Black Light

His father came booming out of the doorway and stood there, huge and looking more like John Wayne than ever. His hair was shorter, but just as gray, and he’d lost that pallor and grimness that had been so evident when he’d been recovering from his wound several years back, Russ’s freshman year. He no longer seemed halting or confused.

“Oh, Russ, it’s terrific to see you,” he said, beaming, his face flushing with pleasure.

“Hi, Dad,” said Russ a little sheepishly, feeling fourteen again.

“This is making him so happy,” said Holly, crying a little. “He just said to me, Oh, gosh, I’d like to see Russ again.”

“Holly, get the boy a beer. No, get the man a beer, Lord how he’s grown and toughened up. I talked to your mother on the phone: she said you were going back to school.”

“Vanderbilt. In Tennessee.”

“That’s a good one, I hear.”

“It’s real good. It’s better for me because it isn’t so eastern.”

“You think you’re going to stay in the newspaper business?”

“Well, sir, I’m going to give it a try. I’m majoring in English, and I’ve got some projects in mind.”

“Is that why you were in Arkansas?”

“Yeah, you won’t believe this: I decided to try and write the life story of Lamar Pye,” he said. “So I went back there and looked into his background. He had quite a background.”

“Russ, why? Why? He was a violent scumbag. He lived as he died. He hurt people.”

“Yes, I know, Dad, and I wanted to know why.”

“Did you find out?”

“Yes,” said Russ, “I did. It has to do with family. Anyway … how’ve you been? You look great! What’ve you been up to?”

They talked for three hours.

The sun hid behind pale clouds. The day was gray and dreary. In the distance, the prison showed white, the only source of radiance in the grim day; as always, it looked exactly like it was what it wasn’t, a magic city, an enchanted castle.

The tall, thin man climbed the scruffy little hill. Around him, the Oklahoma plains rolled away toward the horizon. He walked among the grave markers, seeing the names of felons long forgot, bad men who’d done terrible things and now lay unlamented in this forgotten parcel of America. The ever-present wind whistled, kicking up a screen of dust that swirled across the ground and between the gravestones.

At last he came to the one he’d been seeking.

“L

AMAR

P

YE

” was all it said. “1956– 1994.”

“That one,” somebody said. “That was a bad one.”

Bob looked and saw the old black trusty who’d been here before, when Russ showed him the spot.

“Wasn’t you here a few months back?” the trusty asked, his face screwing up in the effort to remember.

“Yes, I was,” he said.

“You was looking at old Lamar then too, right?”

“We came to see Lamar, that’s right,” he said.

“We don’t get many people stopping by. You was the only one ever came to see old Lamar. I’d remember if there were more. Nope, you and that boy the only ones.”

Bob looked at the gravestone. There wasn’t much to see, just a flat stone, overgrown and dusty, showing the wear of wind and dust and time.

“A bad, bad boy,” said the trusty. “The worst boy in the joint. Lived bad, died bad. Bad to the bone. Bad at the start, bad at the finish.”

“He was a bastard,” Bob said. “No one could deny that.”

“Pure evil,” said the trusty. “I do believe God sent him to us to show us what evil is.”

“Maybe so,” said Bob, “but from what I understand, someone did a good job of beating it into him. I’d say men put the evil in him, not God. It’s what happens when you don’t got nobody pulling for you or nobody who gives a damn about you.”

The old black man looked at him and didn’t know what to say.

There was the sound of other vehicles and both men turned as a tractor with backhoe began to lumber down the prison road, followed by a long black hearse.

“What the hell?” said the trusty.

Bob reached into his jacket and pulled out a document.

“Here. I’m supposed to give this to the supervisor but he’s not here so I guess I give it to you.”

The old man opened the document with a puzzled look, fumbled with some glasses and tried to make sense out of what was there.

“It’s an official exhumation order,” Bob said. “We’re taking Lamar back to Arkansas. He’s going to be with his father.”

The old man’s eyes were filled with incomprehension, but no further explanations came.

Bob turned and headed down the hill, where his wife and daughter stood waiting.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

T

he author would like to issue particular thanks to Weyman Swagger, who gave especially of time and effort. Then John Feamster, of Precision Shooting, pitched in with another large chunk of help.

Other friends were involved as well, notably Bob Lopez, Mike Hill, Lenne Miller, my brother Tim Hunter, and Barry Neville. A whole slew of people were of great help in Arkansas, including the three antiques dealers in Fort Smith, who helped me find maps from the fifties, and the librarian who dug out the microfilm of the Southwestern Times Record for July of 1955. In fact, the people of Arkansas were unfailingly kind to me in my peregrinations in that state.

Peter R. Senich’s The Long Range War was invaluable in explaining the difference between Army and Marine sniper programs in Vietnam, though it should be emphasized that any judgments made on those programs are mine and not his.

Two other points should be made. Polk Countians and other Arkansans will recognize that I’ve yielded to the godlike temptation to create and destroy at my own whimsy. For example, I’ve created the Harry Etheridge Memorial Parkway out of whole cloth; I’ve also disappeared the town of Mena and dumped the wholly fictitious town of Blue Eye, with a far more tragic racial history, in its place.

Second, the author hopes that some readers recognize that Black Light is the third in what amounts to a trilogy, following on his last two novels, Point of Impact and Dirty White Boys. I’ve made a good-faith effort to reconcile this book with the other two, where it was possible; alas, in some cases, as where I placed the same event on different days in each book (duh!), it was not.

Finally, the author would like to thank his brilliant agent, Esther Newberg, for enthusiasm, shrewd judgment and unflagging support; his first editor at Doubleday, David Gernert, for his enthusiasm and support; and his second editor at the house, Bill Thomas, for picking up the project and running with it.

Naturally, none of these good people is responsible for any mistakes or failures of nerve, taste and character in the book; those rest with me entirely.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR