The Quiet Game

"Sure as hell wasn't the tooth fairy." Ike scrapes the tip of a boot along the cement floor of the warehouse. "Stone say anything about surveillance?"

"Why?"

"There's somebody watching me."

A shiver runs along my forearms. "How long?"

"I picked him up today, but he could have been there longer."

"Stone's under FBI surveillance himself. He thinks Caitlin and I are too. Phones, the works. But why would the FBI be watching you?"

"Maybe 'cause of your damn newspaper article."

"I didn't mention your name. Why did you warn me away from the FBI, Ike? Have you tried to talk to them about the Payton case before?"

"Say what?" He takes out a cigarette and taps it against his palm but does not light it. "Why don't you focus on some shit that'll get you somewhere? Like Marston's papers. There's bound to be something in there to prosecute him on. He's had his hands in all kinds of shit for years. I mean, who cares what he goes down for, 'long as he rots in Parchman."

"I care. To get out from under this slander charge, I've got to prove Mars-ton guilty of murder. Not campaign finance fraud or any other bullshit. Murder. Do you comprehend that?"

Instead of answering, Ike flips open his lighter, ignites it, and puts the flame to the tip of his cigarette. As the orange glow illuminates his face, something incomprehensible happens. The flame reaches toward me as though sucked by a wind, and Ike slams his shoulder into my chest, punching the air out of my lungs and knocking me to the cement floor.

As he lands on top of me, gunfire erupts outside the warehouse and echoes through the metal building. Two shots, I think. Then a third, the sound quick and flat.

"Get off," I grunt, unable to draw breath with Ike on top of me.

He rolls off and up into a kneeling position, his pistol pointed through the warehouse door.

"What happened?" I ask.

"There's two guns out there. One silenced."

"I've got a man out there, Ike. Maybe one of the guns was his."

He whips his head around. "What man?"

"A private security guy. From Houston."

He peers into the darkness the way he must have done in Vietnam, with absolute concentration. "I can't see shit," he hisses. "But some lardass ex-cop ain't gonna help us one bit, I know that."

"He's not what you think."

After a minute of silence, he works his way toward the edge of the door.

"What do you see?"

"Shut the fuck up."

A boom like a cannon shot shatters the silence, reverberating through the warehouse for at least four seconds. Ike hits the floor with his pistol still aimed at the door.

"That's a deer gun," he says. "Stay down. We got serious shit going down out there, and it ain't all got to do with us."

"How do you know?"

"Ain't but one bullet come into this warehouse."

As I lie facedown on the floor, breathing accumulated dust and oil, the seconds drag past. There are no more shots, but the instinctual voice that warned me during the fire that killed Ruby is not comforted by this fact. It knows that silence is the cloak of the approaching enemy.

"How long we gonna lie here?" I whisper.

"Till I tell you to get up."

Another five minutes pass.

"Penn Cage!" yells a man from beyond the warehouse door. "It's Kelly! Daniel Kelly."

"That your guy?" asks Ike.

"It's Kelly," shouts the voice again. "Come out! And bring your friend. We need some law out here."

I scramble to my feet and trot to the edge of the door.

Daniel Kelly stands forty feet away, an MP-5 submachine gun slung over his shoulder.

"What happened?" I ask, walking into the parking lot.

"Somebody tried to whack you. Or the cop. I couldn't tell which."

Ike steps into the light, his pistol aimed at Kelly. "Who shot who out here?"

Kelly holds up his hands. "Take it easy, Deputy. I'm a friendly. I was out here covering your meeting when I saw a muzzle flash from over there." He points at the levee, a dark silhouette fifty yards away. "It was a silenced rifle, and it was firing subsonic rounds, because I didn't hear the bullet crack. I started running toward the flash, whipping out a spotter scope as I ran, trying to get within range and see at the same time. The shooter was firing from the prone position, already setting up for his second shot. I yelled just as he pulled the trigger, and as he swung around to deal with me, I double-tapped him on the run."

"Is he dead?" Ike asks.

"Definitely. I put one through his head to be sure, and it's a good thing, because he was wearing a vest."

"What about that deer gun I heard?"

Kelly points into the darkness south of the warehouse. "The deer gun belonged to the guy over there. Who is also dead. The shooter on the levee took him out. That was the first muzzle flash I saw. He fired across my line of sight, at a right angle to you guys. The other guy must have fired off that deer slug as he was dying. Pure reflex, probably."

"I don't get it," I say. "Why would they shoot at each other? A falling-out among hit men?"