from the grave of Boyd Boyette.
CLINT S ACCORD STOPPED NEAR THE TENNIS COURTS. A RED
Cadillac was parked near the street. Reggie turned off the lights and the engine.
They sat in silence and stared through the windshield at the dark soccer field. This is a wonderful place to get mugged, she thought to herself, but didn’t mention it. There was plenty to fear without thinking of muggers.
Mark hadn’t said much since napped, together on one bed, for an hour after the pizza had been delivered to their motel room. They had watched television. He had asked her repeatedly about the time, as if he had an appointment with a firing squad. At ten, she was convinced he would chicken out. At eleven, he was pacing around the room, and going back and forth to the bathroom.
But here they were at eleven-forty, sitting in a hot car on a dark night, planning an impossible mission that neither really wanted.
“Do you think anybody knows we’re here?” he asked softly.
She looked at him. His gaze was lost somewhere beyond the soccer field. “You mean, here in New Orleans?”
“Yeah. Do you think anyone knows we’re in New Orleans?”
“No. I don’t think so.”
This seemed to satisfy him. She’d talked to Glint around seven. A Memphis TV station had reported that she was missing as well, but things appeared to be quiet. Glint hadn’t left his bedroom in twelve hours, he said, so would they please hurry up and do whatever the hell they were planning. He’d called Momma Love. She was worried, but doing okay under the circumstances.
They left the car and walked along the bike trail.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” she asked, looking around nervously. The trail was pitch black, and in places only the asphalt beneath their feet kept them from wandering into the trees. They walked slowly, side by side, and held hands.
As she took one uncertain step after another, Reggie asked herself what she was doing here on this
trail, in these woods of this city, at this moment, with this kid whom she loved dearly but was not willing to die for. She clutched his hand and tried to be brave. Surely, she prayed, something would happen very soon and they would dash back to the car and leave New Orleans.
“I’ve been thinking,” Mark said.
“Why am I not surprised?”
“It might be too hard to actually find the body, you know. So, this is what I’ve decided. You’ll stay in the trees close to the ditch, you see, and I’ll sneak through the backyard and into the garage. I’ll look under the boat, you know, just to make sure it’s there, then we’ll get out of here.”
“You think you can just look under the boat and see the body?”
“Maybe I can see where it is, you know?”
She squeezed his hand tighter. “Listen to me, Mark. We’re sticking together, okay. If you go to the garage, then I’m going too.” Her voice was remarkably firm. Surely, they wouldn’t make it to the garage.
There was a break in the trees. A light on a pole revealed the picnic pavilion to their left. The footpath started to the right. Mark pressed a switch, and the beam from a small flashlight hit the ground in front of them. “Follow me,” he said. “Nobody can see us out here.”
He moved deftly through the woods without a sound. Back in the motel room, he had recounted many stories of his late night walks through the woods around the trailer park, and of the games the boys played in the darkness. Jungle games, he called them. With the light in his hand, he moved faster now, brushing past limbs and dodging saplings.
“Slow down, MarK, sne s