“I got it. Where will you be?”
“Concordia Parish. Out of sight, but close enough to take over if things spin out of control tomorrow. I’m going to leave Traveller out here tonight. I may not be able to take him everywhere I’ll need to go. You look out for him?”
“Sure,” Billy said, adding the dog to his endless list of responsibilities. He took another slug of bourbon. “Do you really think you can cut a deal? I mean . . . is there a real chance?”
“A good chance. Tomorrow Walker Dennis is going to get the surprise of his life. And with luck, by then my deal will be in place.” Forrest walked over and patted Billy on the shoulder. “Okay?”
Billy felt the drink shaking in his hand. “Okay, Forrest. I’m with you.”
WALT LAY BENEATH A bed in one of the second-floor rooms, his heart thundering in his chest. He’d scarcely reached the second-story landing when the front door of the lodge opened and booted feet marched into the great room. As he’d turned to slip down the hallway, he’d peered back around the corner and caught sight of the last man into the room: a uniformed state trooper with dark hair, a hard jawline, and a mutilated ear. Forrest Knox. And trailing at Knox’s heel was the large pit bull Walt had seen back in Baton Rouge.
Once Walt reached his present hiding place, he’d heard muted voices below, yet as hard as he strained to hear, he couldn’t make out the words. Any hope that the conversation would be short faded as the minutes dragged on. Eventually, the helicopter outside spooled up again and noisily departed, but after the beating of its rotors faded, at least two voices droned on below. More disturbing still, when Walt checked his cell phone, he found he had no service. This puzzled him, since he’d checked his phone several times during the walk in and seen three bars of reception.
As carefully as he could, he slid out from under the bed, tiptoed to the window, and peered through a crack in the curtains. A dog that appeared to be Knox’s pit bull was sitting in the yard, alert as a hungry wolf. The sight chilled Walt’s blood. He’d worked with K-9 units enough to know that the canine sense of smell was a truly fearsome thing. He had no chance at escape while that dog patrolled the yard.
Walt took out his burn phone and checked it again, but being near the window hadn’t improved his reception. At least I know Tom’s okay, he thought. Even if I don’t know where he is.
As he tiptoed back across the floor, he realized that, depending on what the men below did next, he might have to spend quite a while in this place. Lowering himself to his knees, he rolled onto his back and slid slowly under the bed.
CHAPTER 30
“THIS HOUSE LOOKS just like it did twenty-seven years ago,” Mom says, looking around the living room of Sam Abrams’s parents’ Duncan Avenue home. “I remember coming to one of your senior parties here. My god, you and Sam were just boys.”
“How come I’ve never been here before?” Annie asks, looking wide-eyed around the unfamiliar house. “If you’re such good friends with Mr. Sam?”
“His parents are older than Gram and Papa, punkin. That’s why they moved to Florida.”
“But they kept this house? And the furniture?”
“That’s right. So they can come visit their kids during holidays.”
“Jewish holidays?”
“I imagine so. Why don’t you run upstairs and check out the bedrooms? That’s where they all are.”
Annie looks toward the ceiling, then sniffs suspiciously. “It smells like old people.”
“Well, they lived here fifty years, at least.”
As Annie wraps her mind around this, I know my mother must be thinking of the house she and my father lost to arson seven years ago.
“Come on, Gram,” Annie says. “Let’s see where we’re going to be living this time.”
Mom waves her toward the front foyer and stairs. “You go on, honey. I’ll be up in a minute.”
Annie rolls her eyes, then takes my mother’s suitcase from her. “I’ll carry your bag up.”
“Thank you, muffin.”
At age eleven, Annie must be pretty tired of being addressed as punkin and muffin, but she rarely protests so long as none of her friends are around. She disappears in search of the stairs, and then I hear the clunk-clunk-clunk of a heavy case being dragged up carpeted steps.
My mother gives me a look that communicates many things: guilt and regret most of all. “I hate losing the Abramses. But we’ve lost most of Natchez’s Jewish families over the last twenty years. All their children settled elsewhere.”
“Like most of my classmates.”
“Won’t the neighbors think George and Bernice have come back to town?”
I can’t help but chuckle at this. “Sam called the nosiest one and told her he’s rented the house to a visiting professor from Alcorn State University.”
“That was smart.”
“The only question the neighbor asked was whether the professor was white or black.”
Mom smiles and shakes her head. “The closed garage is nice. I was a little worried people would recognize your car downtown, even tucked back behind the fence and bushes.”
“This is a better safe house by every measure. It’s totally untraceable, so long as you and Annie stay inside and keep the curtains closed.”
I walk into the kitchen and pull the curtains almost shut. The Abramses’ house stands on Duncan Avenue, facing a park donated to the city in the nineteenth century by one of the “nabobs of Natchez.” It’s one of the most peaceful streets in the city, since it faces the back nine of the golf course and thus has houses only on one side. Beyond the links, I can make out the Little League ball fields where Drew Elliott and I played Dixie Youth baseball.