“She was my landlady from the beginning. It didn’t take us long to fall in love.”
“You’re a lucky man, Jess — so far.”
“Why so far?”
“What happens if this all goes wrong? What are you going to do with a wife?”
“Having a wife is good motivation to keep things from going wrong, isn’t it?”
Kip shook his head. “I’m flabbergasted, I have to admit it.”
“Kip, stop being flabbergasted and tell me what you’re doing here, intruding on my honeymoon.”
“You were spotted on Friday night at the airport. Remember a guy named Hennessy, from the South Florida Task Force?”
“Vaguely.”
“He called Dan Barker, and Barker called me. Barker was not happy. He thought you were planning to skip the country.”
“You can put his mind at rest. We’re here for the week, and we’re going back next Sunday.”
“How do I know that without keeping a tail on you?”
“Jenny has a daughter; she was supposed to come with us, but at the last minute she was required at a weekend school project.”
“So Coldwater is keeping you on a short leash?”
“That’s about it. He knows Jenny wouldn’t go anywhere without her daughter.”
“Jesse, if you’re going to go bouncing off like this, maybe I’d better put somebody else in St. Clair to keep an eye on you.”
“You got somebody you want immediately dead?” Jesse asked. “Or is it just that you want me immediately dead?”
“We’re a little slicker than that.”
“Kip, listen to me. You reached into the gutter and you picked just about the only guy in the world who could waltz into that town and do what I’ve done. Two guys had already vaporized, remember? You send somebody else in there now, you’ll not only kill him, you’ll kill me. I’m your only shot at wrapping up this crowd, and you’d better not fuck with me, do you understand?”
Kip nodded. “I understand, Jess; I was just pulling your chain a little. After all, Barker’s been pulling mine.”
“You tell Barker that if these people tumble to me and start asking me questions under, shall we say, duress, I’ll give him to them. One dark night they’ll snatch him off some Georgetown street corner and disembowel him. They’re like that.”
“I’ll mention it.”
“Tell me, when you decided to put a team on me, did it occur to you that Coldwater might have been in there ahead of you with his own team?”
“That’s the first thing we checked for. Remember, we spotted your tail in New York.”
“Another thing: I was on to the tail yesterday, practically as soon as we left the hotel. If I find somebody else behind me during my honeymoon, I’ll drag him into an alley and break his arms, and I mean it.”
Kip held out his hands. “Jesse, Jesse, there’s no need to get riled. You did something you weren’t supposed to, and you got caught. Don’t repeat the experience.”
Jesse nodded. “Now, since I have no information to impart to you that I didn’t impart in our conversation on Friday, I’d like you and your merry band of flatfeet to be gone before my wife returns to the table.”
Kip stood up and gestured to the others. “Sorry for the intrusion. I’ll give Barker your message.” He turned to go.
“Kip?”
Kip looked back. “Yeah?”
“How’s the new baby doing?”
“Just great.”
“I’m glad. Give him my best.”
“Thanks.” And he was gone.
Jenny came back to the table. “What was that all about?” she demanded.
“Kip is the guy who sprung me from the joint.”
“Joint?”
“Prison.”
“And he’s who you’re working for?”
“He’s my contact.”
“What did he want?”
“He wanted to be sure we weren’t skipping the country. Seems a colleague of his recognized me at the airport the other night, and there was a general panic that I was about to bolt.”
“What if we had been bolting?”
“It wouldn’t have worked. I’m going to have to give bolting some additional thought.”
Chapter 44
Jesse and Jenny arrived home late on Sunday evening, exhausted and happy from their time together and, especially, their time away from St. Clair. As they climbed the front steps with their bags Jesse was again feeling the strain of being someone else, and he was filled with dread to see an envelope pinned to the front door. He ripped it open and read the note.
Meeting tomorrow morning at eight sharp at J.G.’s.
Casey
Here we go again, he thought.
Jesse was normally at his desk by eight, and he had to call Herman Muller and beg an hour or two. When he arrived at Coldwater’s house there were half a dozen cars and pickup trucks parked in the forecourt, and when he was let into Jack Gene’s study there were as many men there. He took a few steps into the room and froze. Sitting in a chair beside the fireplace was perhaps the one person in the world he least wished to see at that moment. His presence meant that Jesse was, from this moment, effectively a dead man, that perhaps the only thing between him and death was torture.
Charley Bottoms rose from his chair at the sight of Jesse, and his gaze bored into him from across the room. He was dressed in neat sports clothes, a contrast to the jeans and leather he had worn in Atlanta Federal Prison. Long sleeves covered the prison tattoos, and he seemed, if anything, more massive than when Jesse had last seen him in the punishment cell at Atlanta.
“Good morning, Jesse,” Coldwater boomed. “I want you to meet some colleagues.”
Jesse’s mind went nearly numb as he was introduced and shook hands with four strangers, and finally, he snapped back to reality as Charley Bottoms took his hand.
“And this is Charley Bottoms, who heads a clan of the Aryan Nation about a hundred miles north of here.”
“Pleased to meet you, Jesse,” Bottoms said, holding on to his hand for a moment.
“Good to see you, Charley,” Jesse replied automatically.
“Let’s all have a seat and talk for a minute, then we’ll take a tour of the top of the mountain,” Coldwater said. Everyone sat down, and Coldwater continued. “Most of us have met before in passing, at least, but it seemed to me that we have enough in common that we might do some good for each other. Yesterday afternoon, after your arrival, you saw the town, some of the local businesses and the Wood Products plant, which Jesse here takes a hand in running. We expect to be in control of that business in the near future, and that will consolidate our control of the town. In a few minutes I’m going to show you something that might surprise you, and I hope that what you have seen and will see here will give you some ideas about how to gather power in your own communities.”
Coldwater droned on about how much everyone had in common, while Jesse fought the urge to throw up on the beautiful oriental rug at his feet. What was Bottoms waiting for? Did he want to get Jack Gene alone before he blew the whistle? Jesse looked around. There were only two ways out of the room: Casey sat between him and the door, and if he should throw himself through the windows he had at least a fifty-foot drop. He was sweating now, and he didn’t want to call attention to himself by mopping his brow.
“Is it warm in here, Jesse?” Coldwater said suddenly. He got up, opened a window and sat down again.
“Thank you, sir,” Jesse said, taking a deep breath.
Coldwater talked about cooperation and togetherness for another ten minutes, then he rose. “We’ll have to take more than one car, it seems; you two can ride with me, Pat, you take Bob, there, and Jesse, Charley can ride with you.” Coldwater retrieved a roll of blueprints from the bookcase, then the men filed out of the house and went to their respective cars. Coldwater drove off, leading the way.