The Quiet Game

Climbing into the Maxima, I start the engine and dial Tuscany on the cell phone. While it rings, I floor the accelerator and make a wide squealing turn on the cement floor, then roar through the main loading door. The phone clicks as I hit Canal Street and nearly skid into the curb on the other side.

"Liv Marston," says a clipped voice. "If you're a reporter-"

"It's Perm."

"What do you want?" The voice hasn't warmed even one degree.

"I know you don't want to listen to me, but you've got to."

"Is it about the trial?"

"No. You've got to get out of the house."

"What?"

I hesitate before I reply. Some savage part of me wants to get Livy away and leave her father to face the retribution of his past. Poetic justice, if ever there was any. But I can't do it.

"Ray Presley's on his way to Tuscany. He's going to try to kill your father. He could already be at your house. Or on the grounds somewhere."

Silence.

"Did you hear me, Livy?"

"I heard you."

"Tell your father to call the police. They'll send an army out there to protect him."

"Are we done now?"

Are we done? "Did you understand what I just told you? Presley is coming there to kill your father."

"I hope he comes here."

"You what?"

A police car tears around the corner of Main and Canal, lights flashing, heading in the direction of the pecan-shelling plant. In fifteen minutes every cop and deputy in this town will be combing the downtown streets.

"You're playing in things you don't understand, Penn. I tried to tell you the other day. You were a fool to involve yourself in any of this."

"I understand more than you think. I know now why you did the things you did in the past. The choices you made."

"Such as?"

"I don't want to discuss it on the phone. It has to be face to face."

"We don't have anything to say to each other."

"I'm begging you, Livy. Meet me one last time. For the sake of whatever it is that's bound us together all these years. If you will, I think it will change both our lives. Maybe forever."

This time she hesitates. "It's not about the trial?"

"I don't give a damn what happens at the trial. Name a place. Anywhere, I don't care. I'll even come to Tuscany."

"No. Jewish Hill."

"Jewish Hill?" Yet another landmark from our past. "In the cemetery?"

"That's about as private as you can get." "Isn't it locked at night?"

"Park at the foot of the hill. By the wall. It's not like we've never done it before."

"Do you still have the gun you had in the motel?"

"Yes."

"Bring it. And drive fast leaving the house."

"What time?"

"I'm five minutes from the cemetery. Leave now."

"All right."

Livy's borrowed Fiat is parked at the foot of Jewish Hill when I arrive, next to the low stone wall of the city cemetery. She got here first because I took a wide circle through town to avoid the police. I park behind the Fiat and shove Ike's pistol into my waistband, then get out and walk up to the Spyder.

Livy is not in the car.

To my left, across Cemetery Road, stands the dark silhouette of Weymouth Hall, an antebellum mansion that marks the two-hundred-foot drop to the river, its widow's walk silhouetted against the stars. To my right is the low wall and the nearly vertical slope of Jewish Hill. One mile south along the bluff, the police are taping off the pecan plant as a crime scene.

I climb the wall and push through the shrubbery, then dig my hands into the face of the hill and begin climbing. As I near the top, a ghostly figure appears at the edge, looking down at me.

It's Livy. Her hair is flying behind her, caught in the wind blowing up the bluff from the river. She's wearing a white blouse, a fitted jacket, and slacks tapered to the ankles. She bends and catches my hands, then pulls me up to the flat plateau of gravestones, statuary, and mausoleums.

"Did you call the police?" I ask.

She brushes a strand of hair from her eyes. "Daddy called some off-duty cops. They got there before I left."

"How did he react when you told him Presley might be coming to kill him?"

"What do you want, Penn?"

"It scared him to death, didn't it? Livy, your father gave the cops what they needed to send Presley to Parchman when we were kids."

"Really?" A hard smile tightens her mouth. "Good."

"What I don't understand is why my call didn't scare you."

She walks past me to the edge of the hill. The lights of Vidalia, Louisiana, a mile away, outline her like another marble angel among the stones. "Why are we here, Penn? What's the big mystery?"

"You are."

She turns back to me. "I'm the mystery?"

"You're the mystery of my life. But I understand you now."

Something flickers in her eyes. I can't tell if she's intrigued or afraid. "Do you? Enlighten me, then."

"I know who Jenny's father is."

Even in the dark I can tell she has gone rigid. She turns away from me, then back, her chin held high. "How do you know? Did he tell you?"

"Tell me? God, no. He hates me. Why would he tell me?"

She shakes her head. "I can't believe this. I can't believe you know this. It's so pathetic."