Page 87 of Lord Have Mercy Part Four: Big Son

“You ought to be arresting her right now for solicitation instead of asking me about–” His voice broke, and for one awfulmoment, he thought he would finally shed a tear over the whole hideous nightmare. But then that sound that wasn’t his voice at all finished for him: “My father.”

The cops traded a look. Felix knew Dale Dandridge, because he’d been friendly with Remy, but Dale wasn’t here, and he had no idea what sorts of feelings these two held for his family – of which he was now the only surviving member.

“Felix,” the older one said, tone careful, hand splayed out on the desk in a gesture of appeal.Let’s be reasonable, that tone, and that hand said. “We’re just trying to get to the truth: that’s our job. Someone’s leveled a pretty serious accusation against you, and it would be irresponsible if we didn’t investigate.”

Felix nodded. “Okay. You’re investigating. That’s fine.”

The older deputy nodded in return. “Can you tell us when you last saw Oliver Landau?”

“Dunno. Six months, maybe. Landau’s a piece of shit, so I try to steer clear of him.”

The younger deputy sighed, but before he could speak, the office door opened, and Bob said, “You boys all good in here? Felix, Burt’s looking for you: your bike’s blocking him in. Gentlemen,” he said, stepping into the room, addressing the deputies, “maybe I can help you out with your questions.”

Felix – Mercy; he was Mercy, now, and though Bob was using his real name for the cops’ benefit, nobody else called him that around the clubhouse anymore – stood, and took the exit for what it was: a momentary salvation.

But later, once the brown cruiser had trundled out of the parking lot, Bob pulled him aside, face grave. “Today was them being polite. We’ve been respectful of them for the most part, so today they were respectful in turn. But they’re going to keep looking for Landau, even if he was a piece of shit. You’ve as good as admitted to burying Remy and your gram,” he said, gently. “That alone is a crime. It won’t be so hard for them tobelieve that you had something to do with Landau disappearing, especially if Dee keeps driving them crazy.”

“Her word against ours.”

Bob tilted his head. “Sure. But who do you think’s in the business of giving copsfavors?” He lifted his brows meaningfully, and Mercy wished he’d had Dee lashed to a kitchen chair beside Landau that day.

Despite his caution, and his warning, Bob didn’t try to leash Mercy in the months that followed when Landau’s death, and the vacuum it left behind among the scuzzy redneck crowd, opened up a new, deadly turf war. Mercy’s newly discovered skills were put to good use, and the men from which he extracted intel and confessions all went on to join Landau in his underwater gator buffet. Once things had stabilized, and once police pressure grew too great, Bob would hug Mercy, kiss him on the cheek, and send him packing to Tennessee, where Ghost Teague was in need of a bloodthirsty bodyguard for his wife and young daughter.

But before all of that, Mercy would make one of the greatest mistakes of his life, and wouldn’t even know he’d done it until more than twenty years later.

That day, he nodded, murmured something less than reassuring to Bob in the hallway, and ambled down to the bar to see about getting fantastically drunk. The Lean Bitch behind the counter took one look at him, and started pouring drinks. None of his brothers were stupid enough to approach him, and after a while – who knew how long – his world had taken on pleasantly fuzzy edges, thoughts sluggish and heartbeat pronounced in his chest, a slow lub-dub punctuated by the clack of pool balls somewhere behind him.

The alcohol numbed his face, and dulled the gnawing ache in his stomach, and blurred the lights into a yellow smear thatfollowed his head each time he turned it, leaving behind streaks like sci-fi lightspeed special effects.

He lifted his latest glass of Scotch on the rocks – he’d lost track of what number it was – to his lips and drained it off, ice cubes a pleasant cold burn against his lips. When he lowered the glass for the Lean Bitch to fill it again, he became aware that someone had climbed onto the stool to his left.

Mercy didn’t turn his head. He didn’t want to know who was unobservant enough to sit right next him.

A vaguely familiar voice said, “Hey, Felix? Er, I mean, Mercy?” His new nickname came out funny, like the speaker couldn’t quiet believe he was using it, or was maybe worried he wasn’t saying it right. What a dweeb. What a clueless fucking idiot.

Mercy ignored him.

“Hey. Mercy,” the kid repeated, more insistent, and Mercy finally turned his head.

The room tilted crazily, but he didn’t feel in danger of falling. He was somehow detached from the wild see-saw of his vision. In fact, he wasn’t sure he’d ever felt as grounded in his own body as he did now, save for the hours he’d spent working on Landau in the kitchen, while the flies droned, and the blood pattered down onto the linoleum.

The prospect – Mercy couldn’t recall his name, now, and wasn’t sure if he’d ever known it – sat sideways on the stool, one elbow braced on the bar, staring intently at Mercy. He really was a scrawny scrap of a thing; that in and of itself wasn’t damning: plenty of guys had late growth spurts, or never spurted at all. It was the size of the fight in the dog, and all of that. But this kid’s fight was mostly fear, a tooth-jarring, nervy, fractious energy that forever seemed caught between total submission and full-on explosion. He performed his duties with obsequious obedience, but seemed miserable doing it, like he thought heshouldn’t have to do grunt work; like he was waiting desperately for someone to notice what a good little prospect he was.

The sight of him now made Mercy sick. “The fuck do you want?” he asked.

The kid leaned in closer, close enough to count the pimples clustered in a triangle to the left of his nose: there were six. “I wanted to ask if you were okay,” he said. “You know…after your dad and all.”

Mercy blinked at him, and tried to get his sluggish thoughts in order. Tried to make sense of what this kid had said, because surely he wasn’t so stupid as to come over here and ask Mercy if he was “okay,” after his “dad and all.” Surely not.

“Are…you…okay?” the prospect – was his name Chet? or Chip? – repeated, slowly and loudly, like Mercy was stupid.

(Or drunk. He was that.)

Just as the alcohol hadn’t been able to dull the memory of Daddy and Gram, the sight of them burned into his brain, never to be forgotten, it couldn’t now tamp down the anger that welled up inside him. It started in his stomach, a sudden burst of heat, and boiled up into his chest and throat like heartburn.

Sober, he would have recognized that he was lashing out, venting his howling rage and grief on the first idiot who dared to speak about what he’d been through as if it was anything so small as to be contained in a few words over a drink. But right now, the prospect’s concern hit the liquor in his veins like a dropped match, and he exploded.

“What the fuck do you think?” He didn’t know he’d roared the question until chairs screeched back and heads whipped around. All conversation in the clubhouse ceased, and into the resultant silence, Mercy roared, “Are you fucking serious? Am Iokay? How do you think I am, dipshit?”

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