Flame (25 page)

“Would one of these warring drug suppliers be the people who blew up Bert Renway?”

“Most likely.”

A fly buzzed in tight circles around Carver. Touched down on the back of his hand. Took off again before he had a chance to flick at it, leaving only a tickle. He wished it would join the dead ones on the windowsill. “When’s Farneaux due to arrive?”

“Later this afternoon. They’ll probably put to sea soon after dark.”

The waitress came with their coffee. Placed the cups before them on saucers. Set a small silver pitcher of cream in the center of the table. Shot them a bright but empty smile and said if they needed anything else they should just ask her, her name was Linda. The pesty fly was on Linda’s shoulder when she walked away. Carver was glad to see that.

When she was gone, Jefferson’s eyes slid down and to the side to glance at the long green duffel bag next to his chair. Then he stared straight at Carver and said, “On the phone earlier this afternoon, you mentioned a rifle.”

Carver said, “The one in the bag.”

“How would you know there’s a rifle in there?”

“Trade secret.”

“Being in the same trade, we oughta share our secrets, don’cha think?”

“No, I’m not so sure.”

“Why not?”

“The rifle.”

“Oh.” Jefferson’s deep brown eyes didn’t blink, but something changed in them. Some subtle shifting of mood, like a dim light in deep water. He said, “Gonna tell you about that rifle, Carver.” A tinge of ghetto black in his speech again. Unconscious? Or was he trying to menace Carver? “You seen what kinda rifle it is?”

Carver nodded.

“Know what that means?”

“You were gonna tell me,”

Jefferson sipped his coffee, put down the cup, and stared into the rocking dark liquid. “Remember what I told you ’bout what happened to my daddy the day after Martin Luther King was assassinated?”

“I remember. He was lynched.”

“Yeah. Well, ’bout two years ago I was working this drug case and got on to the not-so-surprising fact that this group of wealthy and supposedly respectable Southern businessmen was dealing dope.”

“The Southern Christian Businessmen’s League?”

“The same. The people that’ll be on that boat, soon as Farneaux gets here.” Jefferson stared out the window for a moment at the gently bobbing
Bold Entrepreneur,
and his face became an impassive ebony mask. Except for his eyes, where now something burned bright as hellfire. A preacher’s son forever.

Carver said, “This isn’t really about drugs, is it?”

Jefferson turned to look at him again. “Ain’t you the perceptive bastard?”

“I have my moments.”

“And this is one of them. No, it’s not completely about drugs. While I was chasing leads and trying to establish the link between Central American suppliers and the SCBL, I ran across evidence concerning another crime. Nothing I can use to press a case. Nothing I can prove. Nothing anybody else’ll believe, for that matter. Nothing they’ll wanna believe. But I
know
, Carver.
Goddammit, I know!
”

Carver waited. Stayed silent. He’d seen this before and knew how it worked. Jefferson was rolling; what was in him, what he knew, had to come out. He needed to purge himself of it.

“The rifle in that bag, Carver, it was used to kill Martin Luther King.”

Carver hadn’t expected this. He put down his cup. Sloshed some of the hot coffee onto his thumb. Barely felt it. He remembered Jefferson slumped on the edge of the bed at the Sundown Motel, bent over the rifle and crying. “James Earl Ray’s rifle?”

“Oh, no! Not Ray’s. Ray didn’t kill King, but he was part of the operation. He was a blind. A patsy used to divert attention from the real assassin. The SCBL helped him escape in his white Mustang—a car just like the real assassin’s—then paid his way while he traveled all over the world. Till the dumb yahoo got himself caught goin’ through airport customs in London.”

“Why doesn’t Ray tell the law this?”

“That was all worked out beforehand. He got what looked like a legal defense, only it wasn’t really. He struck a deal with the court. Went through what the press called a ‘minitrial’ where a prima facie case involving only a few witnesses was heard. That meant a plea of guilty could be accepted unless contradictory evidence was presented. Ray’s guilty plea was accepted, and a life sentence was recommended. The so-called jury then confirmed the sentence and that was that. If Ray’d pleaded innocent, he coulda been found guilty and executed, which was what he was tryin’ to avoid. He bought the deal with his silence. Knew he didn’t have much choice, considerin’ the people he was involved with. The law doesn’t weigh evenly on everybody, Carver. And it’s not inflexible; it’s like putty. And things can happen to a man in prison. Ray talks, even now, he knows he dies.”

Carver was quiet for a while. Then he said, “Every political assassination, there’s always a conspiracy theory.”

“But this time it’s true. How else you gonna explain where a small-time redneck like Ray got all the money he needed to go globe-hoppin’ after the assassination?”

Carver couldn’t explain and didn’t try. It was something he and a lot of other people had wondered about before. There was an ocean of speculation about the Kennedy assassinations, both of which could have been, and probably were, planned and accomplished by lone assailants. But the King assassination, which was almost certainly the result of a conspiracy, had prompted less indignation and theorizing. Carver wondered if the reasons for such neglect were racial. Didn’t like to think so but suspected they were. “But the rifle . . .”

“After King was shot,” Jefferson said, “Ray fled from the scene, tossed a package loaded with clues onto the pavement, got in his car, and sped away. There was a Remington Gamemaster pump-action .30-06 rifle in the package.”

“But not the rifle in the duffel bag.”

“Right. That rifle I confiscated for myself from a certain wealthy businessman’s personal collection. Left him a duplicate so he’d never know. The thing is, the court never established that Ray’s rifle was the gun that shot King.”

“You’re kidding?”

“Nope. Look it up.”

“What about ballistics tests?”

“None were made. County medical examiner, guy named Francisco, testified the bullet was too misshapen to match with a particular gun. There was a slight nick on the bathroom windowsill of Ray’s rooming house that was said to match machine markings on the rifle barrel, supposedly from when it kicked where Ray had rested it on the sill to steady his aim. That’s the only evidence that Ray’s gun killed King.”

“Flimsy evidence.”

“Not evidence at all in most courts, but enough in this case. Makes you wonder, don’t it?”

Carver wondered, all right. But some things he finally understood. The fire that raged in Jefferson after the deaths of King and his father—deaths inextricably linked in his mind—had never died completely and was about to burst into fierce flame.

“It’ll be poetic justice, is that it?” Carver said. “You know, but you can’t prove, who killed King, and you’re gonna kill the assassin with the same rifle he used to murder King. That the way you got it mapped out?”

Jefferson said, “You could call it poetic justice. I don’t call it nothin’ but revenge.” Ghetto echoes again. “I’m not kiddin’ myself, Carver. Justice is why I
should
do it, but only half the reason I’m gonna. Once I found out about how King was really murdered, I haven’t thought about much else. Obsessed, I guess you’d call me. I don’t fuckin’ care, though. I’m gonna goddamn do this.” His voice cracked. “I
need
this.”

Carver started to take a sip of coffee. Saw that his hand was trembling and lowered the cup back to its saucer. It made a delicate
clink.

He said, “You know the name of the man who pulled the trigger.”

“That’s right,” Jefferson said. “I’ve known it for a while.”

“Maybe you oughta tell me.”

Jefferson breathed out hard, as if he’d been holding his breath for a long time. “Sure. Can’t do no harm now. Walter Ogden shot King. That’s why he’s still with Wesley Slaughter and Rendering, turning a top salary with perks. Earned himself a privileged position for life, did Walter. But his life’s about over.”

“But not just Walter Ogden’s life.”

“Right again, Carver. He was only the finger on the trigger. I never thought I’d have an opportunity like this. It’s their greed gonna take ’em down. They killed Martin Luther King for ideological and economic reasons. Years later they saw even more money in the illicit drug trade and got into that. Couldn’t stay out. That’s why the core organization still exists. Why they’ll all be together on that boat. Talkin’ money, just like in the sixties. Only difference is, the money’s bigger.”

“You can nail them for dealing drugs,” Carver said. “Isn’t that enough?”

Jefferson shook his head sadly. “Not nearly.”

Carver said, “What
is
enough? What’s minimum? Taking Ogden’s life?”

“Maybe it woulda been, but not now. You know, I’m kinda disappointed in you. From what I found out about you, what people said, I thought you’d understand this.”

Carver hesitated, staring down at the table, “Yeah, I do understand.”
God help me, I do.

Jefferson smiled. If cats smiled at mice, they’d look like that. “There’s a bomb on board that boat. Got a timer set to blow it at ten o’clock tonight, when, accordin’ to Courtney, the
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will be well out to sea.”

“How’d you get the explosives on board?”

“Courtney. Only she don’t know it.”

It took Carver a few seconds to realize the import of Jefferson’s words. The extent of his madness. “Jesus! You’re gonna let her die along with the others?”

Jefferson’s eyes became dark pools of pain. “What’s my choice? How’m I gonna get her off that boat without tipping the others?”

Carver looked out at the
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swaying in its berth. “I don’t know.”

“I lived for this, Carver! And the opportunity’ll never come around again. You realize that?”

“Sure. But you said you and Courtney—”

“Dammit, what has to be will be!” Jefferson cut in. “I’m gonna
make
it be!
Me!
And it’s
important.
You know that.”

“Man with a mission. Like your father.”

“Not quite like him. This mission’s gonna be carried out. I swore that to myself a long time ago.”

And something ugly and ominous stirred in a corner of Carver’s mind. A cold dread took root in his stomach. “How come you’re spilling this to me?”

“You found out about the rifle.”

“Something more,” Carver said. “I know it.”

“Well, I guess I want you to know it. Owe it to you that you know. You’re the one slipped the leash and made them mad. Made them wanna tighten the screws on you. You shoulda figured out how they might do it. Your goddamn fault.”

No, no!
Carver gripped his cane. Started to get up.

Jefferson reached across the table before he could attain balance and, slowly but firmly, eased him back down into his chair. The waitress and the old guy eating oysters stared for a moment, then turned away.

His throat dry, his heart slamming in his chest, Carver looked out the window again at the
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bobbing in the sunlight, wavering reflections from the water dancing over her white hull.

“That’s how it is, I’m afraid,” Jefferson said. “They got Edwina Talbot on board.”

J
EFFERSON WATCHED CARVER ACROSS
the table. Said softly, “Try any heroics and I’ll put you in custody. You can bet I damn well mean it.”

Carver stared back at him. And into the pure energy of an obsession that rationalized any sacrifice in exchange for justice on a cosmic scale. What was the life of a woman he hardly knew when it stood in the way of balancing the scales for the killers of Martin Luther King and, surely if indirectly, Jefferson’s father? What was Edwina’s life to Jefferson if he was willing to let the woman he himself loved die? If he was willing to use Courtney Romano as an unknowing instrument of death?

With effort, Carver composed himself. This wasn’t the time to let Jefferson see the fear and desperation seething in him. He breathed in the bitter rising steam of a fresh cup of coffee and said, “There’s no sign of her on board.”

“No sign of anyone on board,” Jefferson said.

Carver realized that was true, as it had been earlier when he’d planted the tiny transmitter on the
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hull. Ghost ship.

“Your friend Van Meter gave her to them,” Jefferson said. “Called his man off the bodyguard job when we paid him to cooperate. Sold you out.”

Carver didn’t want to believe it, but he couldn’t
dis
believe.
Women and money, they cause us to do things we wouldn’t ordinarily.
Even Van Meter? Carver remembered the sexpot secretary Marge. The way the middle-aged receptionist at Van Meter’s office had rolled her eyes at the sound of Marge’s voice. Why
not
Van Meter?

“These people’ll stay below deck until the boat gets well out to sea,” Jefferson said. “They have an aversion to being seen and maybe photographed under these circumstances. Never know when a photo or a videotape might turn up in a courtroom. And they didn’t get to be who they are by taking unnecessary risks.”

“They have to eat,” Carver said. He looked around at the supper crowd beginning to filter into Lobster Jack’s. Fifteen, twenty customers now. Several more waitresses in the frilly red-and-white-checked aprons were gliding about the place, taking orders, balancing round trays with food and drinks on them. “Suppose they send someone over here to bring back food to the boat?”

“Ha! You don’t know these rich cocksuckers. There’s a gourmet cook on board, along with two crew members. All part of the crew of the
Sea Charger
, a larger yacht, owned by the SCBL once or twice removed. That boat’s used to make drug pickups at sea. Folks on board the
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are probably sipping champagne and nibbling caviar right now while we sit here working on this horse-piss coffee.”