Feast Day of Fools (Hackberry Holland 3)

“Ma’am?” he said.

“I just wanted you to take note of that fact,” she said. “It’s why I’m not pounding you into marmalade. But you open your mouth like that one more time, and I promise you, all bets are off.”

DOWNSTAIRS, FIVE MINUTES later, Pam came into Hackberry’s office and closed the door behind her. “I’m backing your play, Hack, whatever it is. But I think you’re taking an awful risk here,” she said.

“We don’t owe the feds diddly-squat,” he replied. “We apprehended Barnum. They didn’t. As far as I’m concerned, they’re on a need-to-know basis. Right now I don’t figure they need to know anything.”

“This is a national security issue. They’re going to eat you alive. If they don’t, your enemies around here will.”

“That’s the breaks.”

“God, you’re stubborn.”

“I got a call from Temple Dowling. He says Josef Sholokoff believes Dowling put a hit on him.”

“Why’s he think that?”

“Because somebody killed a couple of Sholokoff’s men at his game farm.”

“Why didn’t we hear anything about it?”

“Sholokoff didn’t report it.”

“What did you tell Dowling?”

“To get out of town. That he was on his own,” Hackberry said.

“What’s the problem?”

“I was pretty hard-nosed with him. Maybe I took satisfaction in his discomfort.”

“Dowling is a pedophile and deserves anything that happens to him.”

“He said Sholokoff takes people apart.”

“In what way?”

“Physically, piece by piece,” Hackberry said.

He realized her attention was focused outside the window. A man in rumpled slacks, wearing canvas boat shoes without socks and his shirttail hanging out, was crossing the street hurriedly, a brown paper bag folded under his arm. “What’s wrong?” Hackberry asked.

“That guy out there. He was just released.”

“What about him?”

“He’s a check writer. Loving and Jeff Davis counties have bench warrants on him, but they didn’t want to pay the costs for getting him back.”

“I’m still not following you.”

“He was waiting to be taken downstairs when R.C. brought Barnum in. I remember he was watching us move everybody down to the tank. He was at the window, too, looking down in the alley.”

“He probably wouldn’t know who Barnum is.”

“No, I saw his jacket. He

was in Huntsville. He got clemency on a five-bit for sending his cell partner to the injection table. He’s a professional snitch.”

Hackberry thought about it. “Leave him alone. If he has any suspicions, we don’t want to confirm them.”