The Devils Punchbowl - Greg Iles

Jessup has the faraway look of a martyr walking into the flames. Without warning he seizes my wrist with a startlingly powerful grip. “This is our town, man. That still means something to me. I'm not going to sit still while these carpetbagger motherfuckers ruin everything our ancestors worked to build—”

“Shhh,”

I hiss, feeling blood coming into my cheeks. “I hear you, okay? I understand your anger. But it’s not worth your life. It’s not even worth taking a beating. People in this town were gambling, selling slaves, raping Indian women, and cutting each other’s throats before Paul Revere sold his first silver candlestick.”

Tim’s eyes are glistening. “That was centuries ago. What the hell’s wrong with you, Penn? We’re talking about innocent lives. Underage girls and defenseless animals.” He lowers his voice at last, but the urgency does not leave it. “Every week Mr. X sends out four pickup trucks with cages in the back, a hundred miles in every direction. When those trucks come back, the cages are filled with house pets—cocker spaniels, poodles, dalmatians, cats. The trainers throw ’em into a hole with starving pit bulls to teach the dogs how to kill, or tie ’em to a jenny to make the dogs run. Then they feed them to the dogs when it’s all over. Every one of those animals gets torn to shreds.”

Even as the shiver goes through me, I recall that a neighbor who lives three houses down from me lost her seven-year-old cocker spaniel last month. She let the dog out to do its business, and it never came back.

“I didn't ask for this,” Tim says stubbornly. “But I'm in a position to do something about it.

Me, okay? What kind of man would I be if I just turned away and let it go on?”

His question pierces me like a blade driven deep into my conscience. “Timmy…shit. What would you say if I told you that the only reason I'm still mayor of this town is that I haven'’t figured out how to tell my father I'm quitting?”

Jessup blinks like a stunned child trying to work out something beyond its grasp. “I’d say you’re bullshitting me. But…” A profound change comes over his features. “You’re not, are you?”

I slowly shake my head.

“But why? Are you sick or something?”

He asks this because our last mayor resigned after being diagnosed with lung cancer. “Not exactly. Soul sick, maybe.”

Tim looks at me in disbelief. “

Soul sick? Are you kidding? I'm soul sick too! Man, you stood up all over this town and told people you were going to change things. You made people believe it. And now you want to quit? The Eagle Scout wants to quit? Why? Because it’s tougher than you thought? Did somebody hurt your feelings or something?”

I start to explain, but before I can get a sentence out, Jessup cuts in, “Wait a minute. They came to you with money or something, right? No…they threatened you, didn't they?”

“No, no, no.”

“Bullshit.” Tim’s eyes flash. “They got their claws into you somehow, and all you know to do is run—”

“Tim!” I grab his leg and squeeze hard enough to bruise. “Shut up and listen for a second!”

His chest is heaving from the excitement of his anger.

I lean close enough so that he can see my eyes. “Nobody from any casino has come to me with anything. Not bribes or threats. I wanted to be mayor so I could fix the school system in this town, which has been screwed since 1968. It’s been our Achilles’ heel for nearly forty years. But I see now that I can’t fix it. I don'’t have the power. And my child is suffering because of it. It’s that simple, Timmy. Until tonight, all this stuff you'’ve told me was just whispers in the wind.”

“And now?”

“Now I can’t get those goddamn pictures out of my head.”

He smiles sadly. “I told you. I warned you.”

“Yeah. You did.”

He rubs his face with both hands, so hard that his mustache makes scratching sounds. “So, what now? Am I on my own here or what?”

“You are unless you tell me who Mr. X is.”

Jessup’s eyes go blank as marbles.

“Come on. I know law enforcement people who aren'’t local. Serious people. Give me his name, and I'’ll get a real investigation started. We’ll nail his hide to the barn door. I’'ve dealt with guys like this before. You know I have. I sent them to death row.”

With slow deliberation, Tim stubs his cigarette out on the mossy bricks behind him. “I know. That'’s why I came to you. But you have

to understand what you’re up against, Penn. This guy I'm talking about has got real juice. Just because someone’s in Houston or Washington doesn’'t mean they'’re clean on this.”

“Tim, I took on the head of the FBI. And I won.”

Jessup doesn’'t look convinced. “That was different. A guy like that has to play by the rules. That'’s like Gandhi beating the British in India. Don’t kid yourself. You go after Mr. X, you’re swimming into the shallow end of Lake St. John, hoping to kill an alligator before one kills you.”

This image hits me with primitive force. I’'ve cruised the shallow end of the local lake from the safety of a ski boat at night, and there’s no sight quite like the dozens of red eyes hovering just above water level among the twisted cypress trunks. The first thrash of an armored tail in the water triggers a blast of uniquely mammalian fear that makes you pray the boat’s drain plug is screwed in tight.

“I hear you, okay? But I think you’re a little spooked. The guy is human, right?”

Jessup tugs at his mustache like the strung-out junkie he used to be. “You don'’t know, man… you don'’t know.

This guy is smooth as silk on the outside, but he’s got scales on the inside. When the dogs are tearing each other to pieces, or some girl is screaming in the back of a trailer, his eyes turn from ice to fire right in front of you.”

“Tim—” I lean forward and grasp his wrist. “I don'’t understand is what you want from me. If you won'’t go to the professionals, how do you propose to stop this psycho? What’s your plan?”

A strange light comes into Jessup’s eyes. “There’s only one way to take down an operation like this, and you know it.”

“How’s that?”

“From the inside.”

Jesus. Tim has been watching too many cop shows. “Let me get this straight. The guy you just described as Satan incarnate, you want to wear a wire on?”

Jessup barks out a derisive laugh. “Fuck no! These guys carry scanners into the john with them. “

“Then what?”

He shakes his head with childlike stubbornness. “You don'’t need to know. But God put me in this position for a reason.”

When informants start talking about God, my alarm bells go off. “Tim—”

“Hey, I'm not asking you to believe like I do. I'm just asking you to be ready to accept what I bring you and do the right thing.”

I feel obligated to try to dissuade him further, but beneath my desire to protect a childhood friend lies a professionally cynical awareness of the truth. In cases like this, often the only way to convict the people at the top is to have a witness on the inside, directly observing the criminal activity. And who else but a martyr would take that job?

“What are you planning to bring me?”

“Evidence. A stake to drive through Mr. X’s heart, and a knife to cut off the company’s head. Just say you’re with me, Penn. Tell me you won'’t quit. Not until we take these bastards down.”

Against all my better judgment, I reach out and squeeze Tim’s proffered hand. “Okay. You just watch your back.

And

your front. Informers usually get caught because they make a stupid mistake. You’ve come a long way. Don’t go getting hurt now.”

Tim looks me full in the face, his eyes almost serene. “Hey, I have to be careful. I’'ve got a son now, remember?” As if suddenly remembering something, he seizes my wrist with his other hand, like a pastor imploring me to accept Jesus as my savior. “If something does happen, though, don'’t blame yourself, okay? The way I see it, I’'ve got no choice.”

Your wife and son wouldn'’t see it that way,

I say silently, but I nod acknowledgment.

Now we sit silently, awkwardly, like two men who’ve cleared the air on some uncomfortable issue and have nothing left to say. Small talk is pointless, yet how else can we part? Cut our palms and take a blood oath, like Tom and Huck?

“You still dating that lady who runs the bookstore?” Tim asks with forced casualness.

“Libby?” I guess word hasn’'t spread to Jessup’s social circle yet. “We ended it about a week ago. Why?”

“I’'ve seen her son down on the

Queen

a few times in the past couple of weeks. Looked high as a kite to me. Must have a fake ID.”

After all I’'ve heard tonight, this news falls on me like the last brick of a backbreaking load. I’'ve spent too much time and political

capital getting my ex-girlfriend’s nineteen-year-old son out of trouble with the law. He’s basically a good kid, but if he’s broken his promise to stay clean, the future holds serious unpleasantness for us both.

Tim looks worried. “Was I right to tell you?”

“Are you sure he was high?”

Suddenly Tim hops to his knees, tense as a startled deer, holding up his hand for silence. As he zeros his gaze somewhere past the wall between us and the river, I realize what has disturbed him: the sound of a car coming up Cemetery Road. We listen to the rising pitch of the engine, waiting for it to crest and fall…but it doesn’'t. There’s a grinding squeal of brakes, then silence.

“Stopped.” Tim hisses. “Right below us.”

“Take it easy,” I whisper, surprised by my thumping heart. “It’s probably just a police cruiser checking out my car.”

Tim has his feet under him now. Almost faster than I can decipher his movements, he grabs the photos from the ground, shoves them into the corner of the plot, and sets them ablaze with his lighter. “Cover the light with your body,” he says.

As I move to obey, he crab-walks over two graves and lifts his eyes above the rim of the far wall. The photographs have already curled into glowing ashes.

“Can you see anything?” I ask.

“Not yet. We’re too deep in.”

“Let me go take a look.”

“

No way.

Stay here.”

Exasperated by his paranoia, I get to my feet and step over the wall. Before I’'ve covered twenty feet I hear the tinny squawk of a police radio. This brings me immediate relief, but Tim is probably close to bolting. With a surprising rush of anxiety, I trot to the bench beneath the flagpole and peer over the edge of Jewish Hill.

An idling squad car sits behind my Saab. There’s a cop inside it, talking on his radio. He’s undoubtedly running a 10–28 on my license plate. In seconds he’ll know that the car in front of him belongs to the mayor of the city, if he didn't already know. As I watch, the uniform gets out of his car and switches on a powerful flashlight. He sweeps the beam along the cemetery wall, then probes the hedge just below Jewish Hill. Our officers carry SureFires, and this one is powerful enough to transfix the Turning Angel in its ghostly ballet of vigilance over the dead.

Given a choice between waiting for the cop to leave and walking down to face him, I choose the latter. For one thing, he might not leave; he might call a tow truck instead. For another, I am the mayor, and it’s nobody’s business what I'm doing up here in the middle of the night. I might well be having a dark night of the soul and visiting my wife’s grave.

As the white beam leaves the Turning Angel and arcs up toward me, I jog back to the walled plot that sheltered Tim and me. My old friend has vanished as silently as he appeared. The odor of burnt paper still rides the air, and two tiny embers glow orange in the corner of the plot—all that remains of the evidence in a case I have no idea how to begin working. After all, I'm no longer a prosecutor. I'm only the mayor. And no one knows better than I how little power I truly have.

CHAPTER

4

Julia Jessup watches her seven-month-old son sleep in the crib her sister-in-law sent from San Diego. Julia envies her little boy, that he can sleep so soundly while his father is away. A perfect shining bubble of saliva expands from his cherub’s lips as he exhales, then pops on the inspiration. Julia almost smiles, but she can’t quite manage it. Somewhere between her belly and her heart a great fear is working, like a worm eating at her insides. Tim has promised that everything will be all right, that he will return safely from wherever he went, but her fear did not believe him.

Julia has come so far to reach this place, this little haven from the hardness of the world. A hundred years ago, she married her high school boyfriend, the quarterback of St. Stephen’s Prep. The school’s golden boy got her pregnant at nineteen, married her a week later, and gave her herpes two weeks before the baby came. Julia discovered this when the baby contracted the virus during delivery and died in agony eight days later. It was hard to hold on to her romantic illusions after that. But she’d tried.

She suffered through the barhopping with his moronic friends and the vacuous sluts they hung out with, his long absences in the woods during deer season, paintball tournaments during the workweek, sweating in a mosquito-clouded bass boat while he fished. But in the end, she’d had to face that she’d bound herself to a boy, not a man, and that any future with him meant sharing him with every trash monkey who caught his eye, and catching whatever STDs she didn't have yet.

The first years after she divorced him were leaner than she’d known life could be. Julia had come from a good family, but when the oil business crashed in the eighties, her father couldn'’t find another way to make a living and ended his erratic job search with a bullet in the head. After her divorce, she was pretty much on her own. She waited tables, worked a cash register, parked cars at parties, and sold makeup to women who paid more for facial creams in a week than Julia paid for a month’s rent. She steered clear of men for the most part, and watched her friends who hadn'’t left Natchez screw up in just about every way possible where the opposite sex was concerned. When Julia needed companionship, she chose older men—married ones who had no illusions about where things were headed—and bided her time.

Then she’d met Tim Jessup, or remet him. She’d known him in school, of course, but they’d never dated, since he was three years ahead of her. Back then he’d been one of the cocky ones who thought that the good life lay waiting ahead of him like a red carpet spread by fate. But soon after high school, he’d learned different. Julia hadn'’t thought of Tim much after that, not until she took a job serving hors d’oeuvres on the casino boat one night. Tim had watched her from his blackjack table, then waited for her to finish her work. They went for breakfast at the Waffle House, talked about the good old days at St. Stephen’s, then, surprisingly, opened up about the not-so-good days that had filled most of their lives since. By the end of that night, Julia had known Tim might be the man she’d been waiting for. There was only one catch. He had a drug problem.