On both sides of the road—he’d turned from 421 to the Volunteer Parkway—even more booths had been set up, so that the strip appeared to be a vast bazaar. There wasn’t hardly anything NASCAR you couldn’t buy, except possibly body parts or DNA samples, and every merchant seemed to be doing land-rush business, all of it cash. Smoke hung in the air from the barbecue grills, and even the tee-totaling Baptists were selling water bottles to raise money for their prayers.
Bob found it hard not to feel the joy these folks felt, and he connected with it. His daughter was all right. She’d come back. She was okay, she was going to be fine. He again felt rich in daughters and possibilities and wished he could just enjoy it a little.
But there was the worm. Someone had tried to kill her, might try again. They’d tried to kill him; they’d kill anyone who got in the way, even if that person didn’t realize they’d gotten in the way. Mark 2:11. “I say, arise from your pallet and go to your house.” Crippled man, arise, you are cured. I give you your life back. That fellow would feel some joy too; the sensation leaking into his legs, the strength burgeoning, the psychological burden of self-loathing, of imperfection, of isolation, all of that gone. Rejoin the world, son. Welcome back to the land of the whole. That’s how he felt when the word came that Nikki was awake—he’d risen from his bed, able to go to his home again.
What could it mean? What could it mean? The thing weighed like an ingot on his brain, so much so that he hardly noticed that the traffic had thinned and—glory be!—that he could accelerate, stoplight to stoplight, because he was now inside the destination. It was the lanes on the other side of the median that were so impossibly jammed up.
He sped through downtown Bristol, found the right cross street, looked for the Kmart that was his tipoff, managed a left, and wound through the little, hidden neighborhood and up a hill into the complex that ultimately yielded her apartment.
He parked next to a red Eldorado—wow, don’t someone have extravagant taste in transporation!—and stopped to look around, see if there was a chance anyone had stayed with him through the endless hours of traffic. Nope. Funny, though, he had a strange feeling of being watched. He had good instincts for such. Kept him alive more than once.
He looked again, saw nothing. A parking lot longer than it was wide, on each side of it low four-story brick buildings, typical American apartments, lots of balconies. Down the way some kids played, but no one new pulled into the lot. He looked for activity in the cars, for any sight of activity on the balconies and no, no, there was nothing.
Gunman’s paranoia. Going a little nuts in my old age. Mankiller’s anxiety. All the boys I put down are coming after me. Happens to the best of them.
Satisfied no sign existed of threat, he climbed the stairs, opened the door to her apartment, and stepped in.
As he did, a man stood up from her sofa.
Hands flew to guns.
The weapons came out, fingers on triggers, slack going out, killing time was here. But then—
“Nick Memphis, for Christ’s sake.”
“Hello, Bob. You sure took your time getting here. Didn’t think you’d ever make it.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
“Vern, dammit, I can’t do this alone, git over here. I might miss something. I have to pee.”
That was Ernie sitting in the dining room chair at the drawn sliding doors, peering at the building across the street through a sliver of open curtain.
But Vern didn’t answer.
Instead, he asked the young Vietnamese girl in the bedroom, “So, what’s your name?” while the grandmother looked on with angry eyes. She clearly did not think his attentions were appropriate, and the way he kept looking over to her and grinning with his big white teeth got on her nerves. But then she had never understood these strange white people anyway. What was wrong with them? They were so stupid about so many things.
“What difference does it make?” asked the girl.
“Well, if it don’t make no difference, might as well tell me as not. I’m guessing Susan. You look like a Susan.”
“I do not. I look like a Hannah. Hannah Ng. Pronounced ‘ning.’”
“Hannah Ng, my name is Vern Pye. This ain’t the way I’d have arranged it, but I sure do think highly of you. You’re about as cute as they come. I’d like to hang out with you.”
“You’re trying to date me? My mother doesn’t even let me date boys my own age. Plus, you smell like a smoker. You must smoke eight packs a day.”
“I ain’t that much older’n you. Only two packs, and I’ll be quitting real soon.”
“About sixty years, it looks like to me. And you smell like eight packs. Ugh.”
“You’re what, fifteen?”
“Fourteen.”
“Well, I am forty-four. That makes me only thirty years older. And I have the constitution of a much younger fellow.”
“You’re really delusional. Really, you’re sick.”
“You are so cute. I like your ears. Your ears are so tiny. You’re like a little doll. Anybody ever tell you how cute you are? We could have some fun together, you bet. You’d git some cool new clothes out of it. We’d go to the mall, git Hannah Ng any damn thing she wanted. New jeans, new T’s, new tank tops, new hoodies, new sneaks. We’ll have a hell of a swell time, sweetie, Vern promises.”
The child shivered.
“This is getting creepy.”
“If you didn’t fight against it, it wouldn’t seem so hard, honey.”
“Vern, goddamnit, get over here,” yelled Ernie.
“Now don’t you worry about a thing. Vern’s got some work to do, then we’ll talk some more.”
Vern left, went to the living room, and pulled a chair up to spell Ernie so he could go pee.
“’Bout time. What you been doing?”
“Just talking to the kid.”
“Vern, we got a damn job. You stay away from her while we work, you hear. The Old Man’d be plenty ticked if he knowed you’se been mooning on that damn kid when you’se supposed to be man hunting.”
“When it comes, it comes. Sometimes you don’t get a second shot. You got to take it. Things is swell here.”
“I’m going to piss.”
Vern sat dreamy-eyed and disconnected at the window. He didn’t see the cars across the parking lot or the building they fronted, or the steps up to the doors. He saw himself and Hannah Ng in the bathroom, he saw his easy way with her, how he’d have his way, how good it would feel. He told himself she’d like it too. The more he thought about it, the better it seemed.
Ernie came back.
“Goddamn, Vern, there he is!”
Vern snapped out of the hot and sleazy place his brain was in, and reentered the known world. There indeed, not twenty-five yards away, was the tall, older man named Swagger who was their quarry. He’d parked, now he got out and peered about carefully, making certain he was unfollowed and unnoticed.
“See, he’s a careful one.”
“Yeah, he is. He ain’t no pushover.”
“But he’ll go down hard, like any man.”
The man then went to the stairwell, climbed past second- and third-floor landings, and on the fourth, took out a key, opened the door to an apartment, and stepped in.
“Now we really got to watch. Vern, you can’t—”
“I know, I know.”
“Better call the Old Man.”
“Yeah, yeah,” said Vern, taking out his cell. He punched in the number.
“What, Vern?” asked the Reverend.
In the background, Vern could hear hubbub, as the boys sold water and Reb hats and T-shirts to pilgrims going to the race. Vern could tell that business was land-rush scale.
“Reverend, he done showed. Just arrived. He’s there.”
“Oh, that’s good, that’s fine, that’s swell.”
“Yes sir. We could go over there right now, kick in the door, be in, out in five seconds, and it’d be done.”
“No, no,” said the Rever
end. “You never can tell. Long as he’s in there, he ain’t doing us no harm. You just watch and wait. If he don’t never leave, you wait till we go at eleven or so, then you go. That way, what the hell, the laws have situations at both ends of town with a massive traffic mess in between ’em. They won’t never git it sorted out. That’s when you do ’em. Or, if for some reason, he decides to go somewhere. You see him come out and go to his car. Then we can’t know where he’s going, then you go out and while he’s in that car starting up, you pop his ass good and hard. Drop that hammer. Nail that boy to the wall. Yes sir, bappity-bap-bap and you all done. Then you go. It’s so far off, no laws will figure it has nothing to do with anything else. But that’s my second choice. Best wait till our fun commences before y’all go settle Grumley accounts. Got that, Vern?”
“I do, Pap.”
God,” said Ernie, “this is turning into an Adam Sandler movie. Dopey-stupid and crazy. Someone else just arrived. What’s next, the circus?”
The two boys watched as, indeed, someone went up the four landings and knocked at the old man’s door. After some time the door was answered, and an awkward transaction took place.
“Them guys always come at the wrong time,” said Ernie as the UPS man walked down the steps and returned to his brown van.
TWENTY-NINE
“Well, you look older and dumpier,” said Bob. Nick had indeed thickened some, and let his crewcut grow out a little. The years of service had engraved wary lines in his face, and now he wore glasses, horn-rims. He still wore the uniform, the black suit, white shirt, and red tie, and if you looked you saw his handgun printing high on his right hip. He now replaced it, as Bob replaced his.
“So do you. What’s with the hair? You must have seen a ghost.”
“Reckon so. It just went in two weeks. I had a rough spell in Japan. These folks kept trying to cut me down, so to get their attention, I cut them down. I’d tell you more about it except you’d have to arrest me.”
“Since I haven’t seen any Interpol circulars on them, you seem to have gotten away with it again. By the way, do you have a license to carry that gun?”
“No.”
“Good. Same old Bob. Just checking.”
“How’s that tough little wife of yours? She still want to put me in jail?”
“More like a mental home. Anyhow, Sally’s with the U.S. Attorney’s office in D.C. now.”
“She never liked me much. But then few do, why should she be any different?”
“I never liked you much either, if it matters.”
“Well, what I liked about you was, you’se so far down the totem pole, I could say ‘ain’t’ and ‘it don’t’ without any career harm. And, by the way, what’re you doing standing in the middle of my daughter’s living room?”
“How is she?”
“You know what happened to her?”
“As of two days ago, pretty much everything. I know she’s awake with a groggy memory, which is why there’s no sense talking to her. But I will. And that’s why even as we speak, a team of U.S. marshals has taken over security at her hospital. She’s a valuable federal witness, even if she doesn’t know it.”
“Looks like we’ve got a spell of talking to do. Mind if I get something to drink?”
“You shouldn’t drink and carry. Not a good idea.”
“Don’t mean that kind of drinking. Drink as in fruit juice or a nice Coke, something wet. You want one?”
“No, I’m fine.”
Bob got himself a fruit juice from the refrigerator and when he got back, Nick had sat down on the sofa. He reclined in a chair.
“Okay, old friend. Let’s talk. By the way, I’m really glad you’re here. This thing is very complex, and I ain’t got it half figured out. But why didn’t you call me back?”
“Because I’m looking for a very smart guy. I don’t know his capabilities, but he’s a highly organized criminal with amazing technical skills. He might know about the task force and he might have penetrated it. Just a precaution.”
“The driver, right?”
“Yeah, the driver. The guy who tried to kill your daughter. The car guy.”
“He came damn close.”
“You don’t know how lucky your daughter is. This is a very bad actor. He’s killed nine federal witnesses and six federal officers over the past seven years. He did a family in Cleveland three years back. The father was an accountant who was going to testify against a teamster local, money laundering and extortion. Never happened. The driver hit them and they were gone in a second. Mother, father, three kids. He may even have more kills that we don’t even know about; he also freelances for various mob franchises, even some overseas outfits—we have Interpol circulars on him. But we’re in this because of the federal angle.”
“You have a name?”
“We don’t have a name or even a face. All we have is a modus operandi, and it took years before we were even on to that. What we’ve been able to learn is that he’s some kind of genius with automobiles. Genius driver, genius mechanic, genius car thief, genius on automotive electronics. He can break into any car he wants in about six seconds, drive off in three more. He seems to like Chargers. He’ll steal a car, plates, and so forth. He sets the car up with a heavy-duty suspension, tunes the engine for max power. Then he scopes his quarry out. Waits till they’re on the highway. He understands the physics of the accident, what it takes to knock a car out of equilibrium, where to hit it, which angle to take, that sort of thing. It usually takes only one pass. He hits ’em hard, they overcorrect to keep control, and they lose it. The car flips. It rolls, it bounces, and everyone inside is whiplashed to death in seconds. He’s gone in a flash, the car is never found, there’s no prints, no DNA, nothing. Just paint samples that lead back to a stolen car.”
“You don’t have any idea who he is?”
“There’s stories. Some say he’s a rogue NASCAR guy who killed another driver in a fit of rage and had to make himself scarce. We have seven names like that, all of them accounted for. Some say he pissed off Big Racing by fucking one of the family’s daughters, and they made sure he’d never race a sanctioned event again. Some say he’s just pure psycho, with a gift for automotives. It could be any of those, all of them, none of them. We just know he’s good, very thorough, highly intelligent, the fearless, classic psychotic. But when we heard about Nikki, we set up a task force out of Knoxville. Something’s up, we think.”
“I do too.”
“So what have you got?”
“Well—”
Someone knocked on the door.
The two men exchanged looks.
“Were you followed?”
“Don’t think so.”
“Expecting anyone?”
“No.”
“Let’s be real careful on this one.”
Nick slipped to the right of the door, SIG in hand, tense, ready.
Bob went to the left of the door, drew the Kimber, held it behind him, thumb riding the safety, ready to push it off in a second.
“Yeah?” he demanded loudly.
“UPS,” came the muffled reply.
“Just a sec,” said Bob. He looked through the peep hole.
“He’s in brown. I don’t know, maybe they’re so far into this they have fake UPS uniforms.”
“I don’t know,” said Nick.
“Can you just leave it?”
“Need a signature, sir.”
“Okay,” said Bob.
He opened the door two inches until the chain restrained it, even as he peeled away from it in case somebody fired through it.
But instead a thin cardboard box slipped through the two-inch opening in the doorway. Bob grabbed it, shook it, and tossed it on the floor.
He opened the door, signed his name with a stylus on the computerized notepad, and watched the fellow trundle off, slightly absurd in his short pants and brown socks.
“Those guys always arrive at the wrong time,” said Nick. “They have a gift for it
.”
They sat down again, and Bob told the whole story, from start to finish, his arrival in Bristol after his daughter’s accident, his investigation, the sheriff department’s investigation, the opposing conclusions of each, the two critical incidents that left three dead, Bob’s remorse about leaving poor Terry Hepplewhite alone back there as the supposed shooter, the death of Eddie Ferrol, the police politics of Johnson County, the situation as it now was with Nikki awake.
“So let me sum up your findings,” Nick said.
He ticked them off.
The strange economics of methamphetamine in Johnson County.
The Baptist prayer camp, run by an Alton Grumley.
The driver.
The tire-change jack and possible exercises to refine that skill.
The night firing of guns.
The attempts on Bob’s life by Grumleys as he tried to investigate.
“Grumleys are a southern crime family, headquartered near Hot Springs,” Nick explained. “Kind of a family training camp for the criminal skills. Been around for generations. They produce all kinds of mischief, force-based mainly, but also confidence, bunco, extortion, and kidnapping. Very tribal group of bad guys. If they’re involved, I’m suddenly seeing a lot of dough.”
Bob took it in, then continued.
The missing pages in his daughter’s notebook, the crushed car, crushed recording devices.
The trip to the gun store.
And finally, Mark 2:11.
“That’s it,” said Bob. “Now here’s my take. Somehow Nikki picked something up. So she visited the camp but saw through the Reverend. She poked around on her own and she found something. Clearly these Grumleys were involved. But what she found made her think of—I don’t know, here’s where it gets blurry, guns or the Bible or both? She wouldn’t call me to ask about the Bible, that I guarantee you. So maybe it is about guns. She tried to call me but I was out in the horse ring. So she went to the first Baptist minister she heard about, who turned out to be Eddie Ferrol, and asked about Mark 2:11, thinking that fella would know.”