The Devils Punchbowl

front door while Annie stares back at me over his shoulder.

Another hard shoulder brushes past me, and Samuels?s partner joins him at the door. He?s wearing an earpiece, and he seems to be receiving updates from it. He and Samuels communicate with hand motions; then Samuels tells my mother something, and she nods. He looks back at me, raises his hand to indicate five seconds, and ticks his fingers down one by one.

My heart tries to race ahead of itself, then the door is open and the Blackhawk men are rushing Mom and Annie across the open space like the royal family through a tunnel of paparazzi. I glimpse a big black Suburban before the door slams, then the growl of a modified V-8 roars loudly enough to shake my front wall and wake everyone on the street. With a screech of rubber the Suburban blasts up Washington Street like an Abrams tank heading off to war.

?Good God,? Dad says, still staring at the front door. ?What now??

?You go to work.?

?What are you going to do??

I take the confiscated guns from the side table and shove them into my waistband. ?Return some personal effects.?

?Who do those belong to??

?The men who were watching the house. The Blackhawk guys took them.?

?Jesus. Don?t you want me to come with you??

?Nope. I'm just going to give them a friendly message for their boss.?

Dad studies me for some time, then takes his keys from the tabletop. ?I have my cell phone. Call me if you need me.?

I give him a smile of gratitude. ?I did.?

He smiles back. ?I guess you did. Okay. I'?ll take care of that other thing.?

I'm puzzled for a moment, but by the time Dad says, ?The medicine for your heart,? I?'ve remembered:

Walt Garrity.

With three guns in my waistband, I grab a paring knife from the kitchen, then walk out my back door, wondering what I'?ll find.

The previous owners installed a stone fountain on my back patio, and this morning two men wearing dark windbreakers are sitting on the bricks, leaning back against the fountain?s basin. Their hands and feet are bound with plastic restraints, and their mouths are covered with black tape. When they see me, their eyes bulge with anger, but fear as well.

I walk slowly toward them, making sure they see the guns in my belt. Both men have the thin legs and overdeveloped upper physiques of bodybuilders. The right breasts of their windbreakers read MAGNOLIA QUEEN. Above the letters is an embroidered paddle wheeler; above this a pair of dice. I squat before the men and smile.

?Surprised to see me??

The guy on the left nods meaningfully, silently promising revenge. He has hair like black steel wool, and his sweat smells of alcohol.

?Here?s the deal,? I tell him. ?Option one, I give you back your guns and phones, and you take a message to your boss for me. Option two, I call Sands and have him drive down here and see you like this. Now, I'm going to take the tape off your partner here, and he can make the choice.?

I reach out and rip off the tape with one fast jerk. The second man gasps in pain.

?Best way, really,? I tell him. ?I?'ve experienced it myself.?

?You are

soooo

fucked,? he says. ?I wouldn'?t trade places with you for a million bucks.?

I smile and start to reapply the duct tape. ?I guess that?s option two.?

?Wait!? he says, all bravado gone. ?No matter what message you give us, he?ll send us back to bring you to him. You might as well come with us now.?

My watch reads 6:51 a.m. I'm scheduled to fly in the first race at 7:15, but I have no desire to do so. Hans Necker will be disappointed if I don'?t show, and the selectmen will go batshit, but maybe that?s a good thing. At least I can promise Sands that if he kills me this morning, half the town will be searching for me in less than an hour.

With two quick jerks of the knife, I free both men?s legs. They hold out their bound hands, but I shake my head, wondering if either of these men was present when Tim was tortured.

?I don'?t think so, guys. Let?s go see the boss man.?

CHAPTER

17

Julia Jessup awakens to the crying of her son. She blinks crusty eyes, rolls onto her husband?s thigh. Groaning in exhaustion, she reaches down to shove Tim?s leg, to tell him to go get the bottle?

?and freezes where she lies. Her hand is not on Tim?s leg. It?s on the baby?s belly.

For a few blessed moments she?d forgotten. Now, in the span of a closing synapse, the infinite weight of death and grief returns, pressing her into the mattress.

He left you,

says her father, dead almost twenty-five years now.

Alone,

says her mother, who followed him not long afterward.

Who?ll help you now? Who cares whether you live or die?

Julia rolls all the way over and sees faint light showing through the curtain. This is Daisy?s house. It was the only place she could think to run, the last place anyone would look. Daisy took care of Julia when she was a baby, before her father lost it, when they still had money to pay for a maid. Daisy?s house is old, not even a house really. A shotgun shack, like the ones in New Orleans. The floor is rotted through in places, and when the wind blows hard, the holes whistle and the bedclothes sway.

The baby?s cry grows louder, more insistent. Tim junior is hungry. He doesn?'t care that his father is gone. He knows only the ache in his belly. But Julia knows. Her father killed himself when she was

eighteen, and she?s missed him every day since. So many times she?s needed him, or someone. God, how different everything would have been had he lived. And how different will life be for her baby? His childhood will be a struggle against want, his mother always away, struggling in vain to keep ahead of the bills. This dark foreknowledge is like a festering mass in her stomach. Tim left nothing behind him but a mortgage. It wasn'?t his fault, really. He had nothing to leave?

?Now, now, I hear that baby cryin?,? sings a chiding voice. ?He just a bawlin?, and you lyin? in bed like Miss Astor.?

Daisy is close to eighty now, but she still gets around like a woman of sixty-five, despite her arthritis. Her flower-print dress crinkles as she sits on the bed and gives the baby a bottle to suck. Tim junior?s eyes go wide and blue as urgency changes into bliss, and he grips the bottle with one strong hand. Daisy tries to take the other in hers, but the child will not be led.

?I used to look at you like that,? Daisy says wistfully.

?I know,? Julia whispers. ?I wish I was back there again.?

Daisy shakes her head, her eyes on the baby. ?Everybody wish that sometime. But there ain?t no going back.?