As Virgil pulled in to the curb in front of Holley’s place, a brown Cadillac sedan came around the corner and pulled up behind him. Jenkins and Shrake, the BCA’s muscle, got out of Shrake’s Cadillac, and Shrake said, “Yet another case he can’t handle on his own.”
Virgil asked, “You guys bring your guns?”
Jenkins said, “Oh, shit, I knew we forgot something.” He was carrying a canvas bag and he lifted it and said, “Radios.”
Shrake was looking at the house and said, “Are we all going to fit in there?”
“Probably not. Probably only me, I’ll be in a bedroom closet, and one more guy, down the basement,” Virgil said. “The other guy will be next door, and when the talk stops, you’ll come out to the side door. If we need you, you’re five steps away.”
“Couldn’t hear—”
“I’ll be able to,” Virgil said, “and I’ll yell.”
LOUISE GORDON, Dennis Brown, and Schickel were sitting in Holley’s living room, watching television, with a couple of sacks of Doritos and brown bottles of root beer. Gordon got up when Virgil knocked and came in, and said, “Are we going to do it?”
“Sure, we’re good,” Virgil said, smiling at her. He introduced Shrake and Jenkins to the others, and asked Gordon, “You study your lines?”
“Yes, I did. But Clayton said they sounded stilted—he used to be in a little theater.”
“I was pretty good, too,” Holley said. “I once played the Nazi in The Sound of Music. That was sort of the high point of my career.”
“We don’t want a play,” Virgil began, but Schickel interrupted.
“You want an improv,” Schickel said. “So we’ve been practicing, like we’re talking on the telephone with her. We got it going.”
They went through the phone call, and Virgil stopped it a few times and went off in different directions, and she always brought him back, sounding appropriately flustered and, at times, frightened.
“Okay, I’m impressed,” Virgil said. She was a natural bullshitter. “Let’s make the call.”
“What if he’s not home?” Gordon asked.
“Then we make the call later,” Virgil said. “Keep making it until he answers. We know he’s around the farm, because Sheriff Coakley has seen him.”
They made the call and he wasn’t home.
THEY SPENT the next half hour going around to the neighbors, and talking about where to leave the cars, and deciding who would be doing what; fifteen minutes into the half hour, Gordon called again, and got no answer. At the end of the half hour, as they were all getting back to Holley’s, she made a third call and suddenly lit up, and asked, in a hushed voice, “Roland? . . . This is Lucy. Lucy.”
They couldn’t hear the other end of the conversation, but they could hear the pitch.
Gordon: “I’m a little scared here. I don’t know how they tracked me down, but this state agent said if I protect you, then I’m an accomplice. I haven’t even been there in forever, and he says that makes no difference. He wants me to testify against you, against the Spirit and Emmett and all them. . . . No, I’m not going to tell you where I’m at. What I’m going to do is, I’m going to get a suitcase and tomorrow morning I’m going to Florida or California or Hawaii or someplace and let you clean up your own messes. . . . I don’t want to hear about any money, you sonofabitch; you passed me around like I was a side of beef, you owed me that money and more. . . . But you . . . I don’t care, I’m just telling you. They’re coming and you better hide out, because this Flowers guy is going to put you all in prison. . . . I didn’t tell him anything, I told him I didn’t have anything to tell, but he knows I was lying. Now I’m going, I’m on my way, and I’ve said what I was going to say, and I only got one more thing to say to you, which is, go fuck yourself.”
And she slammed the old-fashioned phone back on the receiver and looked around, a thin veil of sweat on her forehead and upper lip. “How’d I do?”
Shrake launched himself out of his chair and said, “Goddamn! That was so amazing, you oughta be in the theater.”
“Awful good,” Virgil said. He was beaming, and he beamed on. “Awful good. Okay, folks, the fire is lit. They