Chapter 6
TOMMY
The Palmetto Rose had been expecting me like I'd been booking suites there all my life.
The car from the airstrip had pulled up in front of the place a little after midnight, and a woman behind the front desk—dark curls, bright eyes, name tag that said Sasha—had slid a key card across the counter before I'd opened my mouth.
"Mr. Dane. Welcome. We've got you in the Magnolia Suite. Top floor, end of the hall. Anything you need tonight, dial nine."
"You knew I was coming."
"We knew."
"How?"
"We just did."
I'd looked at her. She'd looked back. Whatever the answer to that was, she wasn't going to say more, and I'd been awake for about twenty hours and not in the mood to chase it.
"Appreciate it," I'd said.
"Sleep well, Mr. Dane."
The driver had carried my duffel up. He was a polite kid in a black suit who'd told me at the door of the suite that I'd get a text in the morning. Take your time. Sleep in. Somebody'll be in touch.
Sleep in.
Now that was a phrase.
People had this idea about military guys—that we were all up at zero-four-thirty hut-hut-hutting through pushups in the dark like our drill sergeant from twenty years ago was watching from a corner of the room. Some of us were. God, bless them. I'd never been one of them.
Left to my own devices, Tommy Dane would sleep until nine in the morning every day of the week. Maybe not sleep. But doze. The slow kind. The kind where you drifted in and out and let the morning happen around you while you decided whether you wanted to participate.
I'd showered. I'd looked at the bed—king-sized, four posts, sheets so white they hurt—and I'd fallen into it like a tree.
I'd been asleep about six hours when somebody started knocking.
It wasn't a knock-knock. It wasn't housekeeping, Mr. Dane.
It was a rap-rap-rap, three even knocks at exactly the right cadence, the kind of knock that said open this fucking door right now in a voice the knocker hadn't actually had to use.
Cop knock. Government knock. The knock of a man who'd been to a school where they taught you how to knock.
I came up out of bed clean. Pistol from under the pillow into my right hand, hand behind my back. Bare feet on the carpet. Boxer briefs and nothing else. I padded to the door.
Through the peephole: a man in a charcoal suit. Late thirties. Squared shoulders. The haircut was the haircut. He had that government face I'd seen in a dozen field offices over the years—the neutral expression of a guy who'd been trained out of having one.
I was reaching for the knob when the voice came through the door.
"FBI, Mr. Dane."
The fuck.
I stood there a second.
I didn't love the FBI. Not because the FBI had done anything to me, personally, but because in my line of work, the FBI was the agency that turned up after the fact and asked the kind of questions you couldn't answer without getting somebody fired, including yourself.
We didn't run in the same lanes. When we did, somebody was usually unhappy.
But I wasn't a guy who left a man standing in a hotel hallway.
I left the chain on, kept the pistol tucked behind my hip, and cracked the door.
The agent gave me a slow up-and-down. The kind of look that catalogued a man—height, weight, distinguishing marks, am-I-going-to-have-to-tackle-this-guy. He held the look a beat too long. I let him have it.
"Can I help you?" I said, polite.
He went down and back up.
"There's someone who would like a word with you, Mr. Dane."
I tilted my head.
"Is it Santa Claus?"
He blinked.
"Excuse me?"
"Santa," I said. "St. Nick. Big guy, white beard, makes lists, checks them—at minimum—twice.
If it's him, I'll come right out. Maybe Mr. Beast. I'd come out for Mr. Beast. I like his videos.
His chocolate, not so much. Otherwise I'm not coming into a hotel hallway in my underwear for somebody who isn't on television. "
His mouth opened. Closed. Opened again. He'd come up here with a script, and the script had not contemplated underwear or Santa.
I was good at this. Saying silly things to serious people and watching them buffer.
It was one of the most underrated skills of my profession.
You could learn a lot about a man by what he did when his rehearsed lines stopped working.
Some of them got mean. Some of them got quiet.
The good ones laughed and pivoted. This guy couldn't do any of it. He just stood there, blinking.
I almost felt for him. Almost.
He gathered himself. The serious face came back.
"Mr. Dane, there's a federal official who would like to speak with you. If you could—"
"Look," I said. "Friend. I don't even know if you are who you say you are.
Last week a guy in El Paso asked me for a twenty to buy gas, and ten minutes later I saw him hand it to a woman on the corner who didn't appear to be selling gas.
I'm careful with my faith in strangers these days.
Is that what we're doing here? You looking for a free one? "
"Sir—"
"Because if you are, you've come to the wrong door."
"Mr. Dane."
"All right, all right." I leaned my shoulder against the frame. "Let's see it."
He pulled out his badge. Pulled out his ID. Held them up flat against the gap in the door so I could see them in the bad hallway light.
I gave the credentials the kind of look a man gives a check he's not going to bother cashing.
I'd seen Bureau IDs. Some real, some fake, some printed in a basement in Caracas by a guy who charged extra for the laminate.
This one looked real. Special Agent T. Mendez.
Photo matched. Holograms in the right places.
"Special Agent Mendez," I said. "Pleasure. Now—who wants to see me?"
He hesitated.
"Sir, it would be best if—"
"Tell you what." I straightened. "I'm not leaving this very fancy suite where I was looking forward to a very long, very hot shower, until I know who's extending the invitation. Names, brother. Give me a name. Then we can talk about whether I bring my pants."
A door opened down the hall.
A man stepped out of one of the other suites—the one closest to the elevator, two doors down. Silver at the temples. Suit cut clean enough to tell you what he was before he opened his mouth. He moved with the gravity of a man who was used to other men moving out of his way.
He gave Mendez a look. Mendez stepped back like he'd been pulled.
The man stepped into the hallway. Looked at me. He had the eyes of a man who'd spent thirty years deciding which truths to bury and which to use. They were keen eyes. Patient.
"My name is Dominic Craine, Mr. Dane. I'm a deputy director at the FBI. I'd like five minutes of your time."
I broke into the biggest grin I had.
"Deputy Director. Why didn't you say so in the first place?
" I reached one arm through the gap and clapped Mendez on the shoulder, friendly as a lab.
"Buddy, you're burying the lede. You don't open with FBI with a guy at six in the morning.
You open with the title. That's how you get him to come over. "
Mendez did not look amused.
"Five minutes," I said to Craine. "Give me long enough to get cleaned up and find some pants and I'll come over. Your suite?"
"Two doors down."
"On my way."
I closed the door.
I leaned my back against it and looked at the ceiling.
The smart thing to do was call Grant.
That's what a normal man would do. Big brother, the FBI just knocked on my door at six in the morning, what is happening, who is this guy, what do I say. That was the move. Read me in, brief me, give me my talking points. That was how families with lawyers handled this kind of thing.
I wasn't a normal man.
I was a guy who got dropped into rooms without briefings for a living.
I was a guy whose entire professional value sat in the gap between here is the situation and here is what Tommy Dane decides to do about it.
A wizard in chaos, my first sergeant had once called me, and I'd liked that enough to let it stick.
Wizards in chaos didn't call their big brothers from hotel suites. They put on pants.
I dressed fast. Jeans. T-shirt. Boots. I tucked the pistol in the small of my back, untucked the shirt over it, ran a hand through my hair, and was out the door in under two minutes.
I knocked on Craine's suite. Mendez opened it.
"Special Agent." I patted his shoulder again, lightly, on my way past. "Tell your barber I said good work."
The suite was the same layout as mine, mirrored. Craine had repurposed the sitting area into something that looked like a hotel-room version of his office—a leather portfolio on the coffee table, a phone, a cup of coffee on a saucer.
Just one cup of coffee.
He didn't offer.
He gestured to the chair across from him. I sat.
"Wait outside, Mendez," he said.
The door clicked shut.
Craine took a sip of his coffee. Took his time about it. The kind of pause that was supposed to make me nervous. I crossed an ankle over my knee and waited it out.
"What's it you want, Mr. Craine?"
He nodded slightly, the approving nod of a man whose witness had asked the question he'd wanted asked.
"I'll keep it brief, Mr. Dane. Your family is under federal investigation. Specifically, your brothers. Wyatt and Grant Dane."
I let my eyes go wide.
"Aw, hell."
He waited.
"This about the goats?"
A flicker in his face. The smallest one. Recovery, immediate.
"I beg your pardon."
"Senior year of high school. We rounded up six goats from a guy's farm out by Marfa and put 'em in the gymnasium of our rival in Alpine the night before homecoming.
I told Grant. I said Grant, you put six goats in a gym, eventually the FBI is going to want a word.
I said Grant, if we don't watch ourselves, this thing's going all the way to the President.
Grant said no. Grant said the statute of limitations would protect us.
Grant—" I shook my head, sad. "Grant was always cocky. "
Craine's face didn't change. Credit where it was due.
"Mr. Dane, on two separate occasions in the last twelve months, your brothers Wyatt and Grant were in close proximity to federal agents who subsequently died under suspicious circumstances. The Bureau has reason to believe they were directly involved."
"Huh."
"Yes."
"What's that got to do with me?"
"They're your brothers."
I waited. He waited. I waited longer. He went first.
"Mr. Dane, I'm trying to be a friend to you here."
Plan B, I thought. He was going to lean. The lean didn't take. Now we're trying friendship.
"Appreciate it," I said.
"My agents will be in Charleston in significant numbers over the next several weeks.
The investigation is active. The investigation is expanding.
I would suggest, very strongly and as a matter of personal kindness, that you get on a plane today and return to wherever it is you are based.
The next time we have this conversation, it will not be informal. "
There it was.
Plan C. Remove the wild card from the board before he learns the rules.
I let it sit a beat. Tilted my head. Made a face like I was working through it.
"Mr. Craine," I said, "I appreciate the heads-up.
I do. But I have to tell you, I've got no clue what you're talking about.
Wyatt and Grant—my brothers Wyatt and Grant—they're scattered across about three time zones doing whatever it is they do, and I haven't seen either of them in over a year.
" I did the small wince. "Last time I saw Grant, we ate barbecue and he beat me at horseshoes. That's about the size of it on my end."
He watched me.
"Of course," he said.
"But I sure do appreciate you stopping by. Real Southern of you. Got my day off to a hell of a start."
"Mr. Dane—"
"And as much as I would love to keep chatting, I told you I had a hot shower and a nice long morning planned, and a man's word is a man's word.
So, if you'll excuse me, Deputy Director, I'm going to go enjoy that shower.
Place around the corner does a cheese danish I've been thinking about since I landed. "
He stood.
I stood.
He pulled a card from his inside pocket and held it out between two fingers.
"In case you change your mind."
I took the card. Looked at it. Dominic Craine, Deputy Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation. A 202 number. An email at fbi.gov.
"That's unlikely," I said. "But I appreciate it. Hope to see you and Special Agent Pleasant out there, Deputy Director. Charleston's a good town for it. I hear the pollen settles in your throat after a couple of weeks, but you get used to it."
I tucked the card in my back pocket.
He watched me as I went to the door.
Mendez was on the other side. I patted his shoulder one last time on my way out, the way you'd pat a dog you were never going to see again.
"Take care, Special Agent. Eat something."
I walked back to my suite.
I closed the door behind me. Locked it. Re-set the chain. Stood there for one long second with my hand flat on the wood.
Then I went to my phone.
Grant didn't answer.
I waited for the voicemail tone.
"It's Tommy. FBI just knocked on my door. Deputy Director Dominic Craine. Said you and Wyatt are under investigation. Real friendly about it. Suggested I get out of town. Call me back when you can."
I hung up.
I stood at the window. Charleston was just starting to come up gold at the edges, the harbor going from gray to silver to something with light in it.
I was supposed to be taking a shower.
Instead, I stood there and watched the city wake up, and thought about how much better the FBI's day was about to get.
And how much worse, probably, mine.
Fuck it. I needed something to eat. Time to walk Charleston.