The Quiet Game pc-1

by Greg Iles

  “Del Payton’s death may not have been a race murder. Tell me something, Livy. What would you do if you found out your father had ordered the burning of my parents’ house?”

  “That’s insane.”

  “Just pretend it was true. What would you do?”

  “Well, obviously, I’d be the first one to call the police.”

  Maybe she didn’t even know she was lying. “I need to go, Livy.”

  “Can we see each other tonight?”

  I couldn’t believe she wanted to be within ten miles of me after the newspaper story. “Not tonight.”

  “Tomorrow, then?”

  Images from the day before filled my mind: Livy floating naked in the pool, kissing me passionately as we sank slowly through the green water, her thigh pressing against me. “We’d better play it by ear. There’s a lot going on right now.”

  “That’s all the more reason to stay close. Just remember what I said about my father. I meant it.”

  “I will.”

  I hung up and dialed Ike’s cell phone before thoughts of Livy could overwhelm me. I wanted to call her back and say, “Pick me up in twenty minutes.” But the past had finally caught up with us, and Ike the Spike was growling in my ear.

  “Meet me where I wanted to last night,” he said, meaning the warehouse in the industrial park by the river. “One hour.”

  “What about?”

  “What about? About whatever the fuck it is you think you’re doing, man. This town’s going crazy. One hour.”

  “I’ll be there.”

  “Damn straight you will.”

  ***

  I’ve been sweating in the dark warehouse for twenty minutes, breathing the stink of fertilizer and wondering what could be keeping Ike. It’s fully dark now, and the spotlight of a tugboat pushing barges upriver arcs through the night like a Hollywood klieg light, searching for sandbars and unexpected traffic. A slight breeze off the Mississippi penetrates the twenty-foot-wide warehouse door, where I stand watching the dark line of the levee, waiting for the headlights of Ike’s cruiser.

  I am unarmed but not unprotected. Daniel Kelly is covering me. After asking four times if I really trust Ike Ransom, Kelly parked his rental car behind the warehouse and told me to forget he was there. I parked the BMW out front so that Ike would see it when he drove up.

  What I take for the sound of another tugboat suddenly resolves into a car engine. A set of headlights descends the levee, pulls into the parking lot of the warehouse, and stops beside my car.

  It’s Ike’s cruiser.

  He gets out, his brown uniform looking black under the single security light, and walks toward the warehouse door. Halfway there he stops, turns, and watches the levee for nearly a minute. Maybe he senses Kelly’s presence. Whatever the reason, he resumes walking toward me. When he’s ten yards away, I step into the light, holding both hands in plain view.

  Ike draws his pistol faster than I would have believed possible, recognizing me just as the barrel lines up with my chest. He quickens his step and shoves me back into the shadows.

  “You ought to know better than that,” he mutters.

  “Why are you so jumpy?”

  The whites of his eyes flick left and right in the darkness. “You ain’t jumpy? After somebody burned down your house and took your kid?”

  “Who set that fire, Ike? Who took my daughter? Ray Presley?”

  “Could have been.” He holsters his pistol. “But I don’t know for sure. Not yet.”

  “Why are we here?”

  “So you can tell me what the hell you think you’re doing in the paper. You crazy? Making statements like that?”

  “You’re the one who told me Marston was guilty.”

  “Jesus. Is that the way you did it in Houston? Shoutin’ shit in the papers before you got any proof?”

  “Take it easy. Everything’s under control.”

  “Under control? Shooting your mouth off about local law enforcement coming forward?”

  “I’m pursuing this the way I think best. As far as the newspaper story goes, I wanted Marston to sue me, and the story accomplished that.”

  “You what?”

  “I wanted the right to request everything from personal papers to phone records from Marston under the rules of discovery.”

  A gleam of recognition. “That lawsuit means you can ask for Marston’s personal shit? And get it?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Okay… maybe you ain’t crazy. You get the judge’s legal files, you’re liable to find all kinds of illegal shit.”

  “Marston’s legal files are protected under client confidentiality rules. But everything else is fair game.”

  “How long you got to answer his suit? At least thirty days, right? That should give you plenty of time for fishing.”

  “I’m going to file my answer tomorrow.”

  His mouth drops open. “Why you gonna do that?”

  “By proceeding aggressively, I force Marston to conclude that I either have evidence in my possession, or that I know people willing to come forward and testify against him.”

  “But you don’t.”

  “Don’t be so sure. I’m building a case.”

  Ike’s eyes narrow to slits. “What you talking about? What kind of case? You holding back on me?”

  “What if I am? You’ve been holding back on me from the start.”

  He raises a warning finger but says nothing, and instead begins a staring contest. His bloodshot eyes are so jerky that he can’t focus in one direction long, and he soon looks away.

  “What are you taking, Ike? Speed? What?”

  “I take me a drink now and then. So what? Have you talked to Stone again?”

  “Yes, but he’s just like you. Scared to tell what he knows.”

  “I told you, man, I know Marston done it, but I don’t know why.”

  “How do you know, Ike? How can you know he did it if you don’t know why?”

  He grunts in the dark. “I know what I know. Why’d you slam Portman in the paper? You go pissing off the head of the FBI, you’re asking for some serious payback.”

  “I did it to protect myself and my family. That newspaper story threw a lot of light on Portman. On me too. It makes it harder for him to retaliate.”

  “Yeah? I heard somebody tried to poison Ray Presley. Who the hell you think did that?”

  “I figured Marston ordered it. You think it was Portman?”

  “Sure as hell wasn’t the tooth fairy.” Ike scrapes the tip of a boot along the cement floor of the warehouse. “Stone say anything about surveillance?”

  “Why?”

  “There’s somebody watching me.”

  A shiver runs along my forearms. “How long?”

  “I picked him up today, but he could have been there longer.”

  “Stone’s under FBI surveillance himself. He thinks Caitlin and I are too. Phones, the works. But why would the FBI be watching you?”

  “Maybe ’cause of your damn newspaper article.”

  “I didn’t mention your name. Why did you warn me away from the FBI, Ike? Have you tried to talk to them about the Payton case before?”

  “Say what?” He takes out a cigarette and taps it against his palm but does not light it. “Why don’t you focus on some shit that’ll get you somewhere? Like Marston’s papers. There’s bound to be something in there to prosecute him on. He’s had his hands in all kinds of shit for years. I mean, who cares what he goes down for, ’long as he rots in Parchman.”

  “I care. To get out from under this slander charge, I’ve got to prove Marston guilty of murder. Not campaign finance fraud or any other bullshit. Murder. Do you comprehend that?”

  Instead of answering, Ike flips open his lighter, ignites it, and puts the flame to the tip of his cigarette. As the orange glow illuminates his face, something incomprehensible happens. The flame reaches toward me as though sucked by a wind, and Ike slams his shoulder into my chest, punching the air
out of my lungs and knocking me to the cement floor.

  As he lands on top of me, gunfire erupts outside the warehouse and echoes through the metal building. Two shots, I think. Then a third, the sound quick and flat.

  “Get off,” I grunt, unable to draw breath with Ike on top of me.

  He rolls off and up into a kneeling position, his pistol pointed through the warehouse door.

  “What happened?” I ask.

  “There’s two guns out there. One silenced.”

  “I’ve got a man out there, Ike. Maybe one of the guns was his.”

  He whips his head around. “What man?”

  “A private security guy. From Houston.”

  He peers into the darkness the way he must have done in Vietnam, with absolute concentration. “I can’t see shit,” he hisses. “But some lardass ex-cop ain’t gonna help us one bit, I know that.”

  “He’s not what you think.”

  After a minute of silence, he works his way toward the edge of the door.

  “What do you see?”

  “Shut the fuck up.”

  A boom like a cannon shot shatters the silence, reverberating through the warehouse for at least four seconds. Ike hits the floor with his pistol still aimed at the door.

  “That’s a deer gun,” he says. “Stay down. We got serious shit going down out there, and it ain’t all got to do with us.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Ain’t but one bullet come into this warehouse.”

  As I lie facedown on the floor, breathing accumulated dust and oil, the seconds drag past. There are no more shots, but the instinctual voice that warned me during the fire that killed Ruby is not comforted by this fact. It knows that silence is the cloak of the approaching enemy.

  “How long we gonna lie here?” I whisper.

  “Till I tell you to get up.”

  Another five minutes pass.

  “Penn Cage!” yells a man from beyond the warehouse door. “It’s Kelly! Daniel Kelly.”

  “That your guy?” asks Ike.

  “It’s Kelly,” shouts the voice again. “Come out! And bring your friend. We need some law out here.”

  I scramble to my feet and trot to the edge of the door.

  Daniel Kelly stands forty feet away, an MP-5 submachine gun slung over his shoulder.

  “What happened?” I ask, walking into the parking lot.

  “Somebody tried to whack you. Or the cop. I couldn’t tell which.”

  Ike steps into the light, his pistol aimed at Kelly. “Who shot who out here?”

  Kelly holds up his hands. “Take it easy, Deputy. I’m a friendly. I was out here covering your meeting when I saw a muzzle flash from over there.” He points at the levee, a dark silhouette fifty yards away. “It was a silenced rifle, and it was firing subsonic rounds, because I didn’t hear the bullet crack. I started running toward the flash, whipping out a spotter scope as I ran, trying to get within range and see at the same time. The shooter was firing from the prone position, already setting up for his second shot. I yelled just as he pulled the trigger, and as he swung around to deal with me, I double-tapped him on the run.”

  “Is he dead?” Ike asks.

  “Definitely. I put one through his head to be sure, and it’s a good thing, because he was wearing a vest.”

  “What about that deer gun I heard?”

  Kelly points into the darkness south of the warehouse. “The deer gun belonged to the guy over there. Who is also dead. The shooter on the levee took him out. That was the first muzzle flash I saw. He fired across my line of sight, at a right angle to you guys. The other guy must have fired off that deer slug as he was dying. Pure reflex, probably.”

  “I don’t get it,” I say. “Why would they shoot at each other? A falling-out among hit men?”

  Kelly shakes his head. “I don’t think these guys were together. They’re dressed different, and their equipment’s different. I think the guy with the deer gun was just in the way.”

  “Who knew you were coming to this meeting?” Ike asks.

  “My father and Kelly. That’s it.”

  “What about you?” Kelly asks Ike.

  “Nobody knows where I’m at. How did these guys get so close if you were covering the meeting?”

  Kelly scratches the side of his nose, as though to emphasize his calmness. “First of all, they’re not that close. Second, the curve of the levee blocked my line of sight to the guy with the deer gun, but not his line to you. Third, the sniper on the levee followed you in. He probably drove with his lights off and parked well back, then moved up on foot.” Kelly pauses, his cool blue eyes level with Ike’s. “And fourth, if I was in with those guys, you’d be bagged and tagged right now.”

  Ike snorts and turns toward the levee. “Show me the dead guys.”

  Kelly unslings his MP-5 and starts jogging toward the levee. We follow him across the lot, trying to stay with him as he pounds up the spongy grass on the side of the levee. The odors of cow manure and bush-hogged grass weight the humid air. At the crest, Kelly points at a black shape lying at the edge of the gravel road that runs atop the levee.

  “No wallet,” he says. “No ID at all. Car’s clean too. A rental.”

  “That’s risky,” Ike remarks. “He gets stopped at random without ID, he’s gonna get run in.”

  “Unless he’s willing to do the cop.”

  Ike walks to the corpse, bends over, and takes a long look. “Never seen him. Take a look, Cage.”

  I walk over and glance at the dead sniper. He’s dressed from head to toe in black, and looks like he stepped off a film set. His face is pale and placid in the dark, as though he were shot while sleeping. A dead face can be difficult to identify, so I give it long enough to be sure.

  “I don’t know him.”

  “Here’s his weapon.” Kelly holds out a long, bolt-action rifle to Ike. “Rank-Pullin starlight scope. Fourth-generation passive amplification. Expensive toy.”

  “Guy’s definitely out of town,” Ike declares. “Nobody around here uses shit like this. Caliber looks awful small.”

  “It’s a special twenty-two magnum. Chambers subsonic rounds. An assassin’s gun.”

  “Christ,” I whisper. “Where’s the other guy?”

  Kelly points into the darkness south of the warehouse, then starts down the slope.

  The second corpse is lying facedown in a thicket of weeds, dressed in jeans and a plaid flannel shirt. There’s a red bandanna knotted around its head.

  Ike bends down and pulls a rifle from the dead hand. “An old Remington thirty-aught-six. Seen better days too.”

  Kelly says, “The shooter on the levee probably saw him moving up to get a shot. Poor bastard didn’t have a chance.”

  Ike puts both hands under the corpse and rolls it over. Below the dead man’s left eye is a small black hole. Small but obviously fatal.

  “I’ve seen a hundred shitkickers just like him,” says Ike. “But I don’t know this one.”

  As I stare, the slack features suddenly coalesce into a coherent whole, and a feverish heat shoots through me. The dead man is a nightmare made flesh, a physical echo of the most terrifying night of my life.

  “I know him,” I say, grabbing Ike’s arm.

  “Who is he?”

  “His name’s Hanratty. I convicted his brother of capital murder. He was just executed.”

  “I’ll be damned. That Aryan Brotherhood bastard?”

  “Right. I also shot his other brother four years ago.”

  “No shit,” says Kelly, with respect mingled with surprise.

  “This one was the last.” The fever heat has disappeared, leaving a chill in its wake. “The youngest.”

  Ike kicks the corpse’s leg. “No more boom-boom for this Aryan papasan.”

  He kneels and starts going through the dead man’s pockets, quickly turning up a wallet. “Hanratty, Clovis Dee,” he says, reading the driver’s license.

  “Brother of Arthur Lee,” I sa
y absurdly.

  “And white people make fun of African names,” Ike mutters, getting to his feet. “ ’Least we know what happened now. This shitkicker was out for revenge, and he picked the wrong night to try it. He was crowding that ninja assassin up on the levee, and he paid for it. The question is, who sent the assassin?”

  “Portman?” I suggest. “The hardware looked pretty sophisticated.”

  “John Portman would definitely have access to people like that,” Kelly says quietly. “Retired Bureau. Agency. Former CT operators.” He looks at Ike. “In any case, I hope you appreciate this enough to take care of any problems that might arise.”

  “Don’t sweat it,” Ike replies. “We’re in the county here. Me and the sheriff understand each other. Although three killings in one day is big-time trouble for this town.”

  “The district attorney could be a problem,” I tell them, thinking of Austin Mackey.

  “Fuck that tightass,” Ike mutters. “We got three witnesses telling it one way, dead guys got nobody. Mackey got no choice.”

  “I was thinking of Kelly’s submachine gun. It’s illegal.”

  Kelly smiles and draws a pistol from his holster.

  “What you gonna do with that?” Ike asks, dropping his hand to his own gun.

  Kelly fires three quick rounds into the night sky, then holsters the pistol. “Browning Hi-Power,” he says with a smile. “Chambers the same nine-millimeter cartridge as the MP-5. Very convenient, as long as they don’t do a ballistics analysis.”

  Ike nods as if noting this for future use. “Well, let’s get this over with. Let me call the sheriff.”

  He starts back toward the warehouse, but I take his arm and stop him. “Who sent the sniper, Ike? Who’s trying to kill me?”

  He looks back, his face indignant. “How you know he was shooting at you?”

  He pulls his arm free and walks on, but I stay where I am, breathing the cooler air blowing off the river. The stars are bright here, the water close. A few minutes ago a silent bullet passed within inches of my face. But I am still alive. And the last Hanratty brother is finally dead. My daughter is a lot safer than she was before Daniel Kelly did something not many men could have done.

  “Thanks, Kelly,” I say softly.

  He gives me a self-deprecating smile. “Just doing my job, boss.”