He smiled. “Fine. I’ll shut up. Just one last thing. I repeat: You. Are. So. Screwed. You can kill me, you can kill The Major, but Kerra was with me last night. She knows all about Wilcox’s pledge, signed by people who do dirty deeds for him. She’ll make certain that everybody on it is exposed and made to answer for his crimes.”
Hank laughed out loud. “Trapper, Trapper, Trapper. Always trying to hoodwink me. But it won’t work this time, because I didn’t sign that ridiculous pledge.” He adopted a Count Dracula reverberation. “Down into the bank vault. Down long dark corridors to the inner chamber.”
Returning to his normal voice, he said, “I was put through the wringer just like Dad described to you last night. Wilcox smoothly reminded me how much he had donated to the tabernacle building fund. With a single stroke of his Mont Blanc, he had saved my fledgling TV ministry. The bill was due, he said. Words to that effect. Sign on the dotted line.
“But, I said, ‘Not so fast, Thomas.’ See, the previous Sunday, I had shared the good news of his generosity from the pulpit. Hallelujah! All saints be praised!” He laughed again. “What was he going to do? Take the money back? Welsh on an offering made to God Almighty?”
“What did he want from you? Absolution?”
“Very little, actually. He was growing increasingly concerned that Dad would crack. He was getting older, more sentimental, maudlin when he drank too much, which was all the time. Wilcox wanted me to do to him what Dad had been doing to The Major.”
“Spying.”
The Major’s succinct remark surprised Trapper. Sensing that, The Major looked up at him. “Hank told me about your visit with Glenn last night, his confessions.”
“It wasn’t an easy or pleasant hour for me.”
“I believe that, John.”
The Major looked dejected and resigned, but even more worrisome to Trapper was that he seemed to be physically diminishing with every passing moment. He wanted to hear everything Hank had to say about his adversarial relationship with Wilcox, but he needed to hurry him along.
“Okay, so you refused to sign Wilcox’s pledge. He took umbrage with your audacity, got huffy, issued some threats. ‘You don’t have any idea who you’re up against.’ That kind of thing. But Wilcox had good game.”
“You must admit,” Hank said, “his method worked for decades.”
“Centuries. It’s Machiavellian. Not original but effective, and you took your cue. You showed him. You killed his daughter.”
“Not I, of course.”
“Right. We concluded that you’re too chicken-livered. Who’d you send to do it?”
“I had shown the path of righteousness to a former drug user.”
“Cost of redemption: one murder.”
Hank’s smile turned angelic. “God works in mysterious ways.”
“So does the devil.” Trapper’s smile was more like the latter’s. “Remember when I said you were screwed and didn’t even know it? Well, you didn’t sign Wilcox’s pledge, so the feds don’t have your signature. But they do have—because I handed it over to them—a list Wilcox conveniently typed and alphabetized. Now, take a wild guess whose name he added?”
Wilcox had done no such thing. Hank’s name hadn’t been on the roster, but maybe Hank would believe it was. It was very like something Wilcox would have done out of sheer spite.
“Sorry, Hank,” Trapper said with feigned regret and took a step toward him.
Hank jabbed the rifle forward. “You’re lying.”
“You can kill me, but the FBI still has those names, and Kerra can testify as to how I came by them. She can attest to everything.”
“Then I’m doubly glad she beat it up here to cover The Major’s release from the hospital.”
Trapper’s stomach plunged. “What?”
“Oh, I see you’re taken aback,” he mocked. “You didn’t know that.” Then, “Kerra?”
She appeared in the doorway between the living room and the hall. Jenks’s left hand was wrapped around her biceps. In his right was a revolver, the caliber of which you didn’t argue with.
Kerra’s lips were almost white with fear, but she was putting up a brave front. “Gracie gave me your message. I tried to reach you.”
“The phone ran out of juice.”
“They warned The Major and me that if we signaled you that I was here, we would all die.”
“I think that’s the plan anyway.” Trapper gave her only a half smile, but he hoped she realized that it was brimming with apology and regret.
“Jenks, bring her over here,” Hank said. Jenks propelled her forward, and when she was within reach, Hank took her arm and jerked her in front of him, facing Trapper. “Take hold of the rifle.”
“Go to hell,” she said and elbowed him in the stomach.
Acting instinctively, Trapper lurched forward.
Hank yelled, “Jenks! Shoot him!”
“Wait!” Trapper froze and raised his hands higher. “Leave Kerra alone, you can do with me whatever.”
Hank, breathing with exertion—excitement?—said, “Well, that’s real generous of you, Trapper, but you’re in no position to dictate terms, seeing as how I have all the advantages here. Tell Kerra to take hold of the rifle.”
Trapper glanced at Jenks, who had moved to stand at The Major’s side. Any of them made an easy target for his revolver. Coming back to Kerra, he bobbed his head. “Do as he says.”
Eyes locked on Trapper’s, she allowed Hank to place her hands where he wanted them and secured them with his own. Her left supported the barrel, her right was wrapped around the trigger guard. Hank’s finger remained crooked around the trigger itself.
Looking at Trapper from over Kerra’s shoulder, Hank chuckled. “It was the darnedest stroke of luck. I was about to leave the hospital with The Major tucked into my van when she drove into the parking lot. I invited her to ride along with us and told her she could call her crew to meet us out here. Except—”
“Except that when I tried to make the call,” Kerra said, “he backhanded me and took my phone.”
Trapper settled an icy gaze on Hank. “I’m going to have to kill you after all.” He glanced over his shoulder and spotted his holster on the floor two yards away. He knew a bullet was chambered, but how to get the pistol out of the holster…
Reading his thoughts, Jenks said, “I don’t advise it.”
“Better heed him, Trapper,” Hank said. “Being a lawman, he’s got lots of tricks up his sleeve.”
“Tricks like planting evidence to frame a white-trash parole violator for attempted murder?”
“That’s the least of Jenks’s talents,” Hank said. “He can make people disappear without a trace.”
“The Pit.”
“Your bodies will never be discovered.”
“Like that of his partner Sunday night?”
“Petey Moss,” Hank said.
“Who was the third?” Kerra asked.
“Wasn’t a third.” That from Jenks.
“Yes, there was.” Trapper directed Kerra’s attention to The Major.
She looked down at him, her lips parting with bewilderment. Wearily, he nodded. “He’s right.”