Black Light

“Is something wrong?”

“Bob, Dad died last night.”

“Oh, God,” said Bob, who really thought Sam would live forever, like some magnificent old black-maned lion howling toothlessly at the moon. He felt the news as a physical pain, a loss of breath and stability. He sat down on the bed.

“What happened?” he finally asked.

“You know, Dad was slipping in and out of gears. Well, last night, he went to his office late on some fool errand or other, something in the way his mind worked. He was wearing my mother’s bathrobe and no socks and two different shoes. He slipped and fell at the top of the stairs and broke his neck in two places. At least it was clean, and over in an instant.”

“John, I owe my life to your father.”

“He was a damned good man but you couldn’t tell him anything. I pleaded with him to move in with us; there was plenty of room. He could have gone to any of his children. You know there was money for a nurse, a home, anything, but Dad was set in his ways.”

Bob could say nothing.

“They found him at seven this morning. I got a call at seven-thirty and just got here. Lord, I don’t know what got into him. He tore his house apart and he tore his office apart. He was looking for something.”

Bob realized he was looking for that coroner’s document.

“I just saw him a day or two ago. He was big as life and twice as mean.”

“You know, he loved your father. He thought your father was the best man that ever lived. And he loved you, Bob. I’m glad you got to spend some time with him before it happened. The funeral will be in a few days, Friday, I think. And after, we’ll hold a family wake. We’d really like to see you.”

“I’ll be there,” said Bob.

He sat on the bed. Paint it black. Hello, darkness. Death was no stranger, he’d seen it come in many forms and shipped it out more than any man ever should. But this one hit him particularly hard. He sat and looked at the wall until the wall went away, replaced by a great nothingness.

In time, Russ came in from his room, dressed and ready to go, and asked what was wrong and Bob told him, then retreated back into his emptiness.

Nothing seemed to happen. Bob just sat there, lanky and still and sealed off. Who could tell what was going through his mind? Russ thought of Achilles in his tent, sulking, nursing his anger into a fury so pure nothing could stand before it.

“The funeral?” Russ finally asked.

“No,” said Bob. “Not with people hunting us. That’s sure where they’d look.”

He shook his head. Then he said: “They took my father. Then they took his body, his memory. Now they’ve taken Sam.”

“You think—”

“You saw Sam. Whatever he was, he was not infirm. He did not have balance problems. He would not fall down stairs. Someone pushed him. Because again, he found something out. He was looking for that coroner’s report or something, he found it, someone was watching him, he had to be stopped. Some hero sent him flying down those steps.”

Russ saw where they were: the place called paranoia, deep into the culture of conspiracy, where everything was a part of the plot, evidence of the sinister tendencies of the universe.

“He could have just fallen. He was an old man.”

“He didn’t just fall. Some men fall. Not Sam. You think I’m nuts? You think I’m making all this up? Tell me, sonny: they was hired gunmen with submachine guns trying to fry our asses in Oklahoma, wasn’t they?”

“Yes, it’s true. But to—”

“Where’d that goddamn deputy who was dogging us go? We was dogged by that deputy. Then he disappears and the gun boys come onto the scene. So where’s the deputy go? We won’t go to the funeral but we will go to the wake. You nosy around, you see if anybody saw that deputy. That’s your job. But he’s just a little man. There’s someone behind this thing, you mark my words, watching us, setting all this up. And I will by God find him and face him down and we’ll see who walks away.”

“Yes sir,” said Russ, seeing that no headway could be made against the iron of Bob’s rage.

“But the funeral ain’t till Friday. Today’s Tuesday. Today’s the day you find Connie Longacre. You got that?”

Russ nodded. Then he said, “All right. I can do that.”

29

N

o sir,” said Duane Peck. “No sir, not at all, sir. I never seen him. I went up there, I got what I could, what I just give you, and I got out. That was it.”

Like many policemen, he was adept at lying; he had the liar’s best gift: he could absolutely convince himself that what he was saying was the truth, convince his own respiratory system, and come eventually to believe it wholly. He didn’t swallow or tremble, he didn’t breathe raspily, or touch his mouth, he had no difficulty meeting anyone’s eyes, his pupils did not get small and far away, his face color did not change.

“You had nothing to do with the old man’s death, then?” said Red Bama. They were in the back room behind Nancy’s Flamingo Lounge, where he had summoned Duane when he heard the news.

“No sir, did not. Hell, I wouldn’t do nothing to a old man. I got respect for the old. That’s what’s destroying this country, sir. Lack of respect.”

His face was perfectly passive as he spoke. His voice was calm, earnest, under control, his throat unfilled with phlegm. His heart beat dully.

“You can’t be killing people when you decide to,” said Red. “There’s something called the law of unintended consequences. It brings everything down. Besides, he was such an old man.”

“I swear to you,” said Duane, “sir, I swear to you I had nothing to do with that.”

“All right,” said Red, wanting somehow to believe in him, but not quite yet doing so entirely.

“Sir, he had gone crazy. I told you how he tore his stuff apart. Going back to that office in his wife’s bathrobe, falling down them stairs. Hell, it was a tragedy. The old gentleman needed looking after. It’s a crime his damn family didn’t do nothing for him, all he done give them.”

Bama nodded.

He examined the exhibits before him—a scrap of a hearing report from 1955, a letter in flowery script from some woman named Lucille Parker, dated 1957, and a yellow tablet faintly inscribed with the impression of writing on a top page now missing—then looked back at Duane.

“Sir, if you hold that tablet up to the light, you can sort of make out what the hell it’s all about. I see the word—”

“All right, Peck, that’s enough. I want you back in Blue Eye, but doing nothing. You wait for me to contact you. Is that clear? You do not want to be eyeballing Bob Lee Swagger. You stay away from him for now. He may sniff something out on you. I may need you for him later, if I can figure out a way.”

“Yes sir. Uh, sir, uh … about my gambling debts—”

“Forgotten, Duane. You’re no longer working in the red. You’re in the black. Don’t blow it. The pay’s five hundred a week, starters. Full medical benefits. Of course you keep your deputy’s job; that’s why you’re worth anything at all.”

“I bet I could git Bob Lee for you.”

“Don’t even think about it,” said Red. “He’ll know and he’ll come for you. There are ten men fried to crisps on a highway who thought he’d be easy. Now go on, get out of here.”

After Peck left, Red went over and filled a Styrofoam cup with the rancid bar coffee. It was an important time: he had to make some decisions.

He had to kill Bob Lee Swagger and kill him quickly. But firepower, the best professional killers, a dream team