a confession with his broken hands and was burned at the stake for consorting with Satan.
Ma smiled sadly, as if she too wanted this all to end as quickly as possible. Clutching for him so he’d wake up, get on with his life, and let her go back to the grave. She appeared even less interested in him this time than a few nights ago.
“Shad? You listen, son. You listen to me.”
“Shh, Mama, I want to talk to your companion now.”
“Son? I need to tell you… stay off the road.” Confusion twisted and contorted her features as she moved off in the wrong direction trying to find him.
He figured what the hell, grabbed Ashtoreth by the warden’s tie, and yanked him forward. “You got something that might actually help me or not?”
“Yes. I’m only here to deliver you a friend.”
That stopped him. “What friend?”
“One you’ve been missing.”
The devil faded from sight and soon Jeffie O’Rourke stepped up and stood there just a few feet away, dressed in Armani. His eyes had some new hipness to them that he hadn’t possessed in the can, and his grin was knowing and a touch badass. Murdering your lover had a way of giving you a new confidence.
“Where’d you get to?” Shad asked.
“Been out and about,” Jeffie said, taking a step closer. The three-thousand-dollar silk suit gave a gentle swish. Shad could see there was dried blood or paint on Jeffie’s hands, the bitten-down fingernails caked with it. “Spending a lot of time sitting around on beaches, doing seascapes.”
“Like the warden.”
“Yes, just like him. He always said they were calming, but I don’t find that to be the case.”
“You should probably quit then.”
“I’ll give it a while longer though. Maybe it just takes time.”
“Maybe so.”
Jeffie gave a kind of frowning grin, like he was glad to be there and had arrived just in time. “Jenkins, I know this town is about as backass backwater backwards as can be, but are you telling me that you actually walk around this place like that? No shoes, no coat? You’re young but you’re not quite Huck Finn.”
That slow crawling heat at the back of Shad’s skull made itself aware to him again. It was always there, as much a part of him as the beating of his heart, but forgotten until the strain became too great. It grew more intense but wasn’t yet too painful. He looked down and didn’t see his body under the spruce anymore, and couldn’t be certain if he was awake or asleep.
“Stay out of the woods,” Jeffie said. “There are snakes in the dark.”
“Jesus, you people and all these warnings about the fucking woods.” He was starting to feel himself come undone a little. “Are you talking about the snake handlers up there? The community of the hill families? Did one of them kill Megan? Did her heart stop because of rattler venom?”
“How should I know? I’ve never been around here before.”
“Why did you show up then?”
“You wanted me to.”
Slouching a bit, Jeffie had a swagger now, something else he’d picked up off the warden. He let out a deliberate smirk and started chuckling, standing as if he were twelve feet tall, all this power in his face. Shad felt his shoulders go rigid as Jeffie reached out and touched him on the side of the neck. Flecks of red drifted against his skin. You could find some kind of goddamn symbolism wherever you looked.
“You ought to let it go. You’re not doing this for the right reasons.”
“Is that so?” Shad asked as the rage dug in deeper, putting the fire in his skin, kicking his heart rate up. “I’m going to find out what happened to her.”
“No,” Jeffie O’Rourke said, with that new merriment in his eyes. “I don’t think you are. Not entirely.”
When the calm wasn’t there you tried to fake it as well as you could. Jeffie kept tugging at all the wrong nerves, the same way he sometimes did back in the joint. Dead maple leaves scuffled past their ankles, scrambling across the wide lawn as the morning winds staggered in and out of the brush.
“You having fun on the outside?” Shad asked.
“Not as much as you might think.”
“Being an escaped felon might hinder your sense of cheer.”
“It’s not that so much, really. The FBI will never track me down. Those assholes spend most of their time tripping over one another, and they’re into more crooked shit than all of C-Block combined. It’s a machine working against itself. I’ve been number sixteen on the most wanted list for almost a year. They’ve never even come close.”
“So what’s the problem?” Shad asked, genuinely curious.
At last, a little of the old Jeffie came easing through. The loving but distressed face shaping his heartbreak. “I miss him.”
“The warden.”
“Yes. It’s not the same without him.”
“Looks like you’ve got money.”
“I had plenty stashed away. But, even with the cash, there’s no… reason in my life, if you can believe that shit.”
“Okay.”
Mrs. Rhyerson’s yard began to take on more detail as the dawn broke against the mountains, a murky orange stewing behind the hills.
“Are you dead?” Shad asked.
“Hell no. I’ve assumed the name Prescott Plumber, and I’ve got a sweet deal in East Hollywood. I take care of Albert Herrin. He used to be a director. Pretty popular back in the fifties, did a lot of war movies and had a couple of hits. In the sixties he did biker flicks and cashed in on the drive-in exploitation market right when it was getting big. I invested in a production company, bought up the DVD rights, and we’re making a fortune. Now he’s seventy-eight years old and still has no problem keeping it up.”
“The benefits of a pure life,” Shad said, a little surprised at the sound of his own bitterness.
“Highly suspect, that.” Jeffie checked the knot of his tie, the same as Ashtoreth had, the same way the warden always did. “Don’t go up to the ridge. Your luck might not hold. There’s things going on you won’t believe.”
“So tell me.”
“I can’t. I don’t know what they are.”
You never quite knew what was in your head and what was outside of it. “I’ve got to see this through to the end.”
“Maybe she wouldn’t want you to. Your sister. Ever think of that?”
“No.”
It brought the greasy smirk back. “You know you’re probably insane, right?”
“Sure,” Shad said. “But it’s the
“Yeah, but still, everything I’ve told you is the truth. You can check on that.”
“No need.”
The moonrunners were starting early, their superchargers screaming down the dirt roads under the highway. The stink of whiskey wafted on the breeze.
That new flash of smugness in Jeffie’s eyes turned ugly and came on a little bolder, and when he smiled his mouth was full of blood. “Do you want to know what you used to scream in the middle of the night?”
“No.”
Bathed in sweat now, Shad turned to go back inside and heard drunken laughter in the undergrowth. He dug through the brush and saw Becka Dudlow and Hoober Luvell seated on a tree stump sharing a jug, hunched and leaning their heads together, lifting their chins to leer at him.
Hoober looked up with glassy red eyes gleaming, that toothless smile giving him a simpleminded expression. Some folks figured him for retarded because they never got any closer to him than the other side of the street. He was so bloated that his tawny skin seemed ready to peel away at any second.
