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Back The Empress File Save as PDF
Chapters (20)
  1. Prologue
  2. CHAPTER 1
  3. CHAPTER 2
  4. CHAPTER 3
  5. CHAPTER 4
  6. CHAPTER 5
  7. CHAPTER 6
  8. CHAPTER 7
  9. CHAPTER 8
  10. CHAPTER 9
  11. CHAPTER 10
  12. CHAPTER 11
  13. CHAPTER 12
  14. CHAPTER 13
  15. CHAPTER 14
  16. CHAPTER 15
  17. CHAPTER 16
  18. CHAPTER 17
  19. CHAPTER 18
  20. CHAPTER 19

“I think we can take them,” I said.

Marvel walked over to the countertop that held the sink and dumped the bag. A two-quart carton of strawberry ice cream tumbled out with a box of plastic spoons. She picked up one of the half dozen hotel water glasses that were stacked on the counter, pulled off its cellophane wrapper, and opened the ice cream.

“How we gonna do it?” asked Marvel as she dished the strawberry into the first of the glasses.

“With superstition,” I said. “Superstition, an old-time con game, and a little help from the governor.”

We talked for two hours. When we were done, Marvel shook her head. “That’s the most cynical thing I ever heard,” she said. She got up and took a turn around the room. “Do something like that

how do you square it with any kind of ethical position?”

Harold was smiling in a nasty sort of way. “Fuck ethics,” he said. “I like it.”

Marvel looked at him in surprise, then took another turn around the room before she finally nodded.

“All right. I guess we’re in. When do you start?”

I glanced at LuEllen and told them the first lie.

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 5

We’d be in Memphis for a couple of days, getting some equipment and taking care of last-minute personal business, I said. Marvel suggested that we eat dinner together that night, but LuEllen vetoed the idea.

“We can’t be seen with you,” she said. “Even this meeting is risky. We’re talking about felonies. If there’s ever a trial, I don’t want to be tied to you guys by a waitress or a bellhop or a maitre d’ or anybody else.”

“That’s kind of pessimistic,” Marvel said.

“I’m a pro,” LuEllen answered. “I’ve never been arrested on the job because I try to think of everything in advance. If they ever do get me, I want them to have as little as possible.”

The decision to attack the town had been a mood elevator. LuEllen’s comments sobered them up, and by six o’clock they were gone. The minute they were out the door, LuEllen made a call.

Five minutes later we were standing on a curb along the riverfront.

“We’re running late,” I said. “If they don’t show soon

“

“They will. These guys are good.”

“Better be,” I said. I was getting cranked and turned away. Below us a string of barges was pushing upriver, driven by a tow called the Elvis Doherty. The pilot sat in his glass cage, smoking a pipe, reading what looked like one of those fat beach novels that come out every June. At the tow’s stern an American flag, grimy with stains from the diesel smoke, hung limply off a mast between the boat’s twin stacks. I was watching the tow, thinking that it would make a very bad Norman Rockwell painting. LuEllen was watching the street.