“I guess we made a good impression when we went to see the Revs,” Tee said.

“I think we can chalk this windfall up to you.”

She grinned then. “I’ll take that. I only wish my efforts in the redneck quarter had been as effective.”

Less than five minutes later, we discovered that they had been. Before we could leave the house to visit Quentin at Edelweiss, my cell phone rang. The caller was Deke Devine. The younger son of Double Eagle Will Devine—the son named after a Mercury astronaut—Deke told me that he and his mother wanted to speak with me privately about a possible deal for his father. Will Senior, he said, would not leave the house because he believed that he—like every other surviving Double Eagle—was being watched by members of the VK motorcycle club. When I asked how we could meet, Deke told me that he and his mother would drive up my street—Washington Street—in one hour in a Winnebago motor home. He would stop at the corner of Washington and Union long enough for me to climb inside. When the meeting was over, he would return me home. I didn’t like the sound of it, but Devine said those were the only circumstances under which his mother would meet me. I told him to be at that corner in one hour, and I would hear what he had to say.

“Why is everybody helping us all of a sudden?” I asked the air.

“Because your dad’s getting his ass kicked?” Serenity suggested.

I laughed, but I knew that explained only the Baldwins’ visit. The only thing that could be driving old Will Devine to cut a deal was the raw fear of death. For himself or his family—or both. And even then, betrayal is an almost incomprehensible step to take. For to date, every Double Eagle who even tried to betray his “brothers” has died for it, and died badly.

Despite the fact that Serenity and I come bearing gifts, Quentin lets us no farther into Edelweiss than the main hall, which irritates me more than a little, since I own the house. He’s wearing a robe cut off and hemmed just below his stumps, and a crumpled comforter lies in the front part of his wheelchair’s seat. Doris stands far down the hall behind him, just outside the door to the kitchen. She’s wearing a translucent nightgown that leaves little to the imagination, even in the faint light spilling onto her from the kitchen.