Lucas didn’t say anything for ten seconds, fifteen seconds, then he blurted, “You motherfuckers. You used that girl to set me up. That’s what’s going on here. She doesn’t need that money. I bet you got her doing this three times a week...”
The sheriff said, “Todd? A little help?”
Todd swung harder this time, caught Lucas across the cheek with an open hand, knocked him off the chair. Lucas crawled in a circle on his hands and knees, could taste blood this time, and said, “C’mon, don’t hit me, don’t hit me again.”
“Couldn’t help myself,” the sheriff said. “Accusing me of some kind of public corruption. I don’t take those kind of insults. Now get back up on that chair.”
Lucas got back up on the chair, feeling the blood surging through his cheeks where he’d been hit—he’d have a hand-sized bruise in the morning—and the sheriff asked, “What’s it gonna be? You want to pay or you want to go to court? I gotta tell you the truth, we don’t much care for Yankees down here.”
Lucas dragged his hand across his mouth, tasting the salty/metallic dash of blood. “What’re we talking about? How much?”
The sheriff considered for a moment and then said, “Given what the crime is, and given the fact that you’re a rich man... twenty-five thousand. That sound about right?”
“Jesus, I don’t have that much around. I don’t have my checkbook with me...”
“What we do is this. You give me that American Express card andwe’ll fill out, right here, a bond statement, bailing you outa jail. We bail you out for two thousand dollars. Then you go back home and you send us a check. If you don’t send us a check, we’ll schedule you for trial and get in touch with the St. Paul police about extraditing your ass. If the check comes in, well, then it was a bad night in Oh-Va, but you won’t be hearing from us again.”
“I send you a check for twenty thousand? You already got five in cash.”
“And the watch,” Todd said. “That’s a Rolex, I always wanted one of them. Give it here.”
“Not the watch. My wife gave it to me, it’s engraved on the back.”
“The watch,” Todd insisted. The sheriff leaned back, amused. “Give it here,” Todd said, “or, I swear to God, I’ll slap the shit out of you.”
“You gotta take the price of the watch off the rest, I’ll get a new one...” Lucas said. He unfastened the watch and handed it to Todd, who admired it for a few seconds, then put it in his pocket.
“No, no. The full price is thirty-two thousand, plus the watch,” the sheriff said, leaning back into the conversation. “You put two thousand on that Amex and send us twenty-five and we’ll keep all of it.”
“How much does Triste get? I hope she gets something from you sonsofbitches.”
The sheriff smiled. “Triste does all right. Better than working at McDonald’s, getting all that smoke and grease up in your hair.” He leaned forward across his desk, fingers knitted together. “You look like a sophisticated man, Mr. Davenport. If you ever talk about this whole thing, the big headline’s gonna say ‘Mr. Davenport Fucks Fifteen-Year-Old’ and the little headline is gonna say ‘Claims publiccorruption.’ Which headline do you think people will give a shit about? Which headline do you think your wife will give a shit about when Triste gets up on the witness stand and everybody gets a look at those titties?”
Lucas said, “All right. You’ve got the five grand in your pocket, I’ll charge two more on the Amex, but I only send you twenty more. That’s all.”
“You trying to bargain with me?” the sheriff asked with the same shark-toothed smile. “Because you’re not in much of a position...”
—
THE OFFICE DOORopened and the deputy who’d led Triste away stepped back inside the room. His face was shiny with sweat, and maybe regret, and the sheriff broke off to say, “What...?”
The deputy looked back over his shoulder, and then a dark gray semiautomatic pistol extended past his ear, pointed at Todd’s head, and the deputy lurched farther into the office, and a man in a blue suit with a wide gray mustache pushed inside and said, “Todd, I don’t want to have to tell you twice, but if you move a hand toward your gun, I’ll blow your brains all over Daddy’s office.”
The sheriff pushed back from his desk, a stricken look on his face. He’d already figured it out, but he asked anyway: “Who’re you? Who the fuck are you?”
“Deputy U.S. Marshal James Duffy, Eastern District of Missouri. You are both under arrest. Got a looong list of charges, we’ll read them to you when we get up to St. Louis. Harry? You want to get in here, put some handcuffs on these gentlemen?”
Another man in a suit edged past the gun, which was still pointedat Todd’s head. The second man, Harry, spoke directly to Lucas. “Turner really wasn’t dumb enough to put the money in his pocket, was he?”
“Yes, he was, and Todd put the watch in his pocket,” Lucas said. “I’d like to get the goddamn wire off me. My back is itching like fire.”
“You all right other than that?” Duffy asked.
“Yeah. Todd smacked me a few times but never touched the wire pack. I was mostly worried that somebody would see me flushing those margarita sponges down the toilet in the rooster room.”
The second marshal cuffed Todd’s hands behind his back and said to the sheriff, “On your feet, Mr. Turner.”
“That’sSheriffTurner...”
