“ You're kidding. This has to be like the worst joke you ever tried to pull on me, right?”
“ I tell you, they really believe you had something to do with those killings, and that if you did not pull the trigger, then you had a hand in… in arranging things.”
“ And you believe them?”
“ I… I don't know what to believe. I've seen you en-raged. Don't forget, I've seen you on more than one occasion kill a man, and you do it, Lucas, with… with a kind of raw… delight. It… that… that side of you… scares me. You scare me.”
“ Best fucking excuse I've ever had leveled at me by a woman to walk away from me, sweetheart. So… why are you still sitting here? Go… go…”
She hesitated. He snatched his hand from hers.
“ For all I know, you're wearing a wire on me right now.”
“ That's not fair, Lucas.”
“ Fair, you want to talk about what's fair now?” The conversation had risen to such a crescendo that everyone in the place now eavesdropped, including the owner-bartender Tebo, his cigarette ashes going unattended.
“ The local FBI didn't frighten me, Lucas. I flatly turned them down when they begged me to get something on you.”
“ Then I should be thanking you? Taking you upstairs to my bed again?”
“ Damn you, Lucas! I got a call from our mutual friend, Dr. Desinor in Quantico, and she got it from Dr. Jessica Coran that FBI headquarters is looking at you. This goes far beyond Houston.”
“ Desinor? Dr. Coran?”
“ They called Coran to corroborate some portions of your alibi.”
“ I gotta make a call.” Stonecoat immediately went to the phone and called Quantico, Virginia's FBI headquarters for Jessica. He was surprised when he got her. He had fully expected to be leaving a message; instead, she came on the line.
“ So good to hear from you, Lieutenant,” she said.
“ I called to congratulate you on the fine job your team did in locating and saving Judge DeCampe. I had meant to do so earlier, but it's been busy as hell around here.”
“ Why, thank you, Lieutenant. I appreciate the sentiments and the invaluable help you and Dr. Sanger provided.”
He then cleared his throat and said, “Contrary to anything-anything whatever-that you hear about my being a rogue cop on a vendetta, killing randomly and at will, you can't accept such nonsense on face value, Dr. Coran.”
“ What are you talking about?”
“ The series of deaths in Sioux Falls. Your field operatives there have me down for the killings, some sort of vengeance thing on behalf of Lightfoot. I didn't know the man, and he's not of my tribe, and even if he were, I would not be taking the law into my own hands-not for someone I didn't personally know. Also, my own Internal Affairs Division is coming after me. But that's nothing new.”
“ You know who is behind the killings?”
He hesitated, saying, “I just want you to know, Dr. Coran, that it isn't me and that I have no knowledge of these executions.” He hung up.
When Lucas stepped to the bar, calling for another round for Meredyth and himself, Tebo grunted and cast his eyes at Lucas's table. Meredyth's exit through the door had left it slightly ajar, something Tebo kept claiming he was going to fix. Lucas cursed the situation, on the one hand knowing who was behind the four killings but feeling the killings justifiable homicide in retaliation for what young Claude Lightfoot had suffered. It felt like a fitting end to yet another Cold Room file.
Zachary Roundpoint, a local Native American mob boss and a sometimes acquaintance of Lucas's, wished to make up for all the white injustices over the decades. It would have to be a life's work, so much had been perpetrated against the red man. While Lucas didn't condone Round- point's actions, he did understand them.
Lucas took a six-pack of Bud with him to his room upstairs. He did so via the back stairs. Once ensconced in his room, he lit up a peyote-stuffed, hand-rolled cigarette. He wanted two things: a good black-and-white western so he could watch “his people” through the pathetic eyes of Hollywood, and to get totally wasted in order to put everything and everyone out of his mind. Even so, he wished that Meredyth would knock at his door this moment. But she did not.
“ Be damned if I'd chase her out a door,” he told the empty room.
On his fourth beer since leaving the bar, Lucas again thought of his antithesis, Zachary Roundpoint. Lucas had good reason to feel angry at Zachary, a man never to be trusted, a man he could never call a friend, but a man to whom he owed much. Zachary had come through for him when he had needed a friend the most, when Lucas's dying grandfather had need of Roundpoint's power and influence.
Zachary had been a Texas Cherokee gun for hire before he had his boss assassinated. The boss had acted as a father to Roundpoint out of a deep-seated guilt for having murdered Roundpoint's mother. When Lucas first began to investigate the case, he had no idea that Roundpoint would take measures into his own hands and then grant Lucas a lucrative reward along with a job offer for his trouble. That had been then, and now this.
In the case involving Roundpoint's murdered mother, Zachary had taken over his boss's throne after summarily executing the man. Now Roundpoint controlled a small army of men, running the largest Native American cartel in the country right here in Houston. His organization had long tentacles, perhaps long enough to reach Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
Lucas guessed that the FBI knew of his past connection to Roundpoint. Because of his connection to Zachary Roundpoint, he had become an FBI suspect. Zachary certainly had the manpower and the Cherokee chutzpah to carry out a series of hits anywhere in America. Lucas had no proof, but he could well imagine Zach Round- point being involved and possibly ordering the executions.
Lucas's gut reaction was that Zachary had once again taken the law into his own hands to avenge a perceived wrong to all Native Americans, and in doing so, he had again placed Lucas Stonecoat in a perilous and vulnerable position.
The phone rang, and Lucas grabbed it up, thinking it was Meredyth, hoping so.
“ It's Jessica Coran,” said the whiskey voice that had become so familiar to Lucas since the DeCampe case. “Hold a moment for me, will you?”
“ Sure… sure.”
She came back on. “I couldn't talk to you on the other line. It wasn't a secure line.”
“ And this one is?”
“ Yes, detective, it is.”
“ How do I know that?”
She hesitated. “I guess you'll just have to take my word as good.”
He remained silent. She heard his breathing come over like thought.
“ Listen, detective, what you and your friend Zachary Roundpoint arranged for in Sioux Falls…”
“ I don't know what you're talking about.” His thoughts conflicted with his words. Does everybody in creation know about my connection to Roundpoint? And if so, does anyone in creation know the nature of that relationship? Fuck!
“ I just wanted you to know that any chance of creating a case died with McArthur. He was going to testify. Next thing we hear is that the other three were murdered.”
“ I still have no connection with what you're talking about.”
“ Sure… I understand. If I Were you, I'd wonder who my friends were, too. Fact is, you have no idea how similar our situations are with respect to people looking over our shoulders.”
“ I've gotten a double dose since all this crap in Sioux Falls has come down on my head. I've got nothing whatever to do with it.”
“ I believe you, but I'd distance myself from Zachary Roundpoint. If they ever get anything to stick to him… well…”
“ I know we did great police work on the DeCampe case together, and for that I think I can trust you, Dr. Coran.”
“ You can… you can.”
“ I am not associated with Roundpoint in any way, shape, or form.”
“ Your close relative, a man named Hawk, Billy Hawk, works for Roundpoint.”