FIFTEEN

Memphis, Tennessee.

Billy Joe Bennett couldn't stop sweating. Moisture oozed from his scalp, his face, his chest, his back, his legs. It rolled down his neck. It soaked his shirt. As he nervously drove through one a.m. traffic in this bar-district of the city, he felt as if he was sitting on a puddle. The problem was that he didn't sweat because of the hot humid night. In fact, he had the windows of his Chevy Blazer rolled shut and the air conditioning on full blast. Still, no matter how much he shivered from the cold air rushing against him, he couldn't stop sweating. Because he shivered from something else and sweated for the same reason. Two reasons actually. The first was tension. After all, he was due to testify before a shitload of government investigators this morning. And the second was a desperate need for cocaine.

Jesus, he thought. How could anything that made you feel so good when you snorted it put you through this much hell when you didn't have it? Billy Joe's insides ached as if every organ scraped against the other. His muscles contracted so forcefully that his cramped hands seemed about to snap the steering wheel. God Almighty. The glare of headlights stabbed his eyes. The blaze of neon signs over taverns made him wince. If I don't get some nose candy soon…

He kept glancing furtively toward his rearview mirror, desperate to make sure he wasn't being followed. Those damned government investigators were worse than bloodhounds. Since Sunday, they'd been tailing him everywhere. They had a car parked on his street when he was at home. Each day since the train's derailment, they'd forced him to give them urine samples, the tests on which he'd passed, because Billy Joe wasn't any dummy. No, siree, boy. He read the papers, and he watched the news on TV, and months ago he'd realized that random drug testing would soon be required for anyone who worked in transportation. So he'd planned for the day when he might be tested. He'd paid his brother, who never touched cocaine, to piss in a sterile jug for him. Then he'd taken the jug home, poured urine into several plastic vials, and hidden them behind the toilet tank in his bathroom. The second he'd heard about the derailment, he'd gone to the bathroom, smeared Vaseline over one of the vials, and inserted it – Lord, that had hurt! -up his rectum. And sure enough, Sunday, a government investigator had knocked on his door, shown him a court order, handed him a glass container, and requested a urine sample.

So Billy Joe had said, 'Of course. I've got nothing to hide.' He'd gone into the bathroom, locked the door, removed the plastic vial of urine from his rectum, poured the warm fluid into the glass container, returned the vial to his rectum, and come out of the bathroom, telling the investigator, 'Sorry, I don't piss so good on demand. This is the most I could coax from my bladder.'

The investigator had given him a steely look and said, 'This is all we'll need, believe me.'

'You're wasting your time.'

'Yeah, sure, we are.'

After that, Billy Joe hadn't gone anywhere without a Vaseline-slicked vial of urine up his rearend. Talk about cramps and pain. Man, oh, man. But he was a railroad worker, broad-shouldered, big-chested, from twenty years of lifting rails, shifting ties, and hefting a sledgehammer. He was tough, he told himself, right on, no two ways about it, and if those government investigators thought they could scare him, those pansies in their cheap suits had another think coming.

At the moment, though, Billy Joe did feel scared. Because on Monday, he'd used up his carefully hidden stash of cocaine, and the first day without it hadn't been too bad, a slight case of the shakes is all, but the next day his stomach had started to squirm, and the day after that, he'd thrown up and couldn't stop sweating. Now at one a.m. Thursday morning, soaking wet, trembling, doing his best to drive without wavering, he feared he'd go fucking out of his mind if he didn't get a jolt of coke soon.

Dear God in heaven, he couldn't testify before those government investigators this morning if he looked and shook and sweated like this. He couldn't keep his thoughts straight. He wouldn't be able to concentrate on their questions. He'd stammer or, worse, maybe even babble, and they'd know right away that he wasn't just nervous, like from stage fright, but suffering from withdrawal, and that would be that. He didn't know what the government could do to him if the investigators proved he was an addict, but this much he did know – he wouldn't like it one damned bit. Three hundred people were dead because that section of track had given way, toppling the train. Twenty cars of anhydrous ammonia had split open, and ever since Sunday, the newspapers had been full of stories about possible criminal negligence, even manslaughter. Shit, man, they put you away for that.

So all right, as foreman of the maintenance crew, he'd checked those tracks, and they'd looked okay to him. Granted, maybe he hadn't checked them as thoroughly as he could have, but it had been late afternoon, and he'd been eager to get back to town and snort some coke. It wasn't his fault that the jerk who owned the railway had mismanaged the business because he was too busy dipping his wick in his secretary. The dummy's wife had caught him, kicked him out of the house, divorced him, and taken him for millions. Hell, no, Billy Joe thought, it wasn't my fault that the railroad was forced to cut back on its maintenance fund so the jerk could pay his divorce settlement. If there'd been more guys checking the tracks, the accident wouldn't have happened.

But that's not my problem. No way. Not now. Never mind fixing those tracks. I'm the one who needs fixing, so I don't fall apart eight hours from now when those government investigators try to crucify me.

Again Billy Joe scowled at his rearview mirror. He'd been driving at random, watching if headlights behind him took the same routes. He'd made sharp turns, run red lights, veered down alleys, done everything he could think of, remembering all those detective and spy movies he liked to watch and the way the heroes got rid of tails. Satisfied that he hadn't been followed, he drove hurriedly from the bar district, heading toward the river. He didn't have much time. Each night at one-fifteen, his supplier set up shop for five minutes and only five minutes – at a secluded parking lot next to a warehouse close to the Mississippi.

Wiping sweat from his eyes, Billy Joe glanced at his watch. Christ, it was almost ten after. He pressed his trembling foot on the accelerator. The dark parking lot looked deserted when he steered past the warehouse and stopped. No! Don't tell me I'm late! It's one-fifteen on the button! I can't be late!

Or maybe he's late. Yeah, Billy Joe decided, heart pounding. That's what it is. He just hasn't got here yet.

At once, the headlights of another car turned into the lot. Billy Joe relaxed, then shook with sudden worry that this wasn't his supplier but government investigators who'd been tailing him. Fighting not to panic, he told himself, there's no crime in taking a drive to the river. Hey, all I have to do is tell them I couldn't sleep, I needed to relax, I felt like watching the lights of the barges on the water. Sure, no problem.

He didn't recognize the blue Ford that stopped beside him. Not a good sign but maybe not a bad one. His supplier often took the precaution of switching vehicles. But when a tall thin man wearing a T-shirt got out of the Ford, Billy Joe didn't recognize him either, and that for certain was not a good sign.

The man knocked on Billy Joe's window.

Billy Joe lowered it. 'Yeah?' He tried to sound gruff, but his shaky voice didn't manage the job.