Snake put the motorcycle back in gear, rode to the edge of the water, then stashed the bike behind some thick cottonwoods and waited. If Forrest meant to kill him, it was likely to happen here, now.
After two minutes, a navy blue pickup truck nosed up the little dirt road, stopped thirty feet from the water, and fell silent. Through the windshield Snake saw two familiar faces. One belonged to Alois Engel—his son—the other to Wilma Deen. He wondered how far he could trust them. Most bastard sons carried a heavy burden of anger, and Alois was no different. And while Wilma was no fan of Forrest’s, she didn’t like Snake much better, considering how he’d treated her over the years. He’d screwed her when she was young and attractive and ignored her all the decades since.
Snake listened hard for other engine sounds, but he heard none.
After another minute, he walked into the open with his pistol in his hand and beckoned them out of the truck. They moved naturally as they got out—no shared glances or any other signs of nerves—so Snake calmed down a little.
“Everything cool?” Alois asked.
“Worked like a charm,” Snake said, walking toward the truck. “The Fibbies don’t know what hit ’em.”
“What do we do now?”
Snake studied the boy before he answered. Alois looked nothing like him. Snake saw his mother in the blond hair and too-close-together eyes. “Dump the bike in the water,” he said, “and get the hell out of here. It’s over behind those trees.”
Alois nodded and went to take care of it. When he was out of earshot, Wilma said, “I don’t like your boy much. Thinks he knows everything.”
“Shows the apple don’t fall far from the tree.”
She laughed bitterly. “You got that right.” Wilma looked over her shoulder and watched Alois run the Honda into the black water. “Look, before he gets back,” she said, “I heard something you might want to know.”
“What’s that?”
“I got a friend who works part-time at the motel where them FBI agents are staying.”
“And?”
“She tells me her manager asked her to plant some bugs in their rooms yesterday.”
Snake went on alert. He’d heard nothing about this from Forrest. “Keep going. Who’s this manager?”
“Name’s Wade Kimball.”
Snake smiled. Kimball’s father had been a Klansman back in the day, and the son fancied himself a right-wing blogger. “Little Wade,” Snake said. “Forrest must have put him up to that. Where else would he get the bugs? Does your friend know who’s monitoring the transmissions?”
“Kimball himself, she thinks. He’s been locked up in his office ever since the bugs went in.”
Snake couldn’t believe his luck.
Alois walked back up to them and said, “What now?”
“Now?” Snake grinned. “Now we’re gonna kill some people.”
The boy’s mouth twitched a couple of times, then broke into a slit of a smile. After years of waiting, the hard-core action he’d been craving was at hand. Snake had figured Alois would be more than ready.
“Who?” Alois asked.
“Penn Cage and his old man. Maybe even that FBI agent, Kaiser.”
Wilma drew back her head, her eyes unbelieving. “That sounds pretty damn stupid to me.”
“You want to go sit home and watch your soap operas, go ahead.”
“I’m ready,” Alois said. “Where are they?”
“The mayor’s home right now and covered by about twenty cops. But later on, he won’t be. And neither will his father.”
“Where’ll they be?”
“I’d lay odds on Henry Sexton’s funeral.”
“How do you know that?” Wilma asked.
“Because that’s what guys like them do. They follow the rules, observe the social niceties. And that makes it easy for us to pick them up.”
“Are we going to hit them at the funeral?” Alois asked, his eyes wide.
“Depends on who else is there. We might do it there, or right after. Or we might wait and stage something interesting. But either way, we move today.”
CHAPTER 84
WALT FELT MORE than a little anxious crossing the river back into Louisiana after killing the state trooper only four days ago. Thankfully, Darius had agreed to drive them (and in Flora’s Lincoln, not Pithy’s Bentley, which would have been like driving through India in Queen Elizabeth’s golden carriage). Walt had tried to enlist Pithy in his effort to dissuade Tom from visiting Henry’s remains, but as he’d feared, the old woman had predicted that no evil would come from Tom paying proper respect to the dead. This hadn’t reassured Walt, but neither Tom nor Pithy had paid him any mind. He felt like the insignificant shield bearer that Pithy seemed to think he was.
The miles flowed by under Darius’s sure hands and feet, Tom as silent as a pilgrim nearing a holy shrine, and soon they reached the west side of Ferriday, where Early’s Funeral Home stood. The business occupied a columned two-story Greek Revival house, while the owner lived in a simple ranch-style home next door, a bass boat parked on a trailer to the side and martin boxes on poles in the yard.
Walt felt some trepidation as Darius went to the door to summon Mr. Early to the Lincoln, but once the owner of the funeral home stopped gawking at Tom’s missing beard, he couldn’t move quickly enough to please his guest. Two minutes after they’d pulled up, Jim Early was letting them into the funeral home through the back door.
Tom thanked Darius and asked if he’d mind going to a convenience store and picking up a couple of Diet Cokes, and their driver agreed without a word. Walt didn’t like the idea of losing their transportation, but once again Tom ignored his concern.