Hank took the room next to me and the blond.

That night Julie and I made frantic love in the dark. We didn’t speak.

Several times during the night I awoke to get up and scan the parking lot. There was only one other vehicle, and it looked like it hadn’t moved from its spot in quite some time.

Finally, I was able to sleep the sleep of the just and had dreams of Julie, Hank and me in plaster casts. Dingo drove the Suburban and sang with Hank Williams, Jr.’s voice.

“Kathy, it’s Bill Travis.”

“Hi Bill Travis. You’re up early.”

“And you’re at work early. Did you even go home last night?”

“Of course. Contrary to popular belief, librarians do have a life.”

“But a quiet one,” I said.

“‘Tis true. ‘Tis true. Bill, that research you wanted me to do?”

“Yeah?”

“Interesting stuff.”

“Tell me more.”

“Well, for starters, there was a whole gang of people running that town up there, but you were right, two chiefly. Bryan ‘Whitey’ J. Walker and Matthew Carpin.”

“I know what happened to Walker. What about Carpin?”

“He went into hiding, then about ten years later he was suddenly legitimate. Made a killing racing horses. He was always watched, though. The J. Edgar Hoover crowd had his number.”

“I’ll bet,” I said. I looked over at Julie, still asleep under tousled covers. The light from the new day streamed through cracks between the window curtains.

“And money? According to the Amarillo Globe, in 1927 the two most profitable legitimate businesses were the sheriff’s office and the undertaker.”

“I’ll bet.”

“There’s more. You said something about a U.S. Marshal. There was one. He went into that den of thieves and was never seen again. I think that’s why Carpin was watched after all those years. I got copies of reports and letters from the state archives. The FBI writing to the Governor’s office, demanding help with the continued investigation. Looks like they never found that poor man.”

“What was the marshal’s name, Kathy?”

“Jonathan Johannsen. They called him ‘Jack’, which was short for ‘Blackjack’.

“Thanks, Kathy. I owe you.”

“Sure do. Bye, Bill Travis.”

“Bye.”

I scanned the parking lot outside.

Nothing.

I got Julie up and by the time we were showered and cleaned up and ready to go, Hank and Dingo were sitting in the Suburban with the back flung open. Hank was tossing bacon strips into the air for Dingo to catch.

“Bacon?” I asked. “Where’d you get bacon?”

“Down the road. A little diner. Your kind of place, too.”

“What’s that mean?”

“Soul food,” he said and tossed another strip of fat bacon into the air. Dingo gobbled it down instantly.

“Oh,” I said. “You already had breakfast, then?”

“Nope. Waitin’ for you two. Had to feed the dog, though.”

“Okay,” Julie said. “I need coffee. Let’s go.”

We parked in front on a wall that was covered with a mass of ivy. The name of the restaurant was “Jerry’s Place”, an ancient brick and clapboard affair that looked as though it had started off life as a 1920s gas station and had gone through a long series of abandonments before finding its highest and best use as a soul food restaurant. The front door was little more than a couple of clapboards grafted onto steel mesh with baling wire, but the blue paint looked fairly fresh. It didn’t come off on my hands.

The hours were prominently displayed:

OPEN EARLY — CLOSE LATE

Walking into the place was like coming home. It had that day-old bread smell to it that is common among such establishments, but beyond that it had a shabbiness and a Spartan utility that combined in such a way as to command comfort. There were checkered tablecloths, though they were covered in thick clear plastic that had molded itself into a permanent shape, and smooth, straight-backed hardwood chairs. Also the lighting was slightly dim. We passed a table that had a box of yellowed dominoes on it that looked older than myself.

We took a table in the corner near an old jukebox. I took a look at the selections. It was a museum piece, with seventies disco music mixed in with Marvin Gaye and trucker music. It looked as though it was either out of service or that none of the clientele was willing to risk hard-earned money in it.

“Some place, ain’t it?” Hank said.

I could smell the kitchen already, and knew the food was going to be good.

“You haven’t lived, Hank,” I said, “until you’ve tried pork chops that melt off the bone and collard greens that have been steeping since New Year’s.”

“Stop it, Bill,” Julie said. “Damn but I’m hungry.”

The proprietor was a heavyset black woman with a cherubic smile and wide eyes. She seemed pleased to see us. The menus were pieces of tan-colored stiff-backed paper run through a copy machine.

“What’ll you folks have to drink?” she said.

“Coffee,” Hank said. “All around.”

“Fine. Be just a minute.”

We spent a few minutes looking over the menu and discussing it. We were all looking forward to breakfast. It was too bad when we realized we wouldn’t be getting any.

We heard the twang of the screen door opening and thought little of it at the moment. Julie was facing away from the door and I had my back almost directly to it, but Hank was sitting there looking over my shoulder, not saying a word.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

“Howdy,” Hank said.

I became conscious of the gun pointed at my head and the other one, a sawed-off double-barreled shotgun leveled across the table at Hank.

“Ever’body just be cool,” the man with the shotgun said.

“Oh shit,” Julie said, then quickly: “Hi, Jake. Hi, Freddie.”

“Hi, yourself,” the one with the pistol aimed at me said.

“What can we do for you fellahs?” Hank asked, as calm as you please. He lifted his coffee cup and sipped.

“We’re taking you back, Miss Julie,” Jake with the shotgun said.

“Oh,” Julie said. “I’m going back, alright. But it’s to get Jessica out of there.”

“Ain’t gonna happen,” the other one-Freddie-said.

“What the hell?” Three plates shattered on the hardwood floor almost simultaneously. Our waitress had picked the wrong moment to come out of the kitchen.

The two guns swung to cover her and the shotgun discharged across the table. A hole about a foot wide appeared in the back of a chair one table over and the chair flew end over end.

“Shit,” Hank yelled.

Pistol-toting Freddie got my left elbow in his gut just as his gun swung back toward me. The pistol butt almost connected with my head, but I ducked just in time.

I was dimly aware of several things going on at once: first, that I couldn’t hear all that well, second, that Hank was already out of his chair and grappling with the shotgun, that our waitress was screaming her fool head off and that Julie was using Jake-shotgun boy-as a punching bag.

I had my legs under me and sudden adrenaline working in my favor. As Freddie bent double I launched myself at him with all my weight. The chair underneath me toppled as I left it and I came down on top of him, hard.

I had the wrist from his gun hand in my grip and I slammed it hard into the floor. The pistol, an old Luger, dislodged from his fingers and rattled across the floor.

“You sonuvabitch,” he said. I felt a stinging sensation upside my face. He’d cuffed me a good one.

I reached up, grabbed a handful of greasy hair and forced his head down into the floor, once, twice. After the second time around he stopped moving.

The table where we’d been sitting toppled over and came down on my foot, the one that had been hit by Jake and Freddie’s truck. For an instant I felt the most exquisite, keen-edged, electric-blue pain.

I bit down hard into my lip to keep from screaming, rolled over onto my back and yanked my pulsing foot from underneath the table. A ketchup bottle rolled past my ear.