“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 us 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.”