The Devils Punchbowl

contact with Walt long enough to register that he was being watched as he descended the escalator. Even after seeing Sands only twice, Walt knows the Irishman will be a difficult man to outwit, much less capture.

Walt has paid some attention to the women as well. Several of the younger ones are Chinese, and from their behavior he guessed they were prostitutes. Nancy confirmed this when Walt asked about them and showed more than a little jealousy when she did. Apparently this perk of the

Magnolia Queen

is becoming well-known to out-of-town businessmen, who don'?t seem to mind that the girls speak little or no English. Walt understands the attraction. As a young soldier in 1953, he fell in love with a young Japanese girl during an extended R&R in Kobe, Japan. Most of the women he?d met in Korea were prostitutes, but Kaeko was a nurse he met by chance in a restaurant. Walt had married his high school sweetheart before shipping out, and he?d sworn to be faithful while he was overseas. Kaeko had tested his vow to the limit, not physically so much as by slowly and completely inhabiting his soul.

The Chinese girls on the

Magnolia Queen

look different from Kaeko, but their resemblance is enough to trigger a feeling in Walt that shames the twinge of lust he felt when Nancy bared her bottom in the van.

?Why do you keep running off?? Nancy asks. ?You?re tired of me, aren'?t you??

?No, I'm just taking it all in. I?'ve been on a lot of boats, but I haven'?t seen one like this in many a year.?

Thus reassured, Nancy begins chattering mindlessly, but Walt suddenly becomes aware that several people are looking up over his shoulder. When he turns, he sees one of the most beautiful women he has ever encountered descending the escalator. She looks like a princess being carried down steps in a royal litter. She wears a jade green dress that lies close against her petite body, and her hair is long and straight. What strikes Walt, though, as it must have the other watchers, is the sense of self-possession radiated by the girl. Reaching behind him, he takes hold of Nancy?s cheap dress and turns her so that she can see the escalator.

?Daddy, I'm

playing,?

she protests. ?Hit,? she tells the dealer. ?Stay.?

?Do you know who that is?? Walt asks.

?Who??

?That girl on the escalator.?

Nancy turns and stares for a few seconds. ?No, I never seen that one before. She looks like she thinks her you-know-what don'?t stink, though.?

Nancy?s harsh voice intrudes on Walt?s reverie like the squawk of a crow startling a man contemplating a pristine dawn. He cannot imagine that the girl on the escalator could be for sale. If she were, the price for a night with her would have to be ten times that for a night with the Nancys so common on the boats. But Walt knows one thing: If her time is for sale, he intends to buy as much as he can afford.

CHAPTER

33

As we near the island, I start to ease my kayak along the sandy shore, but Kelly pulls alongside and points. ?Farther down. That brush?ll keep the boats out of sight if a patrol comes down to the main bank.?

I nod and wait for him to lead the way. I almost vomited during our sprint downriver from the first stop. Sweat is pouring off me, but not from the eighty-strokes-per-minute pace Kelly set. Not even from the shock of killing the dog, which was an act of mercy by any measure. What has shaken me to the core is that the glimpse of hell I saw under the trees was less than five miles from the place where I grew up. My meditation on the ironies of Tim?s ?heroic quest? as Kelly and I paddled down from Natchez has filled me with shame, and any doubt about our purpose tonight has vanished. Standing among the chains and hooks and infernal machines, I felt as though I?d stumbled into a death camp, one designed for animals rather than humans. The eerie whistling of the dog breathing through its skull will haunt me to my grave.

?Penn? You with me??

?Right behind you.?

Kelly turns his rudder and knifes silently toward the shore. He pulls parallel to an overgrown bank that looks a little steep for my taste?not to mention snaky?then braces his paddle and climbs out

of his cockpit. As I pull in behind him and follow suit, Kelly drags his boat behind some kudzu, then unloads his pack and takes out his night-vision scope.

?Come on,? he says, seizing the grab handle on my bow and dragging the Seda into the weeds.

I insert the earbud Kelly gave me for my Star Trek?which I?'ve discovered is on the blink?and follow Kelly up the bank. According to Danny McDavitt, no dogs or guards are on the river side of the towhead, only a couple of men by the building that he believes could be the site of tonight?s dogfight.

When I get up to the sandy hump where Kelly stands, I see that we?re in a line of trees beside a marshy field. Across the field, faint yellow light spills from a windowless metal building that looks like a small warehouse, and beyond this stands a black wall of trees.

?Turn off your Star Trek,? Kelly says.

?Why??

?You?re going to be with me, and we don'?t need any noise-pollution accidents. Also, we want Danny to airlift us off the river later, and your radio is our spare batteries.?

Before I obey his order, he lifts his Star Trek and says, ?How we looking on sentries, Pave Low??

Pave Low

is McDavitt?s code name for tonight; it?s the model of helicopter he flew in the air force.

?You got a couple of dogs prowling on the far side of the building,? he answers. ?Pay attention.?

?What about the field??

?Nothing. Some deer bedded down in the tree line about seventy meters to the north of you.?

Standing in near darkness, it?s strange to know that Danny McDavitt is looking down on us with a God?s-eye view that sees every warm-blooded creature around us.

?Hold up,? McDavitt says in my ear. ?Do you see that??

Across the field, a horizontal bar of light appears, growing rapidly into a rectangle.

?That'?s an overhead door,? says Kelly. ?Shit!?

As the rattling whine of a chain drive reaches us, a black SUV roars out of the building, followed by two more just like it. Their headlights flash on when they leave the spill from the open door.

?We?re too late?? Kelly says in disbelief. ?What the???

?What do you want me to do?? McDavitt asks. ?Cover you or go with the vehicles??

?Go with the SUVs!?

?Ten-four.?

Kelly winces, then looks longingly across the field. ?I'm tempted to go into that building and see what they left behind.? He keys his Star Trek. ?Did they take the dogs with them??

?Negative.?

?Okay, we?re bugging out. We?ll see you a couple miles downriver.?

Through the trees I see three pairs of headlights cutting through the dark, moving north at gravel-road speed. Carl Sims?s voice replaces McDavitt?s.

?I can take out those dogs for you, no problem.?

Kelly considers this. ?No. We don'?t know that we?ll get anything from the building. If you waste the dogs, they?ll know we know about this place. Find out where the SUVs go?that?s all.?