would be over.
It was 6 P.M., time for the local news. She watched the silent face of the anchorperson and hoped it wouldn’t happen. But it didn’t take long. After two dead bodies were carried from a landfill, a black-and-white still photo of Mark and the cop she’d slapped that morning was suddenly on the screen. She turned up the volume.
The anchorperson gave the basics about the taking of Mark Sway, careful not to call it an arrest, then went to a reporter standing in front of the Juvenile Court building. He rattled on a few seconds about a hearing he knew nothing about, gushed breathlessly that the child, Mark Sway, had been taken back to the Juvenile Detention Center, and that another hearing would be held tomorrow in Judge Roosevelt’s courtroom. Back in the studio, the anchorperson brought ‘em up-to-date on young Mark and the tragic suicide of Jerome Clifford. They ran a quick clip of the mourners leaving the chapel that morning in New Orleans, and had a second or two of Roy Foltrigg talking to a reporter under an umbrella. Back quickly to the anchorperson, who began quoting Slick Moeller’s stories, and the suspicion mounted. No comments from the Memphis police, the FBI, the U.S. attorney’s office, or the Shelby County Juvenile Court. The ice got thinner as she skated into the vast, murky world of unnamed sources, all of whom were short on facts but long on speculation. When she mercifully finished and broke for a commercial, ~ the uninformed could easily believe that
young Mark Sway had shot not only Jerome Clifford but Boyd Boyette as well.
Dianne’s stomach ached, and she hit the power button. The room was even darker. She had not taken a single bite of food in ten hours. Ricky twitched and grunted, and this irritated her. She eased from the bed, frustrated with him, frustrated with Greenway for the lack of progress, sick of this hospital with its dungeon-like decor and lighting, horrified at a system that allowed children to be jailed for being children, and, above all, scared of these lurking shadows who’d threatened Mark and burned the trailer and obviously were quite willing to do more. She closed the bathroom door behind her, sat on the edge of the bathtub, and smoked a Virginia Slim. Her hands trembled and her thoughts were a blur. A migraine was forming at the base of her skull, and by midnight she would be paralyzed. Maybe the pills would help.
She flushed the skinny cigarette butt, and sat on the edge of Ricky’s bed. She had vowed to get through this ordeal one day at a time, but damned if the days weren’t getting worse. She couldn’t take much more.
BARRY THE BLADE HAD PICKED THIS DUMPY LITTLE BAR
because it was quiet, dark, and he remembered it from his teenage years as a young and aspiring hoodlum on the streets of New Orleans. It was not one he routinely frequented, but it was deep in the Quarter, which meant he could park off Canal and dart through the tourists on Bourbon and Royal, and there was no way the feds could follow him.
He found a tiny table in the back, and sipped a vodka gimlet while waiting for Gronke.
He wanted to be in Memphis himself, but he was out on bond and his movements were restricted. Permission was required before he could leave the state, and he knew better than to ask. Communication with Gronke had been difficult. The paranoia was eating him alive. For eight months now, every curious stare was another cop watching his every move. A stranger behind him on the sidewalk -was another fibbie hiding in the darkness. His phones were tapped. His car and house were bugged. He was afraid to speak half the time because he could almost feel the sensors and hidden mikes.
He finished the gimlet and ordered another one. A double. Gronke arrived twenty minutes late, and crowded his bulky frame into a chair in the corner. The ceiling was seven feet above them.
“Nice place,” Gronke said. “How you doin’?”
“Okay.” Barry snapped his fingers and the waiter •walked over.
“Beer. Grolsch,” Gronke said.
“Did they follow you?” Barry asked.
“I don’t think so. I’ve zigzagged through half the Quarter, you know.”
“What’s happening up there?”
“Memphis?”
“No. Milwaukee, you dumbass,” Barry said with a smile. “What’s happening with the kid?”
“He’s in jail, and he ain’t talkin’. They took him in this morning, had some kinda hearing at lunch before the youth court, then took