“Sandra says yeah. She’s going to call me when he leaves.”
“Goddamn it. I’d like to go take care of that fucker now, before anybody else gets into it. We should’ve silenced him a month after they diagnosed him. Would have been a mercy.”
Sonny gritted his teeth and tried to sound diplomatic. “You know that’s not gonna fly. It’s been a big enough day already.”
“I know … I know. All right, Billy’s down at Fort Knox. I’ll pick you up in my truck and we’ll head to Mississippi.”
“Fort Knox” was Snake’s nickname for Valhalla, the hunting camp that had been in his family for decades. Brody Royal preferred the formal name, but Snake liked reminding people that his family held the deed on all that acreage, regardless of who had paid for it.
“Give me thirty minutes,” Sonny said. “I need to secure these cars.”
“Works for me. Out.”
Sonny pocketed his cell phone, then looked down at his mechanic’s creeper with almost spousal resentment. He had a bad feeling in the pit of his belly. He’d had it for some time now. It had started just before Viola came back from Chicago. And look what came of that, he thought. Now Glenn’s talking? Jesus. Trying to keep the past buried was like trying to stop kudzu from growing. Short of pouring gasoline on the ground and killing the earth itself, you couldn’t do it. Which is exactly what Snake would argue in half an hour.
“Screw this load,” Sonny cursed, kicking the creeper across the floor.
Picking up the tightly packed Ziplocs of ephedrine, he walked into the front office to get some coffee. Bucky Jarrett, an old Double Eagle who worked as his sales manager, looked up from his ten-year-old computer when Sonny dropped the bags on his desk.
“Everything copacetic, boss?” Jarrett slid the Ziplocs into his bottom drawer with a practiced motion.
Sonny shook his head, looking through the broad display window at his little empire of secondhand cars. Just beyond his lot lay Highway 84, thick with midday traffic. A few miles down the road, on the other side of the asphalt, Glenn Morehouse was probably spilling his guts to a reporter. And not just any reporter, either— “A little short on weight this trip?” Bucky asked.
“I’m having trouble opening the chassis safe.”
“Those tamale-heads prob’ly used an air driver to seal it.”
“Yep,” Sonny agreed. “You been to see Morehouse in a while, Buck?”
“Uh … about two Sundays back, I think. Something wrong?”
“How did he seem? Solid?”
Jarrett took a few moments to answer. “Well … he cried a bit.”
Sonny looked back at his manager. “Cried?”
“When he talked about when we was kids and stuff, you know. Shit, he’s dying, man.”
“Do you trust him, Bucky?”
Jarrett looked perplexed. “With what?”
“To go quietly, like a man.”
Jarrett’s eyes bugged. “Shit, Sonny. Don’t say that. We got problems with Glenn?”
Sonny clicked his tongue. “We might.”
Bucky looked like a tax cheater who’d just opened an audit notice from the IRS. He got up and started rubbing the back of his neck. Getting out from under the Camaro had calmed Sonny a little, and he realized he ought to go back and get the rest of the ephedrine. He didn’t need that sitting around the shop while things were popping like this. Bucky could lock up for half an hour and run the stuff out to the warehouse.
“Sonny?” Jarrett asked nervously.
“Yeah?”
“Just before you came in, I heard that old nurse of Dr. Cage’s died this morning. Viola something-or-other. Del Richards over at the sheriff’s department told me about it.”
“Yeah?” Sonny looked back toward the highway. “I hadn’t heard that.”
“Hell, I didn’t even know she was in town. Did you?”
“Can’t say I did.”
“Del also said he heard Sheriff Byrd say Dr. Cage killed her. Put her out of her misery, like. Don’t that beat all?”
Sonny clicked his tongue thoughtfully. “Well … Dr. Cage always went his own way. I always liked that about him.”
CHAPTER 12
HENRY SEXTON STOOD in the yard of Wilma Deen’s house, watching a sparrow trying to stuff itself into a martin house mounted on a pole. He’d walked out of Glenn Morehouse’s sickroom with every intention of getting into his SUV and driving away, but once the wind hit his face, he’d felt his rage drain away, leaving behind only a sense of failure. For ten years he’d been working to find a source inside the Double Eagle group. But now that he had one, he’d flung a bunch of righteous bullshit in the man’s face and stormed out. What did I expect? he asked himself. A signed confession with a bow on top? Glenn Morehouse had nothing to look forward to but more suffering followed by death, and Henry had only come here to plunder the dark cave of his conscience. What was more natural than for the old man to gain some pleasure at his expense?