Chapter 23

   The meeting had been arranged through a Virginia law alumnus who was now a partner in a New York megafirm, which in turn was counsel to a gaming group that operated Canyon Casinos across the country. Contacts had been made, favors exchanged, arms twisted slightly and very diplomatically. It was in the delicate area of security, and no one wanted to step over the line. Professor Atlee needed just the basics.
   Canyon had been on the Mississippi River, in Tunica County, since the mid-nineties, arriving in the second wave of construction and surviving the first shakeout. It had ten floors, four hundred rooms, eighty thousand square feet of gaming opportunities, and had been very successful with old Motown acts. Mr. Jason Piccolo. a vice president of some sort from the home office in Vegas, was on Piccolo was in his early thirties and dressed like an Armani model. Barker was in his fifties and had the look of a weathered old cop in a bad suit.
   They began by offering a quick tour, which Ray declined. He’d seen enough casino floors in the past month to last him forever. “How much of the upstairs is off-limits?” he asked.
   “Well, let’s see,” Piccolo said politely, and they led him away from the slots and tables to a hallway behind the cashiers’ booths. Up the stairs and down another hallway, and they stopped in a narrow room with a long wall of one-way mirrors. Through it, there was a large, low room filled with round tables covered with closed-circuit monitors. Dozens of men and women were glued to the screens, seemingly afraid to miss anything.
   “This is the eye-in-the-sky,” Piccolo was saying. “Those guys on the left are watching the blackjack tables. In the center, craps and roulette, to the right, slots and poker.”
   “And what are they watching?”
   “Everything. Absolutely everything.”
   “Give me the list.”
   “Every player. We watch the big hitters, the pros, the card counters, the crooks. Take blackjack. Those guys over there can watch ten hands and tell if a player is counting cards. That man in the gray jacket studies faces, looking for the serious players. They jounce around, here today, Vegas tomorrow, then they’ll lay low for i week and surface in Atlantic City or the Bahamas. If they cheat or count cards, he’ll spot them when they sit down.” Piccolo was doing the talking. Barker was watching Ray as if he might be a potential cheater.
   “How close is the camera view?” Ray asked.
   “Close enough to read the serial number of any bill. We caught a cheater last month because we recognized a diamond ring he’d worn before.”
   “Can I go in there?”
   “Sorry”
   “What about the craps tables?”
   “The same. It’s a bigger problem because the game is faster and more complicated.”
   “Are there professional cheaters at craps?”
   “They’re rare. Same with poker and roulette. Cheating is not a huge problem. We worry more about employee theft and mistakes at the table.”
   “What kind of mistakes?”
   “Last night a blackjack player won a forty-dollar hand, but our dealer made a mistake and pulled the chips. The player objected and called the pit boss over. Our guys up here saw it happen and we corrected the situation.”
   “How?”
   “We sent a security guy down with instructions to pay the customer his forty bucks, give him an apology, and comp a dinner.”
   “What about the dealer?”
   “He has a good record, but one more screwup and he’s gone.”
   “So everything’s recorded?”
   “Everything. Every hand, every throw of the dice, every slot. We have two hundred cameras rolling right now.”
   Ray walked along the wall and tried to absorb the level of surveillance. There seemed to be more people watching above than gambling below.
   “How can a dealer cheat with all this?” he asked, waving a hand.
   Piccolo said, “There are ways,” and gave Barker a knowing look. “Many ways. We catch one a month.”
   “Why do you watch the slots?” Ray asked, changing the subject. He would kill some time scatter-shooting since he’d been promised only one visit upstairs.
   “Because we watch everything,” Piccolo said. “And because there have been some instances where minors won jackpots. The casinos refused to pay, and they won the lawsuits because they had videos showing the minors ducking away while adults stepped in. Would you like something to drink?”
   “Sure.”
   “We have a secret little room with a better view.”
   Ray followed them up another flight of stairs to a small enclosed balcony with views of the gaming floor and the surveillance room. A waitress materialized from thin air and took their drink orders. Ray asked for cappuccino. Waters for his hosts.
   “What’s your biggest security concern?” Ray asked. He was looking at a list of questions he’d pulled from his coat pocket.
   “Card counters and sticky-fingered dealers,” Piccolo answered. “Those little chips are very easy to drop into cuffs and pockets. Fifty bucks a day is a thousand dollars a month, tax free, of course.”
   “How many card counters do you see in here?”
   “More and more. There are casinos in forty states now, so more people are gambling. We keep extensive files on suspected counters, and when we think we have one here, then we simply ask them to leave. We have that right, you know.”
   “What’s your biggest one-day winner?” Ray asked.
   Piccolo looked at Barker, who said, “Excluding slots?”
   “Yes.”
   “We had a guy win a buck eighty in craps one night.”
   “A hundred and eighty thousand?”
   “Right.”
   “And your biggest loser?”
   Barker took his water from the waitress and scratched his face for a second. “Same guy dropped two hundred grand three nights later.”
   “Do you have consistent winners?” Ray asked, looking at his notes as if serious academic research was under way.
   “I’m not sure what you mean,” Piccolo said.
   “Let’s say a guy comes in two or three times every week, plays cards or dice, wins more than he loses, and over time racks up some nice gains. How often do you see that?”
   “It’s very rare,” said Piccolo. “Otherwise, we wouldn’t be in business.”
   “Extremely rare,” Barker said. ‘A guy might get hot for a week or two. We’ll zero in on him, watch him real close, nothing suspicious, but he is taking our money. Sooner or later he’s gonna take one chance too many, do something stupid, and we’ll get our money back.”
   “Eighty percent lose over time,” Piccolo added.
   Ray stirred his cappuccino and glanced at his notes. “A guy walks in, complete stranger, lays down a thousand bucks on a blackjack table and wants hundred-dollar chips. What happens up here?”
   Barker smiled and cracked his thick knuckles. “We perk up. We’ll watch him for a few minutes, see if he knows what he’s doing. The pit boss’ll ask him if he wants to be rated, or tracked, and if so then we’ll get his name. If he says no, then we’ll offer him a dinner. The cocktail waitress will keep the drinks coming, but if he doesn’t drink then that’s another sign that he might be serious.”
   “The pros never drink when they gamble,” Piccolo added. “They might order a drink for cover, but they’ll just play with it.”
   “What is rating?” ;
   “Most gamblers want some extras,” explained Piccolo. “Dinner, tickets to a show, room discounts, all kinds of goodies we can throw in. They have membership cards that we monitor to see how much they’re gambling. The guy in your hypothetical has no card, so we’ll ask him if he wants to be rated
   “And he says no.”
   “Then it’s no big deal. Strangers come and go all the time.”
   “But we sure try to keep up with them,” Barker admitted.
   Ray scribbled something meaningless on his folded sheet of paper. “Do the casinos pool their surveillance?” he asked, and for the first time Piccolo and Barker squirmed in unison.
   “What do you mean by pool?” Piccolo asked with a smile, which Ray returned, Barker quickly joining in.
   While all three were smiling, Ray said, “Okay, another hypothetical about our consistent winner. Let’s say the guy plays one night at the Monte Carlo, the next night at Treasure Cove, the next night at Alladin, and so on down the strip here. He works all the casinos, and he wins a lot more than he loses. And this goes on for a year. How much will you know about this guy?”
   Piccolo nodded at Barker, who was pinching his lips between a thumb and an index finger. “We’ll know a lot,” he admitted.
   “How much?” Ray pressed.
   “Go on,” Piccolo said to Barker, who reluctantly began talking.
   “We’ll know his name, his address, his occupation, phone number, automobile, bank. We’ll know where he is each night, when he arrives, when he leaves, how much he wins or loses, how much he drinks, did -he have dinner, did he tip the waitress, and if so then how much, how much did he tip the dealer.”
   “And you keep records on these people?”
   Barker looked at Piccolo, who nodded yes, very slowly, but said nothing. They were clamming up because he was getting too close. On second thought, a tour was just what he needed. They walked down to the floor where, instead of looking at the tables, Ray was looking up at the cameras. Piccolo pointed out the security people. They stood close to a blackjack table where a kid who seemed like a young teenager was playing with stacks of hundred-dollar chips.
   “He’s from Reno,” Piccolo whispered. “Hit Tunica last week, took us for thirty grand. Very very good.”
   “And he doesn’t count cards,” Barker whispered, joining the conspiracy.
   “Some people just have the talent for it, like golf or heart surgery,” Piccolo said.
   “Is he working all the casinos?” Ray asked.
   “Not yet, but they’re all waiting for him.” The kid from Reno made both Barker and Piccolo very nervous.
   The visit was finished in a lounge where they drank sodas and wrapped things up. Ray had completed his list of questions, all of which had been leading up to the grand finale.
   “I have a favor,” he asked the two of them. Sure, anything.
   “My father died a few weeks ago, and we have reason to believe he was sneaking over here, shooting dice, perhaps winning a lot more than he was losing. Can this be confirmed?”
   “What was his name?” asked Barker.
   “Reuben Atlee, from Clanton.”
   Barker shook his head no while pulling a phone from his pocket.
   “How much?” asked Piccolo.
   “Don’t know, maybe a million over a period of years.”
   Barker was still shaking his head. “No way. Anybody who wins or loses that kinda money, we’ll know him well.” And then, into the phone, Barker asked the person on the other end if he could check on a Reuben Atlee.
   “You think he won a million dollars?” Piccolo asked.
   “Won and lost,” Ray replied. “Again, we’re just guessing.”
   Barker slammed his phone shut. “No record of any Reuben Atlee anywhere. There’s no way he gambled that much around here.” ‘
   “What if he never came to this casino?” Ray asked, certain of the answer.
   “We would know,” they said together.

Chapter 24

   He was the only morning jogger in Clanton, and for this he got curious stares from the ladies in their flower beds and the maids sweeping the porches and the summer help cutting grass at the cemetery when he ran past the Atlee family plot. The soil was settling around the Judge, but Ray did not stop or even slow down to inspect it. The men who’d dug the grave were digging another. There was a death and a birth every day in Clanton. Things changed little.
   It was not yet eight o’clock and the sun was hot and the air heavy. The humidity didn’t bother him because he’d grown up with it, but he certainly didn’t miss it either.
   He found the shaded streets and worked his way back to Maple Run. Forrest’s Jeep was there, and his brother was slouched in the swing on the porch. “Kinda early for you, isn’t it?” Ray said.
   “How far did you run? You’re covered in sweat.”
   “That happens when you jog in the heat. Five miles. You look good.”
   And he did. Clear, unswollen eyes, a shave, a shower, clean white painter’s pants.
   “I’m on the wagon, Bro.”
   “Wonderful.” Ray sat in a rocker, still sweating, still breathing heavily. He would not ask how long Forrest had been sober. Couldn’t have been more than twenty-four hours.
   Forrest bounced from the swing and pulled the other rocker near Ray. “I need some help, Bro,” he said, sitting on the edge of the chair. :c Here we go again, Ray said to himself. “I’m listening.”
   “I need some help,” he blurted again, rubbing his hands fiercely as if the words were painful.
   Ray had seen it before and had no patience. “Let’s go, Forrest, what is it?” It was money, first of all. After that, there were several possibilities.
   “There’s a place I want to go, about an hour from here. It’s way out in the woods, close to nothing, very pretty, a nice little lake in the center, comfortable rooms.” He pulled a wrinkled business card from his pocket and handed it to Ray.
   Alcorn Village. Drug and Alcohol Treatment Facility. A Ministry of the Methodist Church.
   “Who’s Oscar Meave?” Ray asked, looking at the card.
   “A guy I met a few years ago. He helped me, now he’s at that place.”
   “It’s a detox center.”
   “Detox, rehab, drug unit, dry-out tank, spa, ranch, village, jail, prison, mental ward, call it whatever you want. I don’t care. I need help, Ray. Now,” He covered his face with his hands and began crying
   “Okay, okay.” Ray said. “Give me the details.
   “ Forrest wiped his eyes and his nose and sucked in a heavy load of air. “Call the guy and see if they have a room,” he said, his voice quivering”
   “How long will you stay?”
   “Four weeks, I think, but Oscar can tell you.”
   “And what’s the cost?”
   “Somewhere around three hundred bucks a day. I was thinking maybe I could borrow against my share of this place, get Harry Rex to ask the judge if there’s a way to get some money now.” Tears were dripping from the corners of his eyes.
   Ray had seen the tears before. He’d heard the pleas and the promises, and no matter how hard and cynical he tried to be at that moment, he melted. “We’ll do something,” he said. “I’ll call this guy now.”
   “Please, Ray, I want to go right now.”
   “Today?”
   “Yes, I, uh, well, I can’t go back to Memphis.” He lowered his head and ran his fingers through his long hair.
   “Somebody looking for you?”
   “Yeah,” he nodded. “Bad guys.”
   “Not cops?”
   “No, they’re a helluva lot worse than cops.”
   “Do they know you’re here?” Ray asked, glancing around. He could almost see heavily armed drug dealers hiding behind the bushes.
   “No, they have no idea where I am.”
   Ray stood and went into the house.
   Like most folks, Oscar Meave remembered Forrest well. They had worked together in a federal detox program in Memphis, and while he was sad to hear that Forrest was in need of help, he was nonetheless delighted to talk to Ray about him. Ray tried his best to explain the urgency of the matter, though he had no details and was not likely to get any. Their father had died three weeks earlier, Ray said, already making excuses.
   “Bring him on,” Meave said. “We’ll find a place.”
   They left town thirty minutes later, in Ray’s rental car. Forrest’s Jeep was parked behind the house, for good measure.
   “Are you sure these guys won’t be snooping around here?” Ray said.
   “They have no idea where I’m from,” Forrest replied. His head was back on the headrest, his eyes hidden behind funky sunshades.
   “Who are they, exactly?”
   “Some really nice guys from south Memphis. You’d like them.”
   “And you owe them money?”
   “Yes.”
   “How much?”
   “Four thousand dollars.”
   “And where did this four thousand bucks go?”
   Forrest gently tapped his nose. Ray shook his head in frustration and anger and bit his tongue to hold back another bitter lecture. Let some miles pass, he told himself. They were in the country now. farmland on both sides. t,
   Forrest began snoring.
   This would be another Forrest tale, the third time Ray actually loaded him up and hauled him away for detox. The last time had been almost twelve years earlier—the Judge was still presiding, Claudia still at his side, Forrest doing more drugs than anyone in the state. Things had been normal. The narcs had cast a wide net around him, and through blind luck Forrest had sneaked through it. They suspected he was dealing, which was true, and had they caught him he would still be in prison. Ray had driven him to a state hospital near the coast, one the Judge had pulled strings to get him into. There, he slept for a month then walked away.
   The first brotherly journey to rehab had been during Ray’s law school years at Tulane. Forrest had overdosed on some vile combination of pills. They pumped his stomach and almost pronounced him dead. The Judge sent them to a compound near Knoxville with locked gates and razor wire. Forrest stayed a week before escaping.
   He’d been to jail twice, once as a juvenile, once as an adult, though he was only nineteen. His first arrest was just before a high school football game, Friday night, the playoffs, in Clanton with the entire town waiting for kickoff. He was sixteen, a junior, an all-conference quarterback and safety, a kamikaze who loved to hit late and spear with his helmet. The narcs plucked him from the dressing room and led him away in handcuffs. The backup was an untested freshman, and when Clanton got slaughtered the town never forgave Forrest Atlee.
   Ray had been sitting in the stands with the Judge, anxious as everyone else about the game. “Where’s Forrest?” folks began asking during pregame. When the coin was tossed he was in the city jail getting fingerprinted and photographed. They found fourteen ounces of marijuana in his car.
   He spent two years in a juvenile facility and was released on his eighteenth birthday.
   How does the sixteen-year-old son of a prominent judge become a dope pusher in a small Southern town with no history of drugs? Ray and his father had asked each other that question a thousand times. Only Forrest knew the answer, and long ago he had made the decision to keep it to himself. Ray was thankful that he buried most of his secrets. . :
   After a nice nap, Forrest jolted himself awake and announced he needed something to drink.
   “No,” Ray said.
   “A soft drink, I swear.”
   They stopped at a country store and bought sodas. For breakfast Forrest had a bag of peanuts.
   “Some of these places have good food,” he said when they were moving again. Forrest the tour guide for detox centers. Forrest the Michelin critic for rehab units. “I usually lose a few pounds,” he said, chomping.
   “Do they have gyms and such?” Ray asked, aiding the conversation. He really didn’t want to discuss the perks of various drug tanks.
   “Some do,” Forrest said smugly. “Ellie sent me to this place in Florida near a beach, lots of sand and water, lots of sad rich folks. Three days of brainwashing, then they worked our asses off. Hikes, bikes, power walks, weights if we wanted. I got a great tan and dropped fifteen pounds. Stayed clean for eight months.”
   In his sad little life, everything was measured by stints of sobriety.
   “Ellie sent you?” Ray asked.
   “Yeah, it was years ago. She had a little dough at one point, not much. I’d hit the bottom, and it was back when she cared. It was a nice place, though, and some of the counselors were those Florida chicks with short skirts and long legs.”
   “I’ll have to check it out.”
   “Kiss my ass.”
   ‘Just kidding.”
   “There’s this place out West where all the stars go, the Hacienda, and it’s the Ritz. Plush rooms, spas, daily massages, chefs who can fix great meals at one thousand calories a day. And the counselors are the best in the world. That’s what I need, Bro, six months at the Hacienda.”
   “Why six months?”
   “Because I need six months. I’ve tried two months, one month, three weeks, two weeks, it’s not enough. For me, it’s six months of total lockdown, total brainwashing, total therapy, plus my own masseuse.” . .
   “What’s the cost?”
   Forrest whistled and rolled his eyes. “Pick a number. I don’t know. You gotta have a zillion bucks and two recommendations to get in. Imagine that, a letter of recommendation. ‘To the Fine Folks at the Hacienda: I hereby heartily recommend my friend Doofus Smith as a patient in your wonderful facility. Doofus drinks vodka for breakfast, snorts coke for lunch, snacks on heroin, and is usually comatose by dinner. His brain is fried, his veins are lacerated, his liver is shot to hell. Doofus is your kind of person and his old man owns Idaho.’ ”
   “Do they keep people for six months?”
   “You’re clueless, aren’t you?”
   “I guess.”
   “A lot of cokeheads need a year. Even more for heroin addicts.”
   And which is your current poison? Ray wanted to ask. But then he didn’t want to. “A year?” he said.
   “Yep, total lockdown. And then the addict has to do it himself. I know guys who’ve been to prison for three years with no coke, no crack, no drugs at all, and when they were released they called a dealer before they called their wives or girlfriends.”
   “What happens to them?”
   “It’s not pretty.” He threw the last of the peanuts into his mouth, slapped his hands together, and sent salt flying.
   THERE WERE no signs directing traffic to Alcorn Village. They followed Oscar’s directions until they were certain they were lost deep in the hills, then saw a gate in the distance. Down a tree-lined drive, a complex spread before them. It was peaceful and secluded, and Forrest gave it good marks for first impressions.
   Oscar Meave arrived in the lobby of the administration building and guided them to an intake office, where he handled the initial paperwork himself. He was a counselor, an administrator, a psychologist, an ex-addict who’d cleaned himself up years ago and received two Ph.D.’s. He wore jeans, a sweatshirt, sneakers, a goatee, and two earrings, and had the wrinkles and chipped tooth of a rough prior life. But his voice was soft and friendly. He exuded the tough compassion of one who’d been where Forrest was now.
   The cost was $325 a day and Oscar was recommending a minimum of four weeks. “After that, we’ll see where he is. I’ll need to ask some pretty rough questions about what Forrest has been doing.”
   “I don’t want to hear that conversation,” Ray said.
   “You won’t,” Forrest said. He was resigned to the flogging that was coming.
   “And we require half the money up front,” Oscar said. “The other half before his treatment is complete.”
   Ray flinched and tried to remember the balance in his checking account back in Virginia. He had plenty of cash, but this was not the time to use it.
   “The money is coming out of my father’s estate,” Forrest said. “It might take a few days.”
   Oscar was shaking his head. “No exceptions. Our policy is half now.”
   “No problem,” said Ray. “I’ll write a check for it.”
   “I want it to come out of’ the estate,” Forrest said. “You’re not paying for it.”
   “The estate can reimburse me. It’ll work.” Ray wasn’t sure how it would work, but he’d let Harry Rex worry about that. He signed the forms as guarantor of payment. Forrest signed at the bottom of a page listing all the do’s and don’ts.
   “You can’t leave for twenty-eight days,” Oscar said. “If you do, you forfeit all monies paid and you’re never welcome back. Understand?”
   “I understand,” Forrest said. How many times had he been through this?
   “You’re here because you want to be here, right?”
   “Right.”
   “And no one is forcing you?”
   “No one.”
   Now that the flogging was on, it was time for Ray to leave. He thanked Oscar and hugged Forrest and sped away much faster than he’d arrived.

Chapter 25

   Ray was now certain that the cash had been collected since 1991, the year the Judge was voted out of office. Claudia was around until the year before, and she knew nothing of the money. It had not come from graft and it had not come gambling.
   Nor had it come from skillful investing on the sly, because Ray found not a single record of the Judge ever buying or selling a stock or a bond. The accountant hired by Harry Rex to reconstruct the records and put together the final tax return had found nothing either. He said that the Judge’s trail was easy to follow because everything had been run through the First National Bank of Clanton.
   That’s what you think, Ray thought to himself.
   There were almost forty boxes of old, useless files scattered throughout the house. The cleaning service had gathered and stacked them in the Judge’s study and in the dining room. It took a few hours but he finally found what he was looking for. Two of the boxes held the notes and research—the “trial files” as the Judge had always referred to them—of the cases he’d heard as a special chancellor since his defeat in 1991.
   During a trial the Judge wrote nonstop on yellow legal pads. He noted dates, times, relevant facts, anything that would aid him in reaching a final opinion in the case. Often he would interject a question to a witness and he frequently used his notes to correct the attorneys. Ray had heard him quip more than once, in chambers of course, that the notetaking helped him stay awake. During a lengthy trial, he would fill twenty legal pads with his notes.
   Because he was a lawyer before he was a judge, he had acquired the lifelong habit of filing and keeping everything. A trial file consisted of his notes, copies of cases the attorneys relied on, copies of code sections, statutes, even pleadings that were not put with the official court file. As the years passed, the trial files became even more useless, and now they filled forty boxes.
   According to his tax returns, since 1993, he had picked up income trying cases as a special chancellor, cases no one else wanted to hear. It was not uncommon in the rural areas to have a dispute too hot for an elected judge. One side would file a motion asking the judge to recuse himself, and he would go through the routine of grappling with the issue while proclaiming his ability to be fair and impartial regardless of the facts or litigants, then reluctantly step down and hand it off to an old pal from another part of the state. The special chancellor would ride in without the baggage of any prior knowledge and without one eye on reelection and hear the case.
   In some jurisdictions, special chancellors were used to relieve crowded dockets. Occasionally, they would sit in for an ailing judge.
   Almost all were retired themselves. The state paid them fifty dollars an hour, plus expenses.
   In 1992, the year after his defeat, Judge Atlee had earned nothing extra. In 1993, he’d been paid $5,800. The busiest year—1996—he’d reported $16,300. Last year, 1999, he was paid $8,760, but he’d been ill most of the time.
   The grand total in earnings as a special chancellor was $56,590, over a six-year period, and all earnings had been reported on his tax returns.
   Ray wanted to know what kinds of cases Judge Atlee had heard in his last years. Harry Rex had mentioned one—the sensational divorce trial of a sitting governor. That trial file was three inches thick and included clippings from the Jackson newspaper with photos of the governor, his soon to be ex-wife, and a woman thought to be his current flame. The trial lasted two weeks, and Judge Atlee, according to his notes, seemed to enjoy it tremendously.
   There was an annexation case near Hattiesburg that lasted for two weeks and had irritated everyone involved. The city was growing westward and eyeing some prime industrial sites. Lawsuits got filed and two years later Judge Atlee gathered everyone together for a trial. There were also newspaper articles, but after an hour of review Ray was bored with the whole mess. He couldn’t imagine presiding over it for a month.
   But at least there was money involved in it.
   Judge Atlee spent eight days in 1995 holding court in the small town of Kosciusko, two hours away, but from his files it looked as though nothing of consequence went to trial.
   There was a horrendous tanker truck collision in Tishomingo County in 1994. Five teenagers were trapped in a car and burned to death. Since they were minors, Chancery Court had jurisdiction. One sitting chancellor was related to one of the victims. The other chancellor was dying of brain cancer. Judge Atlee got the call and presided over a trial that lasted two days before it was settled for $7,400,000. One third went to the attorneys for the teenagers, the rest to their families.
   Ray set the file on the Judge’s sofa, next to the annexation case. He was sitting on the floor of the study, the newly polished floor, under the vigilant gaze of General Forrest. He had a vague idea of what he was doing, but no real plan on how to proceed. Go through the files, pick out the ones that involved money, see where the trail might lead.
   The cash he’d found hidden less than ten feet away had come from somewhere.
   His cell phone rang. It was a Charlottesville alarm company with a recorded message that a break-in was in progress at his apartment. He jumped to his feet and talked to himself while the message finished. The same call would simultaneously go to the police and to Corey Crawford. Seconds later, Crawford called him. “I’m on the way there,” he said, and sounded like he was running. It was almost nine-thirty, CST. Ten-thirty in Charlottesville.
   Ray paced through the house, thoroughly helpless. Fifteen minutes passed before Crawford called him again. “I’m here,” he said. “With the police. Somebody jammed the door downstairs, then jammed the one to the den. That set off the alarm. They didn’t have much time. Where do we check?”
   “There’s nothing particularly valuable there,” Ray said, trying to guess what a thief might want. No cash, jewelry, art, hunting rifles, gold, or silver.
   “TV, stereo, microwave, everything’s here,” Crawford said. “They scattered books and magazines, knocked over the table by the kitchen phone, but they were in a hurry. Anything in particular?”
   “No, nothing I can think of.” Ray could hear a police radio squawking in the background.
   “How many bedrooms?” Crawford asked as he moved through the apartment.
   “Two, mine is on the right.”
   “All the closet doors are open. They were looking for something. Any idea what?”
   “No,” Ray answered.
   “No sign of entry in the other bedroom,” Crawford reported, then began talking with two cops. “Hang on,” he told Ray, who was standing in the front door, looking through the screen, motionless and trying to think of the fastest way home.
   The cops and Crawford decided it was a quick strike by a pretty good thief who got surprised by the alarm. He jammed the two doors with minimal damage, realized there was an alarm, raced through the place looking for something in particular, and when he didn’t find it he kicked a few things for the hell of it and fled. He or they – could’ve been more than one.
   “You need to be here to tell the police if anything is missing and to do a report,” Crawford said.
   “I’ll be there tomorrow,” Ray said. “Can you secure the place tonight?”
   “Yeah, we’ll think of something.”
   “Call me after the cops leave.”
   He sat on the front steps and listened to the crickets while yearning to be at Chaney’s Self-Storage, sitting in the dark with one of the Judge’s guns, ready to blast away at anyone who came near him. Fifteen hours away by car. Three and a half by private plane. He called Fog Newton and there was no answer.
   His phone startled him again. “I’m still in the apartment,” Crawford said.
   “I don’t think this is random,” Ray said.
   “You mentioned some valuables, some family stuff, at Chaney’s Self-Storage.”
   “Yeah. Any chance you could watch the place tonight?”
   “They got security out there, guards and cameras, not a bad outfit.” Crawford sounded tired and not enthusiastic about napping in a car all night.
   “Can you do it?”
   “I can’t get in the place. You have to be a customer.”
   “Watch the entrance.”
   Crawford grunted and breathed deeply. “Yeah, I’ll check on it, maybe call a guy in to watch it.”
   “Thanks. I’ll call you when I get to town tomorrow.”
   He called Chaney’s and there was no answer. He waited five minutes, called again, counted fourteen rings then heard a voice.
   “Chaney’s, security, Murray speaking.”
   He very politely explained who he was and what he wanted. He was leasing three units and there was a bit of concern because someone had vandalized his downtown apartment, and could Mr. Murray please pay special attention to 14B, 37F, and 18R. No problem, said Mr. Murray, who sounded as if he was yawning into the phone.
   Just a little jumpy, Ray explained. “No problem,” mumbled Mr. Murray.

   It took one hour and two drinks for the edginess to relent. He was no closer to Charlottesville. There was the urge to hop in the rental car and race through the night, but it passed. He preferred to sleep and try to find an airplane in the morning. Sleep, ] though, was impossible, so he returned to the trial files.
   The Judge had once said he knew little about zoning law because there was so little zoning in Mississippi, and virtually none in the six counties of the 25th Chancery District. But somehow someone had cajoled him into hearing a bitterly fought zoning case in the city of Columbus. The trial lasted for six days, and when it was over an anonymous phone caller threatened to shoot the Judge, according to his notes.
   Threats were not uncommon, and he’d been known to carry a pistol in his briefcase over the years. It was rumored that Claudia carried one too. You’d rather have the Judge shooting at you than his court reporter, ran the conventional wisdom.
   The zoning case almost put Ray to sleep. But then he found a gap, the black hole he’d been digging for, and he forgot about sleep.
   According to his tax records, the Judge was paid $8,110 in January 1999 to hear a case in the 27th Chancery District. The 27th comprised two counties on the Gulf Coast, a part of the state the Judge cared little for. The fact that he would voluntarily go there for a period of days struck Ray as quite odd.
   Odder still was the absence of a trial file. He searched the two boxes and found nothing related to a case on the coast, and with his curiosity barely under control he plowed through the other thirty-eight or so. He forgot about his apartment and the self-storage and whether or not Mr. Murray was awake or even alive, and he almost forgot about the money.
   A trial file was missing.

Chapter 26

   The US Air flight left Memphis at six-forty in the morning, which meant Ray had to leave Clanton no later than five, which meant he slept about three hours, the usual at Maple Run. On the first flight, he dozed off en route, again in the Pittsburgh airport, and again on the commuter flight to Charlottesville. He inspected his apartment, then fell asleep on the sofa.
   The money hadn’t been touched. No unauthorized entries into any of his little storage units at Chancy’s. Nothing was out of the ordinary. He locked himself inside 18R, opened the five fireproof and waterproof boxes, and counted fifty-three freezer bags.
   Sitting on the concrete floor with three million dollars strewn around him, Ray Atlee finally admitted how important the money had become. The real horror of last night had been the chance of losing it. Now he was afraid to leave it.
   In the past few weeks, he had become more curious about how much things cost, about what the money could buy, about how it could grow if invested conservatively, or aggressively. At times he thought of himself as wealthy, and then he would dismiss those thoughts. But they were always there, just under the surface and popping up with greater frequency. The questions were slowly being answered—no it was not counterfeit, no it was not traceable, no it had not been won at the casinos, no it had not been filched from the lawyers and litigants of the 25th Chancery District. ‘l And, no, the money should not be shared with Forrest because he would kill himself with it. No, it should not be included in the estate for several excellent reasons.
   One by one the options were being eliminated. He might be forced to keep it himself.
   There was a loud knock on the metal door, and he almost screamed. He scrambled to his feet and yelled, “Who is it!”
   “Security,” came the reply, and the voice was vaguely familiar. Ray stepped over the cash and reached for the door, which he cracked no more than four inches. Mr. Murray was grinning at him.
   “Everything okay in there?” he asked, more of a janitor than an armed guard.
   “Fine, thanks,” Ray said, his heart still frozen.
   “Need anything, let me know.”
   “Thanks for last night.”
   “Just doing my job.”
   Ray repacked the money, relocked the doors, and drove across town with one eye on the rearview mirror.
   The owner of his apartment sent a crew of Mexican carpenters around to repair the two damaged doors. They hammered and sawed throughout the late afternoon, then said yes to a cold beer when they were finished. Ray chatted with them as he tried to ease them out of his den. There was a pile of mail on the kitchen table, and, after ignoring it for most of the day, he sat down to deal with it. Bills had to be paid. Catalogs and junk mail. Three notes of sympathy.
   A letter from the Internal Revenue Service, addressed to Mr. Ray Atlee, Executor of the Estate of Rueben V Atlee, and postmarked in Atlanta two days earlier. He studied it carefully before opening it slowly. A single sheet of official stationery, from one Martin Gage, Office of Criminal Investigations, in the Atlanta office. It read:


   Dear Mr. Atlee:
   As executor of your father’s estate, you are required by law to include all assets for valuation and taxation purposes. Concealment of assets may constitute tax fraud. The unauthorized disbursement of assets is a violation of the laws of Mississippi and possible federal laws as well.

Martin Gage,
Criminal Investigator

   His first instinct was to call Harry Rex to see what notice had been given to the IRS. As executor, he had a year from the date of death to file the final return, and, according to the accountant, extensions were liberally granted.
   The letter was postmarked the day after he and Harry Rex went to court to open the estate. Why would the IRS be so quick to respond? How would they even know about the death of Reuben Atlee?
   Instead, he called the office number on the letterhead. The recorded message welcomed him to the world of the IRS, Atlanta office, but he would have to call back later because it was a Saturday. He went online and in the Atlanta directory found three Martin Gages. The first one he called was out of town, but his wife said he did not work for the IRS, thank heavens. The second call went unanswered. The third found a Mr. Gage eating dinner.
   “Do you work for the IRS?” Ray asked, after cordially introducing himself as a professor of law and apologizing for the intrusion.
   “Yes, I do.”
   “Criminal Investigations?”
   “Yep, that’s me. Fourteen years now.”
   Ray described the letter, then read it verbatim.
   “I didn’t write that,” Gage said.
   “Then who did?” Ray snapped, and immediately wished he had not.
   “How am I supposed to know? Can you fax it to me?”
   Ray stared at his fax machine, and, thinking quickly, said, “Sure, but my machine is at the office. I can do it Monday.”
   “Scan it and e-mail it,” Gage said.
   “Uh, my scanner’s broke right now. I’ll just fax it to you Monday.”
   “Okay, but somebody’s pulling your leg, pal. That’s not my letter.”
   Ray was suddenly anxious to rid himself of the IRS, but Gage was now fully involved. “I’ll tell you something else,” he continued. “Impersonating an IRS agent is a federal offense, and we prosecute vigorously. Any idea who it is?”
   “I have no idea.”
   “Probably got my name from our online directory, worst thing we ever did. Freedom of Information and all that crap.”
   “Probably so.”
   “When was the estate opened?”
   “Three days ago.”
   “Three days ago! The return’s not due for a year.”
   “I know.” :
   “What’s in the estate?” -
   “Nothing. An old house.”
   “Just some crackpot. Fax it Monday and I’ll give you a call.”
   “Thanks.”
   Ray put the phone on the coffee table and asked himself why, exactly, had he called the IRS?
   To verify the letter.
   Gage would never get a copy of it. And in a month or so he would forget about it. And in a year he wouldn’t recall it if anyone mentioned it.
   Perhaps not the smartest move so far.
   FORREST HAD settled into the routine of Alcorn Village. He was allowed two calls a day and they were subject to being recorded, he explained. “They don’t want us calling our dealers.”
   “Not funny,” Ray said. It was the sober Forrest, with the soft drawl and clear mind.
   “Why are you in Virginia?” he asked.
   “It’s my home.”
   “Thought you were visiting some friends around here, old buddies from law school.”
   “I’ll be back shortly. How’s the food?”
   “Like a nursing home, Jell-O three times a day but always a different color. Really lousy stuff. For three hundred bucks plus a day it’s a rip-off.”
   “Any cute girls?”
   “One, but she’s fourteen, daughter of a judge, if you can believe that. Really some sad people. We have these group bitch meetings once a day where everyone lashes out at whoever got them started on drugs. We talk through our problems. We help one another. Hell, I know more than the counselors. This is my eighth detox, Bro, can you believe it?”
   “Seems like more than that,” Ray said.
   “Thanks for helping me. You know what’s sick?”
   “What?”
   “I’m happiest when I’m clean. I feel great, I feel smart, I can do anything. Then I hate myself when I’m on the streets doing all that stupid stuff like the other scumbags. I don’t know why I do it.”
   “You sound great, Forrest.”
   “I like this place, aside from the food.”
   “Good, I’m proud of you.”
   “Can you come see me?”
   “Of course I will. Give me a couple of days.”
   He checked in with Harry Rex, who was at the office, where he usually spent the weekends. With four wives under his belt, there were good reasons he wasn’t home much.
   “Do you recall the Judge hearing a case on the coast, early last year?” Ray asked.
   Harry Rex was eating something and smacking into the phone. “The coast?” He hated the coast, thought they were all a bunch of redneck mafia types.
   “He was paid for a trial down there, January of last year.”
   “He was sick last year,” Harry Rex said, then swallowed something liquid.
   “His cancer was diagnosed last July.”
   “I don’t remember any case on the coast,” he said, and bit into something else. “That surprises me.”
   “Me too.”
   “Why are you going through his files?”
   “I’m just checking his payroll records against his trial files.”
   “Why?”
   “Because I’m the executor.”
   “Forgive me. When are you coming back?”
   “Couple of days.”
   “Hey, I bumped into Claudia today, hadn’t seen her in months, and she gets to town early, parks a brand-new black Cadillac near the Coffee Shop so everybody can see it, then spends half the morning piddling around town. Whatta piece of work.”
   Ray couldn’t help but smile at the thought of Claudia racing down to the car dealership with a pocket full of cash. The Judge would be proud.
   Sleep came in short naps on the sofa. The walls cracked louder, the vents and ducts seemed more active. Things moved, then they didn’t. The night after the break-in, the entire apartment was poised for another one.

Chapter 27

   Trying hard to be normal, Ray took a long jog on a favorite trail, along the downtown mall, down Main Street to the campus, up Observatory Hill and back, six miles in all. He had lunch with Carl Mirk at Bizou, a popular bistro three blocks from his apartment, and he drank coffee afterward at a sidewalk cafe. Fog had the Bonanza reserved for a 3 P.M. training session, but the mail came and everything normal went out the window.
   The envelope was addressed to him by hand, nothing on the return, with a postmark in Charlottesville the day before. A stick of dynamite would not have looked more suspicious lying there on the table. Inside was a letter-size sheet of paper, trifolded, and when he spread it open all systems shut down. For a moment, he couldn’t think, breathe, feel, hear.
   It was a color digital photo of the front of 14B at Chaney’s, printed off a computer on regular copier paper. No words, no warnings, no threats. None were needed.
   When he could breathe again he also started sweating, and the numbness wore off enough for a sharp pain to knife through his stomach. He was dizzy so he closed his eyes, and when he opened them and looked at the picture again, it was shaking.
   His first thought, the first he could remember, was that there was nothing in the apartment he could not do without. He could leave everything. But he filled a small bag anyway.
   Three hours later he stopped for gas in Roanoke, and three hours after that he pulled into a busy truck stop just east of Knoxville. He sat in the parking lot for a long time, low in his TT roadster, watching the truckers come and go, watching the movements in and out of the crowded cafe. There was a table he wanted in the window, and when it was available he locked the Audi and went inside. From the table, he guarded his car, fifty feet away and stuffed with three million in cash.
   Because of the aroma, he guessed that grease was the cafe’s specialty. He ordered a burger and on a napkin began scribbling his options.
   The safest place for the money was in a bank, in a large lock box behind thick walls, cameras, etc. He could divide the money, scatter it among several banks in several towns between Charlottesville and Clanton, and leave a complicated trail. The money could be discreetly hauled in by briefcase. Once locked away, it would be safe forever.
   The trail, though, would be extensive. Lease forms, proper ID, home address, phones, here meet our new vice president, in business with strangers, video cameras, lock box registers, and who knew what else because Ray had never hidden stuff in a bank before.
   He had passed several self-storage places along the interstate. They were everywhere these days and for some reason wedged as close to the main roads as possible. Why not pick one at random, pull over, pay cash, and keep the paperwork to a minimum? He could hang around in Podunk town for a day or two, find some more fireproof boxes at a local supply house, secure his money, then sneak away. It was a brilliant idea because his tormentor would not expect it.
   And it was a stupid idea because he would leave the money.
   He could take it home to Maple Run and bury it in the basement. Harry Rex could alert the sheriff and the police to watch for suspicious outsiders lurking around the town. If an agent showed up to follow him, he’d get nailed in Clanton, and Dell at the Coffee Shop would have the details by sunrise. You couldn’t cough there without three people catching your cold.
   The truckers came in waves, most of them talking loudly as they entered, anxious to mix it up after miles of solitary confinement. They all looked the same, jeans and pointed-toe boots. A pair of sneakers walked by and caught Ray’s attention. Khakis, not jeans. The man was alone and took a seat at the counter. In the mirror Ray saw his face, and it was one he’d seen before. Wide through the eyes, narrow at the chin, long flat nose, flaxen hair, thirty-five years old give or take. Somewhere around Charlottesville but impossible to place.
   Or was everyone now a suspect?
   Run with your loot, like a murderer with his victim in the trunk, and plenty of faces look familiar and ominous.
   The burger arrived, hot and steaming, covered with fries, but he’d lost his appetite. He started on his third napkin. The first two had taken him nowhere.
   His options at the moment were limited. Since he was unwilling to let the money out of his sight, he would drive all night, stopping for coffee, perhaps pulling over for a nap, and arrive at Clanton early in the morning. Once he was on his turf again, things would become clearer.
   Hiding the money in the basement was a bad idea. An electrical short, a bolt of lightning, a stray match, and the house was gone. It was hardly more than kindling anyway.
   The man at the counter had yet to look at Ray, and the more Ray looked at him the more convinced he was that he was wrong. It was a generic face, the kind you see every day and seldom remember. He was eating chocolate pie and drinking coffee. Odd, at eleven o’clock at night.

   He rolled into Clanton just after 7 A.M. He was red-eyed, ragged with exhaustion, in need of a shower and two days’ rest. Through the night, while he wasn’t watching every set of headlights behind him and slapping himself to stay awake, he’d dreamed of the solitude of Maple Run. A large, empty house, all to himself. He could sleep upstairs, downstairs, on the porch. No ringing phones, no one to bother him.
   But the roofers had other plans. They were hard at work when he arrived, their trucks and ladders and tools covering the front lawn and blocking the driveway. He found Harry Rex at the Coffee Shop, eating poached eggs and reading two newspapers at once.
   “What are you doing here?” he said, barely looking up. He wasn’t finished with his eggs or his papers, and didn’t appear too excited to see Ray.
   “Maybe I’m hungry”
   “You look like hell.”
   “Thanks. I couldn’t sleep there, so I drove here.”
   “You’re cracking up.”
   “Yes, l am.”
   He finally lowered the newspaper and stabbed an egg that appeared to be covered with hot sauce. “You drove all night from Charlottesville?”
   “It’s only fifteen hours.”
   A waitress brought him coffee. “How long are those roofers planning on working?”
   “They’re there?”
   “Oh yes. At least a dozen of them. I wanted to sleep for the next two days.”
   “It’s those Atkins boys. They’re fast unless they start drinking and fighting. Had one fall off a ladder last year, broke his neck. Got him thirty thousand in workers’ comp.”
   “Anyway, why, then, did you hire them?”
   “They’re cheap, same as you, Mr. Executor. Go sleep in my office. I got a hideaway on the third floor.”
   “With a bed?”
   Harry Rex glanced around as if the gossipmongers of Clanton were closing in. “Remember Rosetta Rhines?”
   “No.”
   “She was my fifth secretary and third wife. That was where it all started.”
   “Are the sheets clean?”
   “What sheets? Take it or leave it. It’s very quiet, but the floor shakes. That’s how we got caught.”
   “Sorry I asked.” Ray took a long swig of coffee. He was hungry, but not ready for a feast. He wanted a bowl of flakes with skim milk and fruit, something sensible, but he’d be ridiculed for ordering such light fare in the Coffee Shop.
   “You gonna eat?” Harry Rex growled at him.
   “No. We need to store some stuff. All those boxes and furniture. You know a place?”
   “Okay, I need a place.”
   “It’s nothing but crap.” A bite of a biscuit, one loaded with sausage, Cheddar, and what appeared to be mustard. “Burn it.”
   “I can’t burn it, at least not now.”
   “Then do what all good executors do. Store for two years, then give it to the Salvation Army and burn what they don’t want.”
   “Yes or no. Is there a storage place in town?”
   “Didn’t you go to school with that crazy Cantrell boy?”
   “There were two of them.”
   “No, there were three of them. One got hit by that Greyhound out near Tobytown.” A long pull of coffee, then more eggs.
   “A storage place, Harry Rex.”
   “Testy, aren’t we?”
   “No, sleep-deprived.”
   “I’ve offered my love nest.”
   “No thanks. I’ll try my luck with the roofers.”
   “Their uncle is Virgil Cantrell, I handled his first wife’s second divorce, and he’s converted the old depot into a storage warehouse.”
   “Is that the only place in town?”
   “No, Lundy Staggs put in some of those mini-storage units west of town, but they got flooded. I wouldn’t go there.”
   “What’s the name of this depot?” Ray asked, tired of the Coffee Shop.
   “The Depot.” Another bite of biscuit.
   “By the railroad tracks?”
   “That’s it.” He began shaking a bottle of Tabasco sauce over the remaining pile of eggs. “He’s usually got some space, even put in a block room for fire protection. Don’t go in the basement, though.”
   Ray hesitated, knowing he should ignore the bait. He glanced at his car parked in front of the courthouse and finally said, “Why not?”
   “He keeps his boy down there.”
   “His boy?”
   “Yeah, he’s crazy too. Virgil couldn’t get him in Whitfield and couldn’t afford a private joint, so he figured he’d just lock him up in the basement.”
   “You’re serious?”—.
   “Hell yes, I’m serious. I told him it wasn’t against the law. Boy’s got everythang—bedroom, bathroom, television. Helluva lot cheaper than paying rent in a nuthouse.”
   “What’s his name?” Ray asked, digging the hole deeper.
   “Little Virgil.”
   “Little Virgil?”
   “Little Virgil.” ; ,
   “How old is Little Virgil?”
   “I don’t know, forty-five, fifty.”
   To Ray’s great relief, no Virgil was present when he walked into the Depot. A stocky woman in overalls said Mr. Cantrell was out running errands and wouldn’t be back for two hours. Ray inquired about storage space, and she offered to show him around.
   Years before, a remote uncle from Texas had come to visit. Ray’s mother scrubbed and polished him to the point of misery. With great anticipation they drove to the depot to fetch the uncle. Forrest was an infant and they left him at home with the nanny. Ray clearly remembered waiting on the platform, hearing the train’s whistle, seeing it approach, feeling the excitement as the crowd waited. The depot back then was a busy place. When he was in high school they boarded it up, and the hoodlums used it as a hangout. It was almost razed before the town stepped in with an ill-advised renovation.
   Now it was a collection of chopped-up rooms flung over two floors, with worthless junk piled to the ceiling. Lumber and wall-board were stacked throughout, evidence of endless repairs. Sawdust covered the floors. A quick walk-through convinced Ray that the place was more flammable than Maple Run.
   “We got more space in the basement,” the woman said.
   “No thanks.”
   He stepped outside to leave, and flying by on Taylor Street was a brand-new black Cadillac, glistening in the early sun, not a speck of dirt anywhere, Claudia behind the wheel with Jackie O sunglasses.
   Standing there in the early morning heat, watching the car race down the street, Ray felt the town of Clanton collapse on top of him. Claudia, the Virgils, Harry Rex and his wives and secretaries, the Atkins boys roofing and drinking and fighting.
   Is everybody crazy, or is it just me?
   He got in his car and left the Depot, slinging gravel behind. At the edge of town the road stopped. To the north was Forrest, to the south was the coast. Life would get no simpler by visiting his brother, but he had promised.

Chapter 28

   Two days later, Ray arrived on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi. There were friends from his law school days at Tulane he wanted to see, and he gave serious thought to spending time in his old haunts. He craved an oyster po’boy from Franky & Johnny’s by the levee, a muffaletta from Maspero’s on Decatur in the Quarter, a Dixie Beer at the Chart Room on Bourbon Street, and chicory coffee and beignets at Cafe du Monde, all of his old haunts from twenty years ago.
   But crime was rampant in New Orleans, and his handsome little sports car could be a target. Lucky the thief who stole it and yanked open the trunk. Thieves would not catch him, nor would state troopers because he kept precisely at the posted limits. He was a perfect driver—obeying all the laws, closely eyeing every other car.
   The traffic slowed him on Highway 90, and for an hour he crept eastward through Long Beach, Gulfport, and Biloxi, hugging the beach, past the shiny new casinos sitting at the water, past new hotels and restaurants. Gambling had hit the coast as fast as it had arrived in the farmlands around Tunica.
   He crossed the Bay of Biloxi and entered Jackson County. Near Pascagoula, he saw a flashing rented sign beckoning travelers to stop in for All-You-Can-Eat-Cajun, just $13.99. It was a dive but the parking lot was well lit. He cased it first and realized he could sit at a table in the window and keep an eye on his car. This had become his habit.
   There were three counties along the Gulf. Jackson on the east and bordering Alabama, Harrison in the middle, and Hancock on the west next to Louisiana. A local politician had succeeded nicely in Washington and kept the pork flowing back to the shipyards in Jackson County. Gambling was paying the bills and building the schools in Harrison County. And it was Hancock, the least developed and populated, that Judge Atlee had visited in January 1999 for a case that no one back home knew about.
   After a slow dinner of crawfish etoufee and shrimp remoulade, with some raw oysters thrown in, he drifted back across the bay, back through Biloxi and Gulfport. In the town of Pass Christian he found what he was searching for—a new, flat motel with doors that opened to the outside. The surroundings looked safe, the parking lot was half-full. He paid sixty dollars cash for one night and backed the car as close to his door as possible. He’d changed his mind about being without a weapon. One strange sound during the night, and he’d be outside in a flash with the Judge’s .38, loaded now. He was perfectly prepared to sleep in the car, if necessary.
   HANCOCK COUNTY was named for John, he of the bold signature on the Declaration of Independence. Its courthouse was built in 1911 in the center of Bay St. Louis, and was practically blown away by Hurricane Camille in August 1969. The eye ran right through Pass Christian and Bay St. Louis, and no building escaped severe damage. More than a hundred people died and many were never found.
   Ray stopped to read a historical marker on the courthouse lawn, then turned once more to look at his little Audi. Though court records were usually open, he was nervous anyway. The clerks in Clanton guarded their records and monitored who came and went. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for or where to begin. The biggest fear, however, was what he might find.
   In the Chancery Clerk’s office, he loitered just long enough to catch the eye of a pretty young lady with a pencil in her hair. “May I help you?” she drawled. He was holding a legal pad, as if that would somehow qualify him and open all the right doors.
   “Do y’all keep records of trials?” he asked, trying hard to string out the “y’all” and overemphasizing it in the process.
   She frowned and looked at him as if he had committed a misdemeanor.
   “We have minutes from each term of court,” she said slowly, because he obviously was not very bright. “And we have the actual court files.” Ray was scribbling this down.
   “And,” she said after a pause, “there are the trial transcripts taken down by the court reporter, but we don’t keep those here.”
   “Can I see the minutes?” he asked, grasping at the first item she’d mentioned.
   “Sure. Which term?” ,
   “January of last year.”
   She took two steps to her right and began pecking on a keyboard. Ray looked around the large office where several ladies were at their desks, some typing, some filing, some on the phone. The last time he’d seen the Chancery Clerk’s office in Clan ton there had been only one computer. Hancock County was ten years ahead.
   In a corner two lawyers sipped coffee from paper cups and whispered low about important matters. Before them were the property deed books that dated back two hundred years. Both had reading glasses perched on their noses and scuffed wing tips and ties with thick knots. They were checking land titles for a hundred bucks a pop, one of a dozen dreary chores handled by legions of small-town lawyers. One of them noticed Ray and eyed him suspiciously.
   That could be me, Ray thought to himself.
   The young lady ducked and pulled out a large ledger filled with computer printouts. She flipped pages, then stopped and spun it around on the counter. “Here,” she said, pointing. ‘January ‘99, two weeks of court. Here’s the docket, which goes on for several pages. This column lists the final disposition. As you’ll see, most cases were continued to the March term.”
   Ray was looking and listening.
   “Any case in particular?” she asked.
   “Do you remember a case that was heard by Judge Atlee, from Ford County? I think he was here as a special chancellor?” he asked casually. She glared at him as if he’d asked to see her own divorce file.
   ‘Are you a reporter?” she asked, and Ray almost took a step backward.
   “Do I need to be?” he asked. Two of the other deputy clerks had stopped whatever they were doing and were frowning at him.
   She forced a smile. “No, but that case was pretty big. It’s right here,” she said, pointing again. On the docket it was listed simply as Gibson v. Miyer-Brack. Ray nodded approvingly as if he’d found exactly what he wanted. “And where would the file be located?” he asked.
   “It’s thick,” she said.
   He followed her into a room filled with black metal cabinets that held thousands of files. She knew exactly where to go. “Sign here,” she said, handing over a clipboard with a ledger on it. “Just your name, the date. I’ll do the rest.”
   “What kind of case was it?” he asked as he filled in the blanks.
   “Wrongful death.” She opened a long drawer and pointed from one end to the other. “All this,” she said. “The pleadings start here, then discovery, then the trial transcript. You can take it to that table over there, but it cannot leave the room. Judge’s orders.”
   “Which judge?”
   “Judge Atlee.”
   “He died, you know.”
   Walking away, she said, “That’s not such a bad thing.”
   The air in the room went with her, and it took a few seconds for Ray to think again. The file was four feet thick, but he didn’t care. He had the rest of the summer.

   Clete Gibson died in 1997 at the age of sixty-one. Cause of death, kidney failure. Cause of kidney failure, a drug called Ryax, manufactured by Miyer-Brack, according to the allegations of the lawsuit, and found to be true by the Honorable Reuben V Atlee, sitting as special chancellor.
   Mr. Gibson had taken Ryax for eight years to battle high cholesterol. The drug was prescribed by his doctor and sold by his pharmacist, both of whom were also sued by his widow and children. After taking the drug for about five years, he began having kidney problems, which were treated by a different set of doctors. At the time, Ryax, a relatively new drug, had no known side effects. When Gibson’s kidneys quit completely, he somehow came to know a Mr. Patton French, attorney-at-law. This happened shortly before his death.
   Patton French was with French & French, over in Biloxi. A firm letterhead listed six other lawyers. In addition to the manufacturer, physician, and pharmacist, the defendants also included a local drug salesman and his brokerage company out of New Orleans. Every defendant had a big firm engaged, including some heavyweights from New York. The litigation was contentious, complicated, even fierce at times, and Mr. Patton French and his little firm from Biloxi waged an impressive war against the giants on the other side.
   Miyer-Brack was a Swiss pharmaceutical giant, privately owned, with interests in sixty countries, according to the deposition of its American representative. In 1998, its profits were $635 million on revenues of $9.1 billion. That one deposition took an hour to read.
   For some reason, Patton French decided to file a wrongful death suit in Chancery Court, the court of equity, instead of Circuit Court, where most trials were by jury. By statute, the only jury trials in Chancery were for will contests. Ray had sat through several of those miserable affairs while clerking for the Judge.
   Chancery Court had jurisdiction for two reasons. First, Gibson was dead and his estate was a Chancery matter. Second, he had a child under the age of eighteen. The legal business of minors belonged in Chancery Court.
   Gibson also had three children who were not minors. The lawsuit could’ve been filed in either Circuit or Chancery, one of a hundred great quirks in Mississippi law. Ray had once asked the Judge to explain this enigma, and as usual the answer was simply, “We have the greatest court system in the country.” Every old chancellor believed this.
   Giving lawyers the choice of where to sue was not peculiar to any state. Forum shopping was a game played on the national map. But when a lawsuit by a widow living in rural Mississippi against a mammoth Swiss company that created a drug produced in Uruguay was filed in the Chancery Court of Hancock County, a red flag was raised. The federal courts were in place to deal with such far-flung disputes, and Miyer-Brack and its phalanx of lawyers tried gallantly to remove the case. Judge Atlee held firm, as did the federal judge. Local defendants were included, thus removal to federal court could be denied.
   Reuben Atlee was in charge of the case, and as he pushed the matter to trial, his patience with the defense lawyers wore thin. Ray had to smile at some of his father’s rulings. They were terse, brutally to the point, and designed to light a fire under the hordes of lawyers scrambling around the defendants. The modern-day rules about speedy trials had never been necessary in Judge Atlee’s courtroom.
   It became evident that Ryax was a bad product. Patton French found two experts who blasted the drug, and the experts defending it were nothing but mouthpieces for the company. Ryax lowered cholesterol to amazing levels. It had been rushed through the approvals, then dumped into the marketplace, where it became extremely popular. Tens of thousands of kidneys had now been ruined, and Mr. Patton French had Miyer-Brack pinned to the mat.
   The trial lasted for eight days. Against the objections of the defense, the proceedings began each morning precisely at eight-fifteen. And they often ran until eight at night, prompting more objections, which Judge Atlee ignored. Ray had seen this many times. The Judge believed in hard work, and, with no jury to pamper, he was brutal.
   His final decision was dated two days after the last witness testified, a shocking blow for judicial promptness. Evidently, he had remained in Bay St. Louis and dictated a four-page ruling to the court reporter. This, too, did not surprise Ray. The Judge loathed procrastination in deciding cases.
   Plus, he had his notes to rely on. For eight days of nonstop testimony, the Judge must have filled thirty legal pads. His ruling had enough detail to impress the experts.
   The family of Clete Gibson was award $1.1 million in actual damages, the value of his life, according to an economist. And to punish Miyer-Brack for pushing such a bad product, the Judge awarded $10 million in punitive damages. The opinion was a scathing indictment of corporate recklessness and greed, and it was quite obvious that Judge Atlee had become deeply troubled by the practices of Miyer-Brack.
   Even so, Ray had never known his father to resort to punitive damages.
   There was the usual flurry of post-trial motions, all of which the Judge dismissed with brusque paragraphs. Miyer-Brack wanted the punitive damages taken out. Patton French wanted them increased. Both sides received a written tongue-lashing.
   Oddly, there was no appeal. Ray kept waiting for one. He flipped through the post-trial section twice, then dug through the entire drawer again. It was possible the case had been settled afterward, and he made a note to ask the clerk.
   A nasty little fight erupted over the fees. Patton French had a contract signed by the Gibson family that gave him fifty percent of any recovery. The Judge, as always, felt that was excessive. In Chancery, the fees were within the sole discretion of the Judge. Thirty-three percent had always been his limit. The math was easy to do, and Mr. French fought hard to collect his well-earned money. His Honor didn’t budge.
   The Gibson trial was Judge Atlee at his finest, and Ray felt both proud and sentimental. It was difficult to believe it had taken place almost a year and a half earlier, when the Judge was suffering from diabetes, heart disease, and probably cancer, though the latter was six months from being discovered.
   He admired the old warrior.
   With the exception of one lady who was eating a melon at her desk and doing something else online, the clerks were off at lunch. Ray left the place and went to find a library.

Chapter 29

   From a burger joint in Biloxi, he checked his voice mail in Charlottesville and found three messages. Kaley called to say she’d like to have dinner. A quick discard took care of her, forever. Fog Newton called to say the Bonanza was clear for the next week and they needed to go fly. And Martin Gage with the IRS in Atlanta checked in, still looking for the fax of the bogus letter. Keep looking, Ray thought to himself.
   He was eating a prepackaged salad at a bright orange plastic table, across the highway from the beach. He could not remember the last time he’d sat alone in a fast-food joint, and he was doing so now only because he could eat with his car close by and in plain sight. Plus the place was crawling with young mothers and their children, usually a low-crime group. He finally gave up on the salad and called Fog.
   The Biloxi Public Library was on Lameuse Street. Using a new map he’d purchased at a convenience store, he found it and parked in a row of cars near the main entrance. As was his habit now, he stopped and observed his car and all the elements around it before entering the building.
   The computers were on the first floor, in a room encased in glass but with no windows to the outside, to his disappointment. The leading newspaper on the coast was the Sun Herald, and through a news-library service its archives could be searched back to 1994. He went to January 24, 1999, the day after Judge Atlee had issued his ruling in the trial. Not surprisingly, there was a story on the front page of the metro section about the $11.1 million verdict over in Bay St. Louis. And it was certainly no surprise to see that Mr. Patton French had a lot to say. Judge Atlee refused comment. The defense lawyers claimed to be shocked and promised to appeal.
   There was a photo of Patton French, a man in his mid-fifties with a round face and waves of graying hair. As the story ran on it became obvious that he had called up the paper with the breaking news and had been delighted to chat. It was a “grueling trial.” The actions of the defendants were “reckless and greedy.” The decision by the court was “courageous and fair.” Any appeal would be “just another attempt to delay justice.”
   He’d won many trials, he boasted, but this was his biggest verdict. Quizzed about the recent spate of high awards, he downplayed any suggestion that the ruling was a bit outrageous. “A jury in Hinds County handed out five hundred million dollars two years ago,” he said. And in other parts of the state, enlightened juries were hitting greedy corporate defendants for ten million here and twenty million there. “This award is legally defensible on every front,” he declared.
   His specialty, he said as the story wound down, was pharmaceutical liability. He had four hundred Ryax cases alone and was adding more each day.
   Ray did a word search for Ryax within the Sun Herald. Five days after the story, on January 29, there was a bold, full-page ad that began with the ominous question: Have You Taken Ryax? Under it were two paragraphs of dire warnings about the dangers of the drug, then a paragraph detailing the recent victory of Patton French, expert trial attorney, specializing in Ryax and other problematic drugs. A victims’ screening session would take place at a Gulfport hotel for the following ten days with qualified medical experts conducting the tests. The screening was at no cost to those who responded. No strings attached, or at least none were mentioned. In clear letters across the bottom of the page was the information that the ad was paid for by the law firm of French & French, with addresses and phone numbers of their offices in Gulfport, Biloxi, and Pascagoula.
   The word search produced an almost identical ad dated March 1, 1999. The only difference was the time and place of the screening. Another ad ran in the Sunday edition of the Sun Herald on May 2, 1999.
   For almost an hour, Ray ventured out from the coast, and found the same ads in the Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, the Times-Picayune in New Orleans, the Hattiesburg American, the Mobile Register, the Commercial Appeal in Memphis, and The Advocate in Baton Rouge. Patton French had launched a massive frontal assault on Ryax and Miyer-Brack.
   Convinced that the newspaper ads could spread to all fifty states, Ray grew weary of it. On a guess, he did a Web search for Mr. French, and was welcomed to the firm’s own site, a very impressive piece of propaganda.
   There were now fourteen lawyers in the firm, with offices in six cities and expanding by the hour. Patton French had a flattering one-page biography that would have embarrassed those with thinner skins. His father, the elder French, looked to be eighty if a day, and had taken senior status, whatever that meant.
   The firm’s thrust was its rabid representation of folks injured by bad drugs and bad doctors. It had brilliantly negotiated the largest Ryax settlement to date—$900 million for 7,200 clients. Now it was hammering Shyne Medical, makers of Minitrin, the widely used and obscenely profitable hypertension drug that the FDA had pulled because of its side effects. The firm had almost two thousand Minitrin clients and was screening more each week.
   Patton French had hit Clark Pharmaceuticals for an eight-million-dollar jury verdict in New Orleans. The drug at war there was Kobril, an antidepressant that had been loosely linked to hearing loss. The firm had settled its first batch of Kobril cases, fourteen hundred of them,– for fifty-two million.
   Little was said about the other members of the firm, giving the clear impression that it was a one-man show with a squad of minions in the backrooms grappling with thousands of clients who’d been gathered up on the street. There was a page with Mr. French’s speaking engagements, one with his extensive trial calendar, and two pages of screening schedules, covering no less than eight drugs, including Skinny Bens, the fat pill Forrest had mentioned earlier.
   To better serve its clients, the French firm had purchased a Gulfstream IV, and there was a large color photo of it on the ramp somewhere, with, of course, Patton French posed near the nose in a dark designer suit, with a fierce smile, ready to hop on board and go fight for justice somewhere. Ray knew that such a plane probably cost about thirty million, with two full-time pilots and a list of maintenance expenses that would terrify an accountant.
   Patton French was a shameless ego pit.
   The airplane was the final straw, and Ray left the library. Leaning on his car, he dialed the number for French & French and worked his way through the recorded menu—client, lawyer, judge, other, screening information, paralegals, the first four letters of your lawyer’s last name. Three secretaries working diligently for Mr. French passed him along until he came to the one in charge of scheduling.
   Exhausted, Ray said, “I really would like to see Mr. French.”
   “He’s out of town,” she said, surprisingly polite.
   Of course he was out of town. “Okay, listen,” Ray said rudely. “I’m only doing this one time. My name is Ray Atlee. My father was Judge Reuben Atlee. I’m here in Biloxi, and I’d like to see Patton French.”
   He gave her his cell phone number and drove away. He went to the Acropolis, a tacky Vegas-style casino with a Greek theme, badly done but absolutely no one cared. The parking lot was busy and there were security guards on duty. Whether they were watching anything was uncertain. He found a bar with a view of the floor, and was sipping a soda when his cell phone beeped. “Mr. Ray Atlee,” said the voice.
   “That’s me,” Ray said, pressing the phone closer.
   “Patton French here. Delighted you called. Sorry I wasn’t in.”
   “I’m sure you’re a busy man.”
   “Indeed I am. You’re on the coast?”
   “Right now I’m sitting in the Acropolis, a wonderful place.”
   “Well, I’m headed back, been down to Naples for a plaintiff’s counsel meeting with some big Florida lawyers.”
   Here we go, thought Ray.
   “Very sorry about your father,” French said, and the signal cracked just a little. Probably at forty thousand feet, streaking home.
   “Thank you,” Ray said.
   “I was at the funeral, saw you there, but didn’t get a chance to speak. A lovely man, the Judge.”
   “Thank you,” Ray said again.
   “How’s Forrest?”
   “How do you know Forrest?”
   “I know almost everything, Ray. My pretrial preparation is meticulous. We gather information by the truckload. That’s how we win. Anyway, is he clean these days?”
   “As far as I know,” Ray said, irritated that a private matter would be brought up as casually as the weather. But he knew from the Web site that the man had no finesse.
   “Good, look, I’ll be in sometime tomorrow. I’m on my yacht, so the pace is a bit slower. Can we do lunch or dinner?”
   Didn’t see a yacht on the Web page, Mr. French. Must’ve been an oversight. Ray preferred one hour over coffee, as opposed to a two-hour lunch or an even longer dinner, but he was the guest. “Either one.”
   “Keep them both open, if you don’t mind. We’re hitting some wind here in the Gulf and I’m not sure when I’ll be in. Can I have my girl call you tomorrow?”
   “Sure.” :
   “Are we discussing the Gibson trial?” “Yes, unless there’s something else.” “No, it all started with Gibson.”
   BACK AT the Easy Sleep Inn, Ray half-watched a muted baseball game and tried to read while waiting for the sun to disappear. He needed sleep but was unwilling to tuck in before dark. He got Forrest on the second try, and they were discussing the joys of rehab when the cell phone erupted. “I’ll call you back,” Ray said and hung up.
   An intruder was in his apartment again. A burglary in progress, said the robotic voice from the alarm company. When the recording went dead, Ray opened the door and stared at his car, less than twenty feet away. He held the cell phone and waited.
   The alarm company also called Gorey Crawford, who called fifteen minutes later with the same report. Crowbar through the door on the street, crowbar through the door to the apartment, a table knocked over, lights on, all appliances accounted for. The same policeman filing the same report. ^
   “There’s nothing valuable there,” Ray said.
   “Then why do they keep breaking in?” Corey asked.
   “I don’t know”
   Crawford called the landlord, who promised to find a carpenter and patch up the doors. After the cop left, Corey waited in the apartment and called Ray again. “This is not a coincidence,” he said.
   “Why not?” Ray asked.
   “They’re not trying to steal anything. It’s intimidation, that’s all. What’s going on?”
   “I don’t know”
   “I think you do.”
   “I swear.”
   “I think you’re not telling me everything.”
   You’re certainly right about that, Ray thought, but he held his ground. “It’s random, Corey, relax. Just some of those downtown kids with pink hair and spikes through their jaws. They’re druggies looking for a quick buck.”
   “I know the area. These aren’t kids.”
   “A pro wouldn’t return if he knew about the alarm. It’s two different people.”
   “I disagree.”
   They agreed to disagree, though both knew the truth.
   He rolled in the darkness for two hours, unable even to close his eyes. Around eleven, he went for a drive and found himself back at the Acropolis, where he played roulette and drank bad wine until two in the morning.
   He asked for a room overlooking the parking lot, not the beach, and from a third-floor window he guarded his car until he fell asleep.

Chapter 30

   He slept until housekeeping got tired of waiting. Checkout was noon, no exceptions, and when the maid banged on the door at eleven forty-five he yelled something through the door and jumped in the shower.
   His car looked fine, no pry marks or dents or scrapes around the rear. He unlocked the trunk and quickly peered inside: three black plastic garbage bags stuffed with money. All was normal until he got behind the wheel and saw an envelope tucked under the windshield wiper in front of him. He froze and stared at it, and it seemed to stare back at him from thirty inches away. Plain white, legal size, no visible markings, at least on the side touching the glass.
   Whatever it was, it couldn’t be good. It wasn’t a flyer for a pizza delivery or some clown running for office. It wasn’t a ticket for expired parking because parking was free at the Acropolis casino.
   It was an envelope with something in it.
   He slowly crawled out of the car and looked around on the chance he’d spot someone out there. He lifted the wiper, took the envelope, and examined it as if it might be crucial evidence in a murder trial. Then he got back in the car because he figured someone was watching.
   Inside was another trifold, another color digital picture printed off the computer, this one of unit 37F at Chaney’s Self-Storage in Charlottesville, Virginia, 930 miles and at least eighteen hours away by car. Same camera, same printer, no doubt the same photographer who no doubt knew that 37F was not the last unit Ray had used to hide the money.
   Though he was too numb to move, Ray drove away in a hurry. He sped along Highway 90 watching everything behind him, then suddenly veered to the left and turned onto a street that he followed north for a mile until he abruptly pulled into the parking lot of a Laundromat. No one was following. For an hour he watched every car and saw nothing suspicious. For comfort, his pistol was next to his seat, ready for action. And even more comforting was the money sitting just inches away. He had everything he needed.

   The call from Mr. French’s scheduling secretary came at eleven-fifteen. Crucial matters had conspired to make lunch impossible, but an early dinner would be his pleasure. She asked if Ray would come to the great man’s office around 4 P.M., and the evening would proceed from there.
   The office, a flattering photo of which appeared on the Web site, was a stately Georgian home overlooking the Gulf, on a long lot shaded with oaks and Spanish moss. Its neighbors were of similar architecture and age.
   The rear had recently been converted into a parking lot with tall brick walls around it and security cameras scanning back and forth. A metal gate was opened for Ray and closed behind him by a guard dressed like a Secret Service agent. He parked in a reserved place, and another guard escorted him up to the rear of the building, where a crew was busy laying tile while another planted shrubs. A major renovation of the office and premises was rapidly winding down.
   “The governor’s coming in three days,” the guard whispered.
   “Wow,” Ray said.
   French’s personal office was on the second floor, but he was not in it. He was still on his yacht, out in the Gulf, explained a comely young brunette in a tight, expensive dress. She led him into Mr. French’s office anyway and asked him to wait in a sitting area by the windows. The room was paneled in blond oak and held enough heavy leather sofas, chairs, and ottomans to furnish a hunting lodge. The desk was the size of a swimming pool and covered with scale models of great yachts.
   “He likes boats, huh?” Ray said, looking around. He was expected to be impressed.
   “Yes, he does.” With a remote she opened a cabinet and a large flat screen slid out. “He’s in a meeting,” she said, “but he’ll be on in just a moment. Would you like a drink?”
   “Thanks, black coffee.”
   There was a tiny camera in the top right corner of the screen, and Ray assumed he and Mr. French were about to chat via satellite. His irritation at waiting was slowly building. Normally, it would’ve been boiling by now, but he was captivated by the show that was unfolding around him. He was a character in it. Relax and enjoy it, he told himself. You have plenty of time.
   She returned with the coffee, which, of course, was served in fine china, F&F engraved on the side of the cup. •-• “Can I step outside?” Ray asked.
   “Certainly.” She smiled and returned to her desk.
   There was a long balcony through a set of doors. Ray sipped his coffee at the railing and admired the view. The wide front lawn ended at the highway, and beyond it was the beach and the water. No casinos were visible, not much in the way of development. Below him, on the front porch, some painters were chattering back and forth as they moved their ladders. Everything about the place looked and felt new. Patton French had just won the lottery.
   “Mr. Atlee,” she called, and Ray stepped inside the office. On the screen was the face of Patton French, hair slightly disheveled, reading glasses perched on his nose, eyes frowning above them. “There you are,” he barked. “Sorry for the delay. Have a seat there, if you will, Ray, so I can see you.”
   She pointed and Ray sat.
   “How are you?” French asked.
   “Fine. You?”
   “Great, look, sorry for the mix-up, all my fault, but I’ve been on one of these damned conference calls all afternoon, just couldn’t get away. I was thinking it would be a lot quieter here on the boat for dinner, whatta you think? My chef’s a damned sight better than anything you’ll find on land. I’m only thirty minutes out. We’ll have a drink, just the two of us, then a long dinner and we’ll talk about your father. It’ll be enjoyable, I promise.”
   When he finally shut up, Ray said, “Will my car be secure here?” ‘.—:
   “Of course. Hell, it’s in a compound. I’ll tell the guards to sit on the damned thing if you want.”
   “Okay Do I swim out?” : “No, I’ve got boats. Dickie’ll bring you.”
   Dickie was the same thick young man who’d escorted Ray into the building. Now he escorted him out, where a very long silver Mercedes was waiting. Dickie drove it like a tank through the traffic to the Point Cadet Marina, where a hundred small vessels were docked. One of the larger ones just happened to be owned by Pat-ton French. Its name was the Lady of Justice.
   “The water’s smooth, take about twenty-five minutes,” Dickie said as they climbed on board. The engines were running. A steward with a thick accent asked Ray if he’d like a drink. “Diet soda,” he said. They cast off and puttered through the rows of slips and past the marina until they were away from the pier. Ray climbed to the upper deck and watched the shoreline fade into the distance.

   Anchored ten miles from Biloxi was the King of Torts, a hundred-forty-foot luxury yacht with a crew of five and plush quarters for a dozen friends. The only passenger was Mr. French, and he was waiting to greet his dinner guest. “A real pleasure, Ray” he said as he pumped his hand and then squeezed his shoulder.
   “A pleasure for me as well,” Ray said, holding his ground because French liked close contact. He was an inch or two taller, with a nicely tanned face, fierce blue eyes that squinted and did not blink.
   “I’m so glad you came,” French said, squeezing Ray’s hand. Fraternity brothers couldn’t have pawed each other with more affection.
   “Stay here, Dickie,” he barked to the deck below. “Follow me, Ray,” he said, and they were off, up one short flight to the main deck, where a steward in a white jacket was waiting with a starched F&F towel folded perfectly over his arm. “What’ll you have?” he demanded of Ray.
   Suspecting that French was not a man who toyed with light booze, Ray said, “What’s the specialty of the house?”
   “Iced vodka, with a twist of lime.”
   “I’ll try it,” Ray said.
   “It’s a great new vodka from Norway. You’ll love it.” The man knew his vodkas.
   He was wearing a black linen shirt, buttoned at the neck, and tan linen shorts, perfectly pressed and hanging nicely on his frame. There was a slight belly, but he was thick through the chest and his forearms were twice the normal size. He liked his hair because he couldn’t keep his hands out of it.
   “How about the boat?” he asked, waving his hands from stern to bow. “It was built by a Saudi prince, one of the lesser ones, a coupla years ago. Dumb-ass put a fireplace in it, can you believe that? Cost him twenty million or so, and after a year he traded it in for a two-hundred-footer.”
   “It’s amazing,” Ray said, trying to sound sufficiently awed. The world of yachting was one he had never been near, and he suspected that after this episode he would forever keep his distance.
   “Built by the Italians,” French said, tapping a railing made of some terribly expensive wood.
   “Why do you stay out here, in the Gulf?” Ray asked.
   “I’m an offshore kind of guy, ha, ha. If you know what I mean. Sit.” French pointed, and they lowered themselves into two long deck chairs. When they were nestled in, French nodded to the shore. “You can barely see Biloxi, and this is close enough. I can do more work out here in one day than in a week at the office. Plus I’m transitioning from one house to the next. A divorce is in the works. This is where I hide.”
   “Sorry”
   “This is the biggest yacht in Biloxi now, and most folks can spot it. The current wife thinks I’ve sold it, and if I get too close to the shore then her slimy little lawyer might swim out and take a picture of it. Ten miles is close enough.”
   The iced vodkas arrived, in tall narrow glasses, F&F engraved on the sides. Ray took a sip and the concoction burned all the way to his toes. French took a long pull and smacked his lips. “Whatta you think?” he asked proudly.
   “Nice vodka,” Ray said. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had one.
   “Dickie brought fresh swordfish out for dinner. Sound okay?”
   “Great.”
   “And the oysters are good now.”
   “I went to law school at Tulane. I had three years of fresh oysters.”
   “I know,” French said and pulled a small radio from his shirt pocket and passed along their dinner selections to someone below. He glanced at his watch and decided they would eat in two hours.
   “You went to school with Hassel Mangrum,” French said.
   “Yes, he was a year ahead of me.”
   “We share the same trainer. Hassel has done well here on the coast. Got in early with the asbestos boys.”
   “I haven’t heard from Hassel in twenty years.”
   “You haven’t missed much. He’s a jerk now, I suspect he was a jerk in law school.”
   “He was. How’d you know I went to school with Mangrum?”
   “Research, Ray, extensive research.” He swigged the vodka again. Ray’s third sip went straight to his brain.
   “We spent a bunch of dough investigating Judge Atlee, and his family, and his background, his rulings, his finances, everything we could find. Nothing illegal or intrusive, mind you, but old-fashioned detective work. We knew about your divorce, what’s his name, Lew the Liquidator?”
   Ray just nodded. He wanted to say something derogatory about Lew Rodowski and he wanted to rebuke French for digging through his past, but for a second the vodka was blocking signals. So he nodded.
   “We knew your salary as a law professor, it’s public record in Virginia, you know.”
   “Yes it is.”
   “Not a bad salary, Ray, but then it’s a great law school.”
   “It is indeed.”
   “Digging through your brother’s past was quite an adventure.”
   “I’m sure it was. It’s been an adventure for the family.”
   “We read every ruling your father issued in damage suits and wrongful death cases. There weren’t many, but we picked up clues. He was conservative with his awards, but he also favored the little guy, the workingman. We knew he would follow the law, but we also knew that old chancellors often mold the law to fit their notion of fairness. I had clerks doing the grunt work, but I read every one of his important decisions. He was a brilliant man, Ray, and always fair. I never disagreed with one of his opinions.”
   “You picked my father for the Gibson case?”
   “Yes. When we made the decision to file the case in Chancery Court and try it without a jury, we also decided we did not want a local chancellor to hear it. We have three. One is related to the Gibson family. One refuses to hear any matter other than divorces. One is eighty-four, senile, and hasn’t left the house in three years. So we looked around the state and found three potential fill-ins. Fortunately, my father and your father go back sixty years, to Sewanee and then law school at Ole Miss. They weren’t close friends over the years, but they kept in touch.”
   “Your father is still active?”
   “No, he’s in Florida now, retired, playing golf every day. I’m the sole owner of the firm. But my old man drove to Clanton, sat on the front porch with Judge Atlee, talked about the Civil War and Nathan Bedford Forrest. They even drove to Shiloh, walked around for two days—the hornet’s nest, the bloody pond. Judge Atlee got all choked up when he stood where General Johnston fell.”
   “I’ve been there a dozen times,” Ray said with a smile.
   “You don’t lobby a man like Judge Atlee. Earwigging is the ancient term.”
   “He put a lawyer in jail once for that,” Ray said. “The guy came in before court began and tried to plead his case. The Judge threw him in jail for half a day.”
   “That was that Chadwick fella over in Oxford, wasn’t it?” French said smugly, and Ray was speechless.
   “Anyway, we had to impress upon Judge Atlee the importance of the Ryax litigation. We knew he wouldn’t want to come to the coast and try the case, but he’d do it if he believed in the cause.”
   “He hated the coast.”
   “We knew that, believe me, it was a huge concern. But he was a man of great principle. After refighting the war up there for two days, Judge Atlee reluctantly agreed to hear the case.”
   “Doesn’t the Supreme Court assign the special chancellors?” Ray asked. The fourth sip sort of slid down, without burning, and the vodka was tasting better.
   French shrugged it off. “Sure, but there are ways. We have friends.”
   In Fatten French’s world, anyone could be bought.
   The steward was back with fresh drinks. Not that they were needed, but they were taken anyway. French was too hyper to sit still for long. “Lemme show you the boat,” he said, and bounced out of his chair with no effort. Ray climbed out carefully, balancing his glass.

Chapter 31

   Dinner was in the captain’s galley, a mahogany-paneled dining room with walls adorned with models of ancient clippers and gunboats and maps of the New World and the Far East and even a collection of antique muskets thrown in to give the impression that the King of Torts had been around for centuries. It was on the main deck behind the bridge, just down a narrow hallway from the kitchen, where a Vietnamese chef was hard at work. The formal dining area was around an oval marble table that seated a dozen and weighed at least a ton and made Ray ask himself how, exactly, the King of Torts stayed afloat.
   The captain’s table sat only two this evening, and above it was a small chandelier that rocked with the sea. Ray was at one end, French at the other. The first wine of the night was a white burgundy that, following the scalding by two iced vodkas, was tasteless to Ray. Not to his host. French had knocked back three of the vodkas, had in fact drained all three glasses, and his tongue was beginning to thicken slightly. But he tasted every hint of fruit in the wine, even got a whiff of the oak barrels, and, as all wine snobs do, had to pass this useful information along to Ray “Here’s to Ryax,” French said, reaching forward with his glass in a delayed toast. Ray touched his glass but said nothing. It was not a night for him to say much, and he knew it. He would just listen. His host would get drunk and say enough.
   “Ryax saved me, Ray,” French said as he swirled his wine and admired it.
   “In what way?”
   “In every way. It saved my soul. I worship money, and Ryax has made me rich.” A small sip, followed by the requisite smacking of the lips, a rolling of the eyes. “I missed the asbestos wave twenty years ago. Those shipyards over in Pascagoula used asbestos for years, and tens of thousands of men became ill. And I missed it. I was too busy suing doctors and insurance companies, and I was making good money but I just didn’t see the potential in mass torts. You ready for some oysters?”
   “Yes.”
   French pushed a button; the steward popped in with two trays of raw oysters on the half shell. Ray mixed horseradish into the cocktail sauce and prepared for the feast. Patton was swirling wine and too busy talking.
   “Then came tobacco,” he said sadly. “Many of the same lawyers, from right here. I thought they were crazy, hell, everybody did, but they sued the big tobacco companies in almost every state. I had the chance to jump into the pit with them, but I was too scared. It’s hard to admit that, Ray. I was just too damned scared to roll the dice.”
   “What did they want?” Ray asked, then shoved the first oyster and saltine into his mouth.
   “A million bucks to help finance the litigation. And I had a million bucks at the time.”
   “How much was the settlement?” Ray asked, chewing.
   “More than three hundred billion. The biggest financial and legal scam in history. The tobacco companies basically bought off the lawyers, who sold out. One huge bribe, and I missed it.” He appeared to be ready to cry because he’d missed a bribe, but he rallied quickly with a long pull on the wine.
   “Good oysters,” Ray said, with a mouthful.
   “Twenty-four hours ago, they were fifteen feet down.” French poured more wine and settled over his platter.
   “What would’ve been the return on your one million dollars?” Ray asked.
   “Two hundred to one.”
   “Two hundred million bucks?”
   “Yep. I was sick for a year, lots of lawyers around here were sick. We knew the players and we had chickened out.”
   “Then along came Ryax.”
   “Yes indeed.”
   “How’d you find it?” Ray asked, knowing the question would require another windy answer, and he’d be free to eat.
   “I was at a trial lawyers’ seminar in St. Louis. Missouri is a nice place and all, but miles behind us when it comes to tort litigation. I mean, hell, we’ve had the asbestos and tobacco boys running around here for years, burning money, showing everybody else how it’s done. I had a drink with this old lawyer from a small town in the Ozarks. His son teaches medicine at the university in Columbia, and the son was on to Ryax. His research was showing some horrible results. The damned drug just eats up the kidneys, and because it was so new there was not a history of litigation. I found an expert in Chicago, and he found Clete Gibson through a doctor in New Orleans. Then we started screening, and the thing snowballed. All we needed was a big verdict.”
   “Why didn’t you want a jury trial?”
   “I love juries. I love to pick them, talk to them, sway them, manipulate them, even buy them, but they’re unpredictable. I wanted a lock, a guarantee. And I wanted a speedy trial. Ryax rumors were spreading like crazy, you can imagine a bunch of hungry tort lawyers with the gossip that a new drug had gone bad. We were signing up cases by the dozens. The guy with the first big verdict would be in the driver’s seat, especially if it came from the Biloxi area. Miyer-Brack is a Swiss company—”
   “I’ve read the file.”
   “All Of it?”
   “Yes, yesterday in the Hancock County Courthouse.”
   “Well, these Europeans are terrified of our tort system.”
   “Shouldn’t they be?”
   “Yes, but in a good way. Keeps ‘em honest. What should terrify them is the possibility that one of their damned drugs is defective and might harm people, but that’s not a concern when billions are at stake. It takes people like me to keep ‘em honest.”
   “And they knew Ryax was bad?”
   French choked down another oyster, swallowed hard, gulped a half pint of wine, and finally said, “Early on. The drug was so effective at lowering cholesterol that Miyer-Brack, along with the FDA, rushed it to the market. It was another miracle drug, and it worked great for a few years with no side effects. Then, bam! The tissue of the nephrons—do you understand how the kidneys work?”
   “For the sake of this discussion, let’s say I don’t.”
   “Each kidney has about a million little filtering units called nephrons, and Ryax contained a synthetic chemical that basically melted them. Not everybody dies, like poor Mr. Gibson, and there are varying degrees of damage. It’s all permanent, though. The kidney is an amazing organ that can often heal itself, but not after a five-year bout with Ryax.”
   “When did Miyer-Brack know it had a problem?”
   “Hard to say exactly, but we showed Judge Atlee some internal documents from their lab people to their suits urging caution and more research. After Ryax had been on the market for about four years, with spectacular results, the company’s scientists were worried. Then folks started getting real sick, even dying, and by then it was too late. From my standpoint, we had to find the perfect client, which we did, the perfect forum, which we did, and we had to do it quick before some other lawyer got a big verdict. That’s where your father came in.”
   The steward cleared the oyster shells and presented a crab-meat salad. Another white burgundy had been selected from the onboard cellar by Mr. French himself.
   “What happened after the Gibson trial?” Ray asked.
   “I could not have scripted it better. Miyer-Brack absolutely crumbled. Arrogant shitheads were reduced to tears. They had a zillion bucks in cash and couldn’t wait to buy off the plaintiffs’ lawyers. Before the trial I had four hundred cases and no clout. Afterward, I had five thousand cases and an eleven-million-dollar verdict. Hundreds of lawyers called me. I spent a month flying around the country, in a Learjet, signing co-rep agreements with other lawyers. A guy in Kentucky had a hundred cases. One in St. Paul had eighty. On and on. Then, about four months after the trial, we flew to New York for the big settlement conference. In less than three hours we settled six thousand cases for seven hundred million bucks. A month later we settled another twelve hundred for two hundred million.”
   “What was your cut?” Ray asked. It would’ve been a rude question if posed to a normal person, but French couldn’t wait to talk about his fees.
   “Fifty percent off the top for the lawyers, then expenses, the rest went to the clients. That’s the bad part of a contingency contract—you have to give half to the client. Anyway, I had other lawyers to deal with, but I walked away with three hundred million and some change. That’s the beauty of mass torts, Ray. Sign ‘em up by the truckload, settle ‘em by the trainload, take half off the top.”
   They weren’t eating. There was too much money in the air.
   “Three hundred million in fees?” Ray said in disbelief.
   French was gargling with wine. “Ain’t it sweet? It’s coming so fast I can’t spend it all.”
   “Looks like you’re giving it a good shot.”
   “This is the tip of the iceberg. Ever hear of a drug called Minitrin?”
   “I checked your Web site.”
   “Really? What’d you think?”
   “Pretty slick. Two thousand Minitrin cases.”
   “Three thousand now. It’s a hypertension drug that has dangerous side effects. Made by Shyne Medical. They’ve offered fifty thousand a case and I said no. Fourteen hundred Kobril cases, antidepressant that causes hearing loss, we think. Ever hear of Skinny Bens?”
   “Yes.”
   “We have three thousand Skinny Ben cases. And fifteen hundred –”
   “I saw the list. I assume the Web site is updated.” “Of course. I’m the new King of Torts in this country, Ray. Everybody’s calling me. I have thirteen other lawyers in my firm and I need forty.”
   The steward was back to collect their latest leftovers. He placed the swordfish in front of them and brought the next wine, though the last bottle was half full. French went through the tasting ritual and finally, almost reluctantly, nodded his approval. To Ray it tasted very similar to the first two.
   “I owe it all to Judge Atlee,” French said. “How?”
   “He had the guts to make the right call, to keep Miyer-Brack in Hancock County instead of allowing them to escape to federal court. He understood the issues, and he was unafraid to punish them. Timing is everything, Ray. Less than six months after he handed down his ruling, I had three hundred million bucks in my hands.”
   “Did you keep all of it?”
   French had a bite on a fork close to his mouth. He hesitated for a second, then took the fish, chewed for a while, then said, “I don’t understand the question.”
   “I think you do. Did you give any of the money to Judge Atlee?”
   “Yes.”
   “How much?”
   “One percent.”
   “Three million bucks?”
   “And change. This fish is delicious, don’t you think?”
   “It is. Why?”
   French put down his knife and fork and stroked his locks again with both hands. Then he wiped them on his napkin and swirled his wine. “I suppose there are a lot of questions. Why, when, how, who.”
   “You’re good at stories, let’s hear it.”
   Another swirl, then a satisfied sip. “It’s not what you think, though I would’ve bribed your father or any judge for that ruling. I’ve done it before, and I’ll happily do it again. It’s just part of the overhead. Frankly, though, I was so intimidated by him and his reputation that I just couldn’t approach him with a deal. He would’ve thrown me in jail.”
   “He would’ve buried you in jail.”
   “Yes, I know, and my father convinced me of this. So we played it straight. The trial was an all-out war, but truth was on my side. I won, then I won big, now I’m winning even bigger. Late last summer, after we settled and the money was wired in, I wanted to give him a gift. I take care of those who help me, Ray. A new car here, a condo there, a sack full of cash for a favor. I play the game hard and I protect my friends.”
   “He wasn’t your friend.”
   “We weren’t amigos, or fraternity brothers, but in my world I’ve never had a greater friend. It all started with him. Do you realize how much money I’ll make in the next five years?”
   “Shock me again.”
   “Half a billion. And I owe it all to your old man.”
   “When will you have enough?”
   “There’s a tobacco lawyer here who made a billion. I need to catch him first.”
   Ray needed a drink. He examined the wine as if he knew what to look for, then sucked it down. French was into the fish.
   “I don’t think you’re lying,” Ray said.
   “I don’t lie. I cheat and bribe, but I don’t lie. About six months ago, while I was shopping for airplanes and boats and beach homes and mountain cabins and new offices, I heard that your father had been diagnosed with cancer, and that it was serious. I wanted to do something nice for him. I knew he didn’t have much money, and what he did have he seemed hell-bent on giving away.”
   “So you sent him three million in cash?”
   “Yes.”
   “Just like that?”
   “Just like that. I called him and told him a package was on the way. Four packages as it turned out, four large cardboard boxes. One of my boys drove them up in a van, left them on the front porch. Judge Atlee wasn’t home.”
   “Unmarked bills?”
   “Why would I mark them?”
   “What did he say?” Ray asked.
   “I never heard a word, and I didn’t want to.”
   “What did he do?”
   “You tell me. You’re his son, you know him better than me. You tell me what he did with the money.”
   Ray pushed back from the table, and holding his wineglass, he crossed his legs and tried to relax. “He found the money on the porch, and when he realized what it was, I’m sure he gave you a thorough cursing.”
   “God, I hope so.”
   “He moved it into the foyer, where the boxes joined dozens of others. He planned to load it up and haul it back to Biloxi, but a day or two passed. He was sick and weak, and not driving too well. He knew he was dying, and I’m sure that burden changed his outlook on a lot of things. After a few days he decided to hide the money, which he did, and all the while he planned to get it back down here and flog your corrupt ass in the process. Time passed, and he got sicker.” .
   “Who found the money?”
   “I did.”
   “Where is it?”
   “In the trunk of my car, at your office.”
   French laughed long and hard. “Back where it started from,” he said between breaths.
   “It’s had quite a tour. I found it in his study just after I found him dead. Someone tried to break in and get it. I took it to Virginia, now it’s back, and that someone is following me.”
   The laughter stopped immediately. He wiped his mouth with a napkin. “How much did you find?”
   “Three million, one hundred and eighteen thousand.”
   “Damn! He didn’t spend a dime.”
   “And he didn’t mention it in his will. He just left it, hidden in stationer’s boxes in a cabinet beneath his bookshelves.”
   “Who tried to break in?”
   “I was hoping you might know.”
   “I have a pretty good idea.”
   “Please tell me.”
   “It’s another long story.”

Chapter 32

   The steward brought a selection of single malts to the top deck where French had settled them in for a nightcap and another story, with a view of Biloxi flickering in the distance. Ray did not drink whiskey and certainly knew nothing about single malts, but he went along with the ritual because he knew French would get even drunker. The truth was flowing in torrents now, and Ray wanted all of it.
   They settled on Lagavulin because of its smokiness, whatever that meant. There were four others, lined like proud old sentries in distinctive regalia, and Ray vowed he’d had enough to drink. He’d sip and spit and if he got the chance he’d toss it overboard. To his relief, the steward poured tiny servings in short thick glasses heavy enough to crack floors.
   It was almost ten but felt much later. The Gulf was dark, no other boats were visible. A gentle wind blew from the south and rocked the King of Torts just slightly.
   “Who knows about the money?” French asked, smacking his lips.
   “Me, you, whoever hauled it up there.”
   “That’s your man.”
   “Who is he?”
   A long sip, more smacking. Ray brought the whiskey to his lips and wished he hadn’t. Numb as they were, they burned all over again.
   “Gordie Priest. He worked for me for eight or so years, first as a gofer, then a runner, then a bagman. His family has been on the coast forever, always on the edges. His father and uncles ran numbers, whores, moonshine, honky-tonks, nothing legal. They were part of what was once known as the coast mafia, a bunch of thugs who disdained honest work. Twenty years ago they controlled some things around here, now they’re history. Most of them went to jail. Gordie’s father, a man I knew very well, got shot outside a bar near Mobile. A pretty miserable lot, really. My family has known them for years.”
   He was implying that his family had been part of the same bunch of crooks, but he couldn’t say it. They’d been the front guys, the lawyers who smiled for the cameras and cut the backroom deals.
   “Gordie went to jail when he was about twenty, a stolen car ring that covered a dozen states. I hired him when he got out, and over time he became one of the best runners on the coast. He was particularly good at the offshore cases. He knew the guys on the rigs, and when there was a death or injury he’d get the case. I’d give him a nice percentage. Gotta take care of your runners. One year I paid him almost eighty thousand, all of it in cash. He blew it, of course, casinos and women. Loved to go to Vegas and stay drunk for a week, throw money around like a big shot. He acted like an idiot but he wasn’t stupid. He was always up and down. When he was broke he’d scramble and make some money. When he had money, he’d manage to lose it.”
   “I’m sure this is all headed my way,” Ray said.
   “Hang on,” French said.
   “After the Gibson case early last year, the money hit like a tidal wave. I had favors to repay. Lots of cash got hauled around. Cash to lawyers who were sending me their cases. Cash to doctors who were screening thousands of new clients. Not all of it was illegal. mind you, but a lot of folks didn’t want records. I made the mistake of using Gordie as the delivery boy. I thought I could trust him. I thought he would be loyal. I was wrong.”
   French had finished one sample and was ready for another. Ray declined and pretended to work on the Lagavulin.
   “And he drove the money up to Clanton and left it on the front porch?” Ray said.
   “He did, and three months after that he stole a million dollars from me, in cash, and disappeared. He has two brothers, and at any-given time during the past ten years one of the three has been in prison. Except for now. Now they’re all on parole, and they’re trying to extort big money out of me. Extortion is a serious crime, you know, but I can’t exactly go to the FBI.”
   “What makes you think he’s after the three million bucks?”
   “Wiretaps. We picked it up a few months ago. I’ve hired some pretty serious characters to find Gordie.”
   “What will you do if you find him?”
   “Oh, there’s a price on his head.”
   “You mean, like a contract?”
   “Yes.”
   And with that, Ray reached for another single malt.
   HE SLEPT on the boat, in a large room somewhere under the water, and when he found his way to the main deck the sun was high in the east and the air was already hot and sticky. The captain said good morning and pointed forward, where he found French yelling into a phone.
   The faithful steward materialized out of thin air and presented a coffee. Breakfast was up on the top deck at the scene of the single malts, now under a canopy for shade.
   “I love to eat outdoors,” French announced as he joined Ray. “You slept for ten hours.”
   “Did I really?” Ray asked, looking again at his watch, which was still on Eastern time. He was on a yacht in the Gulf of Mexico, unsure of the day or time, a million miles from home, and now burdened with the knowledge that some very nasty people were chasing him.
   The table was spread with breads and cereals. “Tin Lu down there can fix anything you want,” French was saying. “Bacon, eggs, waffles, grits.”
   “This is fine, thanks.”
   French was fresh and hyper, already tackling another grueling day with the energy that could only come from the prospect of a half a billion or so in fees. He was wearing a white linen shirt, buttoned at the top like the black one last night, shorts, loafers. His eyes were clear and dancing around. “Just picked up another three hundred Minitrin cases,” he said as he dumped a generous portion of flakes into a large bowl. Every dish had the obligatory F&F monogram splashed on it.
   Ray had had enough of mass torts. “Good, but I’m more interested in Gordie Priest.”
   “We’ll find him. I’m already making calls.”
   “He’s probably in town.” Ray pulled a folded sheet of paper from his rear pocket. It was the photo of 37F he’d found yesterday morning on his windshield. French looked at it and stopped eating.
   “And this is up in Virginia?” he asked.
   “Yep, the second of three units I rented. They’ve found the first two, I’m sure they know about the third. And they knew exactly where I was yesterday morning.”
   “But they obviously don’t know where the money is. Otherwise, they would have simply taken it from the trunk of your car while you were asleep. Or they would’ve pulled you over somewhere between here and Clanton and put a bullet in your ear.”
   “You don’t know what they’re thinking.”
   “Sure I do. Think like a crook, Ray. Think like a thug.”
   “It may come easy for you, but it’s harder for some folks.”
   “If Gordie and his brothers knew you had three million bucks in the trunk of your car, they would take it. Simple as that.” He put the photo down and attacked his flakes.
   “Nothing is simple,” Ray said.
   “What do you wanna do? Leave the money with me?”
   “Yes.”
   “Don’t be stupid, Ray. Three million tax-free dollars.”
   “Useless if I get the ole bullet in the ear. I have a very nice salary.”
   “The money is safe. Keep it where it is. Give me some time to find these boys, and they’ll be neutralized.”
   The neutralization sapped any appetite Ray had.
   “Eat, man!” French barked when Ray grew still.
   “I don’t have the stomach for this. Dirty money, bad guys breaking into my apartment, chasing me all over the Southeast, wiretaps, contract killers. What the hell am I doing– here?”
   French never stopped chewing. His intestines were lined with brass. “Keep cool,” he said. “And the money’ll be yours.”
   “I don’t want the money.”
   “Of course you do.”
   “No I don’t.”
   “Then give it to Forrest.”
   “What a disaster.”
   “Give it to charity. Give it your law school. Give it to something that makes you feel good.”
   “Why don’t I just give it to Gordie so he won’t shoot me?”
   French gave his spoon a rest and looked around as if others were lurking. “All right, we spotted Gordie last night over in Pascagoula,” he said, an octave lower. “We’re hot on his trail, okay? I think we’ll have him within twenty-four hours.”
   ;And he’ll be neutralized?”
   “He’ll be iced.”
   “Iced?”
   “Gordie’ll be history. Your money’ll be safe. Just hang on, okay.”
   “I’d like to leave now.”
   French wiped skim milk off his bottom lip, then picked up his miniradio and told Dickie to get the boat ready. Minutes later, they were ready to board.
   “Take a look at these,” French said, handing over an eight-by-twelve manila envelope.
   “What is it?”
   “Photos of the Priest boys. Just in case you bump into them.”
   RAY IGNORED the envelope until he stopped in Hattiesburg, ninety minutes north of the coast. He bought gas and a dreadful shrink-wrapped sandwich, then was off again, in a hurry to get to Clanton, where Harry Rex knew the sheriff and all his deputies.
   Gordie had a particularly menacing sneer, one that had been captured by a police photographer in 1991. His brothers, Slatt and Alvin, were certainly no prettier. Ray couldn’t tell the oldest from the youngest, not that it mattered. None of the three resembled the others. Bad breeding. Same mother, no doubt different fathers.
   They could have a million each, he didn’t care. Just leave me alone.