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McDonald’s for a power breakfast in a white paper bag. A midsize town, Slidell is known more for its industrial attractions than its scenic charm. The main strip could be Anywhere, U.S.A., with its proliferation of fast-food joints and discount stores. Pulling into the back lot of the brick building that housed a bank, an insurance company, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife office, I spotted the run-down, white Pontiac Bonneville. With one taillight cracked and red rust eating its way up over the fender, the car’s dented license plate boasted the state’s official motto: Sportsman’s Paradise. No matter how I tried, I could never beat Charlie Hickok into work. He seemed to live in the place. Enid, his receptionist from the turn of the century, hadn’t arrived yet. Neither had the other workers who droned on from eight in the morning until four in the afternoon, under fluorescent lights in rooms with no windows. That was the best part of being an agent: I never had to punch a clock. But I was expected to work on my own, morning through night, without having to report in. Requiring a special breed of loner, it suited me just fine.
    I heard Charlie before I even entered his office. Hacking and wheezing, he was puttering about, easing into his daily routine. I poked my head in the door as he lowered his body down into his chair and started to scratch.
    “Damn chiggers.”
    Charlie’s room was a work of art. Free-form, thrown together, but a balancing act that was not to be believed. Books were piled on top of his desk at angles that defied gravity. Perched on top of that were videotapes of past busts in all their glory. Papers were strewn sky-high in piles that were known only to him and nobody dared touch. A Confederate flag hung limply on its pole in a far corner of the room.
    The only personal touch to be found was a collection of framed photographs that hung on the walls and occupied most of the spare space on Charlie’s desk. They were all of a woman blessed with long blond hair, a heart-shaped face, and large eyes that a doe would have envied. Rumor had it that she had been Charlie’s wife. A strict Baptist, she had tried her best to keep Charlie in line, forbidding him to smoke, drink, or curse. Charlie abided by her rules as best he could, while still maintaining his normal workload of twenty-four hours, seven days a week—his schedule being the one area to which rules did not apply. Office scuttlebutt maintained that, tired of living alone, his wife packed up one day and disappeared. So did most of their furniture. Charlie simply told people that she had died. Whatever the case, the photos added a tantalizing sense of mystery, giving his office the air of a shrine.
    Charlie sat behind his desk, dressed in a short-sleeve pale blue shirt and a pair of blue-and-white-striped seersucker pants. His appearance was topped off by a railroad cap that covered a head going bald. It was Charlie’s way of refusing to acknowledge the fact. His neck was blotched with bright red marks where his fingers kept scratching. A nose that looked like a rose in bloom was testament to his fondness for Old Grand-Dad, and a network of small craters pitting his face proved that his attachment to candy bars had started at a tender age.
    Word had it that he had been a powerhouse in his younger days. A one-man vigilante team who had taken on poachers and syndicates alike and won. The failure of his marriage, and a broken heart, had only made him all the more driven and focused where his work was concerned. The roadblock he had finally run up against had been jealousy within his own agency. That, and an abiding weakness for rubbing people’s noses in his triumphs.
    Charlie liked to brag that he was a direct descendant of Wild Bill Hickok. If so, he had certainly inherited Wild Bill’s flair for showmanship. He had known how to publicize every sting he had ever done. The Audubon TV special was evidence of that. It led some to call him a living