Soul Circus(48)

Many of the leads he’d gotten were false leads, and though he suspected them to be from the get-go, he still went after anything he could. He had even traveled down to Leavenworth, on the nickel of Ives, to interview a former member of Oliver’s gang, Kevin Willis, who had later gone to work for the Corey Graves Mob in another part of Far Southeast. Willis had talked on tape about everything he knew: who was “hot” on the street and who would or would not most likely flip. He had talked freely about charges still pending against him. Strange had the tapes in his office off Georgia and duplicates here in his house. But, as with many of the interviews he’d done, the tapes had given him nothing.

But Strange had a feeling about Devra Stokes. He sensed that Stokes, one of Phillip Wood’s former girlfriends, had more to tell him. He had phoned the hair and nail salon and been told she was working today. He had gotten Janine to start the process to obtain a Federal Order of Subpoena, in the event that he would need her to testify.

Greco’s sharp bark came from the foyer down on the first floor. When Strange went out to the landing and saw Greco’s nose at the bottom of the door, his tail twitching, he knew that this was Quinn.

Quinn, a folder under his arm, came up to the office and waited as Strange gathered up the papers he needed for the day.

“What the hell is this?” said Quinn, chuckling, holding up a CD he had picked up off the desk. “My Rifle, My Pony and Me?”

Strange looked down at his shoes. “Meant to put that away before you came by. Knew you’d give me some shit about it if you saw it.”

“It’s a song from Rio Bravo, right?”

Strange nodded. “Dean Martin and Ricky Nelson sing it in that scene in the jail.”

“What scene in the jail? Christ, half the movie’s set in the jail.”

“I know it. But look, they got another twenty-five tracks just like that one on there, too. Title tunes with vocals from old westerns.”

“Okay. You haven’t actually seen all these, have you?”

“Most of ’em, you want the truth. But I got a twenty-year jump on you.”

“Seen The Hanging Tree lately?” said Quinn, reading off the CD.

“No, but I saw a damn good one the other night on TNT. I forgot the name of it already, but I been meaning to tell you about it. Italian, by that same guy did A Bullet for the General.”

“I liked that one.”

“Anyhow, in this movie, they’re gettin’ ready for the big gunfight at the end. The hero gets off his horse and faces a whole bunch of gunmen standing in this big circle of stones, like an arena they got set up.”

“That’s been done before.”

“Well, they do that Roman Coliseum thing for the climax of these spaghetti westerns all the time. They’re Italians, remember?”

“I’m hip.”

“So they’re all starin’ at each other for a while, like they do. Squintin’ their eyes and shiftin’ them around. Then this hero says to these four bad-asses, before he draws his gun, ‘What are the rules to this game? I like to know the rules before I play.’ And the main bad-ass, got a scar on his face, he smiles real slow and says, ‘It’s simple. Last man standing wins.’ ”

Quinn grinned. “I guess that put a battery up your ass, didn’t it?”

“I did like that line, man.”

“You need to get out more, Derek.”

“I’m out plenty.” Strange stood, slipping the papers he needed into a manila folder. He undid his belt, looped it though the sheath of his Buck knife, moved the sheath so that it rested firmly beside his cell holster on his hip, and refastened the belt buckle. “You ready?”

Quinn nodded at the knife. “You are.”

“Comes in handy sometimes.”

“You had a gun, you wouldn’t need to carry a knife.”

“I’m through with guns,” said Strange. “Let’s go.”

Down the stairs, Strange put a bowl of water out by the door and dropped a rawhide bone to the floor at Greco’s feet.

“He gonna be all right here all day?” said Quinn.

“Too hot to have him in the car,” said Strange. “He’ll be fine.”



DRIVING down Georgia in the Caprice Classic, Strange had the Stylistics’ debut playing in the cassette deck; “Betcha By Golly, Wow” was up, symphonic and filling the car. Strange was softly singing along, closing his eyes occasionally as he tried to hit the high notes on the vocals.

“Careful, man,” said Quinn. “You keep shutting your eyes when you’re gettin’ all soulful like that, you’re gonna get us killed.”