Natchez Burning (111 page)

Mouth agape, Brody is clearly stunned that any black man would speak to him this way. He presses the gun barrel to Sleepy Johnston’s sternum. “You got anything else to say?”

When Johnston speaks again, his voice is filled with emotion I can’t quite read. Then I recognize it—pity. “You ain’t nothing, Mister,” he says softly. “All your money and land don’t make you worth the mud on Albert Norris’s shoes. And what’s more …
you know it
.”

Brody fires.

Sleepy’s body jerks, then drops to the floor. His blank eyes stare sightless at the low ceiling.

Brody wipes a sheen of sweat from his face, then turns to face Caitlin and me. The man I spoke to only a minute ago seems to have fled the body before me. Caitlin appears frozen, as am I. We might have been in shock before, but the cold-blooded execution has taken our desperation to a new level.

Henry, who seemed only half-conscious before, rolls onto his side and stares at Johnston’s body on the floor.

Brody points his smoking pistol at Henry. Caitlin screams, and I shrink from the imminent shot. Instead of shooting, though, Brody crouches so that Henry can see his eyes. “You spent thirty years trying to get me, boy, and in the end you delivered the
only
thing that could have destroyed me. Like
room service
. I do believe you’re the saddest white man I ever saw.”

Henry gazes up at Brody but says nothing. He looks more like a stroke victim than an active participant in a conversation.

“See that fire downrange?” Brody asks, pointing at the burning bucket and banker’s boxes. “Thirty years of notes and diaries? Nobody’s ever going to see it. Shit, son … don’t you realize we could drive back to Ferriday right now and start asking people on the street who Pooky Wilson was, or Joe Louis Lewis, and not three in ten would know? Not one in a hundred, if we asked people under thirty. And Ferriday’s ninety percent black! Thirty miles from here, nobody’s even heard those names. Nobody gives a shit, black or white. The nigras living in Ferriday now aren’t thinking about anything but how to fill their crack pipes tomorrow.”

Brody looks down at Henry as though waiting for agreement. “You know I’m right, son. You wrote all those stories, and what thanks did you get? Did anybody hand you the key to the city? Nobody cares but a few New York Jews and liberal, guilt-ridden princesses like Ms. Masters over there.”

With a last shake of his head, Brody straightens up and turns slowly back to me, his face haggard and finally looking its age. “Well, Mayor … nothing left now but the final act. But never fear. Nobody’s gonna leave the theater bored.”

“For God’s sake, Brody. You’ve got all the fucking money in the world. Just take it and go. Surely you’ve got some nonextradition haven somewhere? You can’t kill everybody who knows about you. You’re going to be found out. It’s inevitable. If you kill us, John Kaiser will never stop trying to nail you. Never. Go
now
.”

Royal looks at me like I’m mad. “
Go?
Why would I leave?” He kicks Sleepy Johnston’s corpse. “With this fool dead, I’m washed clean. ‘Washed in the blood,’ as they say. Henry’s dying, and his files are ashes. Katy’s gone, and those tapes, too.” He takes one step toward me, then another. “About the only thing in this world I have left to worry about is
you.
You and Princess there.”

“If you kill us, you’ll trigger the biggest manhunt in the history of this state.”

One eyebrow goes up. “You think so?”

Regan moves out of the shooting station and approaches us with the flamethrower.

“I think it’s human nature to overestimate our own importance,” Brody says. “Here’s the ending, son. You and your girlfriend are going to disappear down the drain of this room, just like Henry and Mr. Johnston there. Randall’s going to melt you into barbecue drippings, then feed your bones to the pigs on my daughter’s farm, miles from here. Your father will be dead by morning.” Royal comes still closer, so close that I smell his breath, a mix of whiskey and dirty dentures. “Last of all, your mother and your little girl.”

For one shattering moment, I fear that he’s located Mom and Annie at Edelweiss. But I see in his eyes that he hasn’t—and then I understand the final act that remains to be played.

“It’s only fitting,” he says, “when you think about what happened to my Katy. So—”

“You’re insane. You think you can get away with killing my whole family?”

“I do. When morning comes, there won’t be anything left but three empty houses. There’ll be some hullabaloo, of course. The FBI will run all over town like ants in a stepped-on pile. But meanwhile, Forrest will quietly spread the word that your family went into witness protection somewhere. And you know what?
Folks will believe it.
They’ll figure they were right all along—Doc Cage couldn’t have really killed anybody! Yeah, they’ll figure that whole story of him being a fugitive was some kind of cover story.”

“What kind of cover story? That’s ridiculous.”

Royal purses his lips like a storyteller asked to make up a good one on the spot. “I’m thinking Sonny Thornfield might disappear tonight as well. Maybe Snake Knox with him. Those two have had their runs. And Agent Kaiser
has
declared the Double Eagles a domestic terror group. And then there are those rumors that Snake’s been claiming he killed Martin Luther King. Yes … I think that story’s got legs, Mayor. And I think the more loudly the Bureau denies it, the more people will believe it.”

He’s right …

Brody stares at me as he might at a wayward nephew. “You still don’t understand, do you? I built what I have from nothing. From that godforsaken levee where my mother ate raw pig. Hundreds of people depend on me now.
Thousands
. And you want to tear all that down because a couple of niggers forgot their place forty years ago? It defies understanding. Hell, Cage, not even the FBI was working those cases until Henry started embarrassing them in the newspaper every week!”

He turns away, rubbing his chin in silence.

“Now?” Regan asks eagerly.

Royal holds up one hand, then turns slowly around the firing range and focuses on me again. “You know the tragic irony of all this? It’s only happening because of your father. All of it. All these deaths go back to him.”

I blink in confusion. “What?”

“Back in the gun room you asked me if I killed Viola. Well, I didn’t, as a matter of fact. I
would
have, thirty-seven years ago.” Brody steps to within inches of my face, his eyes gleaming like those of an old lecher. “I’ll tell you this: she was a sweet piece, boy. I had my taste out at a machine shop in the woods. Snake and his boys had her tied to a worktable, taking turns. I wore a hood while I took mine, just to be safe, but I could sure see her. My God … like a brown-skinned angel she was. But Snake had said too much in front of her, and she needed to die.”

Caitlin is watching Brody with visceral hatred.

“That’s ancient history,” I say in a shaky voice. “
Who killed
her?”

He shakes his head in amazement. “Don’t you see it yet? Viola would have died forty years ago if it was up to me. Or Snake. We
all
wanted her silenced. It was your daddy who kept her alive. St. Thomas Cage, M.D.”

“I know that. But
how
did he save her?”

Royal shrugs as if the answer is self-evident. “The same way I was going to get that APB canceled, or blame Morehouse for her murder.
Power
. The crazy irony of this whole goat rope is that, after giving up so much to keep that colored nurse alive back
then,
Doc killed her himself forty years later.”

My blood pressure plummets so fast that I feel I might faint. But Royal only mutters, “It defies understanding, I tell you.”

I don’t want to believe a word he’s saying, but I see only truth in the old man’s eyes.

“Tom thinks that damn son of hers is his,” Brody goes on. “And I suppose he could be. But like as not, he’s mine—or Snake’s, or Frank’s, or God-knows-who-else’s.” Royal pokes me in the chest. “
That’s
why you’re down in this hole, son. That’s why you and yours are going to die. You’re paying for the sins of the father, just like the Bible says.” He shrugs philosophically. “It’ll kill your daddy to hear you died this way, but he’s got no one to blame but himself.”

Royal takes a long last look at me, then turns away as though I’m already dead and says, “All right, Randall.”

“You won’t get my mother and daughter,” I promise his back. “My father, either. You don’t know where they are.”

Royal nods, then smiles sadly. “I’ll know in about thirty seconds, when your fiancée is screaming like a heretic at the stake.”

Caitlin closes her eyes.

“I don’t know myself,” I tell him.

“Yes, you do. You hid your mother and daughter. Had to have. And as for your father … you may not know where he is, but you know how to reach him. As soon as I had Forrest cancel that APB, you were going to call him and Garrity and tell them it was okay to come in.”

I’ll never be able to convince Royal otherwise.

Regan braces the firing pipe on his hip and aims it at Caitlin’s helpless body.

“Oh,” Brody says, as though he’s just remembered something. He takes a small derringer from his pocket, breaks it open, and removes one of its two rounds, which he slips into his pocket. “I’ve always been a student of human behavior, and I’m curious about something.”

He bends over and slides the pistol across the concrete to me.

“You’ve got one bullet,” he says. “What will you do with it? Once Ms. Masters is on fire, will you put her out of her misery? Or will you try to kill me?”

Like a suspicious primate taunted by a cruel zoo worker, I hesitate to reach for the derringer. But in the end, I snatch it up. Maybe I can inflict some degree of harm on Brody before I die. Breaking open the weapon, I check the remaining round—a .22 long rifle bullet. It seems to be live, but it’s practically useless from this range. To reliably kill from this gun, this bullet should be fired from a foot or less.

“There’s a third choice, Brody,” Randall says. “He might save the bullet for himself. To spare himself the pain.”

Royal laughs. “Are you that blind, Randall? Not Mayor Cage. He’s a white-knight type. He’s
Ivanhoe,
son. Chivalry and honor. He’s his daddy all over again. Nope … he’ll shoot the girl. I’d stake my fortune on it.”

“Look at his eyes,” Regan says, watching me warily. “I’d take a step back, if I were you.”

“Oh, he’d love to kill me,” Brody concedes, like a sportsman arguing about a casual bet. “But he’ll save the bullet for her. That’s true love, Randall. Pay close attention. It’s something you never felt in your whole life.”

While Caitlin silently reaches out to me with her eyes, I force myself to ignore her, quickly calculating the relevant distances, not only from where I stand, but from where my gun hand could reach if I leaped toward Brody. With the full length of the chain, my body, and my gun arm, a dive forward might buy me an additional six or seven feet. But I’d have to time the shot perfectly to kill him, and still Regan would remain free to burn Caitlin and me to death. No … the only way to prevent that outcome is somehow to kill Brody
and
take his pistol—then shoot Regan before the man incinerates us.

Impossible—

“You want me to light her up now?” Regan asks, his eyes on Caitlin.

Brody peers into Caitlin’s bloodshot eyes as though he could subsist on her tears alone. “No,” he says softly. “Give me that unit, Randall.”

“What?”

“I said, give me the damn thing. Take my pistol.”

Regan looks like a wolf cheated of a tasty meal by his alpha male.

“Help me put it on,” Brody orders.

Regan unhooks the khaki straps, then helps settle the pack onto Royal’s shoulders. The old man scarcely bends under the weapon’s weight. “Heavier than I remember,” he says, adjusting the straps on each shoulder and closing his hands around the hissing jet pipe.

“Can you handle it?”

“Long enough to cook this piece of chicken.” He turns the jet pipe on Caitlin and curls two fingers into the trigger mechanism. The hiss of the pilot flame sounds like an angry viper in the room, and oily fire drips from its opening.

Regan practically licks Caitlin with his eyes. “Scorched on the outside, pink on the inside.”

As Brody moves farther away from her to avoid any backsplash from the pressurized fuel, a bolt of instinct flashes through my brain:
Shoot the gas tank!
But which one? One of the two cylinders probably contains inert propellant, the other the gasoline and tar mixture. The upper tank looks smaller than the lower one.
Which one holds the fuel? Top or bottom?

“Hey, Brody!” cries Regan, astonished by something. “Look at this gimp motherfucker.”

He’s pointing at Henry Sexton, who has begun crawling slowly toward Caitlin, his bloody cast leaving a scarlet trail across the floor. “You want me to shoot him?”

Brody stares, fascinated, as the reporter reaches a bare support pole, grips it with both hands, and begins to pull himself erect.

“Unbelievable.”

Regan aims his semiautomatic at Henry’s head.

“Put down your gun,” Brody commands, like a boy watching a mortally wounded animal. “Let’s see what he does.”

Once Henry regains his balance, he staggers across to Caitlin, leans against her for a few seconds, then turns and faces Brody as a human shield.

“I’ll be damned,” Royal says with obvious admiration.

“You will,” I promise, shamed by the bravery of Henry’s hopeless act.

Sobbing softly, Caitlin says something to Henry that I can’t make out, nor can I tell whether Henry understood her. To my surprise, she seems to be praying.

There are no atheists in foxholes,
my father always said.
Trust me, I’ve been there.

But I’m not praying. I’m wondering if a .22 slug in the proper tank could turn Brody Royal into the Human Torch. As the old man braces the pipe against his hip and aims at Henry and Caitlin, the hiss of the gas pilot brings every hair on my body erect.