Mortal Fear

The first time you let me near a telephone.”

His face does not change. He’s heard a thousand threats like this.

“He’s bullshitting you,” says Mayeux.

“Take the wheel,” says Overstreet.

Mayeux obeys.

“Now, boy. Whose son-in-law you say you were?”

“I didn’t say.”

“Well say, goddamn it.”

“Bob Anderson.”

Overstreet stares without blinking, a long measuring gaze. Calling the governor to save my ass in the name of my father-in-law is the last thing I would ever do, but he doesn’t know that.

“You know this guy Anderson?” asks Mayeux, his voice edgy.

“Bob Anderson from Yazoo City?” asks Overstreet, his eyes boring into mine.

“That’s him.”

“Shit.”

“What does that mean?” asks Mayeux, trying to hold the car on beam and watch me at the same time. “Huh?”

Overstreet blows air from distended cheeks and takes his time about answering. “It means you might have talked me into biting off a big piece of trouble, Mike.”

Mayeux groans furiously. “What the fuck are you saying? You saying some people are above the law up here?”

“No.” Overstreet lifts his forearm and lets his weight slide him back into position behind the steering wheel. “But some people’s tails you don’t step on unless you absolutely have to. And don’t tell me it’s any different down in New Orleans, ’cause I know it’s worse.”

“Shit,” curses Mayeux, slamming the dash with an open hand. “Shit! I’m sick of people protecting this son of a bitch. He is obstructing justice. I can prove it.”

“He’s obstructing it in Louisiana, not here.”

“It’s a federal case! He harbored a federal fugitive in Mississippi. You’re holding Cole for the FBI. Your chief okayed the arrest! ”

Overstreet’s voice sounds even more somnolent than before. “Most of that’s bullshit and you know it, Mike. I’m out of my jurisdiction and you don’t even want the Bureau to know we’ve got this guy.”

“Are these state or federal charges against me?” I ask.

“Shut the fuck up,” snaps Mayeux. “I’ll take full responsibility, Jim. You’re not suggesting we let him go, are you?”

“No. But the minute we hit the station, I’m telling the chief how things stand. If he wants to let Cole walk, he’s gone.”

The remainder of the ride passes in frosty silence. I wish they’d let the windows down, so I could sniff the air for the rain smell. Rain wouldn’t do the cotton any good now, but after months of drought my need for water is almost physical, like the dull headache I get after going too long without caffeine.

As we pull into Jackson, I ponder a backup plan. If the chief won’t kick me loose on the basis of my relationship to Bob Anderson, I know three or four friends from college who practice criminal law here, plus at least thirty more who do corporate work. There are probably more Ole Miss lawyers in Jackson than there are cops. I’ve got money in a couple of banks here, so bail shouldn’t be a problem. The problem is time.

Suddenly a string of letters flickers before my eyes, and I hear them as if read aloud by a chilling digital voice: I am subject to one god above me, and that god is TIME.

Brahma knows whereof he speaks.

Thirty-six minutes after Mayeux and Overstreet walked me into Jackson police headquarters, I was released on my own recognizance with an assurance that no arrest would be recorded against my name. I guess my father- in-law wasn’t exaggerating when he said he had connections. God only knows what ties Bob Anderson has to the people who run this state, but right now I don’t care. The oft maligned old-boy network seems pretty wonderful when you’re sitting chained in a police station. Of course, that system only works if you have access to it, but I’ll worry over the moral implications when I get time. Like maybe next year.

Right now I have one overwhelming need: transportation. Inside the station I was thinking of making some kind of deal with Mayeux for a ride back home, but he stomped out right after the chief told Overstreet to cut me loose. Now my only options are to hit up a friend for a car or take a cab to the airport and rent one. My hand is on the sticky receiver of a parking lot pay phone when a blaring horn forces me to cover my ears. The driver keeps jabbing it, and I look around angrily, searching for the source of the deep-throated honk.

It’s Mayeux. He’s parked about thirty feet away in a vintage blue Cadillac, waving for me to come over.

“Stuck?” he calls genially, as if the past two hours never transpired.

“I’ll get back.”

“I could give you a ride.”

“Like hell,” I say, but I’m tempted. Riding with Mayeux would save me some embarrassing calls. Plus, he could ignore the speed limit all the way if he wanted to.

“Why did you pull this crap?” I ask him, walking toward the Cadillac. “Why didn’t you just talk to me when I got home?”

His smile disappears. “Because the FBI has fucked up this investigation from the get-go. Today was the first chance I had to get at you without having to go through them, and I was sick of your evasions. I knew you’d hold back whatever you wanted in your own house. I figured a police station would loosen you up a little. I just didn’t count on you having that much juice. The fucking governor. Jesus.”

“Look, I really need to get home fast. I’ll go with you-and talk to you-on one condition.”

“What’s that?”

“You floor this bastard all the way.”

Mayeux grins and cranks the Caddy. “You waitin’ on me, you walkin’ backwards, cher. Jump in.”

He pops a magnetized blue flasher on the roof and switches it on before we even reach the city limits. “Something going down?” he asks, cutting his eyes at me. “That why you’re in a hurry?”

“I don’t know.” The sky to the west, toward the Delta, is nearly black with piled cloud. I have a foreboding sense of things spinning out of control, like battlefield blindness, where you know only what is happening where you stand but are dimly aware that great wheels of action are whirling in the fog around you. “Just a bad feeling,” I tell him, trying to push it all away.

“Hey, I been there. Something I might need to know about?”

“It’s personal.”

He nods gamely. Mayeux isn’t happy, but he can deal with it. Maybe his drive up from New Orleans won’t turn out to be a waste after all.

“Bad weather,” he says, raising a forefinger off the wheel to point ahead. Heat lightning splashes through the sky, giving the cloudscape the massive scale of an Ansel Adams photograph.

I ask him why he thinks the FBI messed up the investigation.

“Baxter and Lenz kept us from sweating you in New Orleans. We’d have played the whole thing different. Woulda been better for you and better for us. And maybe we’d have that son of a bitch by now instead of the FBI running around embarrassing themselves and everybody else by arresting the wrong fuckin’ guy.”

I doubt this, but I don’t say so.

“I gotta tell you, for a while I was wondering if it wasn’t Lenz himself doing those ladies. I mean, classic case, you know? Shrink does the murders for his own kinky reasons, then takes the starring role in the hunt for himself.” Mayeux laughs. “Serial killers love that kind of shit. Making fools out of cops, staying involved in the crimes long after they’re done. This guy sure hit the doctor where it hurts, didn’t he?”

“Lenz is smart, Detective. He just lost sight of the danger. I knew a lot of guys like him in Chicago. Trading futures. One day they were bulletproof, the next somebody was padlocking their houses and seizing their bank accounts.”