“What’d you think? I wanted to know about your time on Stroker Ace?”

“That’s rough, Quinn.”

There was some commotion outside the old wooden door with the frosted window on the top half. Both men talking in the open room, standing, half the room lit by fluorescents and the other half in darkness. Quinn heard Lillie’s voice and then a hard knocking on the door. Then Lillie again, then Mary Alice, and the door rattled open and in walked Jean Colson. Her face was without color and she was breathing hard, standing there, looking from Jason to Quinn.

“Hey, Jean,” Jason said. “Good to see you.”

“I’m sorry,” Mary Alice said. “I’m really sorry, Sheriff.”

“Quinn?” Jean said. “I need a moment with this man.”

Jason’s lawyer was standing right there with Mary Alice and Lillie, dressed for some official business in suit and tie, shaking his head over how his morning had been shot to hell. He opened his mouth to make a comment, but Jason held up a hand.

No one said anything for a moment.

“OK,” Jason said. “What’s on your mind, Jean?”

Jean swallowed, turned her look to Quinn. Quinn picked up his cold coffee mug and walked for the door, brushing through Lillie and Mary Alice and returning to his own office. Somehow during this day time had flipped on its head and he was ten years old again.

Lillie wasn’t slow to follow.

“Wouldn’t you love to be a fly on that wall?”

“I was for a long time.”

“I bet she’s got a lot to say.”

“She does.”

“First your son charges you with murder,” Lillie said, “and then your ex-wife gives you a talking-down-to.”

“She’s above that,” Quinn said. “She’s in there doing our jobs for us. She’ll get him to confess to whatever it was he did or saw.”

“Bullshit.”

“You didn’t have the misfortune to witness the balance of power in the Colson house.” Quinn absently sipped his coffee, ice-cold and bitter. He made a face and put down the mug. “Would you like to make a wager?”

“On sweet Miss Jean bringing him down?”

“Yep.”

Lillie shook her head. “No, sir,” she said, “I would not.”

•   •   •

“Could you bring me a Coca-Cola and one of them bendable straws?” Johnny Stagg said to a nurse as he lay flat on his back. “Sure would appreciate it.”

Ringold had just walked into the room. One of his eyes was still swollen nearly shut, and they’d busted a couple fingers, but it hadn’t taken long for him to bust free. “How you feeling, Mr. Stagg?”

“Doctor says he might have to wire my jaw shut.”

“Can you chew at all?” Ringold said.

“Been drinking my meals out of a straw,” Stagg said. “Everything they’re feeding me tastes like dog shit warmed over.”

“Could’ve been worse,” Ringold said.

“Yes, sir,” Stagg said. “I’d rather not study on it too long. Those boys were artistes with a tire iron.”

“I know I got two, maybe three of them.”

“They sure did skedaddle when you got hold of that weapon,” Stagg said. “How’d you get it free from that Mex?”

Ringold shrugged. “Didn’t have much choice.”

“You sprayed the hell out of those bastards,” Stagg said. “Wish you’d gotten the big bald fella with the tattooed face. He was the worst with the iron, personally broke my leg and four ribs. Son of a bitch, it hurts to talk. It hurts to breathe. When I go to the commode, it feels like I’m giving birth, pissing blood and all. They would’ve killed us both, left us in that ditch with what was left of Craig Houston.”

“You sure that was Houston you saw?”

“I got a pretty clear memory of it,” Stagg said. “Probably will my whole life. They gonna turn Jericho into Juárez while the law’s got its thumb up its ass, dealing with family issues and not taking this thing head-on.”

“But you won’t talk to Colson.”

“This thing’s gone past him now,” Stagg said, using the remote to raise himself up a few inches. Even handling of the remote making it feel like his sides might split. “Son of a bitch, son. Son of a bitch.”

“You could ID the ones who did it.”

“LeDoux called it,” Stagg said. “I want his ass in prison or taken out.”

“Might could handle both.”

“You ever get a beating like that?” Stagg said. “I was pretty sure I was going to die. Four grown men coming at me with that iron. They were enjoying it. I could smell that tequila on them, them grinning from ear to ear, thinking ole Johnny Stagg is a redneck piñata.”

“I have.”

“Can I ask you something, Mr. Ringold?”

“Yes, sir.”

“That really your name?”

“No.”

“Why’d you choose it?”

“Good as anything else.”

“And them tattoos,” Stagg said. “You got every inch of your arms covered?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Why?”

“It tells a story,” Ringold said. “People I’ve known. Men I didn’t who I killed.”

“I don’t like where we’re at, right now,” Stagg said. “I’m no military man, but our position has been greatly weakened by those pieces of shit out on Choctaw Lake.”

“What do we do?”

“LeDoux will undo himself,” Stagg said. “He killed old Hank Stillwell. He tried to kill me. And I figure he’s got Colson on that list somewhere, too, if he don’t want to play ball like Hamp Beckett used to.”

“Yes, sir.”

“What was that quote you were telling me the other day?” Stagg said. “When we were talking philosophy while they were cleaning the floors at the Booby Trap?”

“Make your enemy mad so they act impetuously.”

“And what’s that last word mean?” Stagg said as the nurse came in with a can of Coke, top popped, and curved straw held to his mouth. He sucked in a little cold Coke.

“Reckless.”

“He’s gonna do something dumb and fuck himself?”

The nurse bit her lip, offered the straw again, and Stagg sucked for a good while. She took the can back and set it on the rolling cart.

“Pretty much,” Ringold said.

“And we just wait till he does?”

“Yes, sir,” Ringold said.

“They think they got us,” Stagg said. “But ain’t nobody mounting my head on a wall. Or yours. Bring me that phone on the table over there. Yep, that one. I got some calls to make.”

The pack of bikers rode north, up and around the Jericho Square, and then took the county roads north, past Yellow Leaf and through the hamlet of Carthage and all the way into the National Forest, where Dupuy said they’d find their man. At the edge of the forest, a cop car pulled in behind them from out of the darkness, hitting the red-and-blue lights, Chains slowing and the rest sliding to a stop. The sheriff pulled alongside him and a deputy got out of the cruiser, Jason glad as hell it wasn’t Jean’s brother but instead a banty rooster of a fella, a deputy he’d seen around named Royce.

Jason closed his eyes and did something he hadn’t done in a long while. He thanked God for coming through for all of them. They would disperse, let the law handle this whole thing, and he could get home.

He rubbed a hand over his sweating face, it still hitting the high nineties in the middle of the night. Not even the slightest breeze coming through the big old pines and oaks stretching out into the forest. The trees towering above them, dwarfing the men on the bikes, nervous, agitated, waiting for the law to bring more deputies.

But then the lawman stepped away from Chains, patted him on his back, and got back into his cop car. He turned off the lights on the cruiser but didn’t turn around. He shifted forward, the Born Losers following him deep into the forest.