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"If that's his name. You can tell them I didn't have nothing to do with hurting that woman."
"Tell them yourself."
"All this trouble we been having? It can end in one of two ways. That black boy, Broussard, don't testify against the dagos in New Orleans and some people gets paid back the money they're owed.
"The other way it ends is I get complete immunity as a government witness, all my real estate is sold and the proceeds are put in bearer bonds. Not one dollar of it gets touched by the IRS. Then I retire down in Guatemala. Y'all decide."
"Who the hell do you think you are?" I said.
A black man brought a bottle of Dixie beer on a metal tray to the table. Scruggs tipped him a quarter and wiped the lip of the bottle with his palm.
"I'm the man got something you want, son. Or you wouldn't be sitting here," he replied.
"You took money from Ricky Scarlotti, then fucked up everything you touched. Now you've got both the Mob and a crazoid like Boxleiter on your case," I said.
He drank out of the beer and looked into the pine trees, sucking his false teeth, his expression flat. But I saw the muted change in his eyes, the way heat glows when the wind puffs ash off a coal.
"You ain't so different from me," he said. "You want to bring them rich people down. I can smell it in you, boy. A poor man's got hate in his glands. It don't wash out. That's why nigras stink the way they do."
"You've caused a lot of trouble and pain for people around here. So we've decided in your case it should be a two-way street. I'd ho
ped you'd provoke a situation here."
"You got a hideaway on your ankle?"
"My partner has your face in the crosshairs of a scoped .30-06. She'd looked forward to this evening with great anticipation, sir. Enjoy your beer. We'll catch you down the road."
I walked out to the parking lot and waited for Helen to pull my truck around from the other side of the motel. I didn't look behind me, but I could feel his eyes on my back, watching. When Helen drew to a stop in front of me, the scoped, bolt-action rifle on the gun rack, the dust drifting off the tires, she cocked one finger like a pistol and aimed it out the window at Harpo Scruggs.
TUESDAY MORNING THE SHERIFF called me into his office.
"I just got the surveillance report on Scruggs," he said. "He took the Amtrak to Houston, spent the night in a Mexican hot pillow joint, then flew to Trinidad, Colorado."
"He'll be back."
"I think I finally figured out something about wars. A few people start them and the rest of us fight them. I'm talking about all these people who use our area for a bidet. I think this state is becoming a mental asylum, I really do." Something outside the window caught his attention. "Ah, my morning wouldn't be complete without it. Cisco Flynn just walked in the front door."
FIVE MINUTES LATER CISCO sat down in front of my desk.
"You got anything on these guys who attacked Megan?" he asked.
"Yeah. One of them is dead."
"Did you clear Swede on that deal?"
"You mean did I check out his alibi? He created a memorable moment at the theater. Water flowed out of the men's room into the lobby. At about five in the afternoon."
"From what I understand, that should put him home free."
"It might."
I watched his face. His reddish-brown eyes smiled at nothing.
"Megan felt bad that maybe she made a suspect out of Swede," he said.
"You can pretend otherwise, but he's a dangerous man, Cisco."
"How about the cowboy who went out the window? Would you call him a dangerous man?"
