The Quiet Game (44 page)

“I’ve got a man out there, Ike. Maybe one of the guns was his.”

He whips his head around. “What man?”

“A private security guy. From Houston.”

He peers into the darkness the way he must have done in Vietnam, with absolute concentration. “I can’t see shit,” he hisses. “But some lardass ex-cop ain’t gonna help us one bit, I know that.”

“He’s not what you think.”

After a minute of silence, he works his way toward the edge of the door.

“What do you see?”

“Shut the fuck up.”

A boom like a cannon shot shatters the silence, reverberating through the
warehouse for at least four seconds. Ike hits the floor with his pistol still aimed at the door.

“That’s a deer gun,” he says. “Stay down. We got serious shit going down out there, and it ain’t all got to do with us.”

“How do you know?”

“Ain’t but one bullet come into this warehouse.”

As I lie facedown on the floor, breathing accumulated dust and oil, the seconds drag past. There are no more shots, but the instinctual voice that warned me during the fire that killed Ruby is not comforted by this fact. It knows that silence is the cloak of the approaching enemy.

“How long we gonna lie here?” I whisper.

“Till I tell you to get up.”

Another five minutes pass.

“Penn Cage!” yells a man from beyond the warehouse door. “It’s Kelly! Daniel Kelly.”

“That your guy?” asks Ike.

“It’s Kelly,” shouts the voice again. “Come out! And bring your friend. We need some law out here.”

I scramble to my feet and trot to the edge of the door.

Daniel Kelly stands forty feet away, an MP-5 submachine gun slung over his shoulder.

“What happened?” I ask, walking into the parking lot.

“Somebody tried to whack you. Or the cop. I couldn’t tell which.”

Ike steps into the light, his pistol aimed at Kelly. “Who shot who out here?”

Kelly holds up his hands. “Take it easy, Deputy. I’m a friendly. I was out here covering your meeting when I saw a muzzle flash from over there.” He points at the levee, a dark silhouette fifty yards away. “It was a silenced rifle, and it was firing subsonic rounds, because I didn’t hear the bullet crack. I started running toward the flash, whipping out a spotter scope as I ran, trying to get within range and see at the same time. The shooter was firing from the prone position, already setting up for his second shot. I yelled just as he pulled the trigger, and as he swung around to deal with me, I double-tapped him on the run.”

“Is he dead?” Ike asks.

“Definitely. I put one through his head to be sure, and it’s a good thing, because he was wearing a vest.”

“What about that deer gun I heard?”

Kelly points into the darkness south of the warehouse. “The deer gun belonged to the guy over there. Who is also dead. The shooter on the levee took him out. That was the first muzzle flash I saw. He fired across my line of
sight, at a right angle to you guys. The other guy must have fired off that deer slug as he was dying. Pure reflex, probably.”

“I don’t get it,” I say. “Why would they shoot at each other? A falling-out among hit men?”

Kelly shakes his head. “I don’t think these guys were together. They’re dressed different, and their equipment’s different. I think the guy with the deer gun was just in the way.”

“Who knew you were coming to this meeting?” Ike asks.

“My father and Kelly. That’s it.”

“What about you?” Kelly asks Ike.

“Nobody knows where I’m at. How did these guys get so close if you were covering the meeting?”

Kelly scratches the side of his nose, as though to emphasize his calmness. “First of all, they’re not that close. Second, the curve of the levee blocked my line of sight to the guy with the deer gun, but not his line to you. Third, the sniper on the levee followed
you
in. He probably drove with his lights off and parked well back, then moved up on foot.” Kelly pauses, his cool blue eyes level with Ike’s. “And fourth, if I was in with those guys, you’d be bagged and tagged right now.”

Ike snorts and turns toward the levee. “Show me the dead guys.”

Kelly unslings his MP-5 and starts jogging toward the levee. We follow him across the lot, trying to stay with him as he pounds up the spongy grass on the side of the levee. The odors of cow manure and bush-hogged grass weight the humid air. At the crest, Kelly points at a black shape lying at the edge of the gravel road that runs atop the levee.

“No wallet,” he says. “No ID at all. Car’s clean too. A rental.”

“That’s risky,” Ike remarks. “He gets stopped at random without ID, he’s gonna get run in.”

“Unless he’s willing to do the cop.”

Ike walks to the corpse, bends over, and takes a long look. “Never seen him. Take a look, Cage.”

I walk over and glance at the dead sniper. He’s dressed from head to toe in black, and looks like he stepped off a film set. His face is pale and placid in the dark, as though he were shot while sleeping. A dead face can be difficult to identify, so I give it long enough to be sure.

“I don’t know him.”

“Here’s his weapon.” Kelly holds out a long, bolt-action rifle to Ike. “Rank-Pullin starlight scope. Fourth-generation passive amplification. Expensive toy.”

“Guy’s definitely out of town,” Ike declares. “Nobody around here uses shit like this. Caliber looks awful small.”

“It’s a special twenty-two magnum. Chambers subsonic rounds. An assassin’s gun.”

“Christ,” I whisper. “Where’s the other guy?”

Kelly points into the darkness south of the warehouse, then starts down the slope.

The second corpse is lying facedown in a thicket of weeds, dressed in jeans and a plaid flannel shirt. There’s a red bandanna knotted around its head.

Ike bends down and pulls a rifle from the dead hand. “An old Remington thirty-aught-six. Seen better days too.”

Kelly says, “The shooter on the levee probably saw him moving up to get a shot. Poor bastard didn’t have a chance.”

Ike puts both hands under the corpse and rolls it over. Below the dead man’s left eye is a small black hole. Small but obviously fatal.

“I’ve seen a hundred shitkickers just like him,” says Ike. “But I don’t know this one.”

As I stare, the slack features suddenly coalesce into a coherent whole, and a feverish heat shoots through me. The dead man is a nightmare made flesh, a physical echo of the most terrifying night of my life.

“I know him,” I say, grabbing Ike’s arm.

“Who is he?”

“His name’s Hanratty. I convicted his brother of capital murder. He was just executed.”

“I’ll be damned. That Aryan Brotherhood bastard?”

“Right. I also shot his other brother four years ago.”

“No shit,” says Kelly, with respect mingled with surprise.

“This one was the last.” The fever heat has disappeared, leaving a chill in its wake. “The youngest.”

Ike kicks the corpse’s leg. “No more boom-boom for this Aryan
papasan
.”

He kneels and starts going through the dead man’s pockets, quickly turning up a wallet. “Hanratty, Clovis Dee,” he says, reading the driver’s license.

“Brother of Arthur Lee,” I say absurdly.

“And white people make fun of African names,” Ike mutters, getting to his feet. “ ’Least we know what happened now. This shitkicker was out for revenge, and he picked the wrong night to try it. He was crowding that ninja assassin up on the levee, and he paid for it. The question is, who sent the assassin?”

“Portman?” I suggest. “The hardware looked pretty sophisticated.”

“John Portman would definitely have access to people like that,” Kelly says quietly. “Retired Bureau. Agency. Former CT operators.” He looks at Ike. “In any case, I hope you appreciate this enough to take care of any problems that might arise.”

“Don’t sweat it,” Ike replies. “We’re in the county here. Me and the sheriff
understand each other. Although three killings in one day is big-time trouble for this town.”

“The district attorney could be a problem,” I tell them, thinking of Austin Mackey.

“Fuck that tightass,” Ike mutters. “We got three witnesses telling it one way, dead guys got nobody. Mackey got no choice.”

“I was thinking of Kelly’s submachine gun. It’s illegal.”

Kelly smiles and draws a pistol from his holster.

“What you gonna do with that?” Ike asks, dropping his hand to his own gun.

Kelly fires three quick rounds into the night sky, then holsters the pistol. “Browning Hi-Power,” he says with a smile. “Chambers the same nine-millimeter cartridge as the MP-5. Very convenient, as long as they don’t do a ballistics analysis.”

Ike nods as if noting this for future use. “Well, let’s get this over with. Let me call the sheriff.”

He starts back toward the warehouse, but I take his arm and stop him. “Who sent the sniper, Ike? Who’s trying to kill me?”

He looks back, his face indignant. “How you know he was shooting at
you
?”

He pulls his arm free and walks on, but I stay where I am, breathing the cooler air blowing off the river. The stars are bright here, the water close. A few minutes ago a silent bullet passed within inches of my face. But I am still alive. And the last Hanratty brother is finally dead. My daughter is a lot safer than she was before Daniel Kelly did something not many men could have done.

“Thanks, Kelly,” I say softly.

He gives me a self-deprecating smile. “Just doing my job, boss.”

Right.

The sheriff’s office looks like an armed camp when we arrive. It’s a modern, fortress-like building, with a state-of-the-art jail occupying its upper floors. Uniformed deputies swagger through the halls like cowboys in a western, stoked by the air of incipient violence blowing through the city. Ike disappears for a few moments, leaving Kelly and me in the entrance hall.

Five minutes later, he returns and escorts us into the sheriff’s office. I sense immediately that we’re going to benefit from the jurisdictional rivalry that exists between the police department and the sheriff’s office. Had we reported the levee shootings to the police, the chief would have kept Kelly and me all night, mercilessly grilling me as payback for the constitutional lesson I gave him earlier in the day.

The sheriff is tan and fit-looking, with the watchful eyes of a hunter. He seems to view the death of the youngest Hanratty as a fortuitous event, though the timing could have been better.

“When those black kids shot Billy Earl Whitestone,” he says, leaning back in his chair and folding his hands behind his neck, “they turned this town into a powder keg. The Sports Center sold out of ammunition at four o’clock. They sold mostly to whites. Wal-Mart sold out of everything but paintball rounds. They sold mostly to blacks. We may have a world of trouble coming down on our heads tonight. And all because of that newspaper story.” He looks at me like a wise poker player. “You think going after Leo Marston is worth all this trouble?”

“The built-up resentment in this town is none of my doing, Sheriff. What’s happening now would have happened eventually, whatever the cause.”

“Maybe,” he allows. “I sure hope you’ve got some evidence, though. Messing with Judge Leo ain’t generally good for your health.”

“Any leads on the Whitestone shooters?” Ike asks.

“The P.D. has an informer working it. They’re not telling me squat, of course, but the word is, it’s some kids from the Concord Apartments. Nobody’s been arrested yet, though. And we need an arrest. Jailing those two might go a
long way toward calming people down. Maybe you ought to take a ride over to those apartments, Ike. See if you can shake something loose.”

“I’ll do it.”

The sheriff smooths his thinning hair. “Think you can give me some overtime tonight?”

“Glad to get it.”

“I want you to stick to the north side, try to keep everybody indoors.”

The sheriff is telling Ike to keep the black population inside their houses.

“I’ve given the white deputies the same orders for their parts of town,” he adds for my benefit. “It’s fear that drives all this nonsense. If we can get through this first night, we might just make it okay.”

The sheriff’s phone starts ringing, and he leans forward to shake our hands. “You boys try not to shoot anybody else, okay?”

Ike leads us out to the front steps of the building, where he takes a pack of Kool Menthols from the pocket of his uniform. He offers Kelly one, but Kelly declines. As Ike holds his lighter flame to the tip of his cigarette, his hand trembles, and Kelly shoots me a quick glance.

“You sleep with this boy if you have to,” Ike tells Kelly, exhaling a long stream of smoke. “He’s doing some good, even if he is doing it the hard way.”

Kelly winks at Ike. “No sweat, Sergeant.”

“How’d you know I was a sergeant?”

“It’s like a sign around your neck, brother.”