Snake didn’t answer. Sonny knew his old comrade hated taking problems to his son, but that was the procedure, and Sonny hoped Snake wouldn’t buck it. Glenn Morehouse knew enough to blow a lot more than Double Eagles out of the water. “Snake?” he said hesitantly.

“I’m thinking.”

Sonny looked over at the Camaro. When Sandra called, he’d been trying to open a hidden compartment that concealed two pounds of ephedrine. He’d already retrieved two pounds from behind the coolant reservoir, but the jerry-rigged compartment welded above the exhaust pipe was proving troublesome. He’d ripped his right thumbnail down to the quick, and it hurt like hell. He put it in his mouth and sucked it. “Come on, Snake. We gotta do it.”

“Is Sexton still at Wilma’s house?”

“Sandra says yeah. She’s going to call me when he leaves.”

“Goddamn it. I’d like to go take care of that fucker now, before anybody else gets into it. We should’ve silenced him a month after they diagnosed him. Would have been a mercy.”

Sonny gritted his teeth and tried to sound diplomatic. “You know that’s not gonna fly. It’s been a big enough day already.”

“I know … I know. All right, Billy’s down at Fort Knox. I’ll pick you up in my truck and we’ll head to Mississippi.”

“Fort Knox” was Snake’s nickname for Valhalla, the hunting camp that had been in his family for decades. Brody Royal preferred the formal name, but Snake liked reminding people that his family held the deed on all that acreage, regardless of who had paid for it.

“Give me thirty minutes,” Sonny said. “I need to secure these cars.”

“Works for me. Out.”

Sonny pocketed his cell phone, then looked down at his mechanic’s creeper with almost spousal resentment. He had a bad feeling in the pit of his belly. He’d had it for some time now. It had started just before Viola came back from Chicago. And look what came of that, he thought. Now Glenn’s talking? Jesus. Trying to keep the past buried was like trying to stop kudzu from growing. Short of pouring gasoline on the ground and killing the earth itself, you couldn’t do it. Which is exactly what Snake would argue in half an hour.

“Screw this load,” Sonny cursed, kicking the creeper across the floor.

Picking up the tightly packed Ziplocs of ephedrine, he walked into the front office to get some coffee. Bucky Jarrett, an old Double Eagle who worked as his sales manager, looked up from his ten-year-old computer when Sonny dropped the bags on his desk.

“Everything copacetic, boss?” Jarrett slid the Ziplocs into his bottom drawer with a practiced motion.