The Empress File

again. He took the bass boat to the left, paced us for a moment, then accelerated away, hotfooting it back toward the marina.
    “Guess Hill wanted to keep his face,” LuEllen said laconically, as she climbed up on top. “Wouldn’t know why.”
    H ILL WAS WAITING on the dock when we came in. St. Thomas was up toward the top of the levee, hurriedly walking away. There were a half dozen people around, messing with boats, talking, comingand going. We nosed in, coasted, bumped, and LuEllen tied us off.
    Hill walked down the dock and yelled up at me: “What the fuck you think you were doing?”
    “What the hell were
you
doing?” I called back. “I thought you were going to sink us.”
    He was operating in the kind of blind rage that infects psychotics when they’re countered. His hand went to his hip, but he wasn’t actually far enough gone to pull the pistol with witnesses around. “I’ll get you, computer man,” he screamed. “I’ll be looking for you.”
    LuEllen was watching him climb the levee when I dropped down to the lower deck. “Computer man?” she said.
    “Somebody’s been doing research,” I said. “If they found out I do computers and suspect I’m with Marvel, then they may have put together the whole thing: the state having their books, John coming in, everything.”
    “Time to leave,” she said.
    “Soon,” I said. “We’re close.”
    L ATE THAT NIGHT we got the City Hall money out of the engine compartment, agreed that seventeen thousand dollars was about right for expenses, and took the rest of it to Marvel’s friend’s house in the country.
    “We took expenses out,” I told Marvel, handing her the package. “There’s eighty-threethousand left. You can’t give it back. That might jeopardize the case against Dessusdelit and St. Thomas, and there just wouldn’t be any explanations.”
    “We’ve got some things we can do with it,” she said. “Thank you… I mentioned to John that I thought the money should be for all of us, but he said it was yours.…”
    John, who was lounging in an easy chair, shook his head. “It ain’t right,” he said. “You two are working an angle somewhere, but I can’t figure what it is.”
    I shrugged. “You could just give us credit for a selfless act.”
    He looked at us for a moment, then said, “Nah.”
    B ACK ON THE BOAT I called Bobby:
    Will tell John/Marvel about Harold body. Will call cops anonymously and give them IDs. Will tell John/Marvel you found body reports in data searches. Please back up if John inquires.
    He came back:
    OK. But need long talk soon.
    He was getting nervous, thinking about friends and loyalties. I answered:
    Yes. Tomorrow, day after. Soon.

T HE NEXT MORNING I phoned the Bolivar County Sheriff’s Department. Posing as a reporter for a Memphis television station, I asked a couple of airweight questions about bodies pulled from the river. A woman had been found, a deputy said, but hadn’t been identified. There’d be no further comment pending an autopsy.
    I called another meeting at the country place.
    “It’s about your friends, the ones you’ve been looking for,” I said cautiously, talking to Marvel on the telephone.
    I went to the meeting alone, LuEllen shying away again. John and Marvel showed up at the rendezvous, tense, expectant.
    “What? What?” Marvel asked as I came through the door.
    “It’s about Harold and Sherrie. I think they’ve been found,” I said. “They’re dead.”
    “Oh, no,” she whispered, sinking onto a couch. John stood beside her, a hand on her shoulder. Hehad an odd look on his face: I wasn’t fooling him, not entirely.
    “Bobby called. He’s been doing a data search… and he found that the Bolivar County Sheriff’s Department has pulled a couple of bodies out of the river near Rosedale. A man and a woman. Both black. The man was dressed like you said Harold was. The woman, I don’t know… they said a yellow blouse.…”
    “It’s them,” Marvel said. She was dry-eyed, but on the thin edge of an explosion. “She was wearing yellow; her mama told us that.”
    “We’ve got to let the cops know; we’ve got to bring it back to Longstreet,” I said.
    “What do you want us to do?” John asked.
    “I want you to get Marvel… or somebody… down there and identify the bodies. Tell the deputies you heard it on the radio. Find out how they were killed. Tell the deputies what you suspect—that Harold had gone to visit Dessusdelit—but tell them you