Black Light

A tremendous sense of unfairness came over him. He picked up the shotgun, gripping it tightly, but he could see nothing.

He set the gun down, looked back at his unconcerned partner and seized the folder off his own belt. He dialed Peck’s number. He heard the phone ring in his ear … and twenty feet away.

He grabbed the gun and ran out of the cage, off to the left, and saw Peck’s phone hanging from the limb of a tree, ringing.

“Peck didn’t make it,” said somebody.

He turned and saw his nightmare: the sniper, in full camouflage regalia, an ancient god of vengeance, his face not even human but a warrior’s face lost in the swirling colors of the woods, his hair wrapped tight in a camouflaged bandanna, his eyes narrow and dark. He had simply stepped from invisibility into Red’s life. He lifted a .45 automatic and pointed it straight at Red’s face.

“Set the shotgun down, Bama, or I will kill you and you know I will.”

Red set the shotgun down.

“Guards,” he screamed. “Guards!”

“They’re tied up two stations back,” said the man. “It wasn’t their day.”

Red turned.

“Swagger,” he said, because it was all he could think to say.

“In person,” said Bob, then pivoted to point the gun at Red’s friend.

“This has nothing to do with me,” said the man. “I don’t see a thing. I’m not involved in this at all.”

“Then drop that gun or I will drop you, sir. I am not here to fuck around.”

The Perazzi fell to the ground.

“You may think I’m frightened of you, Swagger,” said Red, his face narrowing in fury. “But I’m not. Guys have come at me before. And if this is the day I check out, fuck you, because my family is taken care of and my children love me. So fuck you, Swagger, you do what you have to.”

“You got some balls, Red, that I’ll say,” said Swagger.

“Talk to him!” screamed the companion. “Negotiate with him. Make him an offer. This doesn’t have to happen.”

“You shut up,” said Bob to the man. “I have a boy a hundred yards out there with a .308 right on your chest. You shut up and sit still until I talk to you.”

The man went silent as if struck. The idea of the rifle on him chilled him out and he sat as if to move one inch in one direction would earn him a bullet.

“Now, Red,” said Bob, “I do want you to talk to me. Why’d your father kill my father back in 1955?”

“Fuck you and the horse you came in on, Swagger. I have allies. I have people who know I was gunning for you. If you kill me, they’ll hunt you down and take you out.”

“Well, maybe that’s a fact. But it won’t mean no never mind to you, Red, that I guarantee you. Now, you going to answer me or do I have to shoot a kneecap off?”

“Who’s kidding whom?” said Red furiously. “You don’t have it in you to shoot my kneecap off. You’re a soldier, not a goddamn torturer.”

“Talk to him!” screamed the terrified companion. “Tell him what he wants to know. Make him a deal. A cash deal.”

“Fuck cash,” said Red. “He’s not a cash boy.” He looked at Swagger, his eyes burning with furious contempt and rage.

Finally, he said, “All right. I’ll tell it once. Then it’s over. Then you do what you have to do.”

“Talk,” said Swagger.

“Your father was looking to buy some land. He had been examining plots in the Polk County Deeds and Claims Office and he’d learned that something called the Southland Group had bought up most of the land in Polk County. Because he was curious, he’d investigated and found out what nobody was supposed to know: that Southland was a dummy corporation owned by my father and a man named Harry Etheridge, a U.S. congressman. They’d funneled thousands into it, with the idea that Etheridge would push through a parkway or highway and open up that part of the country for development. It would be worth millions. Your father bumbled into the information. He was the only one who knew of the secret, powerful, very profitable link between the Etheridge and the Bama men. It was the linchpin of my father’s power and position. Your father had to be stopped. So the congressman and my father put together a plan that turned on some contacts we had in prison and they recruited a kid named Jimmy Pye, just due out. They told him if he did it, they’d set him up in Hollywood. He wanted to be the next Jimmy Dean. But we were worried he wasn’t good enough, so Harry Etheridge, who was on the Intelligence Oversight Committee, called in a CIA chit and got a case officer named Frenchy Short to ramrod a secondary plan through. The backup shooter nailed your dad and nobody was the wiser. End of story. Sorry, but business is business.”

“And that’s the truth?”

“As I live and die. Now fuck you, do what you want.”

“Guess what, Red?”

“What?”

“You’re wrong.”

There was a long moment of silence. Then Red turned and stared at the sniper.

“Fuck you.”

“No, fuck you, because you’re wrong. You been played like a yo-yo and your daddy too.”

Another long moment.

“Yesterday,” said Bob, “I’d have believed that. I’d have blown you away and gone home a happy boy. But not today.”

“What are you talking about?” said Red, his eyes narrowing in concentration.

“It ain’t about land. I bet if you wanted to you could pull that story apart real easy. I bet the dates don’t match, the money don’t match, it don’t quite work out. It’s what you were told, it’s what got your family involved, but it ain’t quite right. It’s a cover story. Not only because my daddy loved his own land and wasn’t about to move for nothing.”

“What’s it about, then?” said Red.

“It’s about a boy who didn’t want to pay his speeding ticket.”

There was another long pause as Red looked Bob up and down, his rage somewhat tamed by curiosity.

“What are you talking about?”

“On July 19, 1955, at 12:28

A.M

. my father issued a speeding ticket to a nineteen-year-old kid for traveling eighty-two in a fifty zone near a spot on Route 88 between Blue Eye and a town named Ink called Little Georgia. What my daddy didn’t know was that the reason that boy was speeding was because he had just raped and murdered a little black girl named Shirelle Parker, fifteen years old, at Little Georgia, which was a red clay deposit.

“He’d picked her up in Blue Eye on the way back from a church meeting. And why’d she git in the car with a white boy when her mama had told her never to get in no car with a white boy? Because that was a civil rights meeting, and she’d met a white person who believed in her and believed in her struggle. So she’d learned not to hate white boys and it got her killed.”

Red stared at him.

“Who was the kid?” he asked.

Bob said, “A Harvard kid. Raised in Washington, D.C. The son of a powerful politician. Himself loaded with ambitions.” Then he turned and pointed at the man on the bench.

“Him,” he said.

Red turned and faced his friend, the son of his father’s friend.

“Hollis?”

Hollis Etheridge stood.

“Hollis, you? You?”

“He’s lying,” said Hollis.