White Hot

by Sandra Brown

  “So do I,” Beck said. “And any discussion of that ends here.” He gave Huff a hard look, then turned back to Chris. “I stopped by to bring Huff up to speed on several issues.” He enumerated the topics like bullet points on an interoffice memo.

  “Those are hardly trivialities,” Chris said. “You couldn’t have waited on me to have this conference? It’s becoming a habit of yours to cut me out of the loop.”

  “It wasn’t intentional, Chris. Huff asked and—”

  “He answered,” Huff said, interrupting. “He can fill you in on the details later, Chris. Right now, there’s something else we need to discuss. It’s serious and it concerns Sayre.”

  “I told you, the subject is closed.”

  “It’s not about that, Beck. It’s something else.”

  Chris sipped his whiskey. “I can hardly wait. What’s my dear little sister up to now?”

  chapter 22

  It was Saturday night, and Slap Watkins had nowhere to go.

  Since ten o’clock that morning, he’d been drinking in a honky-tonk located so deep in the swamp that unless you knew it was there, you’d never find it. The anonymity was intentional. The clientele seldom went by the names on their birth certificates and took exception to nosy questions.

  He’d played a lot of pool and lost heavily on his gambles. Then a woman with a missing front tooth and a nose ring had turned down his offer to buy her a drink. She looked at his ears and laughed out loud. “I ain’t that thirsty.”

  Following that rejection, he’d made his stumbling exit from the place, asking himself who needed that kind of abuse. Slap had never been a happy drunk. Instead, spirits tended to make him surly. The drunker he was, the nastier his disposition. Tonight he was extremely drunk.

  His piss factor went off the charts when he returned to the buddy’s house where he’d been staying. “They came looking for you, man.” The guy—right then Slap was a little foggy on his name—was blocking the door with his bony body, talking to him through a rusty screen, which was uncomfortably reminiscent of the rare visits he’d had from friends while in prison.

  “Who did?”

  “Two deputies from the sheriff’s office. ’Bout four o’clock this afternoon. My ol’ lady wigged out.”

  She would. She operated a meth lab out of the bathroom. “They say what they wanted me for?”

  “Naw. But as they were getting back in their squad car, I overheard one of them say something about Hoyle. Anyhow, my ol’ lady says you can’t stay here no more, Slap. Sorry, man, but fuck . . .” He raised his knobby shoulders in a shrug. “You know how it is.”

  Swell. So now he had nowhere to stay, and—this was the clincher—the sheriff’s office was looking for him. He couldn’t buy a break, could he? Story of his life.

  He’d been initiated into violence by a father who beat him regularly and further coached by a passel of siblings who teased him about his ears. Their ridicule was merciless. He had learned to defend himself just as ruthlessly. He belonged to a clan of short-tempered, hotheaded brawlers whose sole resolution to even the slightest tiff involved some form of weaponry, even if it was one’s own hands, feet, or teeth.

  Those violent tendencies were percolating inside him now as he sped along a back road on his motorcycle. Everything he owned was packed in a roll tied behind the seat. He was trying to think clearly and calmly, but his brain was pickled in cheap alcohol, making his reasoning powers a bit dodgy, which was unfortunate because he had some serious decisions to make.

  First off, where was he going to light? With kin-folk? He had them spread all over southern Louisiana, but he didn’t like any of them much. His uncle reminded him of his late daddy, and Slap had hated that mean son of a bitch. Most of his relatives had whining kids who got on his nerves.

  A few weeks ago a cousin had agreed to let him sleep on his living room sofa. But after only one night he’d accused Slap of entertaining impure thoughts about his wife. Slap had laughed and said she was so butt ugly that only a blind man could entertain impure thoughts about her.

  Actually she wasn’t that ugly, and he hadn’t only entertained impure thoughts but had acted on them with her practically begging him to, and urging him to hurry up and finish before her old man got back from the store with the six-pack of Bud and a jar of mayonnaise she’d sent him after.

  But in any case, the accusation had put an end to that. He’d moved out and started mooching off friends.

  There were lots of them scattered around, too. But now he’d been kicked out of one place because the law was looking for him. Word got around. He’d be like a man with a contagious disease. None of his friends would want him bunking under their roofs.

  And why had two deputies come around looking for him?

  Well, duh.

  He didn’t want to think the worst, but he wasn’t stupid. They’d mentioned Hoyle, and Slap would bet his left nut they were referring to the one recently deceased.

  Afterward, he thought he must have been guided by a sub . . . sublim . . . sub-something thought. What did you call those messages deep inside your brain that made you do stuff before you were even aware of it? He didn’t think he had a destination in mind, but he must have. Because he found himself on the pretty rural road where the Hoyles lived.

  Yep, there it was, their mansion, sitting among oak trees so perfect they looked fake, like something in a movie. The sun was setting behind the house, outlining it in gold. It was large enough to house a whole cell block. One thing you could say about it, it was prettier and cleaner than their foundry. He drove past the estate, along a white rail fence that looked harmless enough, but Slap wouldn’t trust it not to be wired with electricity.

  The sonsabitches. Thought they were the lords of the land. They for goddamn sure lived like it, didn’t they?

  As he drove past the house a second time, he saw Chris Hoyle jog down the front steps and climb into his silver Porsche. Slap sped up so he wouldn’t be seen spying on the house. Luckily, when Chris drove out of the lane, he turned in the opposite direction. Slap made a U-turn and followed at a safe distance.

  Hoyle didn’t go far before turning off the road and driving through an open gate. The house at the end of the drive was much smaller than the Hoyles’, but it was a damn sight better than anything Slap had ever lived in.

  Beck Merchant, Hoyle’s trusty sidekick, came out the front door and got into the Porsche. Again, Slap sped up and went past Merchant’s house so they wouldn’t see him. He grinned into the hot air that whipped against his face. Whatever their plans were for this Saturday night, they were about to change.

  • • •

  Beck hadn’t wanted to go out with Chris tonight.

  He’d spent an idle Saturday at home. He’d washed his pickup and given Frito a bath and good brushing. These were activities that he could do while trying to unravel the problems besetting him.

  When Chris had called late that afternoon and invited him to go out, he’d declined. But Chris had been persuasive. “We haven’t been out together since Danny died. We’ve been on edge with each other because of all the crap that’s going on. Let’s go out and forget about our troubles for a few hours.”

  “Where are we headed?” Beck asked now. Chris was driving away from town.

  “I thought the Razorback.”

  “I don’t want to go there. It’s too boozy, noisy, and crowded.”

  Chris cut a glance at him. “You’re getting old, Beck.”

  “I’m just not in the mood for it tonight.”

  “Thinking about my sister?”

  Chris was heckling him, but he responded seriously. “In fact, that’s exactly what I’m thinking about. What is she after?”

  “I don’t have a clue.”

  That was what Chris had said yesterday after Huff told them that Sayre had been making the rounds of the jurors on Chris’s trial. “She’s talking to anyone who’ll talk to her.”

  When Beck had asked why she was doing that, both Hu
ff and Chris had pled ignorance. They had shrugged as though befuddled by Sayre’s activities and what had prompted them. But their worry over it was inconsistent with their claim to be clueless. Huff hadn’t liked her talking to those jurors. Nor had Chris. That bothered Beck greatly.

  Chris interrupted his reverie by asking, “What’s this?”

  “What?” Beck turned around to see what had attracted Chris’s attention in his rearview mirror. A motorcycle was behind them, and it was roaring up fast.

  “Wasn’t he driving past my house as I came out?” Beck asked rhetorically. Then, “Oh, hell. That’s—”

  “Our friend Slap Watkins. I thought Red was handling that situation.”

  “Obviously he hasn’t found him yet.” Beck reached for the cell phone clipped to his belt, intending to call the sheriff. “You can outrun him in this, but try and keep him in sight. I’ll give Red our location. Maybe we can keep Watkins busy long enough for Red to get here.”

  Just as he said that, the motorcycle rammed the back of the Porsche.

  Chris cursed lavishly. He sped up, then shouted, “Hold on!” Less than a second later, he stamped on the brakes. Beck hadn’t had time to brace himself before the tightening seat belt caught him hard across his chest.

  Averting a total disaster, in which Chris and Beck would probably have been decapitated as the bike sailed over the Porsche, Watkins managed to cut his front wheel sharply to the left. It clipped the left rear fender of the Porsche before skidding across the road on its side, Slap’s left leg beneath it. He pulled himself free, got to his feet, then came at them in a hopping-running limp while shaking his fist and yelling obscenities.

  Beck’s phone had been jarred from his hand when Chris hit the car’s brakes. Unbuckling his seat belt, he searched the floorboard for it.

  “Call Red. I’ll take care of this.” Before Beck could advise against it, Chris got out of the car and immediately went on the offensive.

  “You must want to talk to me real bad, Slap.”

  “You know what I want.”

  “More Hoyle blood, I assume.”

  Slap cut his eyes toward Beck, who’d just retrieved his phone from the floorboard. “Drop it, Merchant!”

  “Not until you back down and cool off.”

  Suddenly looking nervous and indecisive, Slap licked his lips before swinging his gaze back to Chris, who said, “My brother’s blood wasn’t enough for you?”

  “Is that why the sheriff’s looking for me?”

  “Unless you’ve killed somebody else.”

  He took one lurching step toward Chris. “You goddamn—”

  That was all he got out before Chris bent double and head-butted Slap in his midsection, sending him reeling backward. Slap reacted with the reflexes of a habitual fighter. Beck quickly pressed 911 on his phone, then tossed it onto the seat, knowing that the emergency call would be traced to their location.

  He clambered out the passenger door but hadn’t noticed that the car had stopped on the shoulder of the road. He didn’t anticipate the deep ditch and stepped into it hard, lost his footing, and fell. By the time he got back on his feet and climbed out of the ditch, Chris and Slap were standing on either side of the white stripe in the center of the road, frozen in a tableau that crackled with tension.

  Chris was holding his arm against his side. Blood seeped through his fingers. Slap looked down at the knife in his hand, blinking at it stupidly as it dripped blood onto the hot tarmac. Lifting his head, he looked at Chris with an expression of stunned disbelief. Then he turned on his heel and ran back to the motorcycle.

  Chris took several staggering steps after him.

  “Let him go.” Beck grabbed a handful of Chris’s shirt and held him back. “They’ll get him.” Chris’s knees buckled, and he dropped to the ground.

  Slap righted his bike, hopped onto it, and as soon as the motor roared to life, he sped away. In the still night, the sound was deafening.

  Beck helped Chris to his feet and ushered him around to the passenger side of the car. “Watch your step. We’re on the edge of the ditch. Are you all right?”

  Chris nodded, then muttered, “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine.” Glancing down at his arm, he said, “Cock-sucker cut me.”

  “I called nine-one-one.” As he put Chris in the seat, Beck picked up his phone. “Shit! They’ve got me on hold!”

  “I’m fine, Beck. It’s only a flesh wound.”

  Beck looked at the arm Chris extended to him. A long cut ran from his biceps to his wrist. The wound didn’t appear to be deep, but darkness had fallen and there were no lights by which to see. It might be more severe than it looked. “You don’t know where that knife has been.”

  “Take me to Doc Caroe. He’ll give me an antibiotic.”

  Chris wouldn’t hear of being taken to the emergency room. Beck gave up trying to insist and called Red Harper instead. The sheriff wasn’t available, but a dispatcher took down all the information. “Tell Red we’re on our way to Dr. Caroe’s house.”

  By the time Beck had completed his call, they had reached the neat brick home of the family physician. He had settled in for an evening of HBO, he told them when he answered the door in his pajamas. Like all his clothing, they were several sizes too large and made him look like a gnome as he led them down a dim and narrow hallway into a room at the rear of his house that was outfitted to serve as an examination room.

  “This was where my father practiced medicine for over fifty years,” he explained to Beck. “Even after I set up the office on Lafayette Street and renovated this house, I kept this room ready to treat emergencies.”

  He concurred with Chris that the knife wound, while ugly, wasn’t deep enough to require stitches. He cleaned it with antiseptic that stung so bad it brought tears to Chris’s eyes, then wound it in a gauze bandage. “I’m going to give you a buttful of antibiotic. Drop your pants.”

  Chris got the injection and as he was readjusting his trousers said, “Are we all agreed not to tell Huff about this?”

  “Why not?” Caroe asked absently as he placed the disposable syringe into a hazardous waste container affixed to the wall.

  “Hearing that his only surviving son was knifed may not be good for his heart.”

  Caroe looked at Chris blankly for several seconds, then said, “Ah, right, right. Good thinking. Too soon after his heart attack.”

  “He’ll hear about it from Red anyway,” Beck said. “If we don’t tell him, he’ll be mad as hell and his blood pressure will still go up.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” Chris said. “Let’s at least hold off until tomorrow, though. I’ll tell him over breakfast. Maybe by that time Watkins will be in custody and Huff won’t get too upset.”

  As they were leaving, Red Harper arrived. “We’ve got an APB out on Watkins’s motorcycle,” he said as he got out of his car and approached them. “Officers are focusing on the roads in the vicinity of where you saw him. How’s your arm, Chris?”

  “It’ll be fine. Just find Slap and be quick about it.”

  “Problem is, he’s got kinfolk and cronies all over the place, in every surrounding parish. Lots of places to hide in the swamp, and those people don’t rat each other out. You start asking questions, they clam up, and you can’t pry information out of them with a crowbar.”

  “Do you know where he’s been living since his release from prison?” Chris asked.

  “He’s supposed to be staying with his daddy’s people. That’s according to his parole officer. But I went to see his uncle today and he said Slap left weeks ago. It was his understanding he was staying with friends.” He told them about canvassing several places that afternoon. “Everybody we talked to played dumb, but somebody’s lying. We’ll start making the rounds again tonight.”

  “Exercise caution,” Chris said. “He knows you’re looking for him.”

  “So he’s been tipped?”

  Beck said, “When Chris mentioned Danny, Slap immediately asked if that’s why you were
looking for him.”

  “Have search warrants handy,” Chris suggested. “You might come across something linking him to Danny.”

  Red dashed that optimistic possibility. “I wouldn’t count on Slap being caught with hard evidence. He’s no Einstein, but he’s not that dumb.”

  “You’re probably right,” Chris said grimly. “But as sure as I’m standing here, he killed my brother.”

  Red promised to keep them updated, then returned to his car and drove away. Chris instructed Dr. Caroe to send him a bill, and the doctor told him he could count on it.

  “Not quite the evening out I anticipated,” Chris remarked once they were back in his car, which now sported a dented rear fender and busted tail-light. Beck was driving.

  “I knew I should have stayed at home.”

  “Well, thanks a lot for your concern,” Chris said with feigned affront. “I hazard to think what would have happened if I’d been alone. Of course, you dillydallied long enough for him to gut and fillet me. It was over before you got there.”

  “I fell in the ditch,” Beck admitted with chagrin.

  “What?”

  “You heard me.”

  “Is that what I’m smelling? Stagnant water?”

  “I was up to my knees in it.”

  Laughing, Chris cradled his arm against his chest like a newborn. “This is beginning to hurt. I wish I’d asked the doc for some pain pills.”

  “It does sound like Slap was somehow involved with Danny’s death, doesn’t it?”

  “I don’t think he was involved, I think he murdered him out of revenge.”

  “Then . . .? Never mind.”

  “No, what?”

  Beck gave a quick shrug. “If he killed Danny, wouldn’t he be trying to avoid us, particularly you? It strikes me as odd that he pursued us tonight.”

  Chris shook his head. “You’re thinking like a rational, intelligent person, Beck. Watkins is a moron. He’s itching to let us know that he killed Danny. He’s taunting us. He can’t resist the impulse to gloat. Before he went to prison, I could count on one hand the times we crossed paths. Now suddenly he’s everywhere we are. You think that’s coincidence?”