Snake still did not reply.
Forrest thought he heard his uncle blowing out cigarette smoke. Right now the old man was thinking about the arrangements Forrest and Billy had been perfecting for the past five years: new identities, clean passports, three separate properties in Andorra—one of the few nonextradition countries left in the world where a white man could live well. But something told Forrest that his uncle wasn’t itching to retire in the Pyrenees.
“You still there?” Forrest asked.
“I’m here. And I hear what you’re saying. But all in all, I think I’d rather take my chances where I’m at. I got no desire to spend my last years with a bunch of foreigners. I don’t ski or hike or hang-glide, and I don’t care to live with a bunch of Pernod-sippin’ faggots who do.”
Ozan groaned softly.
“Do you realize what you’re saying?” Forrest asked. “How long do you think you can—”
“What you don’t seem to understand,” Snake cut in, “is that I don’t give a shit what they accuse me of. They’ve been calling me a killer for forty years. So what? A few more accusations ain’t gonna matter. Proving guilt in forty-year-old murders is a tough job, and it gets tougher with every passing day. I don’t think they got the evidence to do it.”
“Maybe not, but half a dozen people have died in the past week.”
“I don’t know nothing about those killings. Do you?”
Forrest shook his head at Ozan, who cursed in exasperation.
“You sound nervous, nephew,” Snake said. “Take it easy. Have a drink. I’m not nervous. See, I’m not in the position you’re in. With me, they can either prove a crime or they can’t. But you? Even the appearance of wrongdoing could end your career. So maybe it’s time for you to pull that golden ripcord.”
“Goddamn it, Snake.”
Snake laughed softly. “Have you shoved your boss out of his job yet?”
“Not yet.”
“That doesn’t sound promising. What’s your next play?”
“I’m not going to get into that on the phone. We’ll talk when you get out.”
“When will that be?”
“Soon. Tomorrow, probably.”
“Probably? Shit, boy. Sounds to me like you don’t know whether you’re going or coming.”
Forrest slammed his hand down on the table. “What the fuck were you thinking taking the doc like you did?”
“Covering my bets, Tahyo, the way Frank taught me. Now, seriously, when do you see me walking out of this dump?”
Forrest forced himself to try to calm down. “That depends. The meth disappeared during the bomb scare, so they have no drug evidence to hold you on. In theory, you could be released tomorrow morning. But I don’t know what forensic evidence they may get from Sonny’s corpse.”
“Don’t worry about it, nephew. I’ve figured my own way out of this place. All five of us will walk out before noon tomorrow. You watch. I’ll give Claude instructions on how to pick us up.”
Forrest didn’t like the sound of this. “What are you planning?”
“That’s my business. Now listen. You need to calm down. Things are actually falling our way. The girl’s gone. So’s our latest traitor, and none of my crew’s gonna open his trap to the government again. The next thing that needs to happen is for Doc to be shot as a fugitive. And that Texas Ranger needs to die with him. As for the FBI, you just get your ass into Mackiever’s job and the federal hassle will die down quick.”
Forrest was far from sure about this. Worse, Snake was right about one thing: he could endure anything the FBI threw at him and laugh, while Forrest could not. If the moneymen in New Orleans decided he was a magnet for scandal, they’d cut him off like a gangrenous limb.
“I know you’re thinking about pulling in your horns,” Snake said, “but Frank would have done the exact opposite right now. When the enemy comes for you, you don’t turn tail or lie low, you hit back so hard that nobody will ever think about fucking with you again. Right?”
“I told you I’m not going to talk about tactics.”
“You don’t have to. I know how your mind works. If I’d agreed to retire into the sunset, you’d have made sure all the loose crimes around here got blamed on me. Since I’m refusing that option, you’re gonna start exploring other options. But you know me well enough to know I’ll see bad news coming. So be real careful if you’re tempted to think in that direction. You could wind up on the row yourself.”
Ozan actually rose from his seat at that remark.
“Don’t worry, Uncle,” Forrest said. “You want to stay in Louisiana and take the risk, be my guest.”
“Always a pleasure, Tahyo. I’ll see you tomorrow, when I get out.”
Snake clicked off.
Forrest tossed the phone on the table and joined Ozan standing to pace.
The conversation hadn’t gone anything like he’d hoped. He hadn’t actually had much faith that it would. Where Snake was concerned, nothing could be predicted. It had been that way for as long as he could remember. That was why Carlos Marcello had canceled the RFK plan after his father died in ’68; the pragmatic old mobster had known Snake was too crazy to trust with an operation like that.
“That didn’t sound too promising,” Ozan said.
“He’s not going to leave the country, that’s for sure.”
“Then they’re going to get him. And sooner rather than later. He’s popped too many people, boss. They’re going to find some forensic evidence, or somebody will flip, and then he’ll be sitting in an interrogation room playing Let’s Make a Deal.”
Forrest sat on the edge of his desk. “There’s only one thing to do now.”
“What’s that?”
“Let Snake do what he wants.”