Bitterroot (Billy Bob Holland 3)

"No."

"You think anybody's-fuck from a state reformatory can lie and call me stupid on my own property, in front of a business associate, and just walk out of here?"

Terry was drowning in Molinari's words.

"I was fishing. I turn around and a guy who looks like Frankenstein locks me in his car trunk. I don't deserve this."

"I don't think you should call Frank names, kid. You want to apologize to Frank for that?" Molinari said.

Terry hung his head and shut his eyes and waited for another ball to hit him. But nothing happened.

"I'm gonna fix a sandwich. Then I'll be back. Search your memory about that deal on the Clearwater National Forest," Molinari said, and went out the side door of the barn.

It was quiet a long time, then Frank stood up from the sawhorse he had been sitting on and folded his huge palm around the trigger for the pitching machine. Terry remembered thinking his jaws looked like dirty sandpaper, his recessed eyes like those of a man whose moment had come.

A HALF HOUR LATER the side door opened again and Molinari entered the batting cage and reached down out of a red haze and lifted Terry's chin with one knuckle.

"You gonna make it?" he asked.

Terry's face felt as if it had been stung all over by hornets.

"Wyatt's gonna-" he began.

"The clown again?" Molinari said.

"Wyatt-" Terry said, but could not clear the blood from his mouth to speak.

Molinari looked at Frank, who shook his head negatively. Molinari chewed on the ball of his thumb and gazed thoughtfully into the shadows, then spit a piece of skin off his tongue.

"Spread some raincoats on the car seat and get him out of here," he said.

"He called you a dago and greaseball," Frank said.

"I've answered to worse. Call Phoenix and L.A. and tell them I want everything they got on this militia guy, what's-his-name, Hinkel."

He picked up a baseball that had rolled out on the floor and tossed it into an apple basket.

"This valley used to be a nice place. Now we got half the riffraff in the United States moving here," he said.

Just before 11 P.M. that night, at the end of what had probably been the longest day of Terry Witherspoon's life, he was stopped by a Ravalli County sheriff's deputy only two hundred yards from the entrance to Carl Hinkel's compound. The moon was high and yellow over the mountains, the upside-down American flag popping on the metal pole in Carl's yard.

Terry was almost home free. Don't wise off, he told himself. Turn into an ice cube. Tell him you fell off a truck. Let Wyatt deal with Molinari.

In minutes Terry had forgotten all his resolutions and was cuffed and in the backseat of the cruiser and on his way to the county jail.

Chapter 28

The next day was Saturday. A turnkey walked me down to the holding cell where Terry Wither-spoon had spent the night.

"Have you been spit on lately?" he asked. "Can't say that I have," I replied. "Don't stand too close to the bars." The turnkey walked back down the corridor and sat at a small table and picked up a newspaper.

The cell was splattered with food from a serving tray that Terry had thrown against the wall. He stood under a barred window, wrinkling his nose under his glasses.

"What are you doing here?" he asked.

"The sheriff in Missoula told me you were in the slams. I thought I'd drop by for a chat," I said.

"I should be in a hospital. They put me in jail."