“Bring him on,” Meave said. “We’ll find a place.”

They left town thirty minutes later, in Ray’s rental car. Forrest’s Jeep was parked behind the house, for good measure.

“Are you sure these guys won’t be snooping around here?” Ray said.

“They have no idea where I’m from,” Forrest replied. His head was back on the headrest, his eyes hidden behind funky sunshades.

“Who are they, exactly?”

“Some really nice guys from south Memphis. You’d like them.”

“And you owe them money?”

“Yes.”

“How much?”

“Four thousand dollars.”

“And where did this four thousand bucks go?”

Forrest gently tapped his nose. Ray shook his head in frustration and anger and bit his tongue to hold back another bitter lecture. Let some miles pass, he told himself. They were in the country now. farmland on both sides. t,

Forrest began snoring.

This would be another Forrest tale, the third time Ray actually loaded him up and hauled him away for detox. The last time had been almost twelve years earlier—the Judge was still presiding, Claudia still at his side, Forrest doing more drugs than anyone in the state. Things had been normal. The narcs had cast a wide net around him, and through blind luck Forrest had sneaked through it. They suspected he was dealing, which was true, and had they caught him he would still be in prison. Ray had driven him to a state hospital near the coast, one the Judge had pulled strings to get him into. There, he slept for a month then walked away.

The first brotherly journey to rehab had been during Ray’s law school years at Tulane. Forrest had overdosed on some vile combination of pills. They pumped his stomach and almost pronounced him dead. The Judge sent them to a compound near Knoxville with locked gates and razor wire. Forrest stayed a week before escaping.

He’d been to jail twice, once as a juvenile, once as an adult, though he was only nineteen. His first arrest was just before a high school football game, Friday night, the playoffs, in Clanton with the entire town waiting for kickoff. He was sixteen, a junior, an all-conference quarterback and safety, a kamikaze who loved to hit late and spear with his helmet. The narcs plucked him from the dressing room and led him away in handcuffs. The backup was an untested freshman, and when Clanton got slaughtered the town never forgave Forrest Atlee.

Ray had been sitting in the stands with the Judge, anxious as everyone else about the game. “Where’s Forrest?” folks began asking during pregame. When the coin was tossed he was in the city jail getting fingerprinted and photographed. They found fourteen ounces of marijuana in his car.

He spent two years in a juvenile facility and was released on his eighteenth birthday.

How does the sixteen-year-old son of a prominent judge become a dope pusher in a small Southern town with no history of drugs? Ray and his father had asked each other that question a thousand times. Only Forrest knew the answer, and long ago he had made the decision to keep it to himself. Ray was thankful that he buried most of his secrets. . :

After a nice nap, Forrest jolted himself awake and announced he needed something to drink.

“No,” Ray said.

“A soft drink, I swear.”

They stopped at a country store and bought sodas. For breakfast Forrest had a bag of peanuts.

“Some of these places have good food,” he said when they were moving again. Forrest the tour guide for detox centers. Forrest the Michelin critic for rehab units. “I usually lose a few pounds,” he said, chomping.

“Do they have gyms and such?” Ray asked, aiding the conversation. He really didn’t want to discuss the perks of various drug tanks.

“Some do,” Forrest said smugly. “Ellie sent me to this place in Florida near a beach, lots of sand and water, lots of sad rich folks. Three days of brainwashing, then they worked our asses off. Hikes, bikes, power walks, weights if we wanted. I got a great tan and dropped fifteen pounds. Stayed clean for eight months.”

In his sad little life, everything was measured by stints of sobriety.

“Ellie sent you?” Ray asked.

“Yeah, it was years ago. She had a little dough at one point, not much. I’d hit the bottom, and it was back when she cared. It was a nice place, though, and some of the counselors were those Florida chicks with short skirts and long legs.”

“I’ll have to check it out.”

“Kiss my ass.”

‘Just kidding.”

“There’s this place out West where all the stars go, the Hacienda, and it’s the Ritz. Plush rooms, spas, daily massages, chefs who can fix great meals at one thousand calories a day. And the counselors are the best in the world. That’s what I need, Bro, six months at the Hacienda.”

“Why six months?”

“Because I need six months. I’ve tried two months, one month, three weeks, two weeks, it’s not enough. For me, it’s six months of total lockdown, total brainwashing, total therapy, plus my own masseuse.” . .

“What’s the cost?”

Forrest whistled and rolled his eyes. “Pick a number. I don’t know. You gotta have a zillion bucks and two recommendations to get in. Imagine that, a letter of recommendation. ‘To the Fine Folks at the Hacienda: I hereby heartily recommend my friend Doofus Smith as a patient in your wonderful facility. Doofus drinks vodka for breakfast, snorts coke for lunch, snacks on heroin, and is usually comatose by dinner. His brain is fried, his veins are lacerated, his liver is shot to hell. Doofus is your kind of person and his old man owns Idaho.’ ”

“Do they keep people for six months?”

“You’re clueless, aren’t you?”

“I guess.”

“A lot of cokeheads need a year. Even more for heroin addicts.”

And which is your current poison? Ray wanted to ask. But then he didn’t want to. “A year?” he said.

“Yep, total lockdown. And then the addict has to do it himself. I know guys who’ve been to prison for three years with no coke, no crack, no drugs at all, and when they were released they called a dealer before they called their wives or girlfriends.”

“What happens to them?”

“It’s not pretty.” He threw the last of the peanuts into his mouth, slapped his hands together, and sent salt flying.

THERE WERE no signs directing traffic to Alcorn Village. They followed Oscar’s directions until they were certain they were lost deep in the hills, then saw a gate in the distance. Down a tree-lined drive, a complex spread before them. It was peaceful and secluded, and Forrest gave it good marks for first impressions.

Oscar Meave arrived in the lobby of the administration building and guided them to an intake office, where he handled the initial paperwork himself. He was a counselor, an administrator, a psychologist, an ex-addict who’d cleaned himself up years ago and received two Ph.D.’s. He wore jeans, a sweatshirt, sneakers, a goatee, and two earrings, and had the wrinkles and chipped tooth of a rough prior life. But his voice was soft and friendly. He exuded the tough compassion of one who’d been where Forrest was now.

The cost was $325 a day and Oscar was recommending a minimum of four weeks. “After that, we’ll see where he is. I’ll need to ask some pretty rough questions about what Forrest has been doing.”

“I don’t want to hear that conversation,” Ray said.

“You won’t,” Forrest said. He was resigned to the flogging that was coming.

“And we require half the money up front,” Oscar said. “The other half before his treatment is complete.”

Ray flinched and tried to remember the balance in his checking account back in Virginia. He had plenty of cash, but this was not the time to use it.

“The money is coming out of my father’s estate,” Forrest said. “It might take a few days.”

Oscar was shaking his head. “No exceptions. Our policy is half now.”

“No problem,” said Ray. “I’ll write a check for it.”