Greg Iles - The Devils Punchbowl

“This way, gents,” Quinn says from behind him in a surprisingly professional voice. We’re within earshot of fifty customers playing the slot machines, so some rudimentary courtesy is called for. Quinn leads us down the length of the three-hundred-foot-long saloon. The sunset has lit the skylights a brilliant orange with purple shading, and for a moment this sight behind the glittering chandeliers makes me dizzy. A second later, though, I see Chief Don Logan standing at the head of the escalator that leads to the

Queen

’s upper or “hurricane” deck.

Logan and a handpicked team of plainclothes police detectives are here to take charge of the recorders planted by Jiao as soon as we vacate the room where the meeting is held. Logan will kill time playing slots on the hurricane deck, and when I appear afterward—either from Sands’s office or from the interrogation room in the bowels of the barge—I'’ll signal the chief by touching the top of my head, and he and his men will move to retrieve the appropriate recorder.

“What did I tell you?” Kelly says softly.

Quinn has walked us behind a partition three-quarters of the way down the saloon, where a brass-plated elevator waits discreetly for staff with business belowdecks.

Quinn punches a nine-digit code into a keypad beside the doors, and they open with a soft whir. The elevator is surprisingly spacious, and Kelly stands unnecessarily close to Quinn during the brief descent.

“Stand back, queer boy,” Quinn says, now that we’re away from the paying customers.

Kelly laughs but doesn’'t move.

When the doors open, three security men in black coats stand waiting for us, wands in hand.

“Assume the position,” Quinn says, gesturing at the wall to our left.

Kelly and I flatten our hands on the wall and spread our legs, though Kelly mutters under his breath for effect. As per the terms set for this meeting, neither of us is carrying a weapon, but as strong

hands pat and probe me, Quinn says, “I’'ve half a mind to poke a light up Ponytail’s arse, to make sure he hasn’'t got one o’ them knives stuck up it.”

Kelly mocks a girlish squeal. “That'’s just the excuse you need to check out what you been craving since you saw me, isn’t it?”

Quinn is cursing when one of the wands stops and hovers at my belly button, beeping softly.

“What is it?” asks Quinn.

“Probably my belt buckle,” I say, straightening up.

“Not so fast,” says Quinn, gripping my upper arm. “Take your belt off.”

“What for?”

“Jaysus, just do it.”

With obvious reluctance I remove my belt. The guard wands my belly while Quinn feels his way along the belt. His hand stops, then with a chiding smirk he draws a knife from his boot and slices the leather on the inside of the belt. One flick of the knifepoint exposes a thin wire antenna, and he rips out the transmitter with a laugh.

“Sneaky bastard. Wouldn’t have thought it of you, Your Honor.”

Quinn uses this find as an excuse to have the men go over Kelly again, but they discover nothing. Telling the guards to stay where they are, Quinn leads us down a narrow corridor. The barge really feels like a ship down here, with hatches dividing the compartments instead of doors. Suddenly Quinn stops, then twists the wheel on a hatch, pushes it open, and motions for us to follow him.

Kelly enters first, and I follow him into a long, dim room. The walls are black, but two large TV screens in a far corner to my right glow with changing images of the casino decks above. Three chairs have been placed in a rough triangle near the hatch, facing inward. Two are occupied, the nearest by Jonathan Sands, who’s wearing a business suit, and the other by a man who must be William Hull, who looks nothing like I imagined. He has a lean, well-muscled frame, and his face is long and angular. The bureaucrat I imagined vanishes, replaced by this figure who looks more like a Cold War–era military officer.

Deeper into the room stands a single, more substantial chair. With a roll of my stomach I realize this is the chair where Ben Li and Linda Church were tortured. Beside it stands the cart that held the

electrical generator. Inside this cart, Jiao is supposed to have planted one of the microrecorders.

“You a furniture aficionado?” Hull asks with his faint trace of Southern accent. South Carolina, maybe.

Beyond the torture chair, against what must be the hull of the barge, a metal staircase leads up to a hatch near the ceiling of the room.

An escape hatch?

At some level I register that we must be below the level of the river. “I was just thinking about something that happened in that chair.”

“Nothing’s ever happened in that chair,” Sands says, looking up at me with unnerving intensity. The skin of his balding head seems stretched even tighter over his skull, if that’s possible, and his cheeks look hollow. Apparently not even Jonathan Sands is immune to the effects of stress.

“Why are we down here?” I ask.

“Privacy,” says Hull.

“We never shut off the security cameras on the boat,” says Sands. “If we were anywhere but in here or my office, you could subpoena our hard drives.”

“Look what I found on Hizzoner,” says Quinn, handing the small transmitter to Sands. “Bastard was planning to tape the whole meeting.”

Hull gives a theatrical frown, then looks up at me. “Is there any further point to this meeting, Cage? If this was just an excuse for you to entrap us, you should let us get on with our business.”

“The tape wasn'’t the point,” I say. “I’'ve just never seen a government attorney act with such cavalier disregard for the law, and I wanted some kind of record.”

“Sorry to disappoint. Sit down and speak your piece.”

As I take my chair, I realize there’s a man standing in the shadows behind Hull. He looks more like a Green Beret than an FBI agent. Quinn closes the door behind us, leaving six of us in the room. With an almost antiquated feeling of symmetry, Kelly stands behind me, Quinn behind Sands, and the Green Beret behind Hull.

“Well?” says Hull.

“I want to know the terms of your plea agreement with Sands. What happens to him after tonight, if the Po sting is successful?”

“He testifies against Po in federal court.”

“In exchange for?”

Hull shakes his head. “I'm not at liberty to disclose that.”

“Mr. Hull…that’s why we’re here. I think you’d do just about anything to get Po’s scalp, at this point. For instance, you might promise to let Sands keep his interest in Golden Parachute. You might even try to use some Homeland Security, national-interest bullshit to keep the State of Mississippi from prosecuting him on other charges. I'm here to make sure that doesn’'t happen.”

Sands looks expectantly at Hull, but Hull doesn’'t deliver the withering broadside Sands apparently expects.

“That'’s what I figured,” I say. “Well, it’s not going to happen.”

Hull sighs. “What exactly do you want?”

“I want to know that Sands isn’t going to vanish into federal custody the second Po is in your hands.”

“And how do I prove that to you? You want a letter of agreement?”

I chuckle at this. “I want plainclothes Natchez police detectives beside Sands from now until five minutes before Po’s expected touchdown, and within sight of him until the moment you take Po into custody.”

“He’s out of his fucking mind,” says Sands, not even deigning to look at me.

Hull gestures for the Irishman to be silent.

“That could create practical difficulties,” the lawyer says calmly. “If Po has anyone watching Sands—and he well may—then seeing men like that might spook him. Small-town police detectives don'’t have the training to blend into the scene I foresee tonight.”