Black Light

You cubano? Maybe Desi Arnez done fucked your mama when your daddy was out fucking the goats.”

“I don’t think so,” said Bob. “We didn’t have no TV.”

They turned and were back at their own truck when the Cubano ended his misery; the truck flared as it went and the heat reached Bob and Russ.

It was nearly dark when Red landed back at Fort Smith. He taxied the Conquest to the hangar and instructed his mechanic to secure it from the flight. He went to the parking lot where his two bodyguards, ever astute, ever loyal, ever dreary, waited in their car. He got into his Mercedes and drove home.

“Honey,” said Miss Arkansas Runner-up 1986, “how did it go today?”

“Oh, it was all right,” he said. “You know. Sort of unsettled, but all right.”

Then he and his two youngest children watched a videotape of Black Beauty, a favorite of the kids’, and, truth be told, a movie that he himself didn’t find too irritating.

After the kids were in bed, he watched the news. The big story, of course, was the drug-dealer shoot-out only a hundred miles away in Oklahoma, on the Taliblue Trail. Ten men dead, four pounds of uncut cocaine recovered. An Oklahoma State Police spokesman said authorities were still trying to figure out what had happened, but the un-burned bodies had all been identified as professional criminals tied to Miami, Dallas and New Orleans, with long records of violent felonies, and that conjecture at this time was leading in the direction of some kind of drug shipment ambush that got out of hand and ended up in a flat-out battle on one of Oklahoma’s prettiest highways. “Thank God,” the cop said, “no innocent people were hurt.”

Only after the news was over and the kids were in bed did he step out of denial and face the reality: he was in big trouble. This guy Swagger was the best who’d ever come at him, and, at least in the ten years after his father had been killed, men came after him regularly and he’d beaten them all.

Now he knew he had to do something very clever, very subtle and extremely professional, or he would lose it all. He looked around at his house and thought of his kids from this marriage and the kids from his first marriage and wondered what would happen to them if this guy Swagger took him. It terrified him.

He had a drink and then another, and then the buzzer on his beeper sounded.

He called his number and got Peck’s report.

Then he called Peck.

“He’s gone now?” he asked.

“Yes sir. What should I do?”

“Peck, I have to know what he’s onto. Can you get inside that office?”

“Yes sir,” said Peck.

“Okay, I want you to break in and make careful notes of his papers. I want to know what he knows, do you understand?”

“Yes sir.”

“I don’t need any more surprises,” he said.

He hung up. He would have gone to bed, but somehow Miss Arkansas Runner-up 1986, real tits or no, didn’t seem to amuse him tonight.

Instead, he placed one more phone call and arranged for a quick blow job from a black crack whore. That expressed his mood perfectly.

27

H

e watched as the old man finally turned the light off and then, forty-five seconds later, emerged from the office, still in his wife’s bathrobe, climbed into the Cadillac and drove off with a shaky squeal of brakes and too much acceleration.

Duane checked his watch. It was 11:45. He decided to give it another fifteen minutes, but only lasted seven before he started to drift off. He knew he was dangerously exhausted. So he got out of the car, walked down the street with his flashlight, throwing beams into crannies just as if he were on patrol investigating a prowler or something, then boldly pushed the door. Naturally, the old man had left it open. He stepped in and followed the flashlight beam up the stairs to the office. Dammit, that door was locked.

He reached into his wallet and fumbled with a plastic credit card. Like many policemen, he was skilled at some small criminal crafts that he’d picked up over the years, and it didn’t take more than a few seconds’ manipulation of the card and the doorknob before he popped the lock and stepped into the outer office. He strode quickly through it and into the old man’s lair. The odor of pipe smoke still lingered sweetly in the air.

He went quickly to the safe behind the desk and pulled it gently; sometimes a man will snap his vault closed and not spin the dial and therefore not set the lock. But no, crazy old geezer that he was, old Sam had spun the dial and the lock was solid and beyond Duane’s abilities to penetrate. So instead he went to the windows and pulled the shades. Then he turned on the lights.

The place was a mess! The old bastard seemed to be on some mission of self-destruction: he was systematically trashing everything he owned or held dear. Papers were strewn about everywhere, one of the file cabinet drawers had been dumped on the old carpet.

Duane sat at the desk, littered with old files and reports. He paged through them. Hmmmm. Most seemed to have to do with 1955. There was a letter from some woman, which he slipped into his pocket. He shifted papers about and came across a report on a pretrial hearing, dating from July 29, 1955, for the case of Reggie Gerard Fuller on a count of first-degree murder. Hmmmm. What the hell was this all about? It probably had to do with the niggers the old man had been visiting. Why was he visiting niggers? What was he up to? Did it have anything to do with Swagger?

He noticed a legal pad. It wasn’t written on, but someone had just torn the top page off of it, and the heavy inscription of a pen had been embossed in the texture of the paper beneath. He held it up to the light, shifting it, trying to find angles on it. Words, in old gnarled writing, began to emerge: Moved body? Little Georgia? Strangled?

Hmmmmm again.

He felt a smug little blast of triumph. Wouldn’t Mr. Bama be pleased?

He heard a clatter of noise, the swift thump of feet and the door blew open.

“What the goddamn hell are you doing?” said Sam Vincent.

* * *

The old man drove home heavily agitated. His imagination foundered against one significant problem. Who on earth in 1955 in West Arkansas would have considered it worthwhile to engineer a great conspiracy to place the blame for the death of a young girl on an innocent black boy? What would be the point?

He could see no point. But he tried to break it down into parts and see how it fit together. And he kept coming back to one thing: someone didn’t want anybody to know that Shirelle was killed at Little Georgia. Little Georgia was the key.

The significance of moving the body had to be that there was evidence, somewhere, somehow, that linked the killer to Little Georgia.

If someone had found the body at Little Georgia, then by God, there was some obvious, physical link to Little Georgia which would have led inexorably to the killer. What could that have been? What would have placed someone at Little Georgia?

He tried to think what he could do to dig up the connection, what it could be. There had to be a document, or at least something prominent in the memory of someone easily accessible at the time.

Maybe a land-use permit.

Maybe a site examination, as from an engineer or an architectural firm.

Maybe a bill of sale.

He tried to consider all the documents that could relate to a piece of land or a section of the county.

Suddenly, he screeched to a halt.

Panic hit him.