The Devil's Punchbowl (51 page)

 

Caitlin has pale skin, but what little color she has drains from her face. “You son of a bitch.” She looks as if she’d like to gouge my eyes out, but instead she simply turns and climbs into the cabin of the helicopter.

 

I look back at the road, where my father’s nine-year-old BMW is swinging onto the asphalt to head back toward Mississippi. No matter what I told Caitlin, there’s no escaping one unalterable reality: Despite my deal with the devil, Tim Jessup’s blood still cries out from the ground. And I am not deaf. Only one thought brings me solace now.

 

My daughter is coming home.

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER
35

 

 

Linda is sitting in the front pew of the church, near the wooden rail. Pastor Simpson sits facing her, his hands hanging between his knees. He looks like a laborer forced to put on a suit for a funeral, but when you feel his hands, you know he hasn’t done real labor in years. He’s a talker, soft-spoken and sincere. He’s been talking to Linda about the totality of God, but she can’t keep her mind on the words. She’s burning up, her leg is throbbing, and her ride is late, hours late, picking her up.

 

“I’m sorry it’s taken so long, honey,” Simpson says for the twentieth time. “That dern nephew of mine can’t hardly get no work, and now he gets called out to rig like this…and after what you said, I didn’t think we should tell nobody else but Darla about you being here.”

 

“I understand,” Linda says, trying to keep her mind clear through the fever. “But the Bargain Barn closed a long time ago.”

 

“I told you, hon, Darla sits with sick folks sometimes after she gets off, and tonight she had to check on a patient. Somebody probably ran off and stuck her with their mama or something. Happens all the time. Darla don’t charge half of what professional sitters charge, so people are all the time taking advantage.”

 

“Where exactly are we going?”

 

“Oh, you’re gonna love it. My brother’s got a place way out in
the country. Ain’t nothing there but trees and ponds. Nobody to hurt you, or even see you. Just an old cabin. You can stay out there however long you need, till the coast is clear.”

 

“All by myself?”

 

“Well, Darla can stay awhile to get you fixed with food and sundries. But after that—” Simpson falls silent at the sound of an engine. “See there? All that worry for nothing.”

 

Linda feels a dizzying rush of relief. The pastor reaches out and steadies her. “She’s gonna knock three times, so we’ll know it’s her. Okay?”

 

“Okay. You said Mayor Cage got my note, right?”

 

“That’s what Darla said. Now, let’s get on down the aisle.”

 

As Simpson helps Linda to her feet, three loud knocks reverberate through the cold church, like someone banging on a castle door.

 

“Come in,” the pastor calls. “We’re coming.”

 

The door opens, and Linda sees a tall silhouette in the door. Darla, for sure. But as the silhouette moves forward, Linda perceives its narrow waist and broad shoulders. Then a shaft of light falls on the handsome face of Seamus Quinn.

 

Linda’s stomach heaves in terror, and she whirls toward Pastor Simpson, who’s looking at her with terrible shame on his face.

 

Quinn strides up the aisle with two big men flanking him. Linda recoils and tries to run toward the altar, but her torn knee gives way and she collapses in the aisle. The two men rush forward and lift her to her feet.

 

“How can you do this?” she asks, her eyes on Pastor Simpson. “You’re a man of God!”

 

“Just a man, Linda. I’m weak, like everybody else. I sin like everyone else. It’s the curse of my life.”

 

Simpson turns to Quinn and says, “We’re square now, right? That’s what you said? All debts canceled?”

 

Quinn gives him a broad grin and slaps his back. “No worries, Padre. For now. I’m sure you’ll be back at the tables soon enough.”

 

“No!” Simpson cries. “Never. This finishes all that!”

 

Quinn’s laughter reverberates through the church as they drag Linda toward the door.

 

“They’re going to kill me!” she screams, looking back at Simpson with pleading eyes. “You know they are!”

 

“The Lord will keep you, child! Have no fear. You’re a child of God, perfect in his eyes. But I must to render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s. My family needs me, Linda. My congregation needs me. You’ll be saving all of that with your sacrifice, just as our Lord did at Calvary!”

 

“Fuckin’ hell!” Quinn shouts, laughing. “Shut your fucking gob already! You’re worse than the bloody Taigs!”

 

As Simpson falls to his knees at the altar and begins to pray, Linda’s knee gives way at the door. The men lift her bodily and carry her toward a black SUV.

 

“Who’s going first?” asks one of the men holding her.

 

“High card wins,” says the second.

 

“Get your arses up front,” snaps Quinn. “Age before beauty, that’s the rule.”

 

He lifts the rear gate on the SUV and the men slide Linda into the cargo area on her back. “Get on with you,” Quinn says. “This is no peep show.”

 

One man slams the rear door down, and they get into the front seat. After the motor starts, Quinn leans down beside Linda’s ear. “You led me a merry chase, darlin’. But I like a game bitch. I’ve been waiting a long time for this. I’ve already seen pictures, now let’s see the real thing.”

 

Linda struggles as his hand slides down her stomach, but when a razor-edged knife grazes her throat, she freezes. Seconds later, her pants have been cut from her body as smoothly as if by a nurse in an ER.

 

Quinn’s eyes glint in the dark. “So that’s what kept the boss in such a state,” he whispers. “Not bad…not bad.”

 

“What do you want?”

 

“Everything you gave
him,”
Quinn whispers. “Then more.”

 

Linda’s shock and fever have held her at some chemical remove from the situation, but now reality is settling into her bones. God has not delivered her anywhere but into the hands of Tim’s murderers.

 

“Please don’t hurt me any more,” she whispers. “I’ll do anything you say.”

 

“Course you will.” Quinn laughs harshly, then hits the front seat twice to signal the driver to go. “Everybody does, in the end.”

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER
36

 

 

Kelly and I are standing at the foot of the broad gangplank of the
Magnolia Queen,
having a last talk before we go aboard. Kelly believes Sands needs to hear directly from us that we’re disengaging from our covert war, and we need his assurance that he’s doing the same. I’ve agreed because I want no misunderstanding on that score, especially since Kelly and Danny McDavitt are flying to Houston this afternoon to bring back Annie and my mother.

 

“We’re just going to talk, right?” I ask a little anxiously.

 

“Clear the air,” Kelly says. “Everybody can get whatever they have to say off their chests, and we can all relax a little.”

 

“That’s kind of hard for me to visualize, given the past few days.”

 

“Nah. Come on.”

 

As I follow him up the broad gangplank, I say, “Did that SAS sergeant ever get back to you? About Sands’s life pre-1989? The Northern Ireland stuff?”

 

Kelly’s face darkens. “He did, but he didn’t have anything for me. He thinks Sands probably isn’t a real name. I faxed him a photo, but that could take longer. My guy’s not on active duty anymore.”

 

“I just wish we knew more about this asshole.”

 

“We’re about to. You’re not carrying a weapon or a wire, are you?”

 

“No. Why?”

 

“They’re bound to search us. Wand us, everything.”

 

“I’m clean. You?”

 

Kelly rolls his eyes. “I asked you first.”

 

At the end of the gangway we pass through the main entrance, where a guard in a burgundy uniform stands greeting gamblers. Seeing us, he speaks into a collar radio. Seconds later, two men appear at our sides and lead us to an elevator hidden behind a wall partition. As we rise to the upper floor known as the hurricane deck, our escorts pat us down thoroughly, then run wands along the lengths of our bodies.

 

“Rub a little harder down there,” Kelly quips. “You’re giving me a chubby.”

 

The guy pulls back, muttering something about queers and ponytails. He’d probably be shocked to learn that this ponytailed hippie could take him apart without raising his pulse rate.

 

The other guy finishes Kelly’s patdown, stopping at his left forearm. Kelly pulls up the sleeve of his sweatshirt, exposing a white bandage. “Dog bite,” he says with a smile. The guy fingers the entire length of the bandage while Kelly grits his teeth. Then the man presses a remote in his pocket.

 

The doors open onto a carpeted corridor where the jangling sound of slots does not intrude. The men motion for us to walk past simulated gasoliers to a set of stainless-steel doors at the end of the hall.

 

As we reach them, the doors part as though by magic, and I catch my breath. The steamboat-Gothic motif that dominates the
Magnolia Queen
ends at the door of Jonathan Sands’s office. Behind his sleek black desk stands a solid glass wall that offers a breathtaking vista of the upstream bend of the Mississippi River, the great reddish tide flowing down out of verdant green bluffs on the east, and flat delta earth to the west. Sands sits behind his desk wearing an olive green commando sweater with patches on the elbows. He’s furnished the room with Barcelona chairs, an Eames lounger, and several other iconic pieces. The office feels as though it was ordered in a single shipment from Ultra Modern or Design Within Reach.

 

“Well, Mr. Kelly,” he says. “We meet at last.”

 

Kelly nods but says nothing.

 

“Where did you come from, if you don’t mind my asking?”

 

“I flew in from a place called Qalat. You know where that is?”

 

Sands gives a surprised smile. “Actually, I do. I passed a few years there one afternoon, back in the nineties.”

 

“I figured maybe you had. Or somewhere like it.”

 

“So. Brothers-in-arms.”

 

“I wouldn’t go that far.”

 

“Well, get on with it. Why are you here?”

 

“Diplomacy. To make sure something’s understood.”

 

“I’m listening.”

 

“At the request of the government, we’re going to cease and desist trying to nail your hide to the barn door.”

 

As Sands laughs, the doors hiss open behind us. When I glance back, I see Seamus Quinn, his face clouded with suspicion. After Quinn comes the white Bully Kutta I last saw at Sands’s house. The dog walks around us and sits calmly to the right of Sands’s desk, the piercing eyes staring out of its wrinkled face.

 

“That’s already been communicated to me,” Sands says.

 

“From Hull, no doubt,” I say.

 

“We’re here to add the personal touch,” Kelly says. “I have a message of my own for you.”

 

Sands raises one eyebrow.

 

“I want you to understand that the only thing keeping you alive is this man standing here.”

 

Sands looks back and forth from me to Kelly.

 

“Penn is your old-school type guy. A gentleman and a scholar. Officer material, you might say. I’m more the direct type. A grunt. A grunt’s grunt might be more accurate. I have certain skills that your average grunt doesn’t. When the brass sees a problem they can’t solve with a TV-guided bomb or an Abrams tank, they point guys like me at it. The paper pushers call it discretionary warfare. Doesn’t sound very bloody, does it?” Kelly smiles. “But you know the real definition, don’t you? Mate?”

 

Sands’s good humor seems to be wearing thin. I doubt he’s accustomed to being challenged in his own office.

 

“I know what you did to his sister,” Kelly says mildly. “And he told me what you said you’d do to his little girl. I’m a big fan of that little girl. I like the way she smells—like clothes that just came out of a dryer. So when Mayor Cage asked my opinion of your recent
activities, I told him you were a one-bullet problem. Do you require a translation, Mr. Sands?”

 

Sands chuckles in appreciation. “You’re all balls, aren’t you, Danny boy? Where was your grandfather from? Derry?”

 

“South Boston. You can play it as cool as you want, but you see me. You hear me. And I don’t want any misunderstanding after I leave this room. We’re not your problem anymore, and you’re not ours. You guys can rob this town blind for all we care. Neither I nor the mayor is going to lift a finger to stop you. Am I right, Penn?”

 

“Right.”

 

“But,” Kelly adds, “if anything happens to my friend or his family—if his father should suffer a minor heart attack while walking through the produce section of the local Wal-Mart, say…then you, Jonathan Sands, will cease to exist. Your pal standing behind me too—but purely as an afterthought. I’d take him out just to get rid of the bog stink.”

 

I hear Quinn shifting his weight, but Sands stops him with a glance.

 

“Are we clear?” Kelly asks.

 

“Danny, Danny,” says Sands. “Who do you think you’re dealing with?”

 

“Rats,” Kelly says. “Informers. But that’s an old IRA tradition, isn’t it? That’s why you have the kneecapping with the power drills and all that, to try to keep your mates from selling you out for a bottle of Bushmills.”

 

Sands’s eyes harden remarkably fast.

 

“You’re ratting Po to the government,” Kelly goes on, despite my trying to shut him up with a glance, “which sounds like a risky proposition to me, even if they get him. But if I were you, I’d be worried about what your lapdog behind me’s going to do if Po
doesn’t
take the bait. Hull is going to want something to show for his years of investigation. Quinn might decide to flip on you and turn state’s evidence to keep his own ass out of jail. Yeah, I’d be thinking hard about that.”