Feast Day of Fools - James Lee Burke [186]
“Who’s it from?” Hackberry asked, looking up from his desk.
“I don’t know. There’s nothing written on it except your name. I got a call telling me to pick it up at the ticket counter and to keep the fifty dollars in the envelope tucked under the twine.”
“Where’s the envelope?”
“In the trash. I didn’t think it was important. What, you reckon it’s a bomb or something?”
“Leave it there.”
“It’s cold. Maybe it’s some food.”
After the taxi driver had gone, Hackberry went into the outer office. “Pam, tell Felix to go to the airport and see what he can find out about a package that was left for me at the ticket counter. Then come into my office, please.”
He pulled on a pair of latex gloves and removed a pocketknife from his desk drawer and opened the long blade on it. He placed the flat of his hand on the wrapping paper. He could feel the coldness in the box through his glove.
“Put on a vest and a face shield, Hack,” Pam said.
“Step back,” he replied, and cut the twine. He inserted his fingers under the paper and peeled it away in sections from the top of a corrugated cardboard box.
“Hack, call the FBI,” Pam said.
He pulled back a strip of tape holding the flaps on the box’s top in place and folded the flaps back against the sides. He looked down at a carefully packed layer of Ziploc bags containing dry ice. One of the bags had broken open, and the ice had slid down deeper into the box and was vaporizing against a round, compacted lump of matter wrapped inside a sheet of clear plastic. There were whorls of color pressed against the plastic that made him think of an uncured ham that had been freezer-burned in a meat locker.
“What is it?” Pam said, staring at the blankness of his expression.
He stepped back from the box, his hands at his sides. He shook his head. She stepped closer and looked down into the box. “Oh, boy,” she said.
“Yeah,” he said.
“It was flown here?”
He nodded and cleared his throat. “Get the key to Barnum’s cell,” he said.
They went up the stairs together, Hackberry holding the box, Pam walking in front of him. She turned the key in the cell door and pulled it open. Noie Barnum was lying on his bunk, reading a magazine. He put the magazine on the floor but didn’t get up.
“Come in and close the door behind you,” Hackberry said to Pam.
“Something going on?” Barnum said.
“Yeah, sit up,” Hackberry said. “See this?”
“Yeah, a box.”
“Look inside it.”
“What for?”
Hackberry set the box on the foot of the bunk and picked up the magazine from the floor. He rolled it into a cone and slapped Barnum across the head. Then he slapped him a second time and a third. “I want to tear you up, Mr. Barnum. I don’t mean that figuratively. I want to throw you down those stairs. That’s how I feel about you.”
Barnum’s eyes were filming, his face blotched. “You don’t have the right to treat me like this.”
“Look inside that box.”
“Somebody’s head is in there?” Barnum said, his expression defiant, his eyes lifted to Hackberry’s.
Hackberry hit him again, this time tearing the cover loose from the magazine. Barnum lifted his hand to protect himself, then looked down into the box. The blood drained from his face. “Oh God,” he said.
“Tell me what you see.”
“It’s a hand and a foot.”
“Are they male or female?”
“Sir?”
“Answer the question.”
“There’s hair on the ankle. It must be a man’s.”
“Look at the hand.”
“What about it?”
“Look closer. There’s a ring on it. Look at it.”
“I’m not responsible for this.”
“That’s a University of Texas class ring. The hand and the ring belong to Temple Dowling. The people who did this to him will probably start on Anton Ling next. Right now I’d like to rip you apart. Instead of doing that, I’m going to ask you a couple of questions, and you’re going to answer them. Got that?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Where were you and Jack Collins hiding?”
“Just like you said earlier, right south of the border. But Jack’s gone by now.”
“Gone where?”
“That’s anybody