticket line.
Now he watched them circle around and around, talking rapidly, as if trying to cram in whatever had to be said before the five-minute ride came to a finish. Lathrop
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was hoping he’d be able to piece together their conversation on playback using the speech-reading component of his desktop software, which employed context- sensitive logic to fill in sequential blank spots when their faces spun away from his digicam lens or the carousel’s movement blurred the video input, also compensating to some extent for the cross talk that occurred during ordinary verbal exchanges.
As the carousel whirled on, the Profiler floated a dozen possible hits, overlaying the bottom of the mug shots with their known or assumed names, ages, nationalities, and a requisite listing of offenses.
Lathrop was mildly disappointed. He’d have liked to ID the blonde on-site, but it was clear she wasn’t any of the criminal candidates that had popped into his display. Still, he was charmed to have stumbled onto this little tryst and had plenty of recorded conversation to study later.
He straightened, figuring he’d bent over his shoelace long enough. Also, the ride was grinding to a halt, and he was concerned Enrique would start in his direction after getting off. The guy might not suspect he was being shadowed, but neither was he an oblivious fool.
Lathrop was about to move on down the path when he noticed something that caused him to risk staying put another few seconds. As the gondola spun past on one of its final slow revolutions, Blondie abruptly opened her purse, brought out a smallish object, and gave it to Enrique. A box, dark and shiny, the kind Lathrop imagined they’d carry in those exclusive Rodeo Drive jewelry stores.
He watched with sharp curiosity. The quick handoff squelched any second thoughts that might have occurred
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to him about this being a lovers’ outing. It didn’t even seem especially amicable. There were no smiles. No meeting of the lips, chaste pecks on the cheeks, or air kisses. Moreover, Enrique looked reluctant to accept the box, almost nervous, stuffing it into the pocket of his sport jacket like it was red hot to the touch.
Lathrop’s chin tilted upward. His lips parted and curled. He drew in a breath. That transaction was it. Right there. The reason for the meet. And he’d captured the cherished moment on his wearable’s flash memory card.
Or had he?
Excited, Lathrop indulged his urge to confirm it.
“Exit Profiler, run video,” he said into his mike, watching the gondola pull away from him.
Another two voice commands, and the scene was replayed on his eyeglass display.
A thrill shot from his spine into his arms and fingertips. Beautiful. And to think a few seconds ago, he’d felt let down.
He supposed he could have hung around some more, drifted among the crowd until he’d observed where Qui- ros and his lady companion headed once they left the ride. But experience told him it was time to fold. And he was sure they’d be going their separate ways, at any rate.
Enrique had gotten what he came for. As had Lathrop himself.
Thinking he couldn’t be happier with his afternoon’s work, Lathrop turned from the carousel and took the walkway back toward the parking lot.
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“Three Dog Night. Jefferson Airplane. The Troggs,” Ricci read aloud, leaning over the selection tabs on the big vintage jukebox in Nimec’s poolroom. “Got to admit, Pete, you’re-”
“A wild thing?” Nimec snapped his fingers.
“Groovy,” Ricci said.
Nimec grinned.
“That’s the same model juke that was in the hall where I spent the whole summer of ’68 with my father. A Wurlitzer 2600.” He patted the machine’s fake wood- grain side panel. “Same songs, too. Three selections for a quarter, ten for fifty cents.”
Ricci looked at him.
“Must’ve been some year.”
“We were on a streak, and flush for a change. Couldn’t miss the sweet spot on a cue ball for anything,” he said. “I don’t think it would’ve mattered if we’d been trussed and blindfolded, which is how I bet some of the mugs considered dealing with us before they paid up. These were some hard, tough sons of bitches, let me tell you.”
“How come they behaved?”
“My old man was harder and tougher.”
Ricci nodded.
Nimec went around the soda bar. It was white with a red Coca-Cola bottle-cap design on the base, chrome trim along the counter’s edge, and a half-dozen white stools. Everything looked a little grubby. The chrome finish was scratched and dulled in places. There were cigarette burns on the countertop. Some crumbled and yellowed padding was pushing through a tear in the leatherette cushion of one of the stools.
“How about something to drink?” Nimec said from
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i behind the pump. “The cola’s got the right proportions Jof syrup and fizz. And I have frosty mugs. Or there’s jbeer, if you want.”
Ricci sat on one of the stools, inhaled air thick with the odor of stale cigarettes and cheap cologne.
“Better make it soda,” he said. “I start out hugging a drink, three hours later I wind up wrestling with one. Like that Bible story, when Christ wrestles with Satan (in the desert.” ? Nimec looked at him. I “Except,” he said, “Jesus, you’re not.”
Ricci gave a vague impression of amusement. “The truth shall set you free,” he said. Nimec poured two colas from the fountain, puffs of condensation dispersing from the ice-cold mugs as he .filled them and then handed one to Ricci across the countertop.
They drank in silence. Then Ricci lowered the mug from his lips with an ahhh of appreciation.
“Good,” he said. “Not too fizzy, not too syrupy.” Nimec smiled.
Still holding the mug by the handle, Ricci made a scratch in the thin rime of ice on its outer curvature with his thumbnail.
“You going to tell me why I was invited here?” Nimec gave him a nod. “Your RDT proposal’s been rubber-stamped on a trial basis,” he said. “I figured you’d be pleased. And I wanted to give you my congratulations in person rather than over the phone.” Ricci sat there looking at him for a long moment. “Thanks, Pete,” he said. “And not just for the well wishes.” Nimec shook his head. “I don’t deserve any credit for
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this. The idea was yours. You’re the one who sold Gord on it. Sold everybody on it. Some of us just took longer than others to realize they’d been persuaded.”
“And maybe wouldn’t have at all if you didn’t push.”
Nimec shrugged and said nothing.
“The ragin’ Cajun among the enlightened?” Ricci asked after a moment.
“To be honest, he’s not gung ho. But he’s willing to suspend his opposition and give things a fair chance.”
“Didn’t think fairness was one of his capacities.”
Nimec put down his mug and leaned slightly forward over the counter.
“About Thibodeau,” he said. “He’s a little headstrong, maybe going through some difficult personal times, I don’t know. But he’s also a good man, stand up to the bone.”
“And?”
“Your comment on the Pomona about the circumstances that got him shot was a low blow. He may have deserved it from you at the time, and I’m not going to be critical. But between us, his actions in Brazil weren’t careless or foolhardy. They were heroic, expedient, and they saved a lot of lives, very nearly at the cost of his own. I would hope you could acknowledge it.”
Ricci was briefly quiet.
“Say I do,” he said. “Say I even respect him for it. You asking me to admit that to anyone but you?”
Nimec shook his head.
“I know when I’m already running ahead,” he said.
They sat drinking their Cokes in the deliberate shabbiness of a pool parlor generated from thirty-five-year- old memories and impressions
“So when can I start putting together the new sec106
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tion?” Ricci said after a while. “Soliciting volunteers for tryouts, that sort of thing?”
Nimec glanced at his watch.
“It’s three o’clock on the button,” he said. “You okay with about five after?”