Read Online Alex Cross's Trial by James Patterson - Free Book Online

of a gun.

    A deep voice behind me: “Just put your hands in the air. Nice and slow, high, that’s the way to do it.”

    Chapter 29

    “NOW, I WANT you to turn around real slow, partner. Don’t make any fast moves.”

    I did exactly as I was told. Real slow.

    And found myself looking straight into the face of Jacob Gill. Jacob and I had been inseparable from as far back as I could remember, until the day I left Eudora for college.

    “You son of a bitch!” I shouted at him.

    Jacob was laughing so hard he actually held his stomach and doubled over. His laughter made him do a little jig of delight.

    “You nearly gave me a goddamn heart attack,” I said. “You’re a jackass.”

    “I know,” Jacob said, howling some more.

    Then we hugged, seizing each other by the shoulders, stepping back to get a good look.

    “How’d you even know it was me?” I asked.

    “We don’t have too many yellow-haired fellows ten feet tall hanging around,” said Jacob. Then he added, “I saw you decide not to mix it up with Jocko and Leander. That was smart thinking on your part.”

    “I guess so,” I said. I remembered the time Jacob left me in the swamp to watch what happened to George Pearson. I wished I could tell him why I’d held back this time.

    “Hey, it’s near dinnertime,” Jacob said and lightly punched my shoulder. “Let’s go get some catfish.”

    “That sounds good. Where we going?”

    “Don’t tell me you’ve turned into such a big-city boy you forgot Friday is catfish day at the Slide Inn?”

    Chapter 30

    I PUSHED THE BICYCLE between us down Myrtle Street, toward the town square. Jacob stopped twice along the way to take a nip of whiskey from a pint he kept in his worn leather toolbox, and I said hello to a couple more people I recognized, or who remembered me.

    The Slide Inn was alive with the hum of conversation, the smell of frying fish, the smoke from the cigars of the old fellows who always occupied the front table, solving the world’s problems on a daily basis.

    “Why aren’t you staying at your daddy’s?” Jacob asked as soon as we sat down at a corner table.

    “You know my father,” I said. “It seemed like Maybelle’s was the smart place to be. My father and I just don’t get along.”

    “All right, then. But there is one question I been dying to ask: What in hell are you doing back in Eudora? ”

    “Nothing much,” I said. “I’ve got a little business to tend to.”

    “Lawyer business?”

    “Just a simple job for the Justice Department. I have to interview a few lawyers in the county, that’s all it is. In the meantime—it’s catfish!” I said.

    Pretty soon Miss Fanny came from behind the counter bearing plates of crispy fried fish, sizzling-hot hush puppies, and ice-cold sweet-pickle coleslaw. The first bite was delicious, and every bite after. I asked Miss Fanny what time the place opened for breakfast, and made up my mind never to suffer through another of Maybelle’s breakfasts.

    “Hell, I look old, but you still look like a high-school boy, Ben,” said Jacob. “Like you could run ten miles and never even break a sweat.”

    “Oh, I did plenty of sweating just riding that bike a dozen blocks,” I said. “It’ll take me a while to get used to this heat again. How you been keeping yourself, Jacob?”

    “Well, let me see… you probably heard I turned down the offer to be ambassador to England… and that was right after I passed on the chance to be president of the university up in Tuscaloosa. Well, sir, it was shortly after that I made up my mind that the profession I was most suited for was as a carpenter’s assistant.”

    “That’s good,” I said. “Honest work.”

    “Yeah, me and Wylie Davis are the men you want to see if you need a new frame for your window screens, you know, or a new roof for your johnny house.”

    Then there was silence, a good and acceptable kind of silence—nothing nervous or uncomfortable about it. The kind of quiet that is tolerable only between old friends.

    It was Jacob who finally