The Quiet Game

Resealing the pistol in the bag, I slide it into my trouser pocket and toss the case containing the money onto the sofa. Presley tugs it onto his lap, unsnaps it, and counts the packets with methodical care. As the blonde waits, she glances over her shoulder at me, her eyes vaguely accusatory. Presley finally snaps the case shut, drops it on the floor, leans back on the sofa, and extends his right wrist toward the blonde woman, dorsal side up.

"Time for my poison," he says, the corners of his mouth turned up with black humor.

The girl removes a heparin-lock catheter from its packaging, swabs Presley's wrist with Betadine, and pops it through the skin in the time it would take most lab techs to locate a vein. As she tears off some white tape and fixes the catheter in place, Presley leans up and slaps her on the rump with the familiarity of a lover. The blonde does not complain or make any move to stop him. She doesn't even look embarrassed.

"You'd best get going, sonny," he says. "Crystal's gonna take the edge off the nausea for me."

The girl half turns to me, a resentful gleam in her eye. The top three buttons of her work shirt are unbuttoned, revealing the clasp of a black bra beneath it. She's at least twenty years Presley's junior-probably thirty-and for some reason this offends me. My Puritan morals, I suppose. I'm not one to deny a dying man what pleasure he can get, but something about this arrangement seems wrong. The woman doesn't strike me as a hooker, but Presley is paying her in some way. Probably not much either. When you're poor, a little money looks like a lot. Or maybe he's not paying her. Maybe she's here because she wants to be here-or needs to be. That bothers me even more.

"I didn't know nurses could administer chemotherapy at home."

Presley laughs darkly. "This is my Mexican cocktail. They UPS it up here from Tijuana. My New Orleans cancer doc says it'll kill me, but I've outlived that bastard's prediction by a year already."

Bootleg chemotherapy. Is that what's keeping him alive? Or is it just brute redneck stubbornness?

"They cut out my damn prostate," he mutters, "but I made 'em leave the nerves in. I can still go like a Brahma bull."

The blonde sits on the floor at his feet, waiting for me to leave.

"Just remember something, Ray. You've got all you're going to get from this particular well."

"Nice doing business with you, son. Let me give you a piece of advice before you go."

"What's that?"

"Leave Del Payton in the ground. You start messing with business that old-especially nigger-business, it makes a lot of people nervous."

"I figured that out already."

"You're a smart boy, ain't you?"

The blonde checks Presley's IV line for bubbles, then leans back against his legs.

I walk to the door, but something makes me turn. "Let me ask you something, Ray. How did Judge Marston get involved in Payton's murder?"

Presley goes as still as a snake poised to strike, his eyes locked on mine. "Maybe you ain't so smart after all."

"There's a lot of guys on death row who think different."

I shut the door, leaving him to his bootleg chemo and his blonde. My stomach is fluttering like the wings of a hummingbird, but the Smith amp; Wesson is a hard bulge in my left front pocket. I have the gun. / have the gun. Seventy-five thousand dollars is a small price to pay to have a spike removed from your heart.

CHAPTER 14

As soon as I hit the highway, I dial my father's office and wait for him to come to the phone.

"Dr. Cage," he says finally.

"It's me."

"What happened?"

"I have the package."

A long exhalation. An expression of relief I can only guess at. He's been waiting with the same anxiety his patients suffer through when awaiting a call from him about test results. "Jesus," he breathes. "Son, you don't know-"

"Forget it, Dad. It's all over. We'll talk tonight, okay?"

"I can't believe it."

"Believe it. It's a new world. I'll see you tonight."

I punch off and zoom south toward Natchez, profoundly aware of the gun in my pocket. I feel like a character from Poe, the symbol of guilt attached to my body and screaming for atonement. But there's no danger. Ray Presley is happy with his seventy-five grand. He isn't calling anybody about that gun. Not today, anyway. With every mile I put between myself and his trailer, the burden of my father's anxiety falls away, and my mind returns to its own selfish concerns.