My ride across town is quick and uneventful, but about halfway to the Examiner, I remember that I never stopped by Edelweiss to see Mom and Annie as I promised. I told Mom to tell Annie I’d be back by dark, and I’ve gone many hours past that deadline. For a moment I consider stopping by, but Caitlin is waiting to hear the result of my meeting with Royal, and the longer I take to bring her the news, the angrier she’s going to get. I’ll wake Annie when I’m done arguing with Caitlin.
After I park in the rear lot of the Examiner, Kirk pulls in behind me, then gets out to shake hands. I’m glad to see a cop guarding the back lot, and I make a mental note to thank Chief Logan for this courtesy. Kirk greets the policeman, then peers into my eyes with a measuring gaze. Kirk is too good a friend to question my character outright, but his doubts are plain enough.
“I heard a lot of what you said up there,” he says. “You didn’t sound much like the guy I remember.”
“I know. I didn’t much like doing that. But I’d deal with the devil to save my father. I guess I just proved that.”
Kirk nods philosophically. “Do you think Royal can do what he claimed?”
“If he can’t, neither of us is likely to see my dad again.”
Kirk stares into my soul a little longer, then squeezes my left shoulder. “Call me if you need me, bud. I’m here for you. You and your father.”
“Thank you.”
The ex-marine climbs back in his truck and gives me a crisp salute. “Oo-rah, brother.”
“Oo-rah,” I echo dispiritedly, already dreading my conversation with Caitlin.
CHAPTER 86
WALT GARRITY PULLED Drew Elliott’s nondescript pickup truck off Highway 61 and drove west into downtown Baton Rouge, where the state capitol towered above the Mississippi River. Colonel Mackiever had chosen the city’s riverfront casino hotel as their meeting place. Walt wasn’t excited by this; any casino-related business was bound to have security cameras. With the APB out, he worried that his face might be picked up by the NSA’s facial recognition software, which could lead to a lightning-quick arrest. Surely Mackiever understood that risk, yet Walt gauged the probability that his old friend was setting a trap for him at less than 1 percent. Still … that didn’t mean Forrest Knox wasn’t watching his boss’s movements. Walt decided not to stay in the hotel any longer than he had to, and to keep his derringer cocked in his pocket both going in and coming out.
The seven stories of the Sheraton hotel squatted behind the downtown levee, linked by a skywalk to the riverside casino, the Belle of Baton Rouge. Walt pulled his hat low over his face, gave Drew’s pickup keys to a valet, told him to park it close, then walked into a large, glass-ceilinged lobby that looked like a bastard child of the Crystal Palace, which had burned down in London when Walt was a boy. When he asked the desk clerk to connect him to “Mr. Griffith’s” room, the clerk asked him to wait. Walt kept his head down to avoid being recorded by the elevated cameras behind the desk, and he didn’t raise it when the clerk took an envelope from a slot behind him and handed it across the counter. Walt walked a couple of steps away from the desk, opened the envelope with one hand, and read the faxed handwritten message inside:
Ranger Captain,
I had to take an unexpected trip to New Orleans regarding our mutual problem. Tough times, partner. They’re coming after me, too. I hope to be back tonight, ASAP. Please check into a room under the name Bill McDonald and wait as long as you can. It won’t be time wasted, and you’ll be safe here. No bushwhackers on this ride.
Captain M.
Walt didn’t like the idea of waiting, but he didn’t have any doubt that this message was from Griffith Mackiever. For one thing, he’d signed his old Texas Ranger rank, when in fact he was a colonel of the Louisiana State Police. For another, Mackiever had instructed Walt to check in under the name of one of the most respected Rangers ever to wear the badge. It was Captain Bill McDonald who’d said, “No man in the wrong can stand up against a fellow that’s in the right and keeps on a-comin’.” In later years, Walt had heard more educated men hold forth on the “moral advantage,” but no one had ever put the idea quite as succinctly as Cap’n Bill.
Checking into a hotel and waiting like a lazy duck on a glassy pond didn’t strike Walt as the smartest of options, and Mackiever’s mention of being assailed himself was worrisome. If Forrest Knox knew Mackiever was onto him, he might decide that a good offense was the best defense and strike preemptively. Given how quickly Trooper Dunn had gone for Tom by the river last night, Knox might already have gone over to the offensive.