City of Heretics by Heath Lowrance Read Free Book Online Page B

in the day, did we?  All the same, I’m glad you feel that way. I’d like to take you on. The Old Man always had good things to say about you.”
    “That didn’t stop him from dropping me like a bad habit when I got busted,” Crowe said. He didn’t mention the guy Vitower had sent to kill him in prison.
    Vitower nodded thoughtfully. “Yeah. Well, let’s be honest, Crowe, you screwed up. I mean, you really blame him?  You got yourself in a position where the Old Man couldn’t do anything for you, not without getting himself involved. Right?”
    Crowe smiled. “Would you have done the same thing, Marco?”
    Vitower said, “Heard you swung by Jimmy the Hink’s today.”
    “Word travels fast.”
    “What made you do that, I wonder?”
    “I missed Jimmy’s conversation and sparkling wit.”
    Vitower said, “Ha. Okay, fine. You don’t have to answer. Are you still averse to signing on with me?”
    Crowe glanced at Chester, who quickly looked away.
    “My qualms about it,” he said, “are not as pronounced as they were.”
    Chester sucked on his cigarette and, not looking at Crowe, said, “I’m glad you came to your senses, Crowe. I was kinda worried you were gonna flop around for a while, looking like an ass.”
    Vitower glanced over his shoulder at Chester. “Little passive-aggressive there, Paine?”
    Chester shrugged, grinning. “I can’t help myself. If you could’ve seen what he was like, back in the good old days… I mean, it’s kinda funny. You’d never guess now, looking at him.”  He turned to Crowe. “No offense, there, old pal.”
    Crowe smiled pleasantly. “None taken, Chester. I’m just glad you were able to survive seven years without me covering your ass.”
    Vitower laughed. “Right. Take it easy, boys. You worked together well. I do remember it, Paine. And the two of you, working together again, is just what I need right now. Big things are about to go down. You probably already know some of it.”
    Crowe nodded at the altar to his dead wife and said, “Murke is being transported to Jackson on Tuesday.”
    Just the mention of Murke’s name caused a massive change in Vitower’s demeanor. The easy-going good humor vanished and the face went hard again, and he made a point of not looking at the altar. His voice was flat when he said, “Yeah. Tuesday.”
    Nobody said anything for a long moment.
    Crowe knew a great deal more about the murder of Vitower’s wife than Vitower could ever have guessed. In prison, he’d made the acquaintance of a guy named Pernis, who happened to be the lover of one of Vitower’s old buddies from before he quit high school, a slight but menacing-looking man named Marvis Hicks. Sometimes Crowe had to pay Pernis in cash or cigarettes or even the occasional dime bag, but mostly Pernis was a more than willing transmitter of information. He was the one who’d told Crowe about Vitower and Chester and the punk they’d sent to kill him. He liked to talk.
    So this was what Crowe knew:
    Two years earlier, Jezzie Vitower was visiting her mother on Memphis’s north side. By that time, the Vitowers were living on Mud Island, in an expansive stone house with five bedrooms, six baths, and a staff of four to run the place. Jezzie was four months pregnant. She’d been trying to talk her husband into buying a home for her mother in a nicer part of town, and it was something Marco Vitower had every intention of doing, eventually. As far as Crowe knew, afterward, he never did get around to it.
    Jezzie left her mother’s house at close to ten pm. She’d been there about four hours. Her car, a sporty dark green MG she’d had for less than a week, was parked half a block up the street, because when she’d arrived all the other spots to park along the curb were taken. The folks three doors down from her mother had been having a family get-together. It was kind of a miracle that the MG wasn’t lifted.
    Later, witnesses claimed to see a man wandering around the