The Devils Punchbowl - Greg Iles

Using her cell phone, she’s trying to Google some more recent information on local Pentecostals when Darla McRaney hurries through the door of the Bargain Barn, looks right and left, then runs to an ancient Pacer hatchback parked in the corner of the lot. Once she’s inside, Caitlin starts her own car but stays low behind the wheel until the Pacer reaches the highway turn.

Darla crosses the westbound lanes, then turns east toward Vidalia and Natchez. Caitlin follows, but since there aren'’t many traffic lights on this road, she leaves ten or twelve car lengths between them.

Less than a mile down the highway, the Pacer turns into a used-

car dealership. It’s a small operation with older-model cars and pickup trucks parked on a vacant lot with the grass worn down to mud in many places. Garish signs scream EASY TERMS! and NO MONEY DOWN! while the banner over the gate reads NO CREDIT, NO PROBLEM!

Caitlin pulls onto the shoulder fifty yards from the entrance, then gets out and walks into the parking lot of the adjacent business, a small engine-repair shop. Its parking lot is crowded, making a covert approach to the car lot easy.

Ten yards from the border between the lots, she sees Darla gesturing vehemently at a silver-haired, red-faced man. They’re standing between a van and a large SUV, apparently to shield their conversation from anyone in the trailer that serves as the dealership’s office, but Caitlin has a good view of them both. She creeps along the side of a trailer until she hears Darla call the man Pastor Simpson.

That'’s got to be right,

Caitlin thinks, because now she remembers Simpson from the story she did on charismatic religions.

Having heard enough to be sure of what she’s seeing, Caitlin steps out of cover and walks right up to the pair. “Pastor Simpson?” she says. “I’d like to speak to you for a minute.”

Simpson looks up sharply, as though prepared to respond angrily, but then he mistakes Caitlin for a customer.

“Ma’am, I'm busy just now, but if you’ll wait a minute, I'’ll be right with you.”

“I'm not here about a car.”

“That'’s

her,”

Darla says anxiously. “The newspaper lady.”

“Aw, hell,” Simpson says. “What do you want with me?”

“I'm here about Linda Church.”

“I don'’t know who you’re talking about. I never heard a nobody by that name.”

Caitlin sighs wearily. “I find that hard to believe, since the first person Darla ran to after I questioned her about Linda was you.”

“Well, you flustered this poor girl. I'm her pastor. She’s afraid you’re going to put her in the newspaper or somethin’.”

Caitlin holds up both hands in a placating gesture. “I'm not here to put anybody in the newspaper.”

“That'’s a bald-faced lie,” says Simpson with conviction. “That'’s

what you live for, to see your name in the paper. I remember the story you did on our church, don'’t think I don'’t. You twisted the truth ever which way to make us look like fools. I got nothin’ to say to you.”

Caitlin steps closer and speaks with all the sincerity she can muster. “Sir, my only concern is the safety of Linda Church. She’s a material witness to a major crime, and I believe her life is in danger.”

“Well, what’s that got to do with us?”

“I believe you helped Linda. I think you got Darla to carry a note from Linda to Penn Cage.”

“What makes you think that?”

“The mayor and I are very close friends.”

Simpson snorts. “Livin’ in sin is what you mean, ain’t it?”

“Mr. Simpson, I believe you acted as a Good Samaritan to Linda, just as your faith teaches, but I'm not sure you understand how dangerous the people who are looking for her are. If you really want to help Linda, you’ll tell me how to find her. I'’ll make sure she receives around-the-clock protection.”

Simpson stares at Caitlin for a long time, as though about to come clean. Then he says, “It’s hard to stay protected when you’re on the front page of a newspaper. I tell you what, missy. If Linda Church had asked me for help—and I'm not saying she did—I woulda got her straight outta town where no slimy sons-of-bitches could hurt her. Okay? Now, that’s all you’re gonna get from me without the sheriff.”

Caitlin turns to Darla, but before she can speak, Simpson interposes himself between them. “You leave this girl here alone too, or I'’ll have some law on you. We don'’t take kindly to harassment on this side of the river, especially by the likes of you. Now, get off my lot.”

Caitlin tries to step around Simpson to address Darla directly, but he steps in front of her and shoves her backward.

“That'’s assault,” Caitlin says quietly.

“You don'’t get your ass off my property,” Simpson snarls, his eyes blazing, “I'’ll show you some battery too. Git!”

Caitlin holds her ground for a face-saving moment, then turns and walks back to her car.

CHAPTER

42

Walt Garrity blinks in surprise as he’s ushered into Jonathan Sands’s office. He expected the antebellum decor to be uniform throughout the boat, but this room could be the office of a European investment banker. The play that brought him here is simple: He’s told the pit boss that he needs to speak to the manager about a special group event, one the standard event planner won'’t be able to okay without the manager’s approval, and since that’s the case, he’d rather talk directly to the man with the power to answer his questions.

Sands looks bigger than he did walking the casino floor. He has an imposing density that Walt has seen in natural fighters, and he has a fighter’s eyes as well, always probing for vulnerability. Yet when he rises from his desk, the watchfulness recedes, and he offers his hand with a smile. Walt takes it, gauging the power in it. It’s the hand of a laborer or an infantry soldier.

“Hello, Mr. Gilchrist,” Sands says in a cultured English accent. “It’s good to have a real gambler aboard.”

“Aw, you must see my type all the time.”

“You’d be surprised. The average player on a Mississippi boat loses about fifty dollars. Our average is higher, because we have a higher percentage of table games, and we draw the affluent clientele that does exist. But still. It’s good to have a real player aboard.”

“Winning, losing, hell, it’s all the same after a while. It’s the risk

that keeps you going. Just like the oil business. I hate a duster, but, goddamn, it just makes it all the sweeter when you hit that pay sand on the next one. You know?”

“A man after my own heart,” Sands says. “A man who can live out Kipling’s famous advice about victory and defeat—to treat those two impostors as the same.”

Walt laughs. “You Brits sure have a way with words. I'’ll bet the ladies just fall over and beg for it when they hear that accent, don'’t they?”

Sands smiles and takes his seat. “What business are you in?”

“Oil.”

“Not too much of it left around here, is there?”

“More than you’d think. And with the price through the roof, the numbers on old wells look a lot better than they used to. Course, you’re right. In the fifties and sixties, they found some fifty-million-barrel fields over here. Most of them are still producing. But I'm rambling. Times have changed, that’s for sure.”

“You mentioned a group event in the future.”

“Right. But it’s not your standard-type junket.”

Sands smiles expansively. “I always have time for a man with an interesting proposition.”

“I'm the same way myself. You never know what’ll come your way if you keep your ears open.”

“What sort of event do you have in mind?”

Walt hesitates as he once did when asking a pharmacist for a condom, but inside he’s feeling a too-long-absent thrill. He loves nothing more than facing his mark and winging it, which is what he’s always done best. If you look a criminal in the eye and come right at him—tempt him toward a crime as though it’s your idea—he frequently forgets to doubt you. Of course that can get into entrapment issues, these days. But in the heyday of the Rangers, there’d been a lot of latitude when it came to that kind of thing, and not much concern about procedure. Case notes tended to be spare, running a line or two every couple of days. “Drove from Austin to Dallas. Located suspect in barn. Killed him at dawn. Returned to Austin” was one Walt remembered fondly. Times have changed of course, but this meeting has some of the flavor of the old days.

“Mr. Sands,” he says, “when you get to my age, like me and my

friends, there’s not much you haven'’t seen. It tends to take a lot to get the old ticker racing.”

A sympathetic smile from Sands. “All pleasures grow stale, don'’t they?”

“Indeed. But in about a month, I'm bringing over a bunch of boys for a visit. We’'ve been looking for a place to blow off some steam without the wives, and we got to talking about Natchez. We used to come over here for a golf tournament they had every year, the local oilmen. Man, after that thing was over, we’d go back to the hotel, and they’d have the girls waiting. There were lines out the doors of some rooms, and local guys charging admission just to watch.”

“That'’s the kind of action you’re looking for?”

“Some of that would be appreciated. With enough to go around, of course.”

“Oh, that’s never a problem here.”

“Not just girls, though. I'm talking about the gambling too.”

“Well, you'’ve seen the boat.”

“And a fine one she is too, as far as she goes.”

Sands cocks one eyebrow. “Meaning?”

“Legal gambling’s all right, in its place. But it’s kind of…restrictive, if you get my meaning. It’s like sex in a medical clinic with all the lights on. Takes the zing out of it. Half the fun’s the sneaking around, the mystery of it. That'’s what gets the blood pumping—the forbidden. You with me?”

“Oh, yes.”

“When I was a boy, before I went into the army, I used to work in a gambling joint down in Galveston. Illegal, of course, like all the best places. Man, there was

nothing

they didn't have. I'm talking sport, now. Bare-knuckles boxing, strictly for interested parties. Cockfighting. Shooting contests.

That'’s

the kind of action I'm talking about.”

Sands mulls this over, watching Walt with unblinking eyes. “I see. You ever put money on dogs?”

“Dog racing?”

“Dog

fighting,”

says Sands, his eyes as insinuating as those of a pimp offering a young boy to a tourist.

“Oh, I get you. Twenty, twenty-five years ago we had a good bit of that in my neck of the woods, but the governor got a bug up his ass and the state troopers started cracking down. The Rangers too.

I saw old Red fight in Taos. She was bred out of Arkansas Blackie. Hell of a leg dog. Went for the foreleg every time, but she could really break ’em down. A real champion. That was years ago, though. I’'ve heard they do a lot of hogs-and-dogs-type stuff out at the hunting camps, and I’'ve seen a little of that. But straight fighting? Pit fighting? Not in a while.”

“Well, we have a variety of activities available to players accustomed to more intense games. I'’ll give it a think and see what I come up with. As for ladies, do you have any preference?”

“I gotta tell you, I like those oriental girls. You seem to have a surplus too.”

Sands’s eyes flicker with light.

“When I first got to town, I was thinking about a colored girl, but these young ladies you got remind me of some I spent time with in Korea.”

“Recently?”

“Hell, no. I'm talking 1952–53.”

For the first time, Sands looks truly interested. “You fought there?”

“All along that godforsaken thirty-eighth parallel, with those hookers’ granddaddies launching human-wave attacks every night. Only one out of two of those bastards even had a rifle in his hands when they started, but soon as one man would fall, the unarmed fella would pick up his gun and keep a’comin’.”

“A very effective tactic,” Sands says, “if you can find personnel fanatical enough to carry it out.”

Walt laughs. “That'’s your basic Chink soldier right there. Fanatical. I'’ll bet you couldn'’t find a hundred Americans on the East Coast who would do that.”

“Quite right. If one American dies in Iraq, it’s national news.”

“You look like a man who’s spent some time in uniform.”

Sands shrugs. “When I was young and stupid, I confess. But the real fighting isn’t always done in uniform.”

“I imagine you’re right, there. Anyway, it goes without saying that anybody who can help us out with extracurricular activities would be handsomely compensated.”

Sands dismisses this with a flick of his hand. “I have no worries on that score, Mr. Gilchrist.”

“J.B., please.”

“You know, of course, that the type of action we’re discussing is illegal, both in Mississippi and Louisiana.”

“Ain’t just about everything worth doing illegal? That'’s the way this country works. Pure hypocrisy, from Plymouth Rock on down.”