The Quiet Game

"You ever read American Tabloid, by James Ellroy?"

"No."

"Give it a look. Things weren't quite that crazy, but they were damn close."

"How did you earn a living after leaving the Bureau?"

A sour look wrinkles his face. "Worked as a private dick for a while. Big firm. That was sleazier than Hoover's Bureau, so I quit. Worked as an insurance investigator. I drank professionally for a few years. I was close to dying when my daughter pulled me back up to the light. I finally hung out my shingle here and started helping the locals fight the government and the mining companies. That suited my temperament."

"Were you in charge of the Payton investigation?"

"I was."

"How did you like Natchez?"

"It wasn't much like the rest of Mississippi. Better in a lot of ways. More liberal, the people more educated. But in a way that made the things that happened there worse. You know? Because there were people there who knew better."

Stone goes to the stove and returns with the coffeepot, talking as he refills our cups. "When I was assigned to that case, I was only a couple of years younger than Payton was when he died. I had a wife and two kids, and I still had a few illusions. That case knocked them right out of me."

He sets the empty pot on the stone hearth of his fireplace and takes his chair. "Do you have any illusions left, Mr. Cage?"

"Not many."

He studies me as if judging the truth of my statement.

Caitlin takes this chance to jump in. "How do you feel personally about J. Edgar Hoover?"

Stone examines his fingernails, a seemingly casual gesture calculated to hide inner turmoil. "I don't care if the man wore Frederick's of Hollywood to bed every night. I don't care if he wanted to marry Clyde Tolson, that pompous ground squirrel. But the man presented himself to this nation as a paragon of law and order. A champion of right. And the son of a-" Stone winces like Humphrey Bogart-"the man didn't know the meaning of the words. He stole from the government, misused agents for personal gain, colluded with mobsters, broke the securities laws… Human beings just weren't meant to have that much power. Jesus, I need a drink."

"Go right ahead." It's barely two p.m., but I feel like I could use one too.

Stone shakes his head. "Four months sober. It's a daily battle."

Watching him get control of his craving is like watching a man fight a malarial fever. As a younger man Dwight Stone did what most Americans never do-peered behind the curtain at the men running the machine-and he is a different man because of it. America isn't the same country now, of course. It's better in a lot of ways. But I can see how this wouldn't matter to Stone. We are, all of us, men of our own eras.

"You want to destroy Leo Marston?" he asks, his eyes hard.

The name flows easily from his lips. He has thought about Marston since 1968. "Do you think that's possible?"

"Put it this way. I think it's a noble goal."

Caitlin presses her knee hard against mine. I can feel her excitement, but I don't look at her. It's suddenly as clear to me as the mountain air outside Stone's cabin: the man sitting across from us knows who killed Del Payton, and why, and probably why that knowledge was never made public.

"But it won't be easy," he adds.

"That's what someone else told me."

"Who?"

Stone is playing it so close to the vest that I decide to keep Ike Ransom's name to myself. "You wouldn't know him. He came along after your time. But he's interested in the case, and he hates Leo Marston. What can you tell us about Marston's involvement?"

"Nothing more than I have already."

"Will you help us with this case?"

A deep conflict is playing itself out behind the old agent's eyes, one only hinted at by the tension in his muscles and the tightness of his lips. "I can't," he says finally.

"Why not?"

"Because despite what you see here, I'm not alone in the world. There are people I care about. I'm thinking of getting married, believe it or not. And I won't put innocent lives at risk for something that can't make any difference now."

"Do you really think there's that much danger?" asks Caitlin.

Stone rakes a hand along his jaw. "Make no mistake about it. You are already swimming with sharks."

His baleful eyes linger on mine, trying to impress his seriousness upon me. He reminds me of an old homicide cop I knew in Houston, a guy who'd been shot twice in the line of duty. When he told you to start worrying, it was time to put on the Kevlar.

"What about the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission files?" Caitlin asks. "Payton's is sealed. Do you think we could learn anything significant from it?"

"Those were state files. I never saw them."

"The FBI file is sealed as well. Does that surprise you?"

He barks a laugh. "I'd be surprised if the damn thing exists at all."

"It exists, all right," I tell him. "Forty-four volumes. The question is, what's in it?"

"Forty-three volumes of nothing, and my final report."

"What was in your final report?"

He sighs and looks past us, to the front windows of his cabin. "I can't tell you that."