The Supremes were playing on the juke when I walked into Mutt’s. With no customers to serve, Mutt sat at the bar. Reading glasses perched on his nose, an open newspaper in front of him. Smoke trailed toward the ceiling from a burning cigarette in an ashtray to his right.
I laid the T-shirt he loaned me on the bar, pulled out a bar-stool, and sat. “Thanks for letting me borrow this.”
“No problem, Opie,” he said. “What’s up?”
Resting my elbows on the bar, I looked straight ahead and laced my fingers together. “You got an extra pistol? Something bigger than a twenty-two?”
In my periphery, I saw him straighten slowly and remove his glasses. “What you want with a gat? Opie didn’t carry no gat.”
“The police took all the big ones I had. I need another.”
“What for?”
I told him about Galston and his crew being on a fishing trip when Fisher was killed and about Ashley River Recovery.
The gates to McAllister’s house were open when I eased to a stop.
“Nice house,” Mutt said.
From where we parked in the drive, through the windshield of my secondhand Audi I could see the front door ajar and two of the three garage doors raised. I pulled out the thirty-eight police special Mutt lent me. “Ready?”
Mutt carried an identical gun. “You sure this the cracker killed Reggie?”
“We’re going to find out. You know, we could go to jail for this.”
“If he killed Reggie, he gonna get what he deserve. Outside of that, I don’t care.”
As Mutt and I started to get out of the Audi, we heard the sound of a powerful engine fire up. McAllister’s red ZR1 shot out of the garage, down the drive past us, and onto the road. I slammed my door shut and put the Audi in gear. Mutt barely closed his door when I accelerated and went after the sports car.
“I guess he the one,” Mutt said. “Let’s get him!”
I pushed the accelerator to the floor. The Audi was fast, but I knew it was no match for the supercharged Corvette.
Mutt said, “What are we gonna do when we catch him?”
“If we catch him.” I shifted gears. “I haven’t planned it out that far.”
Two sets of stoplights ahead turned yellow at the same time. The rear end of the ZR1 squatted as the car catapulted forward. The Audi was already giving us all she had. We were at the mercy of the timing of the lights. Both of us made the first set. McAllister clipped the second. Mutt and I barreled through a very red light a few car lengths behind. The cars waiting on the cross-street light had moved forward. I laid on the horn and shot through a gap with nothing to spare.
Mutt looked back. “You crazy!”
McAllister turned right at the next intersection.
“He’s going for the highway,” I said. “If there’s no traffic, he’ll lose us.”
Mutt yelled, “Get me close enough to take out a tire!”
McAllister’s car bucked over a dip in the road and he caught it before it spun on him. I hit the same dip a second later. The Audi bottomed out hard but kept going. When the tachometer hit the red zone, I shifted into the next gear. McAllister turned onto the entrance ramp and blasted up to the interstate. I wrenched the Audi’s steering wheel. With the traction control off, all four wheels slid through the ninety-degree transition. The curb came up fast. Less than a foot away, the tires bit and we made the rest of the turn. At the same time, the ZR1, still pulling ahead of us, merged with the other cars. I glanced at the dash and saw we were past eighty MPH and heading toward ninety in a hurry. The bright red sports car ahead zigzagged between the other vehicles like a possessed dog. I did my best to keep up. As if in answer to a prayer, two eighteen-wheelers running side by side loomed in the distance, backing up a line of cars ahead of us. A perfect rolling roadblock.
“We might be in luck,” Mutt said.
Brake lights on the ZR1 lit up. McAllister must have seen the trucks too. Mutt hit the button to lower the window and stuck his head and arm out, aiming his gun. I trained the front bumper of the Audi on the rear end of the sports car and plotted a collision course. If Mutt’s bullets missed, I wouldn’t.
McAllister swerved into the emergency lane and gunned it, passing the line of cars. I did the same. The powerful ZR1 pulled away from us again. The road narrowed ahead and the emergency lane disappeared at a bridge crossing. Stiff guard rails prohibited further progress. I watched in disbelief as the ZR1 ignored the yellow warning signs and cut in front of the trucks with what must have been the slimmest of margins. We were still on a collision course, but with the guard rail, not McAllister. Mutt saw it at the same time and pulled his arm back inside. I slammed on the brakes as hard as I could.
When the tire smoke and dust cleared, we sat in our seats staring at a guard rail inches from the front bumper. The yellow warning signs with black slashes laughed at us.
Mutt slapped the dash hard and took a deep breath. After a moment, he turned and watched the passing cars. “There’s a break in the traffic coming up.”
My knuckles had turned white on the steering wheel and I tried to relax my grip. When my hands loosened, I put the car in reverse and eased us back a few car lengths from the barrier. I turned my indicator on and, when the break in traffic appeared, merged onto the highway and accelerated to cruising speed. We passed the trucks and found a clear road ahead. No sign of the ZR1.
Mutt said, “Any idea where he went?”
“Nope. And now he knows we’re on to him.”
Mutt and I walked into the Palmetto Pulse and interrupted a meeting in Patricia’s office.
She looked up from the three eager reporters in front of her. “What’s wrong now?”
“A change of plans,” I said.
She dismissed the twenty-somethings. The pretty brunette and two Biff-type males stared at Mutt and me like we were illegal immigrant busboys taking their dinner plates before they’d finished eating. Mutt and I returned their glares and they hurried from the room. When the youngsters were gone, I told Patricia about the garage receipt. “We went to have a little talk with McAllister and he ran.”
Patricia’s hand flew to her mouth. “Oh my God.”
“Sure enough,” Mutt said.
“I think he left his house open,” I said. “Care for a little breaking and entering without the breaking?”
Patricia said, “The door’s wide open?”
I turned and headed for the exit. “It was when we left. Where’s your star talent? She’d want in on this.”
Grabbing her handbag, Patricia said, “She’s looking into something. Said she’d check in later.”
Mutt pointed at the three rookies who’d vacated the office. “Why don’t you bring them? Especially the fox. Break them in right.”
“They aren’t ready for this,” she said.
“You know it!” Mutt cackled. “How!”
Patricia followed in her Mercedes as I led the way to McAllister’s house. We parked a block away and the three of us crept through the gate on foot. The front door was, in fact, still open. So were the two garage doors. The ZR1 was not there. Everything was quiet. Mutt entered first, pistol drawn, and went to the left. I followed him in, stepping right. Patricia stayed behind.
The military had taught Mutt and me how to clear buildings, so we walked McAllister’s house room by room and floor by floor. My hunger for blood returned but there was no sign of anyone. I found Patricia in the entryway holding a framed photo of McAllister and an old woman.
Patricia held it out so I could see it. “Recognize her?”
I realized I had seen that rich old bat before. Sitting in Patricia’s office just a few days ago, in fact.
“Mrs. Calhoun,” I said.
“Hey!” Mutt yelled from the top of the stairs. “He got a bunch of pictures up here and we in them.”
A stack of photos in a study area off the master bedroom lay on a desk. Each of us had been photographed—Patricia, Darcy, Chauncey, Brother Thomas, David Fisher and his wife, Justine, Galston, Shorty, Goatee, and me. Even Mutt. Distance shots of Uncle Reggie and the Pirate’s Cove. All of them haunting. McAllister had been playing me the whole time.
Patricia flipped through the stack. “You know who’s not in these?”
I shrugged and searched through the desk drawers.
She dug out her cell phone and punched speed dial. After a moment, she said, “Constance, are you all right?”
After talking for a few minutes, Patricia ended the call. “She’s fine. Oblivious. Doesn’t know where McAllister is.”
Mutt started on the bedroom and searched through the dresser drawers.
An hour later we stood in the kitchen trying to decide what to do next. We had gone through McAllister’s entire house and found nothing but the photos. I went upstairs and grabbed them to go over one more time. When we’d found them, they were scattered on top of the desk. The neat pile Patricia made of them exposed the rest of the desktop. Across most of it lay a blueprint of a plot of land next to the Ashley River. Something about the shape of the river at that particular point was familiar. I pulled the map clear.
“Hey, Patricia,” I called.
I heard her hurry up the stairs, her sandals slapping against the hardwood treads. When she entered the room, I held out the map by its top two corners. “This look familiar?”
She moved closer and picked up the bottom corners so the map became horizontal. “Sumter Point. He’s been lying to us from the start.”
Chauncey warned me against doing anything stupid when I called to tell him of what we’d learned. I neglected to tell him how we found it. It was an illegal search, after all. I said I didn’t know what he was talking about.
Patricia’s Mercedes followed my Audi to the Pirate’s Cove, where the three of us discussed our next course of action. Patricia and I decided we needed to talk to Mrs. Calhoun. Mutt agreed to watch the Pirate’s Cove to make sure it wasn’t vandalized—or torched. “Weren’t nothing going on at my place, anyhow,” he said from a stool at the end of the bar. “It’s the end of the month. Everyone’s waiting on their checks to come in.”
I tossed him the keys to the Audi. “You sure you know what McAllister looks like?”
“Patricia showed me pictures. Don’t worry. I got it covered.”
A full-figured college girl in a bikini ordered a drink from the bartender.
Mutt’s eyes roamed over her like a metal detector at the airport. “I could get used to this.”
That was the same thing Wilson said. The only weapon McAllister would need to take over my bar was a bimbo in a two-piece.
Patricia texted Darcy and we cruised away in her Mercedes.
Mrs. Calhoun opened the door of her ocean-front mansion on the Isle of Palms. One look at Patricia and me and the old woman said in a monotone, “Oh, it’s you.”
Patricia said, “Mind if we come in and talk to you a minute, Josephine?”
“Yes, I do,” the rich old bat said. “I will not be treated rudely in my own home by that smart-mouthed hooligan.”
For some reason, she was pointing at me. She must have been holding a grudge from our first meeting in Patricia’s office when I accused her of being an environmentalist hypocrite.
I raised the framed picture of her and McAllister. “We were wondering what your connection was to Ashley River Recovery.”
Instead of answering, she asked, “Why do you have my nephew’s photo?”
Patricia said, “That’s your nephew in the picture?”
Mrs. Calhoun grabbed the picture. “Yes it is. This is his property. I recognize the frame and I’m taking it back.” She slammed the door in our faces.
“I guess we know the connection,” I said.
“Yes, and once we expose McAllister and mention her relationship to him, she won’t have any influence left in this town.”
We walked to the car.
“And I was looking forward to seeing the Cove turned into Dolphin Swimmer. Darcy’s not going to like missing this.”
Patricia took out her iPhone. “She should have checked in by now.”
I stopped. “Checked in? What are you talking about?”
“We have an agreement,” Patricia said. “She checks in every hour. No longer than two hours.”
“You run a tight ship.”
“She’s young, pretty, and aggressive, and men are men. And, she’s still healing.”
“When was the last time you heard from her?”
“Three hours ago.”
“What did she say?”
“It was a text.” Patricia scrolled. “At Red Curtain.” She looked at me. “I wasn’t sure what that meant. Do you know?”
I had an image of Chinese hoods with nine millimeters and cigarettes hanging out of their mouths shooting holes in Suzy, the teenage live target. The instant pressure of my mind racing made my chin droop. I put my hands on the sides of my head and squeezed.
Patricia said, “What is it?”
Patricia threw me the keyed remote to her Mercedes. We jumped in and slammed the doors. I had to move the seat back and adjust the wheel.
“Hurry up Brack!” She searched her cell phone for something. “What is that place, anyway?”
I pushed the Start button and the engine grumbled to life. “An underground brothel Darcy’s been scamming to get a story on.”
“Scamming?”
I gave her the ten-second version as I floored it.
Patricia listened and made a call. “Get me Ron. Now.”
I said, “Call Mutt while you’re at it. Let him know where we’re headed.”
We rocketed onto I-526, the interstate that looped to North Charleston. The Benz scooted into triple digits with ease. Patricia talked faster and more directly with each mile-per-hour increase.
The convertible top was down, but with the windows up and the windscreen behind us, there was little buffeting inside the cabin. The speedometer crested a hundred and ten. I blew by a cop heading in the other direction and hoped none of his buddies would be waiting for us ahead. We had to save Darcy.
The Mercedes engine raced like a stock car V-8. We shot between clusters of cars as if they were parked on the road. I felt the floor resist my foot as I pressed the accelerator hard, squeezing a few more thousandths of an inch out of it. The fuel cutoff was supposed to be around a hundred and fifty-five miles per hour and we’d be there shortly.
“No, I am not joking,” Patricia yelled at someone on the phone. “I need every available officer.” Another pause and it sounded as if she cut the person off when she said, “Look Ron, if you don’t think my calling you directly rates on your radar as an emergency you can find someone else to manage your campaign.” She ended the call. “If the good mayor doesn’t come through, he won’t be getting my support come next election.”
The last call she made was to the Pirate’s Cove. I half-listened as she waited for Mutt to come on the line and explained where we were headed, hearing only her half of the conversation.
“What do you mean you have an idea?” After a pause, she lowered the phone from her ear.
I could feel her eyes looking at me. “What was that about?”
“He said to hold up and wait. That he had an idea.”
“We don’t have time.”
“You’re right. Now move it!”
My hands locked at ten and two o’clock on the wheel and my eyes focused on the road ahead. The suspension absorbed the expansion joints and rough seams in the pavement with the solidarity befitting a hundred-thousand-dollar German car.
And then traffic came to an abrupt halt.