"Brrr-" he groans.

I take one of his hands in mine and squeeze the cold flesh. "Ike? What are you saying?"

"Press me."

He must think I can stop the bleeding. "Where? Your shoulder?"

"Pressleee…"

Press lee? The nigger's dead-

Son of a bitch. No sniper hired by John Portman would talk that way. He wouldn't talk at all. The man at the other end of this building is Raymond Aucoin Presley. The trial is tomorrow, and Presley has no intention of being indicted for murder. That's why he wasn't at his trailer when I called earlier. He's been following Ike around, laying for a shot.

"Ray!" I yell at the top of my voice. "Stop shooting! I need to talk to you!"

Both windshields of Ike's cruiser star into chaos as safety glass rattles across the floor.

"What you got to say I want to hear?" comes the voice I recognize so easily now. "You want it in the head or the heart? "

I will live or die by my actions in the next minute. "Listen to me, Ray! You want to hear this!"

"/ want to hear you choke on your own blood!"

Every hair on my body is standing erect. Presley isn't nearly as far away as he was a moment ago. He's moving up for a kill shot. Crawling to the left side of the cruiser, I fire two quick rounds into the dark, then dart back to avoid return fire aimed at my muzzle flash.

"Not even close, boy."

The tire beside my head explodes into ragged strips of rubber as Presley's next shot reverberates through the building. When the echo dies, I call: "You want to know who sent you to Parchman, Ray? I think you'll be surprised."

He fires again, smashing up a divot of cement beside Ike's head.

"Parchman, Ray! Didn't you ever wonder who ratted you out?"

Silence. Then: "Talk fast, boy, I'm getting close!"

He is close. It takes every bit of nerve I possess to hold my ground. "It was Marston, Ray! Leo sent you up! Stone solved the murder, but Hoover didn't want Leo going down for it. Leo's old man had too much political clout. Hoover cut a deal to protect him, but he said you had to go down for shooting at Stone and Portman on the highway. It was Leo who gave you up!"

"That's bullshit!" For the first time the voice has come from more or less the same place.

"Stone said Marston didn't even hesitate! He fed the state police details of your drug business so they could catch you in the act. That's why Stone was at the bust!"

"You lying piece of shit! You're just trying to save your own ass!"

He's buying it. "Leo didn't give a shit about you, Ray. How else do you think they got you? You must have had a lot of time to think about it. Five years, man!"

More silence.

"Ray?"

No sound at all. Nothing but the slow ticking of the two cars, barely audible through the ringing in my ears. The son of a bitch is probably moving up to kill me, and if I don't move, I'm going to die. But if I break for the door, I'm framing myself for a shot. Shivering against Ike's body, I realize that I no longer hear his breathing. His eyes are still open, but they are fixed and dilated.

Ike the Spike is dead.

"Ray…? Talk to me, Ray!"

Nothing.

The loading door beckons. But as I gather my legs beneath me, Ruby Flowers's voice sounds in my head, an echo from childhood. "Broad is the gate that leads to destruction, but narrow the way that leads to salvation…"

To my left-in what must be a corner of the old shelling plant-is a pool of darkness so black it could be the bottom of the Marianas Trench. My legs are tensed beneath me like steel springs. Gripping Ike's gun in my right hand, I launch myself low and hard toward that black hole. As the darkness envelops me, a stroke of lightning flashes in my brain, and I know no more.

Consciousness returns like blood to a sleeping limb.

Pain is the first sensation.

Then light.

The pain radiates from my forehead. The light is faint but real, thirty yards away, illuminating a parked police car. Not a police car. A sheriff's cruiser.

Ike's cruiser.

I roll over slowly and feel along the cold cement for Ike's gun. My right wrist bangs into something cold and immovable. I touch it with my hand and feel along it. A steel rail. It's one loading arm of a forklift. That's what I slammed into when I ran into the pool of darkness. A goddamn forklift.

The gun is underneath the fork.

Closing my hand around its butt, I get to my feet and walk toward Ike's car. Strangely, I am unafraid. Unafraid because I know I'm alone. If I wasn't, I would be dead. Ray finally believed what I was telling him, and once he did, his priorities changed.

At the edge of the darkness I look at my watch. Eight forty-five. I met Ike around eight. Ray started shooting about ten minutes after we started talking. I don't know how long the shooting lasted, but he's had at least twenty minutes to reach the target I offered up to him to save myself.

Ike's body lies behind his cruiser, where I dragged it in that last furious rush. His eyes are open but unseeing. I feel his carotid artery to be sure, then hold my hand over his mouth.

Nothing.

Climbing into the Maxima, I start the engine and dial Tuscany on the cell phone. While it rings, I floor the accelerator and make a wide squealing turn on the cement floor, then roar through the main loading door. The phone clicks as I hit Canal Street and nearly skid into the curb on the other side.

"Liv Marston," says a clipped voice. "If you're a reporter-"

"It's Perm."

"What do you want?" The voice hasn't warmed even one degree.

"I know you don't want to listen to me, but you've got to."

"Is it about the trial?"

"No. You've got to get out of the house."

"What?"

I hesitate before I reply. Some savage part of me wants to get Livy away and leave her father to face the retribution of his past. Poetic justice, if ever there was any. But I can't do it.

"Ray Presley's on his way to Tuscany. He's going to try to kill your father. He could already be at your house. Or on the grounds somewhere."

Silence.

"Did you hear me, Livy?"

"I heard you."

"Tell your father to call the police. They'll send an army out there to protect him."

"Are we done now?"

Are we done? "Did you understand what I just told you? Presley is coming there to kill your father."

"I hope he comes here."

"You what?"

A police car tears around the corner of Main and Canal, lights flashing, heading in the direction of the pecan-shelling plant. In fifteen minutes every cop and deputy in this town will be combing the downtown streets.

"You're playing in things you don't understand, Penn. I tried to tell you the other day. You were a fool to involve yourself in any of this."

"I understand more than you think. I know now why you did the things you did in the past. The choices you made."

"Such as?"

"I don't want to discuss it on the phone. It has to be face to face."

"We don't have anything to say to each other."

"I'm begging you, Livy. Meet me one last time. For the sake of whatever it is that's bound us together all these years. If you will, I think it will change both our lives. Maybe forever."

This time she hesitates. "It's not about the trial?"

"I don't give a damn what happens at the trial. Name a place. Anywhere, I don't care. I'll even come to Tuscany."

"No. Jewish Hill."

"Jewish Hill?" Yet another landmark from our past. "In the cemetery?"

"That's about as private as you can get." "Isn't it locked at night?"

"Park at the foot of the hill. By the wall. It's not like we've never done it before."

"Do you still have the gun you had in the motel?"

"Yes."

"Bring it. And drive fast leaving the house."

"What time?"

"I'm five minutes from the cemetery. Leave now."

"All right."