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“You didn’t try to kill the black guys who raped her in Wichita.”
“I’m making up for lost time.”
“Not with toggle bolts and an electric drill.”
“I thought that was an inventive touch.”
“Quit lying, Levon.?
? I pulled the sword from the ground and stuck the brass guard in his face. “Look at the names on there: Cemetery Hill, Sharpsburg, Gaines’s Mill, Chancellorsville. Would the soldier who was at these places torture a man to death, even a piece of shit like Kevin Penny?”
“No, he would not. But that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t.”
“Good show. No cigar,” I said. “Let’s go.”
I placed my hand lightly on his upper arm. He shook his head and sucked in his cheeks. “Don’t underestimate the situation, Davey.”
“Call me Davey again, and I’ll break your jaw.”
He grinned up at me. “You’re a good guy. Butt out of this. Let others do their job.”
“You want one of our guys to cap you because you can’t do it yourself?”
“Maybe.”
“Get a card in the Screen Actors Guild. Come on. I’ll take you down to City Hall. Your lawyer will work out something. Helen isn’t going to let the guys in Jeff Davis cannibalize you.”
I heard the French doors open on the back porch, which was built of brick, high off the ground, and hung with ceiling fans. “Leave him alone,” Rowena said.
“It doesn’t work that way,” I said.
“He’s sick,” she said. “He doesn’t know what he’s saying.”
I looked at her hands. They were empty. I walked toward her. “Don’t be a problem for me, Miss Rowena. Go back inside. We’ll take good care of him. You have my word.”
“He’s innocent.”
“I believe that.”
“So leave him here. Talk to him when he’s sober.”
“There’s a bigger question we need to deal with. Why is he confessing to a crime he’s not capable of committing?” There was a shine in his eyes. I looked at her a long time. “The question stands, Miss Rowena.”
“I’ll bring him to City Hall with our attorney in the morning.”
“You can bring yourself, but he’s going to jail. Right now.”
“Hold up there, Dave,” Levon said behind me. “No need for this.” He lifted the flag off the tree with the tip of his great-grandfather’s sword. “Let me put this away and we’ll be toggling off,” he said.
I looked back at Rowena. For the first time in the case involving the Jeff Davis Eight and Tony Nine Ball and Jimmy Nightingale and Levon Broussard and Kevin Penny, I knew what had happened.
* * *
CLETE PURCEL BELIEVED in straight lines. “Bust ’em or dust ’em” was his mantra. But there was a caveat. Clete was never what the Mob called a cowboy. He could be a violent man, but with few exceptions, his violence was committed in defense of others. Consequently, his greatest virtue became his greatest vulnerability, and his enemies knew it.
He told me about his encounter with Swede Jensen at Walmart, and about Jensen’s guilt and fear, or at least Clete’s perception of it. Then Clete stopped answering my calls. I should have known what was coming next.
* * *
