Anthill_a novel

37
SIX MONTHS LATER, Raff was at the verdant shore of Lake Nokobee, kneeling as though in prayer, photographing a small lavender wildflower. All around him rose the evidences of the Nokobee spring. Wild azaleas bloomed in scarlet explosions along the lakeshore. The last chill had departed the soil, and the ground flora was renewing itself in a blanket of light green shoots and leaves.
His victory on behalf of the reserve was as complete as he could have hoped. Back at Sunderland Associates everyone agreed that the Nokobee plan could now be initiated. Architectural plans were spread on executive desks at Sunderland Associates. Conferences were under way with contractors in several locations around the city and one in Fort Walton Beach. Advanced marketing was under way, and inquiries had begun to arrive. All of the Nokobee tract beyond the lakeside lots, nearly ninety percent of the whole, would be left untouched. Water filtration would protect the lake itself from pollution. The two alligators resident on the west shore would be invited to move, with assistance, to the east shore.
Raff had proved correct in one important respect. The Sunderland plan had attracted a lot of publicity, all of it favorable so far. A three-part series by Bill Robbins of the Mobile News Register was entitled "The Best of Two Worlds." An Atlanta Constitution editorial proclaimed the Nokobee compromise "a paradigm for Southern development and wildland conservation." Bets were laid that Robbins's series would make the following year's short list for the Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting. Sunderland Associates itself was rumored to be in line for a Green Leaf Award from The Nature Conservancy. Raff had been invited to speak to civic groups and churches around Mobile and Pensacola.
Still, when he could find time while visiting his parents, Raff came to Nokobee alone, to putter around the lakeside strip before it was developed. He walked back and forth along the already existing trail that led from Dead Owl Cove through to the marsh around the outflow creek. Inch by inch he studied the spaces marked out with the surveyors' red-tipped stakes. He took photographs of the vegetation, wrote notes, and collected snippets of vegetation for identification. By the time the chain saws and bulldozers arrived he would have a detailed biodiversity map of the original lakeshore habitat. It would be entered in the University of South Alabama archives, in the city of Mobile, for study by future generations of naturalists. If he could not have this part of Nokobee preserved, at least he would have it remembered.
In late afternoon, as the shadows of the pines lengthened and the tangled lakeside vegetation grew dark, Raff walked from the trailhead back to his car. As he came close he was surprised to see three men waiting there for him. He recognized the Reverend Wayne LeBow, and his assistant Bo Rainey. Ohhh, boy, he thought. They were accompanied by a younger man, in his late teens, fashionably stubble-cheeked and wearing dark glasses and a broad-brimmed hat. LeBow was in his business clothes, but this time tieless. Rainey and the cowboy wore chinos and white, short-sleeved shirts pulled outside over their belts. The three stood between him and his car, looking at him without speaking.
Raff was alarmed at the sight of them, then slid close to panic. He thought of turning back and simply losing himself in the woods. But that will look foolish, he thought. Who knows? Maybe they're here to declare peace, or raise some legitimate issue. Or just argue some more. But why three? Who's the kid with the cowboy hat?
As he came up to them, he said to LeBow, "Hello, it's Reverend LeBow, isn't it? Can I help you?"
"We need to have a talk with you," LeBow replied.
Raff didn't like the abruptness in the other man's voice. "I'd like to," he said, "but I'm late for an appointment. We can get together later, if you'd like. Just give me a call." He started to pass on around them.
"No, we want to talk to you right now," LeBow said.
"Look, I can't do that right now. By all means we can get together soon, at some future time convenient to you, Reverend. I'll take you to lunch. I owe you a beer anyhow."
"No, right now," LeBow replied.
Rainey casually pulled back the loose fold in his shirt, giving Raff a glimpse of a snub-nosed pistol stuck in his waistband.
Jesus Christ, Raff thought, I've got to play along with this, buy time, work out their grievance. "Okay, go ahead, if it's that urgent."
"We want to show you something first," LeBow said with a jerk of his head in the direction of the trailhead.
Show me what? Raff thought. They're going to threaten me, try to force me to do something about the plans for Nokobee. I wish I'd made that report to the police.
Bunched together, they all walked silently to the trailhead, then on to the westside trail, LeBow and Raff leading, with Rainey and Cowboy Hat close behind. LeBow showed no sign of slowing down.
"Where are we going? What do you want to show me?" Raff asked.
"You'll see," LeBow said.
"Okay, where are we going?" Raff repeated.
"To the river," LeBow answered.
Oh, my God, it's worse, Raff thought. They're not even afraid to let me know what they want. They're going to kill me and throw me in the river. Make me just disappear. They're crazy.
Raff's mind was flooded with possible escape plans. He had to act now. Rainey and probably Cowboy Hat too have guns, he decided, but LeBow's unarmed. Got to find some way to break away and get into cover before they can pull the guns and shoot. That's the only possible way. Do it fast, do it before we get much further.
Raff, with his intimate knowledge of Nokobee, immediately pictured where an escape might be possible. They were still close to the lake, in shaded woodland. As they approached the outflow creek there would come into view off the west side of the trail a dome--a dense hardwood copse growing around a vernal pool. Behind it, on the other side, as Raff pictured it, there was a small clearing, and behind that lay dense but navigable mixed hardwood-pine forest. If he could just dodge behind the dome and make it on into thick woods without getting shot, he had a chance.
When they reached the right place on the trail, Raff stopped abruptly and said, "Listen, I've got to take a leak real bad. It'll just take a second." He kept his voice as level as possible, trying to pretend he was unaware of his predicament.
LeBow, playing the humanitarian to a condemned man, said, "Okay, but just take a few steps and don't try anything. Sunky," he said to Cowboy Hat, "you stay right behind him, and if he tries to run, shoot him."
At that Raff walked off the trail, one careful stiff-legged step at a time, pulling close to the dome. Sunky walked behind him in near-lockstep. Raff kept moving until he was in low undergrowth of the dome perimeter and about twenty feet off the trail. In his mind, he plotted each step of his coming sprint around the dome.
Sunky pushed him in the back roughly. "That's far enough," he said.
Raff stood still for a moment, with his back to Sunky, and then moved his arms as though unzipping his pants. After a few seconds, he turned his upper body partly around to glance at Sunky, who was only arm's length away, and saw that the young man had not yet pulled his gun. On the trail, Rainey was talking softly to LeBow and he also still had his gun under his shirt.
Raff started to turn all the way around and began to speak.
"Stop, Sunky, there's a snake--"
At that instant, having turned enough to gain purchase, he pushed Sunky as hard as he could. The young gunman fell backward, landing hard on the ground, yelling, his arms flung out, his hat sailing off to the side. As Sunky hit the ground, Raff was already at the edge of the dome and sprinting around it. Rainey's response was immediate. Within five seconds he had his gun out and up and started firing. Raff had just passed out of sight before the first shot. Rainey tried to calculate Raff's progress through the vegetation and fired several more shots through the densely shaded foliage. It works only rarely, hunting for deer running through forest cover, and this time also the tactic failed.
Raff continued on his way across the little clearing and into the brush ahead. He disappeared just as his pursuers rounded the dome. Rainey and Sunky, who was now recovered and in pursuit, held their fire for a clear shot, didn't get it, and, with LeBow following, plunged in after him.
At this point Raff had less than a fifty-yard lead. Only the thick leafy vegetation saved him from being gunned down in the first minute or two. He knew he could lengthen the distance, however, because he was familiar with the wild terrain of Nokobee and they were not. He knew the location of openings in the undergrowth in this part of the tract and paths around the tangled ruins of fallen trees. By the time he broke out of the hardwood undergrowth and into the more open spaces of the pine savanna, he was nearly a hundred yards ahead, widening the gap and still on a nearly straight course. When his pursuers broke out into the open themselves, they could catch only glimpses of him.
Soon afterward Raff noticed that the men were beginning to fan out while shouting back and forth to one another. At first he thought they had lost him and were trying to locate him. Then he realized the awful truth. The trio knew where he was, at least approximately. They, not he, had the upper hand. LeBow and his men were almost certainly experienced hunters. They were not yelling just to communicate. They were quartering the terrain, while driving their prey forward in a confined space of their choosing. They were forcing him toward the riverbank as if they were hunting down a wild pig. If he continued on a straight course to the bank, they would then converge toward each other, closing the net.
Raff, running hard, desperately sought a way to break out of the trap. He thought about reaching the river first and diving in, but he was a poor swimmer and if he didn't drown, his head would be an easy target for pistol fire from the bank.
Then a plan came to him. From the voices of his pursuers, Raff knew that LeBow was on his left. He was fairly sure LeBow was unarmed, and the minister was older than the others and hadn't looked in very good shape to Raff. If Raff cut diagonally to the left and sprinted even just a little bit faster, he might beat LeBow to the Chicobee and then cut to the left along the riverbank ahead of the whole lot of them. If he didn't make it in time, he might still fight his way past LeBow and continue down the river before the others arrived on the scene.
He angled left and within three minutes, zigzagging through the last of the savanna and into the second-growth cypress of the floodplain, arrived, sooner than he had guessed, at the riverbank. He had made his decision just in time. LeBow was almost there himself, only thirty yards away and coming on hard. Raff passed in front, and the pastor fell in closely behind him, shouting to the others to come his way.
Raff was now hemmed in by the river to his right and unfamiliar mud flats to his left. He thought of turning back into the floodplain forest and trying to lose the pursuers there, but he knew they would track him and start hemming him in again. He would also risk being blocked by one of the many sloughs running parallel to the river. If that happened he would end up within easy pistol fire, and it would be over.
Raff's one hope lay in staying next to the riverbank. If only he could find some other people, there or out on the water, LeBow and his fellow assassins might turn back for fear their chase would be witnessed. But this reprieve was only a slim possibility. This stretch of riverbank, far from the nearest road or landing, was one of the least visited on all the Chicobee.
What was the first house along this stretch of the Chicobee, other than a fisherman's shack? All he could think of was Frogman, the ogre of Chicobee. His house was perhaps three miles away. If Raff could run fast enough that far, he had a chance to survive. It might be small. Frogman was ferociously paranoid, and maybe clinically insane. But now Raff put all such thoughts out of his mind--and ran.
Somewhere along the way he realized that he had heard nothing from the three pursuers since the chase along the riverbank began. Had they given up? Fallen too far behind to catch him? They had to run the same obstacle course. Maybe he could stop just a moment to catch his breath. So he paused, partly concealed behind a cypress stump. And quickly realized that was a mistake. Two pistol shots--close!--rang out, and Raff stumbled onward.
The run was far from straight; it was a zigzagging steeplechase. Raff frequently had to slosh through backwater sloughs or work around them, struggling to pull his feet free from the gluelike mud. He was forced to crawl over cypress buttresses and fallen logs; he no longer had the strength to vault these obstacles and increase his lead.
But at last he made it to Frogman's house. Thinking that to pause even a moment meant a bullet in the back, he simply rushed up the path from the rustic landing and through the front door. Frogman must have heard Raff's approach and was standing in the entrance to the back room. He was about the same as Raff remembered him, except that now his beard was long and grizzled. He wore denim cotton pants cut off at the knee, and a soiled white T-shirt emblazoned with the five interlacing rings of the Olympic games and the faded words ATLANTA 1996. Now he waited for Raff, stock-still.
"Please," gasped Raff, "can you help me? Some men are right behind me, chasing me, and they have guns and they're going to kill me."
Frogman studied him with calm detachment. He pointed to a closet to one side of the short hallway. Through the open closet door Raff could see it was half filled with tools, rags, and fishing gear.
"Git in there, close the door, and keep quiet."
In less than two minutes, Rainey and Sunky walked through the door, breathing hard, and Rainey said to Frogman, "We're police officers. We're chasing a fugitive that just ran in here. Our chief'll be along in just a minute."
Frogman made no reply.
They all stood there quietly, and three minutes later Wayne LeBow entered, soaked in sweat and gasping for breath.
"Chief," Rainey said to the minister, "I just explained to the gentleman here that we are police in pursuit of a fugitive."
"That's right," LeBow wheezed without missing a beat. "State police. The man we're after robbed a filling station and shot the attendant. He ran this way. You seen him? Can you help us?"
"You got credentials?" Frogman asked.
"Left them in the car upriver. We were in a big hurry. Can you help us?" LeBow saw Rainey nodding to him. They knew Raff was in the house.
"Sure can," Frogman said. He walked back to the hallway and picked a pump-action shotgun off a rack there. Then he turned in the direction of the closet and said in a loud voice, "Come on out here, you little pissant."
Raff didn't respond, and Frogman commanded, this time bellowing, "Come on out now, or I'll put a load of shot through that door you're hiding behind."
Raff emerged, his hands raised partly in surrender. He was terrified, and only half conscious from exhaustion. He was in shock and so tired he could scarcely grasp the scene before him.
Frogman was facing him, the pump-action shotgun leveled at his chest. LeBow and the two others stood close behind him. Rainey and Sunky had pushed their revolvers back under their belts and smoothed their shirts. Their clothes, like Raff's, were mud-splattered and torn in places.
Frogman turned his head slightly and said, "One of you git on down and see if anybody's on the river, and call up and let us know."
Rainey looked at Sunky and hooked his thumb in the direction of the river. The younger man, now hatless, headed out the door.
A minute later, Sunky called up, "All's clear."
At that, Frogman turned his shotgun and shot Bo Rainey in the chest. The gunman's body jackknifed and he landed backward, with his legs straight and his arms flung outward. The explosion deafened Raff. Rainey's body bucked once on the floor as a mist of blood and bone fragments settled around him.
Wayne LeBow started to turn away, but Frogman pumped the gun and fired again, hitting him in midbody on the left side, spinning him around. A ruptured loop of intestine, torn free, landed in a splash of blood at his side. LeBow fell on his face.
Sunky started running up the trail to the house at the first shot, with his pistol pulled out. "Hey! Hey! Hey! What's happenin'? What's happenin'?"
These were the last words of his life. He flew through the front door and instantly flew out again, backward, as a load of double-ought shot caught him full in the chest. His pistol was thrown into the air and clattered to the floor of the little porch.
Raff was frozen in place, his hands still partly raised in surrender. Was he next? Frogman turned and looked at him.
"Sons of bitches, come in here carrying guns and lying to me. Wantin' to kill me, take my land, and trash it and all."
He paused to look over the carnage he had wrought, and said, "I'm not going to kill you, boy, but if I ever see you again, I'll kill you. You think I don't remember you from when you came a long time ago? And if you ever say anything to anybody about what just happened here, and I mean anybody, I'm gonna hunt you down and kill you and kill your family too. You understand me?"
Raff could think of nothing to say. So he just murmured, "Yessir, Yes, sir!"
His hands were trembling. Sweat soaked his shirt and dripped off the tip of his nose. He was desperately thirsty. He noticed that Frogman had begun to calmly pick his front teeth with a fingernail. Time for Raff to leave. Now. But he felt such a relief flooding through him, and such gratitude, that he had to say more. He had to do more. Perversely, he wanted to be some sort of a friend to this savage man who had saved his life.
He glanced briefly down at the bodies of Rainey and LeBow, blown open, ribs exposed, blood pooling from torn arteries and veins, the ripped intestine from LeBow trailing out like a grotesque appendage. He said tremulously, "What are you going to do if somebody comes looking for these guys?"
"Nobody's goin' to come looking 'round here," Frogman said quietly. "It weren't in their mind to come here, was it, so nobody but you and me knows. But even if they got friends who do know, they ain't gonna tell, 'cause they'll git taken in for bein' part of the whole thing." He walked back and remounted the shotgun.
"But the bodies could turn up if you just put them in the river."
"Oh, these boys are goin' in the river, all right, but there ain't goin' to be any bodies to find. I'm gonna cut them in little pieces and feed them to Old Ben. He's a thousand pounds if he's an ounce, and he'll handle most of it, bones and all, no trouble at all. The guts and what's left over of the meat'll make a fine meal for the big catfish down there on the riverbottom. The only thing anybody's going to pick up downriver is gator shit.
"Now git the hell out of here and jes' remember what I told you. I can kill you as quick as I did these shitheads, now or anytime and anywhere, and I will truly never lose a minute's sleep over it."
Raff immediately turned, picked his way around the remains of Wayne, Bo, and Sunky, aware of the odor of fresh blood, coming up at him like wet rusted iron, and of newly voided feces--the smell of a slaughterhouse. Tottering down to the river's edge, he knew he could get a shotgun blast in the back at any moment. But he thought at least his life would end suddenly and without lingering pain. It didn't matter, just didn't matter anymore. He was too tired and dulled by shock to care. For the first time, though, some feeling returned to his body.
At the edge of the Chicobee River, Raff turned and plodded back the way he had run just minutes before. His mind, beginning to revive, churned into an insane mix of fear, relief, and horrific images of the three butchered men. And he couldn't escape the image of Old Ben feeding the way alligators do, lying there in shallow water, head up, gulping down chunks of meat and bone thrown to him piece by piece from the bank by Frogman.
Stumbling often, he finally reached the creek flowing out from Lake Nokobee. The glossy dark foliage of the waterside shrubs welcomed him back to the world of the living. He knelt to its clear water, splashing some on his face, and drank heavily from his cupped hands.
He then headed upstream through familiar terrain. In the waning sunlight, a zebra swallowtail flew in front of him, black-striped wings flashing, its long tails streaming behind. To his surprise he saw it with perfect clarity, every detail of its body and wings growing in size and intensifying in pattern. They forced their way into his consciousness, like the images of a twilight dream, just before merciful sleep descends.
He walked on, and as he did, he could think only about butterflies. He began to search for more individuals, more species. Everything else was pushed from his mind. Butterflies were all that remained in the Nokobee woodland. Their beauty shut out the horror. Butterflies were the only thing that mattered to him now.
Obsessed with the beautiful insects, he walked the Nokobee trail and passed from a descent toward death back into life. He saw a dogface sulphur settle on a twig. He stopped and watched two little blues fluttering around each other over flowers in a clearing. He went on, and soon came to the woodland dome that had saved his life. A wood nymph flew with jerky wing flaps into the deepening shade. He stood there awhile, his head beginning to clear.
He noticed Sunky's cowboy hat still sitting atop the bush where it had fallen. He picked it off and carried it with him. He would dispose of it later, and wipe out the trail of his would-be killers. He had to protect Frogman.
Close to the trailhead a giant swallowtail soared overhead in brown and yellow magnificence and on down the path, then turned into a grove of trees at the lake's edge. It was going home to spend the night on some high arboreal perch. Hey, hello, Papilio cresphontes, he murmured, addressing it by its scientific name to show proper respect. Hey, hello, hello, he continued, growing light-headed and feeling a tickle of silliness. I'm going home too. We're both alive, we're well and safe. He settled into his car, took a deep breath, and turned the key. He drove out and onto the road toward Clayville.
He arrived at his parents' house as the last light was fading, stopping short at the near corner of the front yard, and sat quietly for a while. He asked himself, Why have I come here? Then he remembered. He had to see them with his own eyes, to be sure they were safe.
Raff stayed rooted to the car seat, and his mind began to clear some more. He looked about him as the darkness closed in. A bat skittered over the top of the house and out of sight among the tree canopies beyond. A lantern fly, flashing its mating call in points of light, flew across the backyard: dot-dot-dot-dash-dot-dot...He focused on its semaphore code and asked himself, Did I get that right, dot-dot-dot-dash-dot-dot-dash? How comforting it would be to return this way to the safe and predictable world of nature. He recognized the coming of delusion again, and with effort he pulled himself together.
He could just go up to the front door, walk into the living room, and embrace his parents. He felt an intense desire to do that. But he could not chance it. He knew that he looked like someone who had just crawled away from an automobile accident. That would demand an explanation, and he dared not give it. There was no need to burden Ainesley and Marcia with the horror he had just experienced. And worse: he feared that Frogman might somehow learn he had told someone and come raging out of the swamp to commit another mass murder. Raff would be an evil spirit spreading a fatal curse.
So he sat there quietly, trying to catch a glimpse of his parents through the front windshield. After a few more minutes a light began to flicker in the living room window. It meant that his father had settled in his favorite chair to watch the early evening news. Ainesley, he reflected, wasn't running around much these days. He'd suffered a mild heart attack the previous winter and was now on medication for hypertension and angina. He still went in mornings to run the hardware store, but hunting and fishing trips and evenings in the usual honky-tonk saloons had been severely curtailed. So had his consumption of cigarettes. Marcia had tried everything short of divorce proceedings to stop him from smoking altogether, but so far without success.
Raff especially yearned to see his mother now, alive and healthy. Ever since Cyrus had bestowed his gift of a college education on Raff a decade earlier, Marcia had become more content with her own existence. She had joined social activities at the local First Methodist Church, and she looked forward more than ever, with growing self-confidence, to family gatherings at Marybelle. The identity she had craved had been granted. She was more than Mrs. Cody now. She was also the Mobile Semmes who lived up in Clayville to be with her husband.
Tonight the light was on in the kitchen. She could be fixing supper about now. And once, then a second time, Raff caught a glimpse of her head in the window as she came up to the sink.
Then he turned the key and drove on through Clayville, down the main street, which was already emptied of traffic for the evening, and took the alternate, less-traveled two-lane highway to Mobile. Even on the road he wanted to be alone and hidden. Frogman and the LeBowites must not know where he was. Stopping at a liquor store just south of Atmore, he bought a quart of Johnnie Walker Gold Label, the most expensive whiskey on the shelves. Down the road he pulled into the Southern Hospitality Motel, which he remembered having passed on earlier trips. It looked quiet and cheap this evening, and its orange neon sign flashed VACANCY.
Clutching his bottle of Johnnie Walker, Raff signed in for a room. The clerk thought, He's drunk and lucky to get off the road. In his room Raff double-locked the door, stripped off his clothes, showered, and threw himself naked onto the queen-sized bed. He turned on the television and adjusted the sound to barely audible. He paid no attention to it. He just wanted the feel of normal people around him. The first thing that came on was news of suicide bombers in Pakistan. Medics were carrying broken bodies through the streets of Islamabad. He winced, and surfed through other channels until he picked up a talk show with people smiling and laughing. He uncapped the whiskey and began to drink from the bottle. He stared at the wall, trying to think about nothing at all. His physical exhaustion made that easy. Soon he was sinking into a stupor. He managed to screw the cap back on the bottle and drop it on the bed before he fell asleep.
Raff awoke the next morning just after eleven. He had a cannonading headache, nausea, and a desperate thirst. He rubbed water on his face, downed a glass of water, dressed, and walked over to the motel office. He got aspirin from the morning clerk, walked across the room to a machine advertising FREE COFFEE, and washed the aspirin down.
Three cups later, still hurting, Raff checked out of the Southern Hospitality and drove on to Mobile. Arriving there, fear-stricken to near paralysis, he didn't go to his apartment. Instead, he parked his car at the Bledsoe Street lot. From there he walked to the Sunderland Office Building and took the elevator to the company headquarters. He went straight to his office, waving away Sarah Beth as she tried to ask him a question, ignoring nearby employees staring at his disheveled appearance.
Raff shut the door and sat at his desk with his eyes closed, listening to the beat of his heart as it was translated into thumps of pain in his head. He focused on the phenomenon. Thump, thump, thump...Alive, alive, alive...He wondered why he was there in his office. Then he remembered it was to have people around him. Frogman and the LeBowites would have to go through all of them first if either came here to get him.
At last anger came to him, forcing aside some of his fear and despair, and he began to think more rationally. What about his nemesis at Sunderland Associates, Rick Sturtevant? He had said the same thing as Wayne LeBow: Jesus came to save people, not bugs and snakes. Was Sturtevant in collusion with the LeBowites, and would he betray Raff? Probably not. More likely the remark was just a common piece of evangelical bombast.
Raff struggled for release from the unpleasant emotions. Finally, he took an oath. I'm twenty-eight now. And I say, let it happen, whatever comes. I'm going to find somebody and get married, stop catting around. Have a family. Be normal. Let somebody else go to war. I just don't f*cking care anymore.
Just then the phone rang. It was Bill Robbins.
"How you doing, buddy?"
"Well, I'm alive," Raff croaked.
"Where you been? I tried to reach you all day yesterday. I just wanted to congratulate you on the good news that the Nokobee plan is now finalized. It's thanks to you, of course, that Sunderland came through all the way. We're going to run another special on it this Sunday. I'm not exaggerating, Raff. There are a lot of people grateful for all you've done."
"Thank you," Raff said. The effort triggered another bombardment in his head, and his nausea began to return. He didn't want to talk anymore, but he couldn't just hang up on his best friend. "I really appreciate it. We'll talk about it all later."
"Raff?" Robbins said. "You okay? You sound half dead. I know it's been hard. You've been through a lot. Maybe you ought to take a good long rest. You deserve it."
"It's been rough, all right, Bill, very rough. Rougher than you'll ever know."
Raff in fact would never tell Bill Robbins what had happened. That, he felt keenly, would be a terrible thing to do to his best friend. The dilemma would be an especially painful burden for a journalist and public figure. If Robbins had the story but remained silent, he would be more than just holding on to a story. He would be denying justice and likely risking prosecution if the truth finally came out. But if he shared the information with anyone else, he would risk the lives of Raff and his family. Frogman or the vengeful LeBowites were out there waiting. Who would come looking first? It didn't matter. Bill Robbins would never know.
In time, however, he knew he would tell his Uncle Fred Norville, his lifelong companion at Nokobee and adviser at college. In so many ways the two shared the same pleasures and dreams. Uncle Fred was closer to the inner thoughts of Raphael Semmes Cody than were his parents. He needed such a confidant, and in a few months, perhaps years, he would tell the story. Who could say when?