Part 15 (1/2)

Burns started to say something, but his words were drowned out by loud screams inside and outside the restaurant as the band struck the opening riff of ”Sweet Home Alabama.”

”Yeah!” Peter said, whooping and slapping Rick on the back, forcing him to turn around and look inside the restaurant. Rick saw several nice-looking college-age women swaying back and forth in front of the stage. As if on cue a waitress came up to the two men holding a tray with two shot gla.s.ses, a salt shaker, and two limes.

With no hesitation Burns shook some salt on his wrist, sucked it, and then turned the shot gla.s.s up. He took it down in one swig, then shook his head and put the lime in his mouth. ”Ah, tequila!” he yelled, putting the other shot gla.s.s in Rick's hand and shaking salt on Rick's wrist. ”Come on, dude, you're paying for all this. At least do a shot with me.”

Thinking what the h.e.l.l, Rick licked his wrist, turned up the shot gla.s.s, and then sucked the lime.

”That a boy,” Peter said. Then, leaning into him, ”Now, let's forget about that girlfriend of yours, and let's find us a wife for the night. What do you say?”

”Darla,” Rick managed, coughing the words out, his throat burning with the taste of the tequila.

”She'll be here,” Peter said, his words a bit slurred. ”But until she arrives . . .” He gestured toward a group of girls wearing bikini tops and blue jean cutoffs. If they were twenty-one years old, they had just turned it. ”Let's be social. What do you say?”

Thirty minutes later the men were seated inside the restaurant at the table closest to the band. Burns had ordered two dozen oysters, but he wasn't eating them, having moved his chair to the neighboring table, where the group of bikini-clad college girls-four sorority sisters from Jacksonville State on a last trip to the beach before cla.s.ses started-reveled in Peter's stories from the Sundowners Club. Either that or they were just putting up with him because he kept buying them beers and shots and charging them to Rick's credit card.

I'm going to have a three-hundred-dollar bill, Rick thought, putting an oyster drenched with c.o.c.ktail sauce on a cracker and popping it in his mouth. He washed the concoction down with the remains of another Corona, his second, and leaned back in his seat. Taking out his phone, he went to check his e-mail and see if he'd missed any calls, but his phone was now dead.

d.a.m.nit. In his haste to leave Pulaski, he'd forgotten to juice up his phone and had left the charger on the dresser at the bed and breakfast. Stealing a glance at Burns, he made his way to the restroom, wondering if Darla Ford was really going to show, or if this was just one big hoax. A con played by a strip club bartender who had spent his whole life playing folks like Rick. Maybe, he thought, but what are my other options?

When he returned to his seat, the band was playing John Anderson's ”Straight Tequila Night,” but Rick wasn't hearing anything. He looked at the barely touched plate of oysters, and he wasn't hungry.

”Another beer?” the waitress yelled from behind him, and Rick gave her the thumbs-up sign. Blinking his eyes, he realized that the table of bikini-clad girls was gone, and there was no sign of Burns.

Rick turned all the way around in his chair, his eyes frantically scanning the crowd. Where the h.e.l.l was Burns?

He stood and did a sweep of the bar with his eyes, still not seeing him, and then began to walk around the place, which was packed, his eyes darting to every corner, nook, and cranny. Nothing.

Rick lumbered back to his seat in a daze. ”Have you seen the guy that came in with me? Hawaiian s.h.i.+rt, shorts, stubble?” he asked the waitress, who was setting a Corona down at his place at the table.

”The guy talking with the table of girls?” she asked, pointing to the now-empty table.

”Yes,” Rick said, nodding. ”Did you see-?”

”I'm pretty sure he left.”

Rick just stood there, unbelieving, as the waitress walked away from him. He slunk down in his seat. Burns was gone. He'd driven the b.a.s.t.a.r.d to Destin, Florida, and now he was gone. And Rick had no idea where. Had he left with one of the girls at the adjacent table? Or had he just split the minute he saw Rick head to the bathroom?

d.a.m.nit. Rick held the cold longneck to his forehead and closed his eyes. The band started in on ”Whiskey River,” by Willie Nelson, and Rick couldn't think of a more appropriate song. He drained half the beer in one gulp and slammed the drink on the table.

All for nothing, he thought. The whole trip. He'd been played a fool. He should've known Burns would split the minute Rick let him out of his sight.

Rick drained the beer with two more sips and gave the signal to the waitress as she pa.s.sed by to bring him another. For an instant he thought of Bocephus Haynes, alone in his cold jail cell, and guilt washed over him. Bo had put so much faith in the Professor and Rick. And the Professor had been beaten up and . . .

. . . I'm getting drunk in an oyster bar on the Gulf Coast.

Rick took the beer out of the waitress's hand before she could set it down and took a quick sip. Too quick, in fact, as most of the drink went straight up his nose. He set the bottle down and it bubbled over, making a mess.

”That won't do you any good,” a voice said from behind him, and Rick spun around to see a smiling woman. She was short, maybe five foot two, if that, and was wearing a black tank top and khaki low-cut shorts. Her skin was tanned golden brown, and her eyes, also brown, gave him a curious glance. ”The lawyer, right?” she asked, and Rick nodded as she took the seat across from him.

”Are you-?”

”Darla Ford,” she interrupted, extending her small hand.

Rick blinked at her in disbelief. Then as relief flooded his veins, he wiped his right hand on his pants and reached across the table.

”Rick Drake.” When his hand clasped Darla's, she held on to it for a second.

”Well, Mr. Drake, if you don't mind me saying so . . . you look like you could use a friend.”

34.

Three hundred miles away, in his cell on the A Block of the St. Clair Correctional Facility, Jack Willistone lay on his cot, staring at the concrete ceiling above him. It had been lights-out for at least three hours, but Jack couldn't sleep.

He'd answered the questions about Martha Booher as well as he could. ”An old friend. Met her in Nashville many years ago. She had been a barmaid at Tootsies, the famous bar in Nashville on Broadway Street.” They'd ”spent some time together” on Jack's trips to the Music City, but he hadn't seen her in years. She'd heard the news and just wanted to say h.e.l.lo and that she was pulling for him. It was . . . ”sweet,” Jack had said.

And all of it was true. He'd just left out one minor detail.

Our mutual friend sends his regards. He says he's looking forward to seeing you when you get out of jail.

It had been the last thing Martha said. Completely innocent, in case their conversation was being recorded. But the meaning came in loud and clear, and it was just as McMurtrie had predicted.

Bone will come for me, Jack knew. He'll come for me, and if I can't pay . . .

Jack closed his eyes, unwilling to allow himself to panic. A lot had happened since Martha's visit. He had gotten a break.

Someone had come to see him, and he had referred that person to Bone. Bone wasn't stupid. He would know the source of his newfound income. The question, though, was would it be enough?

Jack propped himself on his elbow on the cot and gazed through the steel bars. McMurtrie had put him here. In his whole life, a journey spent hustling some of the smartest and shrewdest businessmen in the country, McMurtrie was the only son of a b.i.t.c.h that ever got the best of him.

He'll figure it out, Jack knew, chuckling to himself. And when he does, Bone will either be dead or in prison for life. Either way he couldn't get at Jack.

Jack knew he could answer the riddle for them. But if he did that, he was committed. If they failed, Bone would most certainly come for him. And the referral wouldn't make a d.a.m.n. Not paying was one thing. Outright betrayal was another. I'd be a dead man walking, Jack knew.

So he'd stay on the fence and hope that McMurtrie would figure it out. Martha Booher was certainly part of it. Booher might lead them right to Bone . . .

. . . if they ever find her.

But she wasn't the only clue. There was something else.

Something else . . . right under their nose.

35.

Bocephus Haynes lowered his chest to the concrete floor. ”Forty-five,” he said out loud as if anyone in the cell could hear him. He did five more push-ups and then switched to planks. Five minutes later, when he had reached the point of physical exhaustion, he crumpled to the concrete and rolled over on his back.