Perfect Killer (22 page)

"That was sweet of you, offering me an out and everything. But this was my fight long before it was yours. Besides, it's too late to turn back. We're in this together."
Jasmine's words connected with my heart and took all my words away. She turned right and pressed on through a shabby section of town.
"Where do we go?" I said finally. "They'll look at every hotel and motel. They'll stake out your house and your office if they haven't already done it."
"I have an idea."
I waited expectantly as she threaded the Mercedes along the cluttered street with an easy familiarity. We reached Main Street, then right, back across the railroad tracks, and past Stone Street.
"So." I looked at her. "You have an idea?"
"Sorry. Years ago, probably twenty or more, Mama bought a two-thousand-acre plantation southwest of Itta Bena out of an IRS lien auction, then donated it to Mississippi Valley State University."
She steered us along frontage roads, industrial driveways, and slushy one-lane gravel paths as only a local can do, bypassing the traffic jam. We were somewhere north of Rising Sun when we hit pavement again.
"Her brother, my uncle Quincy, teaches African-American history at Valley State there, and the donation helped his standing there immensely." Jasmine paused. "Mama was always doing things like that. And not just for family."
Jasmine turned right, crossed a new bridge over the Yazoo River, and headed west on Quito Road. The rain stopped as suddenly as it had started; stars dotted the sky. In the distance, lightning still illuminated the towering spires of more storm cells.
"Anyway, one small part of the deed gave Uncle Quincy the title to a small plot of land containing a collection of old shacks dating from the 1870s. You know, a two-room shotgun with a tin roof, bare wooden floors, and not much else other than a hole in the ground out back to crap in?"
A guilty memory found me as a child riding in the bed of a pickup driven by Al Thompson along the dusty roads through Mossy Plantation. The child almost saw the weathered, unpainted gray-wood shacks always complete with a sagging porch and lots of small naked or nearly naked black children playing outside. To privileged white children, they had been an almost-seen-but-not-quite-noticed element of the landscape, something no more significant than moss in the cypress trees or the green duckweed carpeting stagnant water.
"One of the shacks sat about a hundred yards off in a thicket of oaks and pecan trees. Mama restored it as a retreat, a simple environment outfitted no more elaborately than the original. No phone, no electricity, no indoor plumbing, She said it helped her remember where she came from."
Jasmine looked at me. I nodded that I understood.
"We're headed there. There aren't ten people who know about Mama's cabin, and you and I are two of them."
Around us, the moon found cracks in the clouds and painted pale, high-contrast silhouettes of the landscape.
"Mom always questioned why you turned out so different from the rest of your family."
"Me too."
"Mom said it never made any sense to her," Jasmine continued. "Here you are, born into this enormous position of privilege, a white boy from Delta planter stock, the offspring of a U.S. senator and the chancellor of Ole Miss, a football player, a scholar, and from what I can tell something of a boy genius. That put you about as high on the white Mississippi food chain as you can get."
I chewed on this silently "Well, Papa was gone most of my life and Mama never realized that a sense of superiority needs careful nurturing," I said tentatively, seeking answers from the moonlit fields rushing by. "Papa's conflict with the Judge always made me like an outsider. I played alone a lot. I learned how to make up my own mind and tell everybody else to go to hell."
"A free will kind of thing?"
"I never thought of it that way before."
"Maybe you should." That Mona Lisa smile again.
I had thought about this for decades, didn't understand it any better today than I had in 1967.
We chased the moon across the table-flat fields in silence for several minutes. What lessons did God want me to learn from all of this? And if God really existed and we were supposed to do his will, or hers, why the hell couldn't we get a clue about what it was?
Then I told Jasmine about the social insecurity I had experienced with Giles Claiborne.
"That's silly," she said. If anything, you should feel superior, given your accomplishments in medicine,"
"Whatever." I shook my head. "But it's the biggest reason I could never live here again."
"Never?"
I shook my head emphatically. "No way. Never."
Jasmine slowed for the stop sign at Route 7 and turned north toward Itta Bena.
"So many memories here," I said as the dark past flew by faster than night. "I leave Mississippi, but I can never escape." I squirmed uncomfortably as difficult pieces of my past shifted in my heart, falling into place as they never had before.
Jasmine nodded silently as we drove through the Confederate past. Shortly, she eased off the accelerator as Itta Bena's scattering of lights grew closer, then turned left past a broad, low field. On the field's side, a freight train made its way slowly atop a berm.
West of Itta Bena, Jasmine turned right on Highway 82, toward Valley State, then left to a gravel road through a cotton field. The rear of the Mercedes slewed as she left the gravel for a dirt road through a stand of trees.
"I'm lost," I said.
"Don't worry. I'm not."
The tires thrump-thumped over a cattle gap, then we broke through a copse of trees into another field of cotton with a group of old sharecropper shacks standing in the moonlight. Jasmine slowed as the road narrowed, entered another wooded area, and went up a short rise, where the mud tracks turned to well-maintained gravel ending at a small house.
"This is it," Jasmine said as she stopped by the house, put the Mercedes in park, and turned off the lights. When she turned off the ignition, the silence sounded like falling into a hole.
The keys jingled as Jasmine pulled them out of the ignition and opened her door. I squinted as the overhead bulb burned overbright.
"Could you get me the flashlight, please?" She pointed toward the glove box. I handed it to her, then stepped out, grabbed her bags, and followed her to the porch. She unlocked the door and ushered me in.
"Wait here," Jasmine said.
She made her way over to a kerosene lamp and lit it. The flame's warm light revealed a Spartanly furnished room with a cast-iron stove and all of the furnishings that established this as a kitchen, living room, bedroom. A patchwork quilt covered the bed, which had probably slept three or four children in its previous life. A facing door led to the shack's other room.
"Go ahead and put my stuff there She pointed to the bed on the wall opposite the stove. I did as told. The quilt captured my attention. All those little triangles, all those little stitches. All that time
"Mom made all her quilts here," Jasmine said. "When the pressure would mount, she'd come here and sit on the porch and quilt. She said it kept her sane."
"Amazing," I said "But it would drive me nuts."
Jasmine gave me a "different strokes" shrug and headed for the other room. I followed her.
"This was her room," Jasmine said.
The room had a bed, a chifforobe, a rough wooden chair, a table made out of odd pieces of lumber, and a door leading outside. This one had a dead bolt as well.
Lacking the quilts everywhere—spread on the bed, hung on the walls, draped over a stand—the shack would have been a stark portrait of poverty. Next to the rough chair sat a large hoop on a floor stand containing an unfinished quilt, heavy with significance. I went to it as Jasmine lit the kerosene lamp on the table next to it.
"After she...died, I tried to finish it," she said, "but I could never stop sticking the needle in my fingers. And I made these great big, crooked stitches." Her breast pressed into my shoulder blade as she leaned over and stretched out her arm to point to her work. "So I stopped before I ruined it."
We stood there like that for a long moment. With adequate sleep, this could have been an erotic moment, but for now it felt warm, comfortable, secure. Right.
Jasmine sniffed once, then stood up.
"We better get some sleep while we can," she said as she touched her eyes to make sure no tears were showing. "Let's get your stuff and bring it in here."
Minutes later, with everything inside, Jasmine locked the front door, told me goodnight, and closed the door to the front room. I took off my shoes, took the Ruger out of the clip holster and slid it into my right shoe. It took seconds for me to fall asleep in the borrowed hospital scrubs.

Thundering applause rocked the Century Plaza's ballroom so intensely it echoed off itself. Clark Braxton stepped back from the podium and offered a photogenic smile to the standing-room-only crowd, who had paid $5,000 apiece for stylishly mediocre plates of food. Cameras flashed from every table; television lights glared harsh and bright. Then the sound Braxton had grown to love and expect: the gentle scraping sound of chairs when people stood to applaud.

The General stepped back to the microphone. "Thank you." The applause ended as if a switch had been thrown. "Thank you for taking time from your families, from your busy days, to come tonight. I thank you again for the contribution you have made toward America's future. Good night."

The standing ovation erupted anew as he waved, turned around, then stepped from the platform and into the shadowy backstage clutter of cables, folding chairs, and his people waiting to take him to the next engagement. His security detail, scattered strategically about the area, stood at an attentive parade rest. Braxton nodded to them.

Dan Gabriel stepped forward from a shadow. "Another magnificent presentation, sir."
"Thanks, Dan." Braxton adjusted the amount of cuff showing beyond the cuff of his navy-blue pinstripes. "Our next stop's right down the street, if I remember correctly."
"Affirmative. The Beverly Hilton," Gabriel said. "Nanotechnology Entrepreneurs Forum. You're supposed to have dessert and say a few words."
"Beverly Hilton, eh? Not all that far from here. Walking, that is. I've been too damn cramped all day and my legs are giving me trouble."
"You're supposed to be there at ten," Gabriel looked at his watch. "It's nine thirtyfive now."
Braxton nodded. "Make sure they have the car ready in case something slows us down. I will not be late."
"Sir." Gabriel walked toward the head of Braxton's security detail.
As the General finished adjusting his shirt, belt buckle, and pants fly to make sure his gig line was straight, his cell phone vibrated. He checked the caller ID before answering.
"Braxton."
"Sir, I need some current intel. The situation's complicated."
"Tell me about it."
Jael St. Clair's words made him angry, made him struggle to smother anger that arced in his head between rational and irrational. He had to take his medication soon. He always needed it more frequently under stress, and this nonstop campaigning affected him worse than combat. He suspected the medication would eventually stop working for Jael St. Clair, as it had for Talmadge. He was grateful to be different from them.
Across the backstage area, he caught his security chief's frown as Gabriel spoke to him. The frown yielded to the man's usual can-do expression.
"I got back to my vehicle in less than half a minute and gave chase," Jael said. "But they vanished."
"Where are you?" Braxton asked.
"On the way to Grenada. I'll check into a motel there, unload things, ditch the vehicle in a shopping center parking lot, and rent another one."
"I assume you need intel on Stone?"
"One moment."
The General used his thumbs to access the address book on his phone. He quickly found what he was looking for.
"Call this number," he said, reading out the digits twice. She read them back to him.
"Good," he said. "It will be picked up on the fifth ring. Hang up if it's any fewer, any more. The person who answers will say, 'Black granite.' If you hear anything else, hang up and call me back."
"You will respond, 'Quarry master.' This person knows about you, not who you are, but that you are mission capable and in the field."
"Affirmative, sir. Five rings. 'Black granite'; 'quarry master.'"
"This person will locate Stone."
Without waiting for a reply he pressed the "end" button as Gabriel walked up.
"Everything's set," Gabriel said "Security's deploying, but you and I'll need to leave now if we're going to walk the whole way without being late."
Braxton looked at Gabriel for a silent moment, weighing the commitment in the man's eyes, the dedication in his voice. The leading presidential contender scrolled through years of vivid memories, weighed the debits and credits of favors accumulated, and came down on a balance due that added up to loyalty.
"Sir?" Gabriel broke the awkward silence.
"I'm ready," Braxton said. "As it happens, something important has come up I need to talk to you about."

Jael St. Clair drove carefully though darkness. At the speed limit of sixty-five miles per hour, she was the slowest thing on the road, but she didn't need to be stopped by the highway patrol. She pressed the numbers Braxton had given her.

South of her, in a clean, plain, business-budget motel room within sight of the Jackson airport, a cell phone sounded its short, sharp, distinctive tone. Video of the law enforcement briefing in Greenwood played on the motel's television, connected by cables to a laptop computer sitting alongside. The briefing had been captured with a concealed camera and burned onto a DVD.

The phone rang a second time. David Brown, formerly of half a dozen anonymous government agencies whose budgets were laundered through other well-known agencies, completed sit-up number eighty-seven. Brown got to his feet, stretched his tall, lean physique, and ran his hand over his close-cropped, gunmetal-gray hair. He glanced at the mirror at the long, thin strawberry birthmark emerging from his hairline. When he was younger, it had been completely hidden in a dense thicket of hair. The phone, one of three he carried, sat next to the laptop and sounded a third time. For one last second, he focused on the video. He'd watched it the first time on the half-hour helicopter ride south from Greenwood. Something about the black sheriff and his assistant bothered him.