Right as Rain

'What did you find out?'

'Just got the pictures back last night.' Strange thought of the packet of photographs Janine had left on his desk and something stirred in his head.

'You go

'Got a friend working on it now.'

'We better get out of here,' said Qui

'I was thinkin' the same thing. Those rednecks, when they leave, most likely they'll be drivin' out of here the same way they came.'

'I'd go back over to North Capitol and park it there.'

Strange ignitioned the Chevy and said, 'Right.'

Qui

'Me and Juana,' said Qui

'What's that?' said Strange. He had been thinking of Janine and Lionel.

'I said, me and Juana are through.'

'That's too bad, man.'

'She told me I was too intense.'

'Imagine her thinkin' that.' Strange shifted his position behind the wheel. 'That's a wrong move, lettin' a together young lady like that get away from you. It have anything to do with your color difference?'

'It did.' Qui

'It sounds good. You're puttin' on a good face, but you don't see too many streetcars rollin' down the street lookin' like Juana. And you don't find too many with her heart, either.'

'I know it.' Qui

'Go ahead.'

'When are you go

'Marry her? Shit, Terry, I'm long past thinkin' about marrying anybody.' Strange capped his bottle and looked down at his lap. 'Anyway, she deserves better than me. But thanks for the advice, hear?'

'Just tryin' to help.'

'So you got a father. You know, that's one of the first personal things you've told me in the time I've known you. He alive?'

'My parents are both dead,' said Qui

'It's just my mom now.'

'No brothers or sisters?'

'I had a brother. He's been gone thirty-one years.'

'That was about the time you left the force, right?'

'That's right,' said Strange, and he didn't say anything after that.

'Here they come,' said Qui

'Pa and Son of Pa Kettle.'

'You got a full tank?'

'Yeah.'

'They don't exactly look like they're from around here,' said Qui

They drove out of the city to the Beltway, then hit 270 north. The Taurus, a nondescript vehicle to begin with, had the same basic body style as half the other cars on the road. The driver of the Taurus did the speed limit, and Strange stayed ten car lengths back, unconcerned that they would be burned. The heavy traffic was their cover.

'Don't you have one of those homing devices in this thing?' said Qui

'Yeah,' said Strange. 'Let me just go ahead and bring up their vehicle on the Batscreen.'

'I figured, you know, that you got everything else. All those things you hang on your belt line, and those night-vision goggles you got in that bag back there. You get those out of a cereal box or somethin'?'

'Don't go makin' fun of my NVDs, man.'

'What're we go

'Wherever they're goin', that's where we're go

'Because some junkie snitch told you?'

'You go with what you got.'

The traffic lessened as cars got off the highway at the exurban exits of Gaithersburg, Germantown, and Darnestown, the i

'We lose 'em?' said Qui

'I don't think so,' said Strange. They were on a long curve that ran along open country and then dense forest. When they came out of the curve and hit a straightaway, the Taurus was up ahead. The driver had parked it at a gate of some kind on a gravel path cutting a break in the woods.

'Drive past 'em,' said Qui

'I look like Da

'Drive past 'em,' said Qui

'What the fuck did you think I was go