“What are you taking, Ike? Speed? What?”

“I take me a drink now and then. So what? Have you talked to Stone again?”

“Yes, but he’s just like you. Scared to tell what he knows.”

“I told you, man, I know Marston done it, but I don’t know why.”

“How do you know, Ike? How can you know he did it if you don’t know why?”

He grunts in the dark. “I know what I know. Why’d you slam Portman in the paper? You go pissing off the head of the FBI, you’re asking for some serious payback.”

“I did it to protect myself and my family. That newspaper story threw a lot of light on Portman. On me too. It makes it harder for him to retaliate.”

“Yeah? I heard somebody tried to poison Ray Presley. Who the hell you think did that?”

“I figured Marston ordered it. You think it was Portman?”

“Sure as hell wasn’t the tooth fairy.” Ike scrapes the tip of a boot along the cement floor of the warehouse. “Stone say anything about surveillance?”

“Why?”

“There’s somebody watching me.”

A shiver runs along my forearms. “How long?”

“I picked him up today, but he could have been there longer.”

“Stone’s under FBI surveillance himself. He thinks Caitlin and I are too. Phones, the works. But why would the FBI be watching you?”

“Maybe ’cause of your damn newspaper article.”

“I didn’t mention your name. Why did you warn me away from the FBI, Ike? Have you tried to talk to them about the Payton case before?”

“Say what?” He takes out a cigarette and taps it against his palm but does not light it. “Why don’t you focus on some shit that’ll get you somewhere? Like Marston’s papers. There’s bound to be something in there to prosecute him on. He’s had his hands in all kinds of shit for years. I mean, who cares what he goes down for, ’long as he rots in Parchman.”

“I care. To get out from under this slander charge, I’ve got to prove Marston guilty of murder. Not campaign finance fraud or any other bullshit. Murder. Do you comprehend that?”

Instead of answering, Ike flips open his lighter, ignites it, and puts the flame to the tip of his cigarette. As the orange glow illuminates his face, something incomprehensible happens. The flame reaches toward me as though sucked by a wind, and Ike slams his shoulder into my chest, punching the air out of my lungs and knocking me to the cement floor.

As he lands on top of me, gunfire erupts outside the warehouse and echoes through the metal building. Two shots, I think. Then a third, the sound quick and flat.

“Get off,” I grunt, unable to draw breath with Ike on top of me.

He rolls off and up into a kneeling position, his pistol pointed through the warehouse door.