The Empress File

capital.
    As I was leaving, I asked, “Was it worth it?”
    “Yes,” she said, looking straight into my eyes. “Harold would have died for this. He would have told you so himself. And he did. But we got what he wanted.”
    “If you’re satisfied…”
    “I am, but that doesn’t mean I’m not sad. Harold’s murder damn near killed me. And there are loose ends all over the place. Archie Ballem is oozing around like a slug. He’s got trouble with the IRS, but he’s still kicking, and he hates me. And we can’t pry Mary Wells out of the city clerk’s office. Not yet, anyway, because of civil service. Carl Rebeck got immunity to testify against the machine and now thinks he can run on a clean house ticket—and he’s already goingaround calling me a Commie nigger.… But for now I’m satisfied. Satisfied and sad.”
    “All right,” I said. “Maybe that’s the best you can hope for.”
    O N THE WAY out of town I stopped at Chickamauga Park, scuffed around the trash can until I found the computer key, and pocketed it. Then I drove on to the E-Z Way and bought a couple of Diet Cokes. I’d need the caffeine for the run into Memphis.
    It was still hot when I got to the store, and a billion bugs were diving around the pole lights. The fat guy sat behind the counter, mopping his face with a rag that once was a T-shirt; you could still see the yellow deodorant stains in the armpits.
    “Hot,” the counterman said, in a sort of neutral way. He was ready to agree with a different opinion if I had one. It was that kind of town.
    “Yeah.” I put a dollar and a quarter on the counter. He slid it into the palm of his hand and poked at the cash register. He was wearing a plastic pin that said ELVIS , and under that, in smaller letters, NIGHT ASSISTANT MANAGER .
    He gave me a nickel back. As I was going out the door, I thought he said something to me and half turned. He was looking out the open window at the pole lights, with a dreamy look in his little pig eyes.
    “Pretty fliers,” he crooned. His mouth was half open, his heavy pink lips glistening in the overhead lights. “Pretty, pretty fliers.”
    L U E LLEN .
    She hung around for a month or so in New Orleans, while I was recovering. One morning at breakfast she said, “Do you love me?”
    I said, “Yes.”
    “I don’t know if I can handle that,” she said.
    “I don’t know what to tell you,” I said.
    “I’m going away for a while.”
    “Like Charade, or whatever her name was,” I said.
    “Chaminade,” she said absently. “But not like her. ’Cause I’ll be back.”
    “For sure?”
    “Yeah.” She has dark eyes like great northern lakes. “For sure.”
    •  •  •
    For a complete list of this author’s books click here or visit
www.penguin.com/sandfordchecklist

John Sandford is the pseudonym of the Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist John Camp. He is the author of the Prey novels, the Kidd novels, the Virgil Flowers novels,
The Night Crew
, and
Dead Watch
. He lives in Minnesota. Visit his website at www.johnsandford.org .