“So, Duane,” he finally said, “I got reports here both good and bad on you.”
Duane Peck said nothing, but made a small clicking sound, tonguing his dentures so that they crackled and snapped. It was a nervous habit, disgusting, but no one had ever had the nerve to straight up tell him about it.
“You do like to gamble, don’t you, Duane, and Lady Luck hasn’t been holding your hand of late.”
“Don’t suppose she has,” Duane said.
“I see you got paper out in most of the cribs in eastern Oklahoma. You owe Ben Kelly twenty-one thousand. Keno, Duane? That your weakness?”
“No sir,” said Duane. “More to any card game.”
“Duane, you got a card imagination?”
Duane’s narrow eyes squinted as he contemplated this notion, failed to get a grip on it and then emptied of emotion as he dispensed with any more thought on the issue.
“I mean,” said Red, “do the numbers or the faces stick in your mind? Are the suits very vivid? Do you sense the deck charging up or closing down? A feeling that what’s left is in your odds or against them. Not counting cards, that’s only for the pros, but just good card instincts. A feeling. Most good card players have a gift for that sort of thing. They also may have a good head for numbers. Duane, what’s 153 plus 241 plus 304?”
“Ah—” Duane’s eyes narrowed. His lips began to move.
“Never mind, Duane. Now, on the plus side, I see you did some associates of mine a favor now and then.”
“Yes sir,” said Duane Peck.
“You did some collecting and some enforcing?”
“Yes sir.” Sometimes Duane moonlighted on his debt problem by collecting for Ben Kelly, who ran a gambling crib in the back room of the Pin-Del Motel over in Talihina, Oklahoma.
“Hmmm, that’s good. You hurt anybody bad?”
“I busted some jaws and heads, nothing nobody couldn’t walk away from a week down the line. I had to break one boy’s leg with a ax handle. He got way out of line.”
“You kill anybody?”
Duane’s eyes went blank.
“No sir,” he said.
“I don’t mean since you joined the Sheriff’s, Duane, and I don’t mean headbops on crib debtors. No, I mean ever?” “No sir,” said Duane.
“Now, Duane, one thing you must learn, never lie to me. Ever. So I ask you a second time. You kill anybody?”
Duane mumbled something.
“Arco Service Station,” Red said. “Pensacola, 1977, June. You were just a redneck kid with a drug habit. A few quick hitters to raise the cash. But that night you popped a boy, right, Duane?”
Duane finally looked up.
“I forgot that one,” he finally said.
“Well, Randy Wilkes didn’t forget. He works in New Orleans for some people now. You do a job like that, you better come to an understanding with your partner. You don’t, it seems sloppy. You are sloppy, aren’t you, Duane?”
“Six ninety-two,” said Duane. “It’s 692.”
“No, Duane, but close. It’s 698.”
“Damn,” said Duane. “I can do it on paper.”
“This isn’t an arithmetic test, Duane. You’re clean now? You’re straight?”
“Nothing with real buzz,” said Duane. “I do like my bourbon on a Saturday night.”
“I like it then too, Duane. All right, now: I got a job for you. You interested?”
“Yes sir,” said Duane, who had been wondering why one so lowly as he had been summoned before so powerful a figure.
“A private job, just for me. That’s why you’re talking to me, Duane, not Ben Kelly or anybody in between you and me.”
“Yes sir.”
“Duane, your twenty-one thousand could disappear, you play it right.”
“Sir,” said Duane, stirring from his phlegmaticism, “I will play it right. You can count on that.”
“Duane, I’ll be honest. Wish I had a better man. But you got one thing I need and it makes you valuable to me.”
“Yes sir.”
“Not your big dick, Duane. Not that fine-tuned brain of yours. No sir. Your badge.”
Duane gulped a little.
“I need an inside boy to keep eye on a little situation that may be developing down in Polk. I send a stranger down, in that little place, people will notice. I got to have an insider, a man with the state’s authority who can go places and ask questions without attracting attention. You game, Duane?”
“Yes sir, Mr. Bama. You just say what it is.”
“It could get dicey,” said Red. “I might have you get your fingers dirty for me. I have to have your ultimate loyalty if I’m to give you mine.”
“Yes sir,” said Duane.
“You understand, I’m a fair man. If you end up doing joint time, it’ll be good joint time. You don’t have to be any big nigger’s fuck boy. You’ll be protected. Fair enough?”
Duane could do prison, he knew. For a shot at a place with the Man, just about anything was possible.
“Yes sir.”
“All right, Duane, you listen up. Many years ago there was a tragedy in Polk County. A heroic police sergeant shot it out with two very bad boys, killed them both. They killed him too. Mean anything to you?”
“No sir.”
“Not a history buff, eh, Duane?”
Duane’s face remained stolid: “history buff” as a concept was unrecognizable.
“Anyhow, I now have it on good authority a young Oklahoma journalist has decided to write a book about this event. You know, Duane, true crime, that sort of thing.”
Duane nodded dully.
“Ah—this is something that must be looked at.”
“Should I whack him?” Duane wanted to know.
Interesting question: key question, and Duane with his primitive’s craftiness got to the heart of it. The boy could be dealt with harshly, killed, destroyed, and things left as they lay. But that very act, by the law of unintended consequences, could bring catastrophe itself, an investigation, the asking of questions that had so long gone unasked.
“No, Duane, but let’s not rule it out. Let’s leave it at this. You are to keep me informed on what’s going on: who he sees, what he asks them, what he finds out. This may involve documents. Which documents? You may have to do very little except arrange for certain documents to disappear. It may involve more dramatic countermeasures, and if so, manpower won’t be a problem. But for reasons you needn’t know, and Duane, I suspect you wouldn’t understand, it’s important that this boy learn very little and that his book go unwritten. Do you understand?”
“Yes sir.”
Red looked at poor Duane. He felt like a general sending a Boy Scout against the German Army. He had much better people. He had access to ex-CIA operatives, ex-Green Berets, longtime underworld troubleshooters, extremely competent, aggressive, experienced professionals. But all were outsiders and they wouldn’t know a damned thing about a dense little universe like Blue Eye’s and they’d stand out hugely. Duane, the most brutal and sociopathic of Vernon Tell’s deputies, was also the most corrupt; he would attract no attention and much respect. So: Duane it had to be, Duane carefully controlled and directed, Duane in the game of his life, and Duane capable, if handled correctly, of anything.
“Duane, I’ve got here a list of people this boy may consult and offices he’s likely to see. You’ll monitor them. Also here is an 800 phone number. You can call it free from any phone in America but I will get you a secure cellular with that number preset so all you have to do is hit one button. I want a detailed report every day. Then you will get further instructions from me. Do you understand?”
“Yes sir,” said Duane. “But I heard they can git taps on them cellulars easy. The Feds do it all the time.”
Good point. Red was impressed.