The Quiet Game

Ike Ransom awakened a sleeping giant within me. The giant is anger. Anger so profound, complex, and deeply buried that I have never fully plumbed it. I have, in fact, spent years not thinking about it, which required that a constant portion of my life energy be devoted to denial. Yet the anger was always there, pulsing quietly beneath my surface life, affecting my judgment, my decisions, my very concept of justice and morality. For years I thought it was based on Leo Marston's attack on my father, but this was self-delusion. My anguish was not for my father's pain but for my own. The most devastating result of Marston's merciless legal persecution of my father was the end of any possibility that Olivia Marston and I would have a future together. And that altered my life in ways beyond measuring. Ultimately, it weakened my character, like a crack in the steel of a bridge. Because always, at the periphery of my existence, the unwalked road of my life with Livy stretched tangentially to infinity, to be reflected upon only in sadness, frustration, and regret. Last night Ike Ransom offered me a chance I never thought I would get: a chance to settle up with Leo Marston for all he did to me and my family. To put paid to two decades of resentment and confusion.

The sheer power of my desire to destroy the man disturbs me. As a prosecutor I tried to divorce myself from the concept of revenge. Justice, not punishment, was my ideal. I didn't always succeed, but I tried. This is different. I have no idea how Leo Marston could be involved in Payton's murder, but he is a complex man of vast appetites, and he has rarely been thwarted in his desires. I can easily envision a situation in which he let his temper get the best of him. Great wealth does not confer immunity to violent impulses.

I lift the cell phone and punch in the number of my Houston office, which occupies nine hundred square feet of our house. At least it did until I instructed my assistant to store my furniture and sell the place.

"Penn Cage's office," says Cilia Daniels.

Relief floods through me. "I'm glad to know I still have one."

She laughs. "I let the movers take everything but the office furniture and equipment."

"Good instinct. Leave it all set up for now." I swing the Maxima into the left lane and goose it around a pulpwood truck.

"What about the Hanratty execution?" Cilia asks. "Mrs. Givens called this morning. She's decided to witness the execution without her husband, and she wants you there."

"Any last-minute filings? Likely stays?"

"The usual desperation tactics, but they won't stop it this time. And George W. Bush isn't about to grant a pardon. Midnight tomorrow night, Hanratty gets the needle."

"Damn. Tell Mrs. Givens… tell her I don't know yet whether I can make it."

"Please try, Penn. That woman needs you. You walked her family through the whole trial."

"Message received. Listen, do you remember Peter Lutjens?"

"Sure. The FBI analyst who helped on Presumption of Guilt."

"I need his phone number at the Bureau."

"Hang on… I think the FBI switchboard is the best I can do on Lutjens."

"That'll do." I scrawl the number on my wrist. "Thanks, Cil. I've got to go."

"Not so fast. What are you up to? Have you resurrected the manuscript?"

"Just some research."

"That's what you always say when you're on to something."

"Bye, Cil."

I hang up, dial the Hoover Building, and ask for Peter Lutjens, giving my name as Special Agent Jim Gates. During my time with the D.A.'s office, I became friends with several Houston-based field agents, one of whom was Jim Gates. Most of those friends are now stationed around the country and globe, and occasionally prove excellent sources for my books, despite a standing order from FBI Director Portman to give me no assistance. Peter Lutjens is better at research and analysis than chasing bank robbers, and because the FBI knows this as well as I do, they keep him buried in the massive archive of past Bureau case files.

"Gates?" asks a surprised voice. "What are you doing in Mississippi?"

Lutjens is obviously looking at some sort of caller-ID readout. "This isn't Jim Gates, Peter. It's Penn Cage."

"Penn Cage? Jesus, you've got some nerve. What kind of trouble do you want to get me into now?"

"Did I get you into trouble before?"

"Well… the acknowledgment in your book made me semi-famous up here. And the new director is no fan of yours, as you well know."

"The new director's an asshole, Peter, as you well know."

"No comment. What's going on?"

"I need a favor. It's right up your alley, historical stuff."

"Save the Vaseline. What is it?"

"I'm looking into a thirty-year-old murder case in my old hometown. A civil rights murder. I know the Bureau worked the case. Somebody took a shot at a couple of your agents on Highway 61 during the same time frame."

"You've sure got piss-poor timing."

"Why?"