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Slate nodded. “Thanks, Peggy. Remember, everything is normal here.” He lifted one hand and put his palm down. “We’re calm. You’re going to take him the brisket plate and his sweet tea. The end.”
Her eyes were as big as the dinner plates they served barbecue from. “Okay.”
“You’re fine,” Slate said, but he wasn’t sure if it was for her or for him. His heart beat with the speed of light, and he took a long breath, trying to quiet it. That didn’t work, and Slate pushed away from the stainless steel counter where he’d been standing.
He’d come to the restaurant with his father last night, but Jackson hadn’t showed up. Slate supposed even drug dealers took Thanksgiving Day off, though he had been surprised. Annoyance had sang through him then, as his trip back to Sweet Water Falls had been postponed.
The delay had given him time to formulate a plan beyond sitting down in front of Jackson and telling him to clear out of Austin. As he’d laid awake on the couch in the living room, he’d realized he didn’t want Jackson MacBride in any city, corrupting any more lives.
He’d risen with the sun and gone somewhere he’d never thought he’d go. Luke would be horrified, as would Ted. Slate had told himself he didn’t have to tell them. His business in Austin was exactly that—his.
The woman he’d met with at the police station had listened to him for only ten minutes before she’d stood and said, “Can you give me a minute? I need to bring someone else in here.” She’d held out both hands, almost like she needed to placate him into staying.
Slate had almost bolted, and she could probably feel his nervousness. The anxiety bled off him, even now.
He went out the back door, where no less than eight uniformed and armed cops waited. Not just any team of cops either. The special forces team against drugs in Austin.
They’d been looking for Jackson MacBride for over a year, apparently. When Slate came in, saying he knew who he was, and where he’d be, and that there would likely be drugs nearby? The whole team had been mobilized, and Slate had left the police station only forty-five minutes ago.
Everything had been explained to everyone in the restaurant, and Slate met the eyes of the team leader, the same woman he’d spoken to hours ago. “Ready?” she asked.
“Everyone’s going to be okay, right?” Slate asked. “My father. My brother. Peggy. There’s two receptionists in today, because my daddy thought it would be busy. We were only expecting one.”
Lauren took him by the shoulders, though she was easily a foot shorter than him. “Slate,” she said. “You’re going to lead him away from the restaurant.”
“Yeah, but…” Slate looked down the narrow alley behind the restaurant. He’d hated it out here with the fire of a thousand suns. He’d been forced to work at the barbecue joint, and he’d been on garbage duty for almost a year before Daddy would even let him touch a dirty dish.
“There are people on the street,” he said. “It’s Black Friday.”
“It’s almost evening,” Lauren said. “And besides, everyone on the street is with our team. We’ve closed the streets leading to this area.”
Slate looked at her, surprise in his eyes. “You have?”
“Five minutes ago,” she said. “When one of our eagles spotted our man going into the restaurant.”
Slate’s stomach turned over again. “Okay,” he said, reaching up to rub his shoulder where the wire had been sealed to his skin. “I’m free to leave town the minute you arrest him, right?”
“Yes,” Lauren said. “We know how to get in touch with you if we need to.”
“Lead us to the drop-off, and we won’t need to talk to you again,” James said, a tall, African-American man that would intimidate anyone on the planet. There was no way he blended in anywhere, so it was no surprise he was in the back alley.
“Okay,” Slate said again. “I better go. The brisket plate is just a scoop-and-serve.”
He turned to go, but Lauren stopped him. She looked into his eyes with her similarly dark ones. “You can do this, Slate. You survived four years in prison, and this is nothing. You know how to be a junkie.”
“Yeah,” he said, a certain level of misery accompanying him. He did know how to be a junkie, but he wished he didn’t. He went back inside the restaurant, seeing the open, blank, staring eyes of the last guy who’d come back to Austin after his stint in prison. He hadn’t had the circle of friends to help him stay off the streets and away from the drugs.
He’d died only thirteen days after his release.
Slate pushed through the black plastic door and kept going. Past the bar and past all the tables until he got to the one where Jackson sat, his food in front of him. It was half-gone already, and Slate pulled out the chair across from him and sat.
Jackson’s eyes met his, and no, he was not intoxicated. He was not high. How he managed to move the stuff he did without taking it was a miracle to Slate. His legs shook with the need to run, but he stayed put.
“Well,” Jackson said, slathering some butter onto his roll. He loaded one half of it with chopped brisket. “What are you doing here?”
“I need those pink pills. Do you still get those?”
Jackson chuckled and took an enormous bite of his sandwich. He shook his head as his eyes met Slate’s. He wore something in his eyes that made Slate want to yell at him, lunge across the table, and start swinging.
