Greg Iles - The Quiet Game

It takes less than twenty yards to understand the necessity for snowshoes, a type of footwear I have never worn in my life. In my thinly padded windbreaker and tennis shoes, I am practically begging for frostbite, but Stone’s cabin can’t be more than three miles away. It’s after three o’clock, but I should have plenty of light to make it. I rang Stone’s phone from the airport to make sure he was there, and hung up as soon as he answered. I don’t want him or anyone tapping his phone to know I’m coming until I arrive.

The jeep track is invisible in the snow, but by roughly following the course of the Slate River upstream, I must eventually strike on Stone’s cabin, which is situated practically on top of it. Today the Slate, which was only ten or fifteen feet wide on my last trip, is a roaring flood of blue-black water sluicing down the valley like a logging flume. After a seeming eternity of slipping, falling, digging through drifts, and cracking my elbows and butt, I make my way past the entrance of an old mine, along the base of Anthracite Mesa, and up to the edge of a slot canyon, where the Slate is compressed into a raging chute that rockets over an eight-foot vertical drop. I pick my way along the edge of the canyon with care, knowing that a tumble into that water could easily kill me.

At last Stone’s cabin comes into sight, nestled among the tall spruce and fir trees between the jeep track and the river. There’s a welcome column of smoke rising from its chimney. I have not been this cold for many years. I stop to catch my breath and marshal my strength, then push on for the last two hundred yards like a climber going for the summit of Everest.

Stone answers his door with a pistol on his hip. The first words out of his mouth are, “You damn fool.” Then he jerks me inside, slams the door, and darts to the front window, where he stands peering through the curtains.

A fearsome array of weapons lies on the coffee table before the sofa-a hunting rifle, two shotguns, several automatic pistols-and a huge fire crackles in the fieldstone fireplace. The curtains over the back windows are shut, blocking the view toward the Slate and the trees beyond.

Stone must be close to seventy, but his vitality is intimidating. He’s one of those leathery guys who’ll still be jogging six miles a day when he’s eighty. The last time we met, he seemed charged with repressed anger. Now the whole interior of the cabin crackles with his fury, as though my first visit opened some channel to the past that made it impossible for him to hold in his rage any longer.

“What’s out there?” I ask.

He keeps staring through the window, his eyes narrowed like those of a marksman. “You didn’t see them when you came in?”

“All I saw was mountains and snow. No cars. No skiers. Nothing.”

“They’ve been out there all day. Four of them.”

“Who are they?”

“FBI, I hope.”

“And if not?”

He glances at me. “Then they only let you come in here for one reason.”

“Which is?”

“To make it easier to kill both of us.”

“Shit. Why are we standing here, then?”

“We’d be sitting ducks if we tried to make it out.”

“Call the police.”

Stone’s taciturn face hardly moves when he answers. “There’s only the sheriff and a couple of deputies. If those men are here to kill us, they’ll kill anyone who tries to interfere as well. And I happen to like the sheriff.”

“But they could be legitimate FBI agents. Right?”

“They could. But they don’t feel legitimate.”

“What about the state police?”

“Take ’em too long to get here in the snow. And my phone’s tapped. I have a cell phone, but whoever’s out there will have those frequencies covered. If they mean to kill us, they’ll move in the second I call for help.”

“Isn’t it early for snow? It’s ninety degrees in Mississippi.”

“Anything can happen in October. It rained four days up-country before it turned to snow. That’s why the river’s up like it is.”

I edge up to the other front window and peer out. I see nothing but spruce, firs, and snow. “Why don’t they move in now?”

“They’re waiting for dark.”

“So, we just sit here?”

Stone takes one more look out the window, then walks over to the table holding his weapons. “Look, you started all this. Now you’ve got to live with it. So just sit tight. I’ve been in spots like this before. It’s a game of nerves.”

I came to Colorado alone knowing that I would be walking right into the men watching Stone. I did this believing that Stone-a good man with a guilty conscience-would be unwilling to add my death to that conscience by sending me back to Mississippi alone. I was sure that my obvious vulnerability would convince him that the only decent thing to do would be to accompany me back to Natchez to testify. I didn’t reckon with the possibility that the men watching him would attempt to kill him outright-and me with him.

He lifts a cordless phone from the coffee table, punches a button on it, listens, then hangs up and slips the phone into his pocket. “You killed Arthur Lee Hanratty’s brother, right?”

I nod.

“That makes me feel a little better.” He removes a pistol from the small of his back (I hadn’t even noticed it), then takes the cordless phone from his pocket and sits on the sofa with both gun and phone in his lap. “Well, what’d you come back for?”

“The truth. You know it, I need it. It’s that simple.”

An ironic smile flickers over Stone’s features. “I suppose since you and I may die together soon, I could make you aware of a few facts. But I’m not going to testify for you. Voluntarily or any other way. And first you’d better show me you’re not wearing a wire.”

It’s a repeat of my visit to Ray Presley’s trailer. I strip off my khakis and shirt, and Stone motions for me to remove my shorts and socks as well.

“Come over here,” he says.

“I’m not submitting to a rectal exam,” I tell him, walking toward the couch.

He chuckles, then stands and runs his fingers through my hair, following the line of my skull. He sticks a finger in each of my ears. “Sorry, but the transmitters are damnably small these days.”

“Now that we’ve got that over with,” I say, pulling on my pants, “let’s hear what really happened in Natchez in 1968.”

“How far have you gotten on your own?”

“I’ve got Presley nailed down for the actual murder. My witnesses are Frank Jones, his ex-wife, and Betty Lou Beckham. An ATF bomb expert will confirm C-4 as the explosive, proving Presley planted evidence at the scene. And one of the Fort Polk thieves will put stolen military C-4 in Presley’s hands.”

Stone smiles. “So, you got my fax.”

“Thanks.”

“How do you link Presley to Marston?”

“You.”

He raises his eyebrows. “I hope you’ve got something else.”

“Well… I did have an FBI agent trying to copy your original report for me. But he was arrested yesterday.”

Stone gives a somber nod. “I heard.”

Of course. His daughter told him.

“So,” he says. “Marston orders Presley to do the hit. That’s how you see it?”

“Well… there’s Portman, of course. But I don’t know what his role was. Are there more people involved?”

“Conspiracies are always complicated. But in this case, Presley and Marston make a nice package, so why complicate it? Of course, you don’t even have Marston yet.”

“But you did.”

“Yes.”

“Tell me how.”

He picks up the cordless phone again, presses a button, listens, then hangs up and begins speaking to me in a low, clear voice, his right hand thumbing the gun in his lap.