The Final Country

SIX

Sometime after midnight, Renfro and I were standing on the sixth green of a very dark golf course somewhere on the south side of the string of lakes along the Colorado River north and west of Austin, so far from town that the city lights were only a faint smudge against the low ceiling of the clouds. The sixth hole was raised and bunkered, nestled on the verge of a live oak motte. The norther still pumped a cold misty wind across the Hill Country, spiced with occasional bursts of even colder raindrops the size of dimes, which clattered like hail off our vests. We listened quietly as the wind rattled the live oaks madly. Renfro had insisted that if he couldn't have a weapon, he should at least have a flak jacket. The flag marking the hole flapped like a lost bird. The Browning Hi-Power felt oddly heavy under my arm, less comforting than I hoped.

"It's so dark I couldn't see my ass, if my head was up it," I said. "And she's a half-hour late."

"She's always late," Renfro whispered nervously. "I wish I could afford to get away. Sissy's great fun to travel with. Completely insane and terribly organized."

"Well, I won't give her the money," I said, "unless she promises to take you along."

The tall man nodded again.

Renfro had been very interested when I jerked the DA's location beeper off the Beast and stuck it under one of the Lodge's vans, but he didn't ask any questions. And during the detour to pick up the Browning, a couple of extra magazines, and my Kevlar vest, Renfro hadn't even commented. Except to insist on a vest, which I didn't much like, and to give me directions through the dark back roads.

"You think she's coming?"

"Of course," Renfro said, giggling. "She'll be late for her own funeral, but she'll be there with bells on… What the hell?"

Renfro started slapping at his chest, then at his other hand, muttering curses.

The red dot on the back of his glove exploded in a fluff of fake rabbit fur as I shoved him down and dove in the same direction, shamelessly using Renfro's bulk as cover and scrabbling for the Browning. Two more silenced subsonic rounds thumped into Renfro's vest as we rolled toward the nearest bunker. I fired back along the line of the laser sight glistening in the rainy mist. One round hit what sounded like a car; another snapped through glass; the third, fourth, fifth rounds disappeared into the heart of the dark wind.

But the sniper wasn't deterred. His rounds scattered divots from the green. As I shoved Renfro's unconscious bulk into the safety of the deep bunker, then rolled in behind him, a round skipped off the Kevlar vest over my left shoulder blade. It felt as if I'd been hit with a twelve-pound sledge. I pressed against the sand beneath the lip of the bunker as another half-dozen rounds chopped at the edge of the green above it. The sniper just wanted me to know that he knew where I was. My whole left side felt paralyzed, as if all the bones on that side of my body had been shattered as I flopped into the bunker.

Across the golf course, I heard the grumbling slide and clunk as a van door shut. Then it drove rather sedately off into the stormy night. Without lights.

I crawled up to the edge of the green, both hands on the Browning, and counted to a hundred before I checked on Renfro, who gasped at the cold air with shallow breaths and had a faint feathery pulse in his cold neck. I propped his feet high against the bunker, then slithered into the tangled oaks, where I waited on my knees for another hundred count. Impatience had killed a lot of people, and I didn't plan to be one of them. I had used up all my luck when the sniper decided he didn't want the sound of rifle shots in the night. If the rounds hadn't been suppressed and subsonic, the vests would have been useless.

Even with his, Renfro still might die of internal injuries. And without mine, the round would have shattered my shoulder blade, scattering bone chips like shrapnel through my viscera. Just the thought of it made me shiver long enough for my back to break out in spasms again. Even five years after the spent.25 round had hit me after it went through the general's elbow, I could still follow its twisting, burning path through my guts.

When I finally stopped shaking, I stood up as slowly and quietly as my battered back would let me, then pussyfooted through the motte, and eased into my car, turned the key, and ran down the windows in the hope that I would hear the killer's approach under the gusting wind. I waited a full five minutes by the lighted digital clock before I started the car and switched the heater on high. While I waited to warm up, I considered my problems.

Since I had followed Renfro's directions through the dark without paying much attention to them, I didn't know exactly where we were, and I didn't much fancy just driving off into the night. Even if Renfro was dead, my spent shell casings would be hell to find in the dark, even with a flashlight. If worst came to worst I could change the firing pin in the Browning, or melt the piece down. But there would be telephone records connecting me with Renfro, plus witnesses in the bar who had seen us leave together.

No way I could walk away from this, and being surrounded by police didn't sound like such a bad idea. Hell, even a jail cell didn't sound too bad at this moment. As long as it wasn't in Gatlin County.

So I dug Gannon's card out of my billfold, then called him at home. He answered on the first ring. He didn't sound like a man who had just been dragged out of a deep sleep at two-thirty in the morning. "What now?" he asked. He sounded wide awake and very annoyed.

"Sorry if I woke you," I said. "It's Milodragovitch and I've got a bit of a problem."

"Milo?" Gannon said, not happily. "You didn't wake me up. Somebody reported gunfire at the Arrowhead Country Club."

"That would be my problem," I interrupted. "I'll meet you on the sixth green with another body."

"You ever think of becoming a mortician?"

"Too late to change careers at my age," I said, "and this one may not be quite dead." Then I hung up. I grabbed a down vest and a clean T-shirt out of my travel gear, then a survival blanket out of the winter gear junk box I kept out of a long Montana habit, then trudged back to the bunker, wrapped Renfro's shattered hand as tightly as I could, then bundled him in the vest and the blanket. Then I just crouched there, waiting in the cold, wet wind. But I didn't unload the Browning and set it on the green until the first unit, complete with lights and sirens, roared down the cart path toward the green where I stood next to the flapping flag, my hands raised.

"Not you again," the deputy groaned as he climbed out of the unit and trudged up the bank. His face was shadowed under the plastic-covered cowboy hat, but I recognized the voice from the jail cell. The kid followed procedure, put me on my knees and cuffed my hands behind me, then checked on Renfro. But as the kid helped me to his feet, he muttered something under his breath.

"What's that?" I said, preparing myself for the worst.

"I said, 'Thanks.'"

"What the hell for?"

"For not snitching me off the other day," the kid said. "Looks like maybe I was a little bit out of hand."

"I was an asshole," I admitted, "so I've got no complaint. What's your name?"

"Bob Culbertson," he said quietly. "No hard feelings?"

"Not a one, Bob," I said. "You're the one working nights."

"Forever and a night, the captain said."

"I'd shake your hand, kid, but I seem to be tied up."

"Sorry," the kid said. "Procedure."

"Not a problem."

"I'd ask you what happened," Culbertson said, "but I'm sure the captain would want me to wait."

"This time," I said, "I ain't answering no questions until my lawyer is standing close by my side."

"That's sure as hell the way I'd play it," Culbertson said, smiling. Like most cops, if he was in trouble, he wouldn't talk to his mother without a lawyer present. Then he stuffed me in his unit one more time, and called a chopper for a Medevac.

The norther had finally blown itself out by daylight. Dawn came to a wide clear blue sky and cool, dry air. It could have been spring in eastern Montana. From the green, I could see the flagstone clubhouse where groups of irritated early morning golfers milled around their fancy carts and were obviously bitching about losing their tee times. Like cocaine junkies who had too much money and nothing to do with themselves.

"You ever play golf?" Gannon asked me as he led me up to the top of the green as the crime scene cleared.

"Never had the pleasure," I said, "but I hear that hitting a golf ball well is damn near as hard as hitting a major league slider."

"I wouldn't know about that," Gannon said. "I had a ton of other problems – couldn't hit the fucking Double A batting practice curveball, couldn't block a low fast slider, and my peg to second wasn't all that hot."

"Couldn't have been all that bad if you made it to Double A ball."

"Got a tryout because my Dad knew a scout for the Red Sox," Gannon admitted. "What about you? You ever play any ball?"

"Football. Pulling guard on the last small-college single-wing team in America," I said. "I could knock you out of your socks. If you were standing still."

"I always hated football," Gannon said. "Still do. And here I'm living in the hell of football heaven." Then he paused. "You still not going to talk to me without your lawyer?"

"Not one fucking word," I said.

"You're not even going to tell me why you boys were wearing vests?"

"Just luck," I said. "So why don't you put me in back of the unit or a cell or anyplace I can get these cuffs off. My back's killing me."

Gannon motioned to Culbertson, who unlocked the cuffs. "I've sure been seeing too much of you guys together," he said in an oddly flat voice, as if he was no longer amused by his own joke. "Go home, you old bastard, you're a victim here, and discharging a firearm is a misdemeanor," he said. "Besides, I know where you live. Unfortunately. I'm sure you've got another piece someplace, but I'm keeping this one."

I hesitated only long enough to ask two questions: where they had taken Renfro; and what number had answered when he pushed star 69 on the cell phone from Molly McBride's fanny pack.

"Crime scene crew didn't find a fanny pack, Milo," he said. "Maybe your ears were just ringing."

"Yeah, and maybe his nuts were calling his dick," I said. "Long distance."

Culbertson started to say something, but Gannon cut him off. "You're in enough trouble, old man, without making bad jokes," he said. Then gave the deputy a grim look when he didn't successfully stifle his giggle.

Renfro didn't look all that good late that afternoon when they let me visit him briefly in his room at Breckenridge Hospital – gray-faced and sprouting tubes like a space monster, his shattered hand wrapped like a mummy's – but he managed a slight smile when he saw me.

"How the hell did you get in?" Renfro whispered.

"I told them I worked for Hair de Temps," I admitted.

Renfro laughed so hard that his tubes rattled dangerously. "You don't look much like a hairdresser," he finally managed to say.

"I think they were afraid to ask. You okay?"

"Thanks to the vest," Renfro whispered. "But I won't be cuttin' hair for a while. They're not going to work on my hand until they make up their mind about my spleen. See if it stops bleeding, or something. They seem to think I'm going to lose my spleen, maybe. What the hell's a spleen do, anyway?"

"I'm not sure," I said, "but I know you can live without it."

"That's what they said, but it's nice to hear it from you," Renfro said. "They said they put all my stuff in a bag underneath the night stand. How come you put Sissy's money back in my pocket?"

"Didn't want the cops to take it off me."

"Thanks. Maybe you should take charge of it? I don't want to have to explain it to my mother. She's not fond of Sissy."

"Let me count it," I suggested, "then I'll give you a receipt, and stash it in the safe at the Lodge. If Sissy calls, tell her to messenger me a note at the Lodge – no telephone calls – and I'll get the money to her. It's probably not necessary, but be sure to tell her not to use her credit cards, no matter what." Then I counted the cash.

"You know," Renfro whispered hoarsely, "I thought she was just in one of her self-dramatization modes but I guess I was wrong."

"You know, you said ten grand didn't seem like enough cash for a woman like Sissy to get very far away. Any idea where she might be headed?"

"Sissy's got some kind of under-the-table income nobody knows about, a sugar daddy or something, you know," Renfro said, "and she can take care of herself. She comes from tough Texas root stock. Back in the twenties, her great-grand-daddy, ol' Homer Logan, raised the cash to sink his first dry hole by standing ass-deep in an East Texas slough from daylight to dark, skimming runoff crude with five-gallon cans."

"His first dry hole?"

"And his second," Renfro said, oddly proud, "but he finally brought in a well on his third try. The family's made the transition from oil field royalty to oil field trash two or three times, you know, and Sissy was along for the ride the last couple."

"You know Sissy's housekeeper?"

"Her cousin Eldora? She's a paid companion, not a housekeeper," Renfro said. "She keeps her from falling completely into the vodka and the cocaine. She's been watching out for Sissy since they were children."

"Any chance she might tell you where Sissy might be?"

"Only if she wanted to," he said, chuckling tiredly. "Eldora is tougher than a cheap steak."

Renfro chuckled once more, then began to fade under the weight of the drugs. I put the receipt in his night table sack, then turned to leave.

"I gotta ask, you know," Renfro whispered from the bed. "How come that guy was shooting at us?"

"Got tired of waiting for Sissy, I guess," I answered. "I'll check on you tomorrow," I said. "You take care of yourself."

Renfro smiled sleepily as I left.

Walking down the hallway I dug out the five hundred that Renfro had given me, then stuffed that into the envelope. Hell, I guess I've never done any of this shit for money. I tried to count up all the money I'd spent since beginning the search for Carol Jean Warren. But given the way things were going, it seemed a bit early to start counting the costs. Even if I could.

I went out to the Lodge to stash Sissy's money in the safe, then spent a bit of time making sure that I didn't have a tail, drove back to the safe locker, where I picked up a less bulky vest, another Browning Hi-Power, a stash of codeine, a pile of running cash, my second best set of false identity papers, and a bag of traveling clothes. Then it was back to Austin to the Four Seasons, where I used the fake identification to register, let the bellhop take my bag, then shouldered through the five o'clock crowd to have a quick drink before I went to the hotel down the street to use a pay phone. I called Betty on her cell phone.

"Where the hell've you been?" she asked. "You didn't even leave a note, you bastard."

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," I said. "And I didn't think I'd be gone that long. Where are you right now?"

"Standing in your room and tapping my foot like a mad housewife."

"This fuckin' shit's way out of hand," I said. A woman at the pay phone bank beside me, who could have been a hooker or an heiress, in a leather coat with a wolf fur collar and snakeskin boots, looked at my rumpled, sandy clothes, then crinkled her nose as if she smelled a fart. So I gave her the opportunity. Then I made the mistake of laughing as she huffed away. "Maybe you should take a trip or something, hon," I said to Betty.

"I don't take a step without you, bud," she answered sharply. "I don't know what you've got yourself into, but I'm in it with you."

"Somebody took a couple of shots at me last night," I said, knowing as soon as the words left my mouth that they were the wrong ones. Betty became even more adamant. Finally, she wore me down. I needed another drink, some food, and a long nap. "Fuck it," I said, sighing tiredly. "Pack a bag. I'll send somebody you know to pick you up and bring you to me."

"Are you sure you're all right?" Betty asked.

"I'm just tired, hon," I admitted. "I need a night's sleep before I think about this shit… I'll see you in a bit." Then I hung up and leaned my head against the wall beside the pay phone, wishing I had some way to ask Betty to spirit Long's cocaine out of the elevator. Somebody tapped me roughly on the shoulder. I whirled, my hands raised defensively, to find a clean-cut young man in a blue blazer and gray slacks, who held up his hands, open and placating. "What?" I said, then looked down at the cop shoes beneath the slacks. "Hotel security?" I asked. The kid nodded. "What's up?"

"Can I see some ID, sir?" the kid asked in his flat cop voice, his cold blue eyes checking out my rumpled jeans and muddy boots.

I started to complain but assumed I'd already called enough attention to myself, so I showed the kid a valid North Dakota driver's license, making sure that he saw the sheaf of credit cards and the retired Grand Forks deputy's card, too. "Airlines lost my bags during the delay in Denver," I explained.

"You staying with us, Mr. Malvern?"

"Too cold here," I said. "I'm running from an early winter dose of cabin fever and I don't think I've run far enough south. Just stopped in to use the telephone to let my wife know where to find me – crazy woman won't fly – and pick up some new clothes." The kid handed the driver's license back. "One more quick call," I said, "then back into a cab."

"Good luck," the kid said but he didn't mean it.

"Sorry. Guess I forgot how sensitive the ladies are down here," I said. "I knew I shouldn't have farted in front of her."

"You're lucky she didn't call the police," the kid said, shaking his head. "She has before. For less reason."

"Thanks," I said, shaking my head, too, then turned back to the telephone to call Hangas.

"Sarge, I need a quiet favor," I said when Hangas answered.

"Name it," Hangas rumbled, then added, "I need to talk to you, too."

"Remember that damned expensive glass of wine I bought you?" I asked. Hangas just chuckled. "Run out and pick up my woman, then bring her there. And maybe you should watch your back a little bit."

"It's like that, huh?"

"Probably just horseshit and gunsmoke," I said, turning to find the security kid's eyes on me, "but who knows when you're going to run into the typical Texas experience." I hung up, smiled at the kid, and hustled out of the lobby as quickly as I could.

I nursed a couple of Scotches at the Four Seasons bar until Hangas and Betty showed up just before eight o'clock.

"Sorry it took so long," Hangas said as Betty wrapped me in her arms.

"You look terrible, love," she whispered, her lips against my ear.

"I've been better," I said, then to Hangas, "Thanks, man. But maybe we'd better get a table." We found one in a dark corner, settled in, ordered drinks, and went to business. I told them about the aborted meeting with Sissy Duval and the shooter.

"Unless they were using four cars, they weren't on my tail," I said, "so the only way the shooter could know how to cover the meet would be a scanner tap on Renfro's cell phone, and I don't know why they would do that. Hell, he's just a hairdresser. And as far as I can figure, the only reason to whack her would be because she knows something about Enos Walker or Amanda Rae Quarrels. And right now I'm just too tired to think about it."

"You've got a room here?" Betty asked as the cocktail waitress brought the drinks. I nodded. "So can we go up when we finish our drinks?"

"But I don't think that Renfro and I were the real target," I said, "or they would have handled it differently." Hangas knew what I meant: somebody would have walked over to put a couple of rounds into the backs of our heads. But Betty didn't realize that. Then I took a healthy slug of the double Macallan, relaxing for the first time since the silenced gunfire started. "Then I nearly got arrested because I farted in front of a woman dressed in the skins of endangered species."

"A good piece of luck that you picked up the vests," Hangas said.

"It wasn't luck, man. I guess I've been on a hair trigger ever since that Rooke asshole tried to kill me, and I've been watching my back ever since," I admitted, then turned to Betty. "The best piece of luck is that they haven't checked the serial number on your piece yet."

"See, I am involved," Betty said brightly, as if she'd just won a prize.

"I'm sorry, love," I said, then hit the whisky again, hard, and circled my finger at the cocktail waitress. "Shit. Molly McBride and Mandy Rae Quarrels don't exist, Enos Walker and Sissy Duval are in the wind, and I've got something less than three weeks before I'm indicted for capital murder. What the hell, let's have one more." For once, nobody argued with me.

"I caught up with Enos Walker's older brother," Hangas said quietly. "He's got a big church operation over on the East Side. He seems dead straight and mightily embarrassed by his little brother, but I'd bet anything that he knows where he is. Trouble is, we've got no leverage on him. Same trouble with Eldora Grace. She's nervous as a cat in a Vietnamese neighborhood."

"Bigot," I said, but Hangas just smiled like a man who had done three tours in the Mekong Delta as the cocktail waitress set another eighteen-dollar glass of wine in front of him.

"She knows something but she's one hard-nosed woman."

"Let's leave her alone," I said, "and leave this shit alone, too, tonight. I'll think about it tomorrow." I settled the tab with cash and asked the waitress for a telephone. I ordered a couple of cheeseburgers and a six-pack of Bohemia beer from room service to be delivered to my room, then a bellhop to pick up Betty's bags, which Hangas had stashed under the table. "And get me another key for my wife," I said. Hangas and Betty both looked at me. "Tomorrow," I added, "tomorrow, I'll explain everything. Maybe."

Hangas made his goodbyes, and we finished our drinks silently.

Up in the room Betty waited until we'd finished the cheeseburgers and I was on my second beer and she'd fired up one of Cathy Scoggins's bomber joints before she asked, "So what's my married name?"

"Malvern. An ugly name but give it a couple of days," I answered, tossing her the walletful of fake ID, "Mrs. Hardy P. Malvern."

"What's the P stand for?" she asked, handing it back.

"Peter," I admitted. "It took ten days in the Grand Forks cemeteries to come up with that one. It's only my second best fake ID, but it's a good one. Social Security number's valid, driver's license is current, and credit cards are live, all the other stuff is state-of-the-art."

"You should have been a criminal," she said, handing me the joint.

"I am," I said, hitting it, and handing it back. "And now you are, too."

"Well, Hardy Peter," she said, smiling, "what's next?"

"After this doobie," I said, grinning, "maybe you could help me out of these clothes and into a Hardy Peter nap…" Then a wave of giggles swept over us. When it was over, I said, "Fuck, I'm nearly sixty years old, I've been beat up, tortured, and shot at. I shouldn't be giggling like a kid."

"You'll live longer that way," Betty said.

After Betty pushed the rolling room service table out in the hallway, she stepped over to me, kissed me softly, then began helping me out of my clothes. I could feel the bullet bruise spreading across my back, so I tried to avoid questions by keeping my T-shirt on, but she eased it over my head before I could stop her.

"Jesus H. Christ," Betty whispered when she saw my back. "Honey, can't you find some other hobby? Something besides… besides whatever it is you're doing."

"Many are called," I allowed, "but few are chosen."

She wasn't amused. "How the hell do you know the shoulder blade's not broken?"

"Doesn't hurt enough?"

"How the hell would you know?" she asked angrily. "You've got half a quart of whisky in you."

"And four codeines, too," I admitted. Tears filled her eyes as Betty drew back her hand to slap me. I caught her wrist. "I'm old, babe, but not dead." The evening's fun seemed to be over. "I don't hit you," I said. "Don't hit me."

"No, you've got other ways of hurting me, you bastard," she said, angrily jerking her wrist away, then storming off to the bathroom. "And you won't fucking quit," she snapped over her shoulder before she slammed the door.

When she came out of the bathroom, it seemed simpler just to pretend to be asleep. Then in a moment, I was.

When my cell phone woke me the next morning, Betty was gone, bags and emotional baggage, and only a terse unsigned note: If you're still alive at four this afternoon, you bastard, meet me at Cathy's. I answered the phone. Gannon.

"Wake up, Milo, it's a lovely day," the cop said. "And by the way, where the hell are you?"

"Who wants to know?"

"The district attorney's office," he said. "Among others."

"Why?"

"You're supposed to check in every day."

"Nobody told me," I said.

"Consider yourself told."

"Consider me checked in."

"And they want -" was all I heard before I turned the phone off and rolled over to finish my nap.

A couple of hours later, as I stood in a long, hot shower, I wondered where this was going. No closer to an answer, further from Betty. All the money my father had left me and all the money I'd stolen from the contrabandistas hadn't changed my life that much. I stayed in hotels where the hot water didn't run out in the middle of a shower now, and drove a Cadillac instead of a beat-up Toyota rig. But now a Toyota Land Cruiser cost damn near as much as a Cadillac. And there was no place in the world for me to buy a new body. As far as I could tell under the solid beat of the water, this one had given up on me. I didn't check too closely but I couldn't find a place that didn't throb like a boil the size of my fist.

To hell with it. I had a quick room service breakfast, another couple of codeines, then decided I needed to keep my head down for the next few days. I stopped at the front desk to extend my stay, then called Hangas at home.

Hangas's family had worked for Carver D's family in various forms and functions since Reconstruction. Hangas's father had been a foreman for one of the family's construction firms in Houston, and the summer after Hangas had graduated from high school, he'd been banging concrete off forms on an August afternoon as hot and muggy as a barber's towel when Hangas had thrown down his shovel, told his father that the family had been in thrall to these white motherfuckers long enough, by God, and he was off to join the Marine Corps. The old man just shook his head, smiled sadly, and wished his youngest son the best of luck. But during his twenty years in the Corps and after four children, Hangas had mellowed. When he retired to Austin after his wife had died, Hangas had no qualms when Carver D, whose house had just been blown up by an angry state senator who lost his seat because Carver D's paper, The Dark Coast, had exposed the senator's affinity for beating up prostitutes, asked Hangas to hire on as a bodyguard. During their years together, Hangas had prospered, and he and Carver D had become more than friends. My ex-partner had been friends with Carver D when they were in the Army at Fort Lewis and the friendship had been extended to me. Carver D and Hangas had made me part of their world from the beginning. So Hangas was waiting on the front porch of his sprawling brick ranch house off Enfield Road when I drove up.

"You look a little bit rough, Milo. You okay?" Hangas asked as he climbed into the Caddy.

"I've been better," I said. "But I'm still moving."

"What are you planning to ask the Reverend Jonas Walker?"

"I'm not going to ask him anything," I said. "I'm just going to tell him what happened."

The Reverend Jonas Walker made his younger brother seem small. He was at least seven years older, two shades lighter but with the same light blue eyes on either side of an even larger hooked nose, plus he was bigger, a soft-spoken giant of a man in sweats with short gray hair and a matching beard. He met us on one of the composition basketball courts next to the Congregation of the Holy Ghost, a huge flagstone, tin-roofed church and basketball complex beyond the Interstate deep in East Austin. He did not seem pleased to see us, sweating heavily and dribbling a basketball as he confronted us.

"As I told this gentleman the other day," the huge man said to me so softly I had to lean into his shadow, "I've had no contact with my errant brother in many years. I left that life long behind me, many, many years ago."

Hangas and I glanced at each other. If Jonas Walker had walked on the wrong side of the street, he'd been luckier than his little brother. His name didn't show up on any of the criminal records that Carver D could access.

"I just have a favor to ask," I explained. "If you should hear from him, would you please tell him that I'll testify and I'll find the goddamned bartender and make him stand up in court and force him to tell the truth."

"The truth should not be forced," Reverend Walker said quietly. "And please don't take the Lord's name in vain in front of me."

"I'm sorry," I apologized. "With my help, at the very least your brother can cop a manslaughter plea."

"How much time will he have to do? I don't think he likes doing time."

"I don't know, but it's also certainly possible that he might walk on a self-defense plea," I said. "Billy Long obviously pulled the piece on him. I can testify that your brother didn't have it on him when he went into the office and a piece like that will probably have an ATF paperwork trail leading directly to Long."

"And what's your interest in this?"

"I'm not sure you'd understand, sir."

"Try me," Reverend Walker said, his voice no longer quite so soft. In fact, he sounded a bit like his brother.

So I sighed so deeply it hurt my back, then tried to explain to the giant about the bear cub's spit and Enos Walker's hard-timer breath.

"That's about the craziest thing I've ever heard," Reverend Walker said, glancing down at the end of one of the four basketball courts where half a dozen lanky kids were shooting baskets, "so I'm gonna assume you don't have any ulterior motives in this matter. But if I were to hear from my brother and I happened to see you in my congregation some Sunday morning, maybe we can work something out."

"Man," I said as I dug down for another deep and painful breath, "I've never been in church on purpose in my life and I'm not about to start now. What the hell, he's your brother, not mine."

"Sounds like you could have used some church time, brother."

"If you can't teach morality without superstition or hope without false promises of eternal life, brother, the human animal probably has outlived its usefulness," I said as I handed Reverend Walker a card. "You can leave a message on my voice mail," I added, then walked away.

As we climbed back into the Beast, Hangas said quietly, "That's pretty cold, man."

"Learned it in college," I said. "Besides, if I'd folded, he would have lost any respect he might have had for me after that damned story about the bear cub."

"Hell, I understood it perfectly," Hangas said, then chuckled. "Hey, man, can I ask you something kind of personal?"

"Sure."

"Did you ever find yourself praying in Korea, old man?" Hangas asked.

"Praying, shitting my pants, and crying for my mother," I had to admit. Hangas and I had survived the first of the stalemate wars. I'd spent three months in combat; Hangas had endured three years.

"But it didn't last?"

"Not too long after I ran the first clip through my M-l," I said. "Or maybe the second."

"Does that mean firepower is God?" Hangas asked, chuckling again.

"It'll have to do for this world, until something better comes along."

"Eldora Grace now?"

"She thinks I'm a vacuum cleaner salesman," I said. "Or something worse. I'll leave that one to you. Be sure to let her know that I've got Sissy's getaway money. And let me know how she responds to that."

"Voice mail?"

"Ain't modern life grand, Hangas?"

Since it seemed that Renfro's internal injuries were still causing him trouble, he still hovered between' the conscious and unconscious worlds when I glanced into his room. A woman who looked remarkably like Renfro and a small, bald man with a ponytail hovered over his bed. So I left without bothering them. I had a couple of hours before I was due at Cathy's. I found a convenience store, bought a couple of beers and an Austin American-Statesman in which I checked the classified ads for firearms and used the pay phone. In less than two hours I had collected a twelve gauge Winchester Wingmaster pump with a full choke and a three-inch chamber, a.22 American derringer, and a Ruger Mini 14 carbine to stash in the trunk of the Caddy in case I needed some unregistered firepower, and still had enough time to slip by the Blue Hollow Lodge to retrieve one of the cocaine bindles from the emergency light before I drove over to Cathy's.