“I’ve got to know, one way or the other. But Snake’s the only person who can tell me. Claude’s bugged out, and I’m not bringing in a new lawyer this late in the game. We’re going to have to get Snake out of that jail regardless of the risk.”
“Just Snake?”
“No. All of them. Otherwise, somebody’s going to start thinking about cutting a deal. But getting all of them out is going to take some precision timing combined with reckless daring.” Forrest sucked his teeth, reflecting on his choice of manpower.
“You know that Black Team can handle it,” Ozan said.
“I’m not so sure anymore. They’d better handle their end.”
“Who was that you called earlier?”
“Glenn Morehouse’s sister. Wilma Deen. She’s as cold as they come. Not many women would stand by quiet while you killed their brother, much less help you do it.”
“She done that?”
Forrest nodded. “This past Monday. She’s old school, boy. Like that Madame Defarge in A Tale of Two Cities.”
Ozan looked blank.
“I also called Billy about a bastard child of Snake’s. Alois Engel’s his name. The kid’s only twenty-five but he’s a mean little fucker. He’s already affiliated with a couple of white supremacist groups. Cold as ice. Reminds me of a Hitler Youth poster. He’s done work for Billy in the meth trade, too. Anyway, the point in using him and Wilma is that, if anything goes bad with the end of the op—which is the biggest risk—Kaiser will think Snake brought ’em in. Not me.”
Ozan gave a malevolent grin. “Now you’re talkin’, babe.”
“Let’s start assembling the team. We’re going to need the whole goody bag, too.”
“It’s time, boss. Waiting never helped anything.”
CHAPTER 58
AS WALT AND I race toward Old River, a dead-end channel still connected to the Mississippi River by a narrow chute, the atrocities Kaiser wrote me about spin through my mind like curling strips of black-and-white film. To accept that men capable of such acts have control of my father is tantamount to resigning myself to his death. For while Snake Knox and his crew are behind bars at this moment, they had half the night to work their will on my father, and Forrest—the feared ghost of the Vietnamese Highlands—had him before Snake did.
As I focus on holding the wheel steady on the gravel road, Walt points along the row of bizarre stilt houses that line Old River. This part of the parish always floods when the river rises, hence the tall metal stilts beneath every structure. The little cabins look like ugly cranes on long, thin legs, waiting for an unwary fish to swim down the brown channel behind them. Most of the cabins have a crude elevator system, fashioned from a welded iron cage and an electric truck-winch to lift it.
I’m suspicious of Sonny’s claim that Dad is unguarded, but Walt insists that speed is everything now. As soon as I pull into the driveway he tells me to, Walt leaps out with his pistol and boards the cage that will carry him to Sonny’s raised deck. Walt tests the machine by gripping the rail and heaving himself from right to left, then lays his hand on the lever that will start the winch.
“You take the staircase,” he says. “If somebody comes out, start shooting, because I’m a sitting duck in this thing.”
I look at the four flights of steps that lead the thirty feet up to the cabin. “My fire will be blocked as I near the top.”
“Then get up there before I do, and if they start shooting, kick in the back door and kill them from behind.”
“Okay.”
Walt flips the start lever on the winch, and with a grinding hum he begins rising toward the tree house–like structure. I sprint for the base of the staircase, then start pumping my legs as I did running the bleachers as a high school football player. In seconds my chest is pounding and my throat burning, but the door isn’t far away. I’ll beat Walt to the cabin by ten seconds.
Once I reach the deck behind the cabin, I tiptoe to the back door, my ears tuned to the slightest sound. I hear nothing. A clang from the winch around front tells me Walt has reached the front platform. The fact that no one has opened up on him must be a sign that Sonny was telling the truth about no guards.
The back door is locked. As I raise my foot to kick it in, Walt yells, “Front door’s open!”
Worried that someone might be lying in ambush for him, I kick open the flimsy back door and burst into the den of the little structure. The cabin stinks of mildew and looks to have been furnished with cast-off pieces or actual junk. A plywood square has fallen from a footlocker that served as the base of a makeshift coffee table, and the Naugahyde sofa against the wall has been patched all over with silver duct tape.
“I’ll check the back,” Walt says, gesturing at a narrow doorway with his pistol.
I nod, but my belief that Dad might still be here is evaporating fast. Two medicine bottles lie on a square of shag carpet that looks like its purpose is to serve as a toilet for an incontinent dog. Picking one of them up, I read the label: PATIENT: Thomas Cage. PHYSICIAN: Drew Elliott, M.D. Nitroglycerine, 0.4 mg.
“He’s not back there,” Walt says, emerging from the doorway. “Maybe he got away?”
I shake my head. “He’d never have left his drugs. There’s nitro and pain pills on the floor. He couldn’t do without either. Not for long, anyway.”
Walt kicks the plywood sheet against the wall, plops down on the patched sofa, and kicks his feet up on the footlocker. “You think they knew we were coming?”
“How? Sonny couldn’t have told them. More likely, Forrest figured out where they were and took them back.”
“Damn it. What about Sheriff Dennis? Could he have warned them by phone?”
“No fucking way. Dennis hates the Knoxes.”
“Yeah. I was reaching.”
“It had to be Forrest, Walt. Unless . . .”
“What?”