by Greg Iles
“What are we doing out here, Quentin?” the judge asked. “This is improper as hell.”
Quentin then took a folded piece of paper from beneath the comforter on his lap. He unfolded the paper and held it out to Judge Elder. “Joe, this is a photocopy of one page taken from a ledger kept in the early 1960s by Albert Norris. You remember him, don’t you?”
“Of course. Albert used to give me jellybeans when I walked by his store as a kid. What the hell is this about, Quentin? Ancient history?”
“Just look at the page.”
Elder regarded the paper as though it might bite him. As a judge, he knew that a document could be as dangerous as a venomous snake. After leaning down and squinting in the dark, he took the page and moved closer to the streetlamp on the edge of the bluff.
“You see the names on the third line?”
Elder didn’t answer at first, but Quentin could see that his hand was shaking.
“Are you trying to blackmail me, Quentin?”
“You know better than that. It’s just something I thought you should be aware of.”
“You have the original?”
“No. There are several ledgers, but they’re not in my possession. You’re looking at a copy of the only page with those two names on it. But the rest of the story is on the following page.”
“Who has the originals?”
“I’d rather not say. He can be trusted, though.”
“I don’t know any mortal who fits that description.”
“The man who possesses those ledgers could have turned the towns on both sides of this river upside down any time during the last forty-one years, but he never has. He hasn’t exposed a single person named in them.”
“He must be a saint to fight that temptation.”
“Close to it, Joe.”
“White or black?”
“Black.”
Elder nodded. “I repeat my question. Why are you showing me this?”
“Joe . . . to be frank, I’ve sensed some bias from the bench during this trial. I’m not alone in that, but I doubt the general public perceives it. And I was puzzled by it myself, until I read this entry in that ledger.”
“What do you think it means?”
“Come on, brother. I watched you when you read those names. You weren’t surprised at all.”
Impatience tightened Elder’s expression. “What do you want, Quentin?”
“Only what every defendant is entitled to under the law. A fair trial under an impartial judge.”
“No court of appeals would say you’re not getting that. They might say you’ve got Alzheimer’s disease, but that’s not my lookout.”
Quentin just waited.
“Why are you defending Tom Cage?” Elder asked finally. “A man like that, who took advantage of a sister back in those days?”
“My brother, you need to take a couple of steps back from this case. All you see in it is your mama and yourself. Or Claude Devereux.”
“It’s the same damn situation!”
“No, it’s not. Devereux is a lying bastard who defended mobsters and Klansmen, cheated his partners, dishonored his robe when he was a district judge, and probably paid for a murder by contract. He did have charisma, though, and I imagine that’s how he convinced your mama to go with him for a while. But that’s got nothing to do with Tom Cage. Dr. Cage is one of the finest men I’ve ever known, black or white. And that’s saying something.”
Elder snorted with contempt. “From the evidence I’ve seen, Tom Cage may have broken his medical oath, dishonored his profession, and committed murder himself.”
“You haven’t seen all the evidence. I haven’t even begun my case.”
“What case? Shad Johnson’s already got your client boxed for transport to Parchman, with a red bow wrapped around him.”
“Joe, you worked for me. Do you really believe that? This trial’s only half over. And that’s why I’m here tonight. I can’t fight Shad and you both.”
Elder shook the paper in his hand. “What’s going to happen to the original of this page, Quentin?”
“I’d like to say it could just disappear. But the journals of Albert Norris belong to history. Norris was murdered by the Double Eagle group, and his murder must be solved. His killers must be punished, and publicly.”
“You’re saying those journals will be evidence in a future murder case?”
“They’ll probably have to be, Joe. They’re filled with information about the Double Eagle group. Of course, I hope your part of the story never comes up.”
“Hope ain’t much to hang a hat on.”
Quentin let him think about that for a few seconds. Then he said, “I can give you a little more than that. As far as I can see, if there were a page or two missing from Norris’s journals, that wouldn’t change the outcome of a major case. What’s a couple of pieces of paper in the sands of time?”
The judge looked off toward the river, as though he couldn’t bear to look Quentin in the eye. “Would you do that for me?”
“It’s not completely up to me, but I’ll do all I can to ensure it.”
“Who has those damned journals, Quentin?”
“I can’t tell you that. But I will tell you, the page came to me through Penn Cage.”
“Shit! This is blackmail.”
“No! It’s not. The saint who kept the ledgers secret all these years gave them to Penn Cage because he trusts Penn to do the right thing. He did that because, after watching the trial, he thinks you’re not being fair. He thinks you’re trying to convict your own father by helping Shad Johnson convict Tom Cage.”
“Shad doesn’t need any help from me. Not on this case.”
“All I want from you is impartiality, Joe. Let the jury decide this case on their own.”
“I don’t trust Cage to keep quiet. Not if his father is convicted.”
“Have a little faith in your fellow man, Joe. It’s like trusting a jury.”
Elder was about to reply when a skinny black boy of about eighteen stepped out of the shadows and approached them along the fence. He wore unkempt clothes, and his pants were hanging off his behind in the current fashion.
“He’s not out here for exercise,” Quentin said softly.
“Have a little faith,” Judge Elder said in a mocking tone. “Isn’t that what you just told me?”
The stranger stopped about three feet from the judge. “Yo, brother,” he said. “You got a couple dollars for a man in trouble?”
“Not tonight,” Elder said. “We’re talking here, and we need some privacy.”
The stranger’s head ducked and weaved as he looked back toward the road. Then a glittering knife appeared in his hand.
“I’ll give you privacy, after you give me all yo’ shit. The crip, too.”
Judge Elder stared at the man in amazement. “Boy, do you have any idea who you’re pointing that knife at?”
“A richer man than me. That jacket you’re wearing would rent my crib for six months.”
Elder straightened up and shook out his arms like a center about to defend the lane against an All-American forward. “So, you’re gonna rob a man in a wheelchair?” He looked down at Quentin, who was watching the knife warily. “Jesus wept, Quentin.”
The mugger looked back at the road again. “Hey, homes, I gots to live, too.”
“Nigga, please,” Elder snapped. “You listen up. I’m Judge Joe Elder, and if you don’t get straight back to your crib and stop hassling people, I’ll put you under the fucking jail. You hear me?”
The mugger’s eyes widened, revealing bloodshot sclera in the dim light. “Man, you crazy? Don’t you see this knife?”
“Do you see this gun?”
Elder and the mugger whipped their heads toward Quentin, who had taken a small black automatic from beneath the blanket on his lap.
“You just do what the judge told you to do,” Quentin said. “And pray he doesn’t remember your face the next time you show up in court.”
; The mugger didn’t look frightened. “You gonna shoot me, old man?”
“My little brother, I will shoot you in the balls, and after you go limping away, I’ll plug you in the ass. Now drop that knife!”
Two seconds later the knife hit the ground.
“Listen to me, boy,” Joe Elder said. “You need money? There’s a bunch of nice ladies who work hard to keep up an old cemetery on Watkins Street. One of your ancestors might be buried there. You show up there next Wednesday afternoon. I’ll pay you to cut grass and help those ladies.”
The boy stared at the judge like he was crazy.
“If you don’t show, and you ever come before me in court? Boy, you’ll need diapers the rest of your life ’cause your asshole won’t close back up after your time in jail. You feel me?”
The boy bolted into the dark.
Judge Elder leaned over, picked up the knife, then threw it off the bluff into the kudzu below. “Jesus, Quentin. What’s this world coming to, when you can’t walk through a small town without getting mugged?”
“That’s pretty rare here, actually.”
“Not in Ferriday.” He blew a long stream of air from his cheeks. “You don’t carry that piece into court, do you?”
“Not yet.”
“You’re full of shit about me showing bias in the courtroom.”
“We’ll see how it goes tomorrow.”
Elder leaned on the fence and looked out over the gleaming river. Then he bent and pulled a weed stalk from the ground and stuck it between his teeth like a farm boy.
“You know, when I was growing up in Ferriday, folks used to say ‘Thank God for Mississippi,’ just so we wouldn’t be last in everything. But I believe Concordia Parish in those days was worse than any county in Mississippi. Except maybe the Gulf Coast.”
“Carlos Marcello had his hand in both places. Between his outfit and the local rednecks, it was pretty bad, Joe.”
Elder pushed himself off the fence and squatted in front of Avery’s wheelchair. “Quentin, what kind of crazy-ass game are you playing in my courtroom?”
Quentin smiled at his old protégé. “A long one.”
“Well, you’d better get your shit together quick. Or Dr. Cage is going to spend whatever time he’s got left in one of the worst prisons in America.”
Quentin’s eyes twinkled in the dark. “O ye of little faith. You’ve got no more confidence in me than that?”
“I’ve seen you work magic, all right. But this case reminds me of that crazy motorcycle jumper back in the seventies, Evel Knievel. He kept on adding more cars to the line he had to jump. And then he tried to jump a canyon. I think you’ve set yourself up the same way. There’s a limit, Quentin, even to genius. And you’ve got to drag that jury over the canyon with you.”
“You know what I say about that?”
“What?”
“Ain’t no hill for a stepper.”
Joe Elder looked at the place where Quentin Avery’s legs should have been. “Speaking metaphorically, of course.”
Quentin raised his forefinger and shook it at his old clerk. “What did I used to tell you before we walked into a trial?”
Elder laughed heartily for the first time. “Watch and learn, Joe. Watch and learn.”
Quentin smiled. “I knew I’d taught you something.”
Chapter 47
Snake Knox stood in darkness amid the twenty-three surviving columns of the Windsor Ruins and listened to the rumble of approaching motorcycles. It sounded like at least four to him, but he kept calm and focused on the business at hand. He’d placed lookouts on the highway covering both approaches, and now that was paying off.
5 Harleys, read the text from one of the Quince twins, two quiet but eager nineteen-year-olds enlisted by Alois.
Stay on point till I clear you, Snake texted back.
He’d chosen Windsor because of its isolation and its proximity to Rodney, but also for its history. Built only four miles from the river, the mansion and its third-floor cupola had served as an observation post for Confederate forces until the Vicksburg Campaign, when Ulysses Grant took over the 2,600-acre plantation and converted the house to a Union hospital—and observation post. Snake figured if it was good enough for the Blue and the Gray, it was good enough for him.
Tonight the ornate capitals of the great Corinthian columns stood out starkly against the moonlit clouds, giving the scene a ghostly aura that appealed to his sense of the dramatic. He wondered if the Varangian Kindred would appreciate the ambiance.
Snake had parked Red Nearing’s pickup in the turnaround in front of the ruins, to give Lars and his VK boys the impression that he was trapped here, if they chose to believe that. But Alois and the Quinces had parked three ATVs in the trees on the north side of the ruins. If Snake needed to make a quick getaway, he could do it—so long as he reached the ATVs. To that end, he’d posted Alois in a nearby tree with a rifle and a night scope, while Wilma Deen waited behind one of the massive plinths that supported the forty-foot columns. Armed with a pump shotgun, Wilma could provide a hell of a lot of covering fire in the event of a hasty retreat.
As the bikes approached, Snake felt his burner phone vibrate against his leg. He’d instructed Lars not to use phones out here, so he wasn’t surprised to find it was Billy Byrd calling him back.
“You found that high yellow yet?” Snake said by way of answer.
“Not yet.”
“Then why are you bothering me?”
“Two preachers showed up at Mayor Cage’s house. Nigger preachers.”
“What preachers?”
“The Baldwins, from Clayton, Louisiana.”
Snake knew them well. Old man Baldwin had been tough as nails back in the day. He’d served in the navy during the war, and when he came home, he hadn’t planned to stand at the back of the line. When things had heated up in ’64, he’d formed the Deacons for Defense and helped arm the local black community against the Klan. Even though Snake had been his enemy, he’d respected the man for fighting instead of lying down.
“After they left,” Byrd went on, “Cage went to where Quentin Avery’s staying, on the bluff. Then Avery goes out to the bluff and meets the trial judge, Elder.”
This surprised Snake. “And?”
“And he gave Elder something. Papers, it looked like. I’m guessing he got something from the preachers.”
“What would Avery go to Elder about?”
“Are you kidding? The trial, I imagine. But that’s nigger business. I ain’t got the first idea.”
“You’re a big help, Billy.”
Byrd grunted. “You know, watching those two uppity bastards standing on the bluff together, I couldn’t help but think how easy it’d be for one man with a shotgun to do the world a favor. One blast of buckshot.”
“It ain’t 1964, Billy.”
“That’s for damn sure. It’s okay to kill a white man but not a black one? World’s upside down.”
“You do what I tell you and nothing more.”
“I know. I know.”
“Keep your eyes on the mayor. And don’t forget what I told you about tonight. Surest way to head off any surprises in court.”
The sheriff sighed and hung up.
Twenty seconds later, five headlights slashed the darkness of the dirt turnaround, and five big Harleys rolled right up to the cable that prevented vehicles from riding among the columns. Snake watched the VK dismount and take weapons from their saddlebags, fought the urge to draw his own pistol.
Lars Dempsey himself led the group. Snake could pick him out, even in the dark. Dempsey’s long blond hair, gone to gray, was pulled into a ponytail. Behind him Snake recognized Toons Teufel. No mistaking the arrogant strut. The other three looked like members of Toons’s special security unit. They walked to within five yards of Snake, their heads swiveling slowly as they scanned the footprint of the old plantation house.
“You got a lot of sack,” Toons said from Dempsey’s right shoulder. “Dragging u
s all the way out here.”
Snake said nothing. He would not speak until Lars Dempsey did. All five men wore riding leathers: chaps and jackets, and each of the jackets had VK emblazoned on the right arm.
The founder of the Varangian Kindred scratched his beard and said, “You blew up my safe.”
“The retard there hid my passport in it.”
“What if he did that on my orders?”
“Then you blew up your own safe.”
Lars sniffed and thought about this. “Why’d you split the sod farm?”
“I got tired of this fool playing with his knife. If I’d stayed any longer, I’d have cut his nose off with it.”
Toons took a step forward, but Dempsey stopped him with a raised hand.
“What do you want from us?” Lars asked. “You must have a reason for this meeting.”
“I need what I needed from you at the start. Manpower. Troops.”
“For what?”
“Are you still watching the old Eagles for me?”
“Some. Not so much, since you bugged out.”
“I need you to get back to it. ASAP.”
“Why would we do that?”
“To get what you got into business with me for in the first place.”
“You’ve been kind of slow coming across with that.”
“Let’s get something straight,” Snake said. “You ain’t a high school quarterback and I ain’t no cheerleader. We got a deal. You’re gettin’ itchy. But you’ve moved more weight over the past two months than you did in the six months before that. And I’ve taken a ton of heat off your gun trade. You’ve probably doubled your profits there, too.”
Lars said nothing, which told Snake he’d been dead-on.
“It’s not just the surveillance,” Snake said. “I need some soldiers. And not the guys trained by this clown. I need shooters. Guys who’ve been in the shit and know how to stay cool. Who can hold their fire until it’s time and won’t piss themselves when things get dicey.”
“You mouthy old fuck,” Toons said, lunging forward with a flash of steel.
“Freeze!” Lars barked.
Toons froze. “Why?” he asked, panting with rage. “We don’t need this old fool.”
“Because he’s no fool,” Lars said quietly. “Are you, Snake?”
