“Well?” Em asked in a hushed voice.
I turned around and shrugged.
“What?”
James echoed the line. “What?”
“He’s not here.”
Now they said it together. “What?”
I climbed down. The sirens were nearing the causeway. My guess was we had two or three minutes before they would enter the park, a couple of minutes before they reached the big yellow tent.
“What about Crayer’s tent?” James asked.
“What about it?”
“Maybe somebody cut him loose and he went back there.”
“Then that’s the last place I think we want to be.” Em still gripped the pistol, and in all of the confusion and fear, there was something strangely erotic about Emily and a gun. Don’t ask me to explain it.
I don’t know what possessed me, but I suggested the last place we wanted to be. “I think we need to know if Crayer is okay. If that means going to the tent — ”
“He tried to kill us.” Em raised her voice. “If he does die, it was self-defense.”
“We need to know.” I didn’t argue with her very often, but this time it seemed important. “In a couple of minutes there are going to be cops swarming over this place and maybe FBI, and it just seems to me we’ve added one more layer of complication. We need to get our act together.”
“Then you go.” She handed the pistol to me, handle first.
I took it, feeling the heft. Cold steel and plastic inserts in the handle. It was important. We’d been through a lot during the night and I needed some closure. At least on Crayer.
“Are you really going by yourself?” Em gave me a questioning look.
“I’m going. I need to see if he’s alive.” I pushed the pistol into my belt and pulled my T-shirt down over the bulge. I had no idea why I was so adamant about Crayer’s tent, but I was. I needed to know if he was dead or alive. I turned and walked toward the camper village, and nobody tried to stop me. I believe they felt a sense of guilt too, and we needed to know if we’d been involved in killing someone, self-defense or not.
The flap on the tent was pulled down, but it wasn’t tied. A couple of early risers walked by me, nodding, as they headed toward the portable restrooms. I wasn’t sure of the etiquette when approaching a tent. Obviously you couldn’t knock. Did you shout out? “Hey, Bruce, sorry about bashing your face in. Can I come in and see how you’re doing?”
The early light cast my long shadow as I approached the small green tent. I patted the pistol, wondering if I’d ever use it if needed. Flip the flap? Shout out? I was five feet from the entrance, wondering if I should even bother.
“Bruce? Crayer? Are you in there?”
No sound.
“Bruce?”
There was a rustling. Something was moving inside the tent. My hand brushed the pistol, as if I had a clue what to do with it. At best, it would look impressive to someone. It might frighten someone off.
I stood there for a moment, then gathering all the courage I had, I raised the flap. The rustling stopped and I froze. Now what?
“Bruce?”
The gauze was unzipped and as I leaned down, it parted. Daron Styles stuck his head out. “Hey, Skip. So you’re looking for him too?”
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
W hen my father left home, things sort of fell apart. It’s not that they’d been going so well before then, but my working mother and little sister seemed to hang out in their own world, and I was left to figure out what was left of mine. James became the brother and the family that I never had. And because he became such an important part of my life, I forgave a lot that James did because he was family, the only real family I know. So, in some perverse way, I have to forgive friends of the family. Like Daron. Thank God there aren’t too many of them.
“Where the hell did you disappear to? You break into the trailer, almost kill someone, then leave Em and me to cover it up?”
The sirens were much louder now.
He glanced over his shoulder, tugged the brim of his hat down low and put his finger to his lips. “Could you say all that a little louder? Maybe they didn’t hear you over by the Intracoastal.”
I lowered my voice. “So what happened to you? You just walk out on us?”
“I told you I’ve got a friend who gives me heads-up on the FBI.”
“Yeah. The friend who runs license plate numbers and tells you when there’s going to be a raid on your dealer’s warehouse. That friend?”
“Let’s just say I needed to visit her. The friend. Okay?”
“At three in the morning?”
“Hey, I got the information I needed. That’s all that’s important.”
“There’s a lot of stuff that’s gone down since you left.”
“Let’s walk.” Styles looked over his shoulder one more time.
“Walk? Christ, if you only knew what I’ve been through tonight — ”
“Softly, Skipper, tell me what’s happened.”
“You hear the sirens?”
“Couldn’t miss ’em.” They were across the causeway and must have pulled into the campgrounds by now. In thirty seconds they would be in the parking lot.
“One of Cashdollar’s bodyguards tried to kill him, and Thomas LeRoy killed the bodyguard.” I started shaking, the kind of shaking that you can feel in your hands, so if you’re holding a drink you’re afraid you’re going to spill the whole thing.
“Tried to kill the rev? Where did you hear this?”
“We saw it, man. We saw it.” And I still couldn’t get the picture out of my head. Walter’s brains spattered on the car.
“Jesus. Is the rev alive?”
“It appeared he’s okay.”
We’d reached the aluminum camper where James had drunk Stan the pizza man under the table. A proud moment for my friend. The door hung open, and I could see what looked like a green couch or chair inside. Someone was slouched in the chair. I gestured at the trailer. “Stan’s place.”
Styles looked up and stopped. He took two steps backward, then climbed the two wooden steps leading to the entrance.
“Daron, what the hell are you doing?”
“Come here, Skip.” The sirens were ear piercing as they pulled into the parking lot. There must have been three vehicles, and they all shut down at once, the screaming sirens giving off that long, lonely wail when they finally die.
I glanced over at the parking lot and could make out an ambulance and at least one cop car.
“Skip. Up here.”
The last thing I wanted to do was see Stan. Still, I climbed the stairs.
“Seems there’s a lot of this going around this morning.” Styles stood there, looking at the slumped body of the pizza man. Blood stained the green fabric chair, and a pistol lay on the linoleum floor beneath his outstretched hand.
After what I’d seen so far, I should have been shockproof. I wasn’t. It appeared he’d put the barrel of the pistol into his mouth and blown the back of his head off. I closed my eyes and stepped out of the trailer. It was all I could do to keep from heaving.
Styles walked out, and stared for a moment at the vehicles in the parking lot. “A little too late for this one. Put the Glock into his mouth and bang.”
I walked away, Styles following. I needed to put some distance between myself and that picture. We walked to the edge of the trees that bordered the small village. I thought about walking even farther and never going back.
“Skip, he killed himself. It happens.”
“There would have to be one hell of a reason.”
“You never know. It might be something very simple.”
“What was that you said back there? He put something in his mouth. The gun, right?”