Tattlers wasn’t a bad idea. If he could catch a cab, Decker figured he’d be there around three-thirty—after the lunch trade but before the dinner hour. If he were patient and charming, maybe he could slip a few bucks to one of the girls for an interview. Not that they’d admit dealing, but things would come out if he were clever enough. And, if nothing else, it would eat up the time. Merrin had told him to check with him in a couple of hours. If he made it back to Quinton around five, perhaps the chief would have one of the boys waiting for him. Maybe both of the boys.

Or maybe neither.

Because there was something about Merrin that bothered Decker. Actually, there was a whole lot about Merrin that irked him, but specifically that one off-the-cuff comment—an obvious blooper: “If your dick needs attention with the wife out of town, go on over to Tattlers and tell them that Virgil Merrin sent you.”

If your dick needs attention with the wife out of town…

Now how had Merrin known that Rina had gone?

It was that kind of throwaway remark that made Decker stand up and pay attention, glancing over his shoulder, checking behind his back. It was that kind of wisecrack that made him wish he had a gun.

Cabs weren’t readily available in small towns: They had to be ordered. As Decker walked through the park, umbrella over his head, he found a phone booth under a pavilion and placed the call to the local dispatcher. Twenty minutes later, a taxi came by. Decker shook out the umbrella and slid inside the back. The interior was damp and slightly ripe, but the seats were whole and held workable seat belts. The windshield defogger was going full blast, stale air keeping the front window clear. Decker strapped in and told the driver the address. The cabbie—a thin young Caucasian with shorn hair, a pierced eyebrow, and a tattooed neck—turned around, his eyes dull and confused.

“Problem?” Decker asked him.

“It’s gonna cost about forty bucks.”

“That’s all right.”

“Okay, then.”

The driver pulled out onto the road, twisting through the rain-slicked streets of the main shopping district. Water was pouring off the awnings, rushing down the curbsides into the storm drains. Not a soul on the sidewalks, everything gray and deserted. Within minutes, Quinton was a dot in the distance. The cab was creeping down a two-lane highway sided by woodland foliage—heaping piles of naked brush, dripping pines and firs, and copses of leafless trees. Wipers, going full speed, were throwing water off the windshield as fast as the rain was dousing it. Decker felt his eyes closing, only to be yanked open at the sound of the cabbie’s voice.

“You going shopping or somethin’?”

“No. Why?”

“The address is a mall. I figured you was goin’ shopping.”

“No.”

A few moments passed.

“Tattlers?” the driver suggested.