Blount glanced at the two men near his feet, then stared at Greene in the distance. “I thinks you better do the talkin’. I don’t wanna make Mr. Greene mad at me.”
Payne smiled. Blount was a hard man to read, but if Payne’s theory about Greene was correct, then Blount had to know more than he was willing to reveal. He simply had to.
“Okay, Bennie, have it your way. I’ll do all of the talking. . . . Remember how things started bugging me on the boat? How my gut knew something was wrong? Well, it was the guards. The guards acted wrong when we showed up.”
Jones scrunched his face. “The guards? I could barely see the guards from the boat, but you could tell that they did something wrong? What, are you psychic or something?”
“When we pulled up to the dock, they approached the boat expecting Bennie. They called to him, asking about the fireworks. Remember? But before Bennie could say anything, Levon told them about a security problem and started giving orders. Right?”
Jones nodded his head.
“What did they do after that?”
“They jumped to attention.”
“And then?”
Jones thought back, trying to remember. He knew the guards ran onto the dock, following Greene’s instructions, but he couldn’t recall anything else. “I give up. Tell me.”
“What did they do with their guns?”
It took a moment, but the solution eventually popped into his head. “I’ll be damned. They threw them to the ground, didn’t they?”
“Even though Levon should’ve been a stranger to these guys, he tells them that there’s a security problem, and they throw away their guns. How in the hell does that make any sense? Come on, even mall security guards would know better than that! Unless . . .”
“Unless they were told what to expect ahead of time.”
“That’s what I figured.”
Jones nodded, admiring his friend’s theory. “I have to admit, that’s pretty good. In fact, I’d give you a round of applause, but . . .”
“You can’t because we let Levon tie us up?”
“Exactly.”
“Probably not the brightest thing in the world that we could’ve done, huh?”
“Nope. Probably not.”
“Right up there with being handcuffed to the desk, isn’t it?”
Jones smiled. The last few days had suddenly become cyclical. “So, did you have doubts about Levon before the guards?”
“Nope. The guards woke me up, but then I started to think back over the past couple of days. The broken guns, his rule against police involvement, his escape through Sam’s secret door, his discovery of Bennie, and so on. I figured all of that was too coincidental to be a coincidence.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right. Detective work should never be
this
easy. I mean, two days ago, we were in Pittsburgh with a license plate and a tattoo as our only clues, and here we are on the threshold of finding Ariane. Please! Things were too simple.”
“To be honest, I wasn’t one hundred percent sure about Levon until I mentioned it to him. There was a look in his eye that told me everything. He looked like a big ol’ dog that was caught sleeping on the couch-guilt all over his face!”
“It wasn’t guilt,” Greene remarked. He had circled in behind them, trying to acquire as much information as possible. “It was shock. I couldn’t believe that you caught onto me. I thought I’d done everything right.”
“Don’t kick yourself.” Payne sighed. “It was the guards’ fault. They ruined the entire scene. They should be fired immediately.”
“I concur,” Jones echoed. “In fact, I think you have a big future in acting, just like that other ex-football player from Buffalo. Hmm? What was his name? O.J. something.”
“Nah, Levon’s too good for that! He decided to skip O.J.’s second career and went right to his third . . . a life of crime!”
Jones laughed. Then, using the melody and the accent of the classic Bob Marley song, he began to sing. “He’s just a Buffalo Convict . . . works for da Posse! He took a bunch of steroids . . . now he’s their boss-y!”
“That was clever,” Greene admitted. “Very clever indeed.”
Jones gave him a big wink. “Thank you, Louisiana! I’ll be here all week!”
“Actually, you will be. Might not be alive the whole time, but we’ll worry about that later.”
Payne twisted his head and glanced at Jones. “I don’t know about you, but I’m going to worry about that now.”
“Damn.” Greene laughed. “You guys don’t stop. I thought your black humor was just an act, but you guys are even like this in the darkest of situations.”
Payne ignored the comment, opting to change the subject. “Hey, Levon? I gotta know. Did you sell us out before we came to New Orleans or after?”
A grin crossed Greene’s lips. Since his cover was blown, he figured the answer to one question wouldn’t do too much damage to his ruined reputation. He crouched to his knees so he could stare Payne in the eyes. The kindness that had been present during the past few days had been replaced by a cold, hard glare.
“Jon, if it makes you feel any better, I’ve been involved with the Plantation from the very beginning. And just so you know, if you had told me why you needed my help during your initial phone call, I wouldn’t have invited you down here. Can you imagine my surprise when you finally told me why you were in town? I almost shit myself! But at that point, what was I to do? You were digging, and I had to stop you. It’s as simple as that.”
“Then why not kill us? Why take the time to lure us here?”
“Well, as you mentioned, I did try to kill you. I didn’t want to personally pull the trigger, but I set things up at Sam’s. Unfortunately, the damn sniper screwed that up. After that it would be too suspicious if you were killed somewhere else in the city this weekend. I figured getting you off the mainland was a better way to take care of things.”
“And what about Ariane? Why did you bring her here?”
Greene sighed. He was getting bored with the inquisition and knew that the rest of his partners were waiting for him. “I’m afraid that’s a question that will have to wait. They’re about to make a big announcement, and I don’t want to ruin their surprise.”
CHAPTER 34
THE
ringing telephone brought a smile to Harris Jackson’s face. He’d been expecting a call for several minutes now, and when it didn’t come, his anxiety began to rise. But now that the call was here, he was finally able to relax.
“Master Jackson, this is Eric down at the dock. Bennie and Master Greene just left our area, and they’re headed your way.”
“And the prisoners?”