Greg Iles - The Devils Punchbowl

“Surprised to see me?”

The guy on the left nods meaningfully, silently promising revenge. He has hair like black steel wool, and his sweat smells of alcohol.

“Here’s the deal,” I tell him. “Option one, I give you back your guns and phones, and you take a message to your boss for me. Option two, I call Sands and have him drive down here and see you like this. Now, I'm going to take the tape off your partner here, and he can make the choice.”

I reach out and rip off the tape with one fast jerk. The second man gasps in pain.

“Best way, really,” I tell him. “I’'ve experienced it myself.”

“You are

soooo

fucked,” he says. “I wouldn'’t trade places with you for a million bucks.”

I smile and start to reapply the duct tape. “I guess that’s option two.”

“Wait!” he says, all bravado gone. “No matter what message you give us, he’ll send us back to bring you to him. You might as well come with us now.”

My watch reads 6:51 a.m. I'm scheduled to fly in the first race at 7:15, but I have no desire to do so. Hans Necker will be disappointed if I don'’t show, and the selectmen will go batshit, but maybe that’s a good thing. At least I can promise Sands that if he kills me this morning, half the town will be searching for me in less than an hour.

With two quick jerks of the knife, I free both men’s legs. They hold out their bound hands, but I shake my head, wondering if either of these men was present when Tim was tortured.

“I don'’t think so, guys. Let’s go see the boss man.”

CHAPTER

17

Julia Jessup awakens to the crying of her son. She blinks crusty eyes, rolls onto her husband’s thigh. Groaning in exhaustion, she reaches down to shove Tim’s leg, to tell him to go get the bottle—

—and freezes where she lies. Her hand is not on Tim’s leg. It’s on the baby’s belly.

For a few blessed moments she’d forgotten. Now, in the span of a closing synapse, the infinite weight of death and grief returns, pressing her into the mattress.

He left you,

says her father, dead almost twenty-five years now.

Alone,

says her mother, who followed him not long afterward.

Who’ll help you now? Who cares whether you live or die?

Julia rolls all the way over and sees faint light showing through the curtain. This is Daisy’s house. It was the only place she could think to run, the last place anyone would look. Daisy took care of Julia when she was a baby, before her father lost it, when they still had money to pay for a maid. Daisy’s house is old, not even a house really. A shotgun shack, like the ones in New Orleans. The floor is rotted through in places, and when the wind blows hard, the holes whistle and the bedclothes sway.

The baby’s cry grows louder, more insistent. Tim junior is hungry. He doesn’'t care that his father is gone. He knows only the ache in his belly. But Julia knows. Her father killed himself when she was

eighteen, and she’s missed him every day since. So many times she’s needed him, or someone. God, how different everything would have been had he lived. And how different will life be for her baby? His childhood will be a struggle against want, his mother always away, struggling in vain to keep ahead of the bills. This dark foreknowledge is like a festering mass in her stomach. Tim left nothing behind him but a mortgage. It wasn'’t his fault, really. He had nothing to leave—

“Now, now, I hear that baby cryin’,” sings a chiding voice. “He just a bawlin’, and you lyin’ in bed like Miss Astor.”

Daisy is close to eighty now, but she still gets around like a woman of sixty-five, despite her arthritis. Her flower-print dress crinkles as she sits on the bed and gives the baby a bottle to suck. Tim junior’s eyes go wide and blue as urgency changes into bliss, and he grips the bottle with one strong hand. Daisy tries to take the other in hers, but the child will not be led.

“I used to look at you like that,” Daisy says wistfully.

“I know,” Julia whispers. “I wish I was back there again.”

Daisy shakes her head, her eyes on the baby. “Everybody wish that sometime. But there ain’t no going back.”

Julia closes her eyes. The smell of her own breath sickens her. She ran out of the house without even a toothbrush.

“You hungry yet?” Daisy asks.

“No.”

“You gotta eat sometime. Can’t take care of no baby without getting something down yourself.”

There’s a sound of horsehair rope being stretched, and Julia knows that’s Daisy turning her head. She looks up into the yellowed eyes and says, “Thanks for letting me stay here. I didn't have anywhere else to go.”

Daisy smiles. “Well, I think you gon’ be here a while yet.”

Julia goes still. “Why is that?”

“Well, there was something in the newspaper this morning. I hate to say nothing about it, but I guess there’s no point hiding it.”

“What was it? Something about Tim?”

Daisy’s crinkled lips curl around her dentures like dark papier-mâché. Julia’s glad Daisy put her teeth in. Last night, the old woman looked one step away from the grave. “I can’t read too good no more,” she says, “but it didn't sound good.”

“Where is it?” Julia asks, sitting up in alarm. “What did they say?”

“On the kitchen table.”

Julia bounds out of bed and runs for the kitchen.

CHAPTER

18

The guard at the gatehouse of Jonathan Sands’s home stands gaping at the two bound men in the backseat of my Saab.

“I said I want to see Mr. Sands.”

“Does he know you’re coming?”

“No. I have a trespassing problem I’d like to discuss with him.”

“Just a minute.” The guard vanishes into his hut. Like the men in the backseat, he is American, not Irish, but the brief look he gave my passengers told them all they need to know about the trouble coming their way.

“Are you armed?” the guard asks, reappearing at my window.

I point down at my waistband, where the butts of three handguns jut from my waistband.

“You need to leave those with me.”

“I go in like this, or I drive away now.”

The guard vanishes again. I check my watch. The first balloons should be taking off any minute. Judging from the treetops, the wind looks to be gusting seven to ten miles per hour, which is enough to stop many pilots from launching. During the drive over from Washington Street, I received a text from Paul Labry, informing me that the balloons would be taking off from a vacant lot just off Highway 61 South. The destination of this morning’s “race” is predetermined, but the launch point varies according to the direction of the

wind, with various pilots making complex calculations and jockeying for takeoff positions in spaces just big enough to accommodate a launch without hitting power lines or other lethal obstacles. I texted Paul that a family emergency would prevent me making the launch in time and that he should fly in my place. Labry has already sent four anxious text messages in reply, asking what the problem is. I’'ve responded by begging him to trust me and to try to keep Hans Necker from getting too upset.

I'm receiving yet another message from Labry when a black Jeep thunders up behind my Saab and skids to a stop. In my side mirror, I see Seamus Quinn jump out and march toward my car. The Irishman must have driven all the way over from the

Magnolia Queen.

I roll down my window, allowing an endless stream of curses into the car.

“What the fuck do you want, just?” he growls. Quinn is a darkly handsome man with bad teeth and eyes that glint like polished metal.