Niceville

sole concern must be to regain possession of the object. You have my card. On the back there is a cell number. Be in touch with me in sixty minutes.”
    “Or I could just talk into the roof of my fucking truck,” said Deitz, with an edge.
    “Or that,” said Dak, with a polite smile. He closed the door and the car powered out into traffic. The Tulip rolled on and so did Niceville. The Filipino kid had the seat cleaned and Deitz gave him a fifty for his trouble.
    He got into the truck, slammed the door hard, and sat back in the interior, which smelled of acetone and saddle soap and Deitz’s cigars. He started the car, turned up the air conditioner, turned his BlackBerry back on. There was a text message waiting for him, with no sender ID.
    PIGGLY WIGGLY
VINE AND BAUXITE
THE CORKBOARD
NOW

Nick and Beau Get Word
    Beau and Nick were only a block north of where Byron Deitz and Zachary Dak were concluding their discussions. Nick was still brooding on Bock.
    “You get a look at that guy at the table by the railing? All in black?”
    Beau stopped to think.
    “I saw him,” he said. “He drove up in that lime green shit-box Camry. Why?”
    “I know the guy. His name is Tony Bock. He’s the guy in the Dellums custody case. Kate handed him his ass on Friday afternoon.”
    “Weird-looking guy.”
    “Yeah. Did you see what he had shoved down the crack of his ass? He had one of those collapsible steel batons. What do they call them? An ASP? Must have been damn uncomfortable.”
    Beau nodded. “Or maybe he had his dick on backwards.”
    “Yeah,” said Nick, pulling out his cell phone. “Happens to me all the time.”
    Nick’s cell phone rang as soon as he turned it on. He got into the car on the passenger side—a couple of Advils had eased the pain in Beau’s butt cheek enough for him to drive.
    Nick hit ANSWER .
    “Lacy?”
    “Nick, I’ve been trying to reach you.”
    Her voice was tight and urgent, but not the tone she had when she was calling with a problem.
    “I can see that. Four times in the last hour. Is everything okay?”
    “Yes. No. Well, maybe.”
    “That pretty much covers the ground.”
    “Nick, Rainey Teague woke up.”
    The words ran around in his skull like those tigers chasing the black kid in that book nobody was allowed to read anymore. For some crazy reason he remembered it from his childhood.
Little Black Sambo
. His mother had waved it around as an example of what she called endemic racism. On some level Nick knew he was thinking of that stupid book right now because what Lacy had just said completely rocked his world.
    “How awake?” he asked when he could speak.
    “They’re saying he’s responsive. He’s talking. He’s been immobile for a year, so he can’t sit up or control very much. But he’s definitely not in a coma or a caledonia or whatever it was.”
    Nick turned to Beau.
    “Lady Grace, Beau. Right now.”
    “What’s up?”
    Nick told him.
    Beau took it in, made a U-turn to a chorus of outraged honks, accelerated into the street with the siren on. Cars on both sides swerved to the curb to give them room. Nick, busy getting the story from Lacy, only half registered Byron Deitz in his big fat yellow Hummer driving slowly north, staring at them as they flew south down Long Reach Boulevard.
    Lacy had gotten to the part about Lemon seeing a man in the elevator.
    “What does he mean? Like, a ghost?”
    “No,” said Lacy, who wasn’t sure what the hell Lemon had been trying to say. “Just a guy with a really wicked vibe. Lemon said he sort of radiated crazy. Crazy and spooky. I don’t know. Whoever he was, he scared the hell out of Lemon, which is pretty hard to do.”
    “He get a description?”
    “Yeah. He’ll tell you when you get there. He’s in the lobby, waiting for you.”
    “You got his cell?”
    Lacy gave it to him.
    “What was Lemon doing there in the first place?”
    “After he talked to you, he wanted to go see the kid. He says he went to smoke the room.”
    “What? You mean like that bug-killing stuff?”
    “No, you mutt. It’s a tribal thing he does. All the Indians have it. He takes some sweetgrass and burns it in a bowl and calls the kid’s name.”
    “Looks like this other guy had a better method for calling the kid. What’s this name Rainey was saying again?”
    “He was asking for somebody named Abel Teague.”
    “
Abel Teague?
You sure?”
    “Yeah. He was also talking about a woman named Glynis Roo … something. Glynis