WALT GARRITY PULLED Drew Elliott’s nondescript pickup truck off Highway 61 and drove west into downtown Baton Rouge, where the state capitol towered above the Mississippi River. Colonel Mackiever had chosen the city’s riverfront casino hotel as their meeting place. Walt wasn’t excited by this; any casino-related business was bound to have security cameras. With the APB out, he worried that his face might be picked up by the NSA’s facial recognition software, which could lead to a lightning-quick arrest. Surely Mackiever understood that risk, yet Walt gauged the probability that his old friend was setting a trap for him at less than 1 percent. Still … that didn’t mean Forrest Knox wasn’t watching his boss’s movements. Walt decided not to stay in the hotel any longer than he had to, and to keep his derringer cocked in his pocket both going in and coming out.
The seven stories of the Sheraton hotel squatted behind the downtown levee, linked by a skywalk to the riverside casino, the Belle of Baton Rouge. Walt pulled his hat low over his face, gave Drew’s pickup keys to a valet, told him to park it close, then walked into a large, glass-ceilinged lobby that looked like a bastard child of the Crystal Palace, which had burned down in London when Walt was a boy. When he asked the desk clerk to connect him to “Mr. Griffith’s” room, the clerk asked him to wait. Walt kept his head down to avoid being recorded by the elevated cameras behind the desk, and he didn’t raise it when the clerk took an envelope from a slot behind him and handed it across the counter. Walt walked a couple of steps away from the desk, opened the envelope with one hand, and read the faxed handwritten message inside:
Ranger Captain,
I had to take an unexpected trip to New Orleans regarding our mutual problem. Tough times, partner. They’re coming after me, too. I hope to be back tonight, ASAP. Please check into a room under the name Bill McDonald and wait as long as you can. It won’t be time wasted, and you’ll be safe here. No bushwhackers on this ride.
Captain M.
Walt didn’t like the idea of waiting, but he didn’t have any doubt that this message was from Griffith Mackiever. For one thing, he’d signed his old Texas Ranger rank, when in fact he was a colonel of the Louisiana State Police. For another, Mackiever had instructed Walt to check in under the name of one of the most respected Rangers ever to wear the badge. It was Captain Bill McDonald who’d said, “No man in the wrong can stand up against a fellow that’s in the right and keeps on a-comin’.” In later years, Walt had heard more educated men hold forth on the “moral advantage,” but no one had ever put the idea quite as succinctly as Cap’n Bill.
Checking into a hotel and waiting like a lazy duck on a glassy pond didn’t strike Walt as the smartest of options, and Mackiever’s mention of being assailed himself was worrisome. If Forrest Knox knew Mackiever was onto him, he might decide that a good offense was the best defense and strike preemptively. Given how quickly Trooper Dunn had gone for Tom by the river last night, Knox might already have gone over to the offensive.
With an ache of presentiment in his chest, Walt followed his friend’s instructions about the room, then walked to the elevator and waited for the door to close. He thought of Tom and Melba, waiting for him ninety miles upriver. He hoped they hadn’t let the isolation of the lake house lull them into a false sense of security. He hoped they were being as careful as he was. Not one moment while he was in the lobby had Walt taken his finger off the trigger of his derringer.
CHAPTER 87
TOM AND MELBA sat on bar stools at Drew’s counter, finishing some eggs Melba had scrambled. They’d watched television for a while, but nothing held their interest, and Drew’s satellite offered no local news. Melba’s eyes betrayed exhaustion, but she’d brewed some coffee to stay awake.
“Don’t just sit there brooding,” she said. “You might as well talk about it. The time will pass faster.”
Tom wasn’t so sure. But after a while, he said, “I’ve got two sons, Mel. One is trying to save me, the other to destroy me. There must be a deep truth in there somewhere.”
His nurse kept her eyes on her plate. “Don’t be too sure. This world is hard. Always has been, always will be, till Judgment comes.”
Tom marveled at the certainty of her faith. Melba never proselytized, but she had an adamantine faith in God, and in the teachings of Jesus.
“Judgment,” he said. “That’s an ominous word.”
She looked up, her deep eyes holding his. “Not just for you. I’ve got my own stains on the inside, that no one but God knows about. We do the best we can, Doc. That’s all we can do. Though it don’t hurt to kneel in prayer now and then. You could have done a little more of that over the years. Wouldn’t have hurt you none.”
“I suppose not,” Tom said, though he disagreed. If you didn’t believe in a God who heard or answered prayers, then wasn’t prayer a kind of secular heresy? A failure of character—or at least of nerve? “Melba, I want you to go home after you finish that coffee.”
She looked up sharply. “Have you lost your mind? Captain Garrity left me here to watch over you, and I mean to do it. There’s no way I’m going to stand beside your casket and tell Mrs. Peggy I left you here alone to die.”
“What exactly will you do if I have a coronary? The nearest ambulance is thirty minutes away. All you’d be doing by calling 911 is opening yourself to criminal charges for aiding and abetting a fugitive.”
Melba looked indignant. “I’m a nurse, aren’t I? I can do compressions till the paramedics get here. And you’ve got adrenaline in your overnight bag. I checked it when you were in the bathroom.”
Tom smiled and laid his hand on her wrist. “And if a bunch of old klukkers find us?”
Melba drew back her hand and folded her arms across her chest. “I reckon I can shoot a pistol as well as most men. And it wouldn’t trouble me much to shoot a Klansman, I can tell you.”
Tom laughed. “I believe you. But it’s not worth your life, Mel. You’ve got grandchildren, and they need you.”
“So do you, old man!”
“Yes. But I made the choices that put me here. You didn’t.”
Melba’s eyes glistened. “I’m here by choice, too.”