Neon Prey (Lucas Davenport #29)(3)

Paine screamed as the bottle flew off somewhere and smashed into even more pieces. Paine grabbed Deese by the shirt, with his working arm, and swung him toward the couch. Deese involuntarily sat down as the couch hit him behind the knees, but he had the stick free again and this time hit Paine on the side of the head and Paine went down. Deese clambered to his feet and whipped the other man hard across the top of his back—once, twice, three times—and then pinned the broken arm, and Paine screamed again. And Deese screamed back, “Motherfucker!”

He smashed the knob of the cane into the hand of the broken arm—once, then again, and again and again—then kicked Paine over. Paine raised the other, unbroken arm just in time to catch the next blow on the forearm, which broke, and Deese pinned that arm with his foot and began beating the hand, shattering the bones. Deese was hurting and bleeding, which he hadn’t expected, and was screaming “Motherfucker! Motherfucker! Motherfucker!” in time to the beating. Paine rolled up on his side, not screaming but choking and in pain, and with Deese’s pant leg now pulled up, Paine, with no other weapon, bit him on the calf, like a feral tomcat, wrenching his head from side to side as his teeth sank in.

Deese screeched again and dealt Paine a glancing blow on the head as Paine came away from Deese’s leg with a half-dollar-sized chunk of meat in his mouth. He tried to roll away, but now Deese, still howling “Motherfucker!” over and over, began beating Paine on the upper arm and back with the walking stick and was so angry, with blood in his eyes and mouth now—his own blood—that it took him a few seconds to realize a young woman was standing in the doorway, gawking at them.

He straightened and looked at her. When she ran off, he staggered toward the door but tripped over one of the couch cushions and went down, cracking his head on the arm of the couch. Dazed, he floundered for a moment, then crawled to the door, his stick in his hand, and looked down the walkway . . . but nobody was there.

Wherever she’d gone, he thought, she was calling the cops. This was not one of those live-and-let-live places; she’d definitely be on the phone. He looked back at Paine, who was lying motionless on the carpet. Blood everywhere. Maybe he’d hit him too hard? He’d sort of let it out there.

Had to get out of there . . .

He half jogged, half limped out to his car, wiping blood from his eyes. Didn’t see the woman come back out on the walkway with her cell phone, taking the video that would help hang him.

The cops came for him later that day.

He’d gotten all cleaned up . . . But then they pulled up his pant leg, ripped off the newly applied bandage, and looked at the half-dollar-sized hole.

Nothing to say about that, except, “I want a lawyer.”


OKAY.

Seven months later.

Two dusty dark blue Chevy Tahoes turned off Louisiana 405, away from the Mississippi River and the levee, into the patchwork of black-earth cotton fields and woodlots. A quarter mile in, they slowed as they approached a dirt side road. Rae Givens, who was driving the lead vehicle, peered down the road and asked, “You sure this is right? Looks like a jungle back there.”

Her partner, Bob Matees, said, “Checks on mileage . . .” He looked at his cell phone. “And on the GPS. It seems right, as far as I could tell from the satellite pictures.”

“Wouldn’t want to come out here at night,” Rae said, as she rolled off the highway and onto the dirt track. “The mosquitoes gotta be the size of crows.”

“Or at noon. It’s already hot as a bitch out there,” Bob said. Though it was only ten o’clock, and not yet summer, they could see waves of heat coming off the blacktop.

“Dependin’ on which bitch you be talking about,” Rae said, falling into her phony hip-hop accent. Rae was a six-foot-tall black woman with a degree in art history from UConn, where she’d been a starting guard on an NCAA championship basketball team.

“Have I mentioned snakes?” Bob asked. Bob was a short, wide white man with a soft Southern accent, a onetime wrestler at the University of Oklahoma.

“No, and you don’t have to,” Rae said. She took the turn onto the dirt road, a two-track with weeds growing up between the tracks. “Where’s that turnoff?”

“Maybe . . . another hundred yards.”

There was no particular reason that they could see for there being a turnoff when they got to it: a crescent of hard-packed dirt sliced back into the jungle, partially occupied by an aging Ford F-150 with a camper back.

A man had opened the back of the camper, and they could see a cot, and, on the wall opposite the cot, a small television set with rabbit ears. He turned toward them when they pulled in, looking doubtfully at the two oversized vehicles. He was slender, middle height, with close-cropped hair the color of wheat, wearing a short-sleeved blue shirt with sweat stains at the armpits, wear-creased jeans, and boots.

Bob and Rae climbed out of the truck. They were both wearing blue T-shirts with “U.S. MARSHAL” emblazoned across both the chest and back, khaki fatigue pants, and combat boots. Both had marshal badges and guns clipped to their belts. Bob nodded to the man and asked, “How you doin’?”

“Doin’ fine, sir.”

“You live roundabouts?”

“Well, sir, I live right here,” the man said. He patted the side of his truck. “Come down looking for work in the oil,” he said, though he actually said “oll,” the way Texans do. The far side of the Mississippi was lined with chemical plants. “Sorta using this as my scoutin’ headquarters.”