Snake snorted. “I don’t give a shit. All Forrest is thinking about is moving up in the state police and whatever power play he’s got going with Brody in New Orleans. I don’t plan to move down to that hellhole, even though God did the world a favor and washed all the welfare trash out of there. I’m staying right here, and I ain’t lettin’ Morehouse or Henry Sexton send me to Angola to live out my days. Brody Royal’s okay with this, and that’s all I need to know.”

Sonny didn’t want to think about Snake trying to exploit tensions between the two most powerful men in their universe.

“Billy’s mama ruined him,” Snake muttered. “Thinks he’s the goddamn king of everything now. One of these days I’m gonna tear that boy a new one.”

I’ll lay odds you won’t, Sonny thought, but what he said was “I got some Skoal. Want a pinch?”

“No.”

Sonny was fishing for his tin when Snake tensed beside him.

“The light’s gone,” Snake said. “Let’s move.”

Sonny followed him silently across the road, as silently as you could move over packed gravel anyway. When they reached the front porch, Sonny pulled back the screen door with a slow screech and tapped lightly against the wood.

Someone turned the knob and drew the door inward. The repellent odors of a sickroom wafted out of the darkness. As Sonny drew back, a pale, hollow-eyed face appeared in the crack of the door, hovering like an apparition. Wilma Deen, Glenn Morehouse’s sister.

“How many of you?” she asked, her wrinkled face pinched with suspicion.

“Just me and Snake.”

She opened the door wider and drew her flannel housecoat tight.

“Glenn sleepin’?” asked Snake.

“He’s woozy, but he ain’t down yet. Which is odd, because I doubled his usual dose.”

“Well, I need to talk to him anyway. Let’s go. I’m soaked to the skin already, and I don’t fancy bein’ here longer than we got to be.”

The three of them gathered inside the tiny foyer. Wilma had the indurated skin of a lifelong chain smoker, and her eyes held a weariness that made Sonny tired.

“Has he talked to Henry Sexton any more since that last phone call?” Snake asked.

“I don’t think so. I’ve hardly left him. I went to the bathroom earlier, but he was dozing. What ya’ll gonna do? You ain’t gonna hurt him, are you?”

“Not like we oughta,” Snake said. “Not like what the oath says.”

Wilma gave him a mistrustful look. “Well, we’ve got a problem, anyway.”

“What problem?”

“Glenn’s got a gun in there.”

“What?” Snake whispered. “In the bed with him?”