Chaingang

“You'd better pray not. You got the makings of a three-hundred-acre processing lab in Waterton, Missouri. Don't say anything yet. Just get this down. Ecoworld, they call it. A construction project supposedly funded by a D.C.-area or New York-based company called World Ecosphere, Inc. Guy named Joseph Fisher. Probably bullshit front guy. Major money behind it. There's all kind of PC to bring in the Feds, a CLET and a HAMR unit—the whole works. Armed guards with H&Ks and silenced Steyrs, missing people, dead people—they—"

“Whoa. Whoa. Hold it! Take it easy. Slow down. What's this about missing people?"

Royce forced himself to slow down and run it down—every last nasty tidbit that he could remember, from the setup with Sam Perkins to the rumored serial killer.

“What about Happy and his biker pukes?” Royce asked.

“All under control."

“You got Papa then?"

“Nailed and mailed, man. You did great."

“What the hell was he doing with a scumball like Happy? I could never see how this punk got a rating."

“Ruiz? He and the old man did a bit together in the joint. Happy did some chump time in ATC and Booneville, little felony-assault priors and crap—coupla voluntaries that got pled down and whatnot, and he fell on a technicality and ended up in the bucket again. Just a puke, but him and Papa became big buds, and the man set the little weenie up with some bikers. He's nothing. He's shit."

“But have you busted him yet? He's gonna be jazzed to get me, man. What's the story?"

“I'll get right back to you on that, but I gotta go get on this. We'll send a team in—you say it's that righteous. You're gonna be out from under the brown blanket.” The daddy rabbit broke the connection.

“But...” Yeah. That's what it was gonna be, all right. Butt!

26

NEAR WHITETAIL POND

They drove back the long way around, so as not to have to get near the Waterworks Road area, or the more-traveled Cotton Avenue. Royce went down the county gravel to Farm-to-Market, and cut through Bill Wise's place to Market Road, driving all the way out past Slabtown on North Market. He was fighting serious seizures of fear. They'd written him off.

He tried a dozen times to begin telling Mary, who was visibly confused and frightened.

“Are you gonna talk to me?” she finally asked.

“Yeah,” he said, forcing a smile. “I'm gonna talk to you.” They passed a pizza joint and he slowed down. “You hungry?"

“No."

He pulled up and stopped in front of a small packaged goods store. “I'll be right back.” She didn't say anything. He went in and bought some chilled wine and snack foods. He had to have something in there to help soak up the acid that was threatening to eat its way through the lining of his stomach.

“Okay,” he said with a sigh, getting back in the vehicle and starting the motor, putting the sack behind the seat and pulling out onto the blacktop. “I'll start at the beginning. It's a long story."

“I've got lots of time, Royce,” she said. It was all he could do not to say, I hope so."

“You know what it's like here. Not exactly your cosmopolitan big city. Two Jews and one black guy, and they don't like to admit it. Nothing to do but get high and gossip. I hated this place then. Remember?” He meant when they broke up. She remembered only too well.

“There wasn't an ounce of sophistication or excitement here. You were the only thing good about it, and you wanted to be married so desperately, it was your entire focus. You were in love with the idea of settling down. It was like a—” he edited himself and didn't say the words bear trap “—thing I couldn't come to terms with. I thought we'd get stuck in the marriage, like so many others had, and we'd both come to hate each other.” He looked over. She was listening, without any expression.

“Right or wrong, that's the way I felt. But all the marriage talk had me ripe for a relationship exactly like the one we had. You made me want constancy, a stable thing with a sexy lady, all the trappings of marriage without the reality.” Without the trap. “And the next girl I met hit me between the eyes.

“She was just like me. It's funny now. Actually a laugh riot. I really thought this beautiful dope fiend had chosen me to fall for because I was such a stone hunk, see. I really fucking loved myself back then.” Mary laughed. “I was a goddamn fool.

“We got onto the fastest lane there is—really heavy into junk. Then she let me find out who she was. She was an undercover narc. I just couldn't handle it. I went deeper over the dope edge. That was when I was given my option. I could do hard time—they had me on ‘possession with intent,’ which carried a stiff mandatory rap, real serious time in the can—or I could help her make this case."