“That he’ll testify against Snake Knox. Thinking about it is one thing. Doing it is another. Now, go sit down.”
As I crab-walk back to my seat, an FBI agent commandeers a seat next to an older man who looks like he might be one of the more obscure Double Eagles. The young man being displaced argues in a muted voice, but the agent makes it clear that the guy is leaving his chair, one way or another. The old man beside the agent watches this like an airline passenger watching a stranger being thrown off a plane.
“Who the hell is the guy with the oxygen mask?” Rusty whispers. “Jesse James’s long-lost grandson?”
“Close. He’s a Double Eagle. One of the first bunch.”
Rusty suddenly realizes that I must have had something to do with this. “Jesus, Penn. Quentin’s about to make history.”
“Let’s just hope he gets Dad off. I’ll settle for that.”
“Look at this shit, buddy.”
Four very tense FBI agents have taken up stations along the walls of the courtroom, one at the back door, and another beside the witness stand. Their weapons aren’t showing, but no one has any doubt that they’re armed.
Glancing up and behind me to the balcony, I see Serenity leaning forward, against the rail. When she sees me looking up at her, she makes a fist and gives it a subtle pump of triumph.
As I turn back toward the bar, Quentin rolls up to the lectern and says, “Mr. Devine, are you able to remove your mask for a few minutes?”
Devine looks reluctant, but after taking two deep breaths, he slides the clear mask to one side.
“Thank you, sir. I’ll try to be brief.”
Devine blinks his watery blue eyes but says nothing.
“Where do you live, Mr. Devine?”
“Concordia Parish. Across the river. All my life.”
“Did you know a man named Frank Knox?”
“Yessir. Grew up with him.”
“How old are you, Mr. Devine?”
“Seventy-nine years old. One year younger than Frank would be if he was alive today. I was just behind him in grade school, when we wasn’t in the cotton fields.”
“Are you aware that Frank Knox was once a member of the Ku Klux Klan?”
“He was for a little while. I was in there with him. The White Knights, not the UKA. That’s United Klans of America.”
“Did Frank Knox leave the Klan?
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Just a second.” Devine slides the mask back over his face and takes a couple of greedy breaths.
Lord, is he milking this act . . .
“Frank thought the Klan was too soft,” he continues. “Both the White Knights and the UKA was et’ up with federal informants, and they was shying away from using violence. Frank believed in direct action.”
“What did he do about that?”
“He formed his own group.”
“Did that group have a name?”
“Yes, sir. The Double Eagle group, he called it.”
“And were you a member of that group, Mr. Devine?”
“Yessir, I was.”
The silence in the courtroom is absolute. Most natives of the surrounding counties know that a confession like this can still bring swift death to the man who makes it.
“For how long?”
“Well, technically, I’m still a member. It’s a ‘once in, never out’ kind of deal.”
“I see. And why have you come here today?”
“Because of Dr. Cage. I know he’s being tried for murder, and I couldn’t sit by and watch him go to jail without telling some things I know. I don’t want to betray my brothers, ’specially the ones I fought with during the war. But I’ve lived long enough to see that we were wrong about some things. I don’t have much time left till I stand before the Lord, so I want to do right by a man that I know did good while he could, even if it costs me dear.”
“What might it cost you, Mr. Devine?”
The old man swallows hard, then speaks softly. “Well . . . according to the bylaws, by revealing anything about what we done back then, I forfeit my life. My family’s, too. That’s why we’re going into the witness protection program, at least until certain folks who are still active aren’t a threat no more.”
This time the hum of voices rises until Judge Elder warns the crowd.
“Still active,” Quentin echoes, glancing at the jury box. “I see. Are any of those folks in this room with us?”
“Could be,” Devine says cryptically.
“But you won’t say?”
“Not just yet, if you don’t mind. I’m not right in my heart about that yet.”
Quentin looks out over the audience, and like him I see people sitting next to elderly men wondering if they might be shoulder to shoulder with members of the Double Eagle group.
“Mr. Devine,” Quentin says, turning back to his witness, “before we get into the specifics of what you came to say, do you have any proof that you actually belonged to this notorious group, the Double Eagles?”
The watery eyes blink several times. “Yes, sir, I do.”
“What do you have?”
“Got my gold piece.”
“Will you explain what you mean by that?”
Once again Devine goes through the breathing ritual with the mask. His breaths seem to be getting shallower.
At length, he says, “Frank wanted us all to carry some sign of membership. For us original guys it was a twenty-dollar gold piece, minted in the year of our birth. For the younger men, it was the 1964 JFK half-dollar, which the government minted after Kennedy was assassinated. They’d stopped making the gold pieces in the 1930s, but that’s where Frank took the name, the Double Eagles. I didn’t know why he wanted us to carry them, since we all knew each other, and since it might put us at risk from the FBI. But after a while, I understood. If you showed that coin around to a white man—even a cop—he’d do damned near anything you told him to. And if you showed it to a black man, he’d wet his pants or run for the woods. As for the FBI, I think Frank halfway wanted them to know who we were. In his mind, we was at war with the Bureau.”
Quentin nods slowly, giving the jury time to process the details. “I see. Well, Mr. Devine, would you show us your gold piece? I don’t doubt your word, but I think the jury might benefit by seeing something so historic firsthand.”
Will Devine takes a couple more theatrically labored breaths, then fishes in his shirt pocket and tugs out a dark leather cord with a dull flash of gold at the end of it. He stretches the cord between his fingers and holds it out so that the heavy gold coin is suspended between them. The gold piece gleams under the courtroom lights, and to me it exudes a palpable malice, as though someone had taken an SS badge from his pocket and admitted to wearing it in action.
As the old man’s hands start to shake, Quentin says, “You can put it away, Mr. Devine.”
As Devine does this, Quentin says, “Let’s talk about Viola Turner. Did you know her before she left Natchez in 1968?”