The Hanged Man's Song

mouth and little miss black girl here will rot under a tree in the middle of a swamp.”
    “Don’t do that. Don’t do that,” I said, as urgently as I could.
    “Fuck you. I’ll talk to you again tomorrow.”
    He was gone.
    >>> I CALLED John. “I just got a phone call from James Carp. He’s there in Longstreet and he says he’s got Rachel. Have you seen her?”
    “Rachel?” He was sputtering like I had. “Rachel? She just left here half an hour ago, walking down to the library.”
    “I talked to a little girl, just for a moment. Sounded like Rachel. She said he got her on the way to the library, goddamnit, John, I think he got her, you gotta check.”
    “Call you back,” he rasped, and he was gone.
    >>> I HAD passed Cleveland on I-80. As soon as John was off the phone, I turned around and headed back, my laptop propped against the steering wheel. I pulled up Microsoft’s Streets and Trips program. Cleveland International was on my side of the metro area, fortunately, and I was able to take I-480 right back in. As soon as I figured out where I was going, I called directory assistance and got phone numbers for four charter air services. I was probably sixteen hours from Longstreet by road, close to a thousand miles. But maybe I could get a plane into Greenville.
    The first place I called at Cleveland International was basically an air ambulance service. The woman who answered the phone recommended another service, whose number I didn’t have, but who she said was most likely to have a plane free quickly.
    I called, and got a man’s quiet voice. “Rogers Air Transport.”
    “I need to get a plane to Greenville, Mississippi, in the next couple of hours,” I said, and my voice reflected it. “Do you have one, or do you know where I could get one?”
    “What do you want, exactly?”
    “To get down there as fast as I can. I’ve got a family emergency.”
    “Well, uh, I can get you a Lear into Greenville, have you down there in a couple of hours or a little more. But, uh, it won’t be cheap.”
    “How much?”
    “Mm, I’d have to figure it.” There was a moment of silence, and I had the feeling that he was staring at the ceiling, rather than running an accounting program. He came back. “About forty-five hundred. That’s if I don’t have to hang around down there.” He sounded apologetic.
    “I’ll take it,” I said. “I’m on the way to your place now. I’m maybe thirty or forty miles out. You won’t have to hang around, I’ll fly back commercial to pick up my car.”
    “About payment, uh, we require—”
    “You can have it any way you want it,” I said. “Cash, check, or credit card.”
    “Cash would be fine.”
    >>> ROGERS Air Transport had its worldwide headquarters in a cream-colored metal pole barn that served as both hangar and office. I parked in front, dug my stash cash out of the trunk, got one bag with clothes and another that had all three laptops, andcarried them around to the office, which smelled pleasantly of aviation gas and hot oil, and was empty.
    “Hello?” I called. Nothing. A side door led out of the office, and I stuck my head out and saw a redheaded man walking toward me. He wore denim overalls and a train engineer’s hat, and was wiping his hands on a rag. “Mr. Kidd?” he asked cheerfully.
    “Yes.”
    “I’m Jim Rogers.” He stuck out a hand and I shook it. “We’re ready if you are.”
    “My car’s outside.”
    “It’ll be okay there until you can get back. I hope it’s nothing terrible down in Greenville.”
    “It’s bad enough,” I said. I wasn’t going to be able to avoid saying something. “My dad’s had a heart attack. They’re gonna try to fix things, but nobody knows what’s going to happen.”
    “Aw, too bad,” he said. A woman came around the corner, mid-thirties with smile lines around her eyes, a good tan, a ponytail, and a flight suit.
    “This is Marcia, our co-pilot,” Rogers said.
    “I’m his old lady,” Marcia said. “You ready?”
    Jim’s eyes sort of drifted—I had the feeling he wasn’t the most dynamic of executives, though he might have been a hell of a guy—and I said, “Oh, yeah, better give you this,” and handed him forty-five hundred from my stash cash. He took it and nodded, not asking the obvious question, which I answered anyway. “I was up here buying pottery,” I said. “Lucky for me, a lot of those places only take cash.”
    “Lucky,” he agreed.
    >>> JIM ROGERS was a garrulous