The Broken King

by Brian Panowich

  “Do you believe my family is in danger, Mike?”

  “I believe if something isn’t done about what happened last night, then they will be.”

  Clayton lit a smoke and stumbled a bit from the whiskey buzz. “Where are the rest of them?” he said and walked past them to the tailgate of Mike’s truck.

  “The rest of who?”

  “The rest of this kid’s crew. You said he was part of a group.”

  “Nails McKenna happened to them.”

  Clayton coughed up a lungful of smoke. “No shit.” He hadn’t heard that name in a while. Everyone standing there knew no further explanation was necessary, so he looked down at JoJo. “Cut him loose and send him home.”

  “Clayton, I think that’s a bad idea.”

  “He’s a kid, Mike. He’s just a dumb kid who did something stupid that got all his friends killed. It’s a lesson learned.” He was still staring at JoJo. “Right, son?”

  The kid grunted under the duct tape.

  “This kid threatened your life, man. Once Tuten got him talking, he wouldn’t shut up. All he talked about was how the Burroughs’s time in North Georgia was over.”

  “It is, Mike. Halford is d—”

  “Clayton, please. Just listen. This kid talked about how it was only a matter of time before him and his Deddy come to claim it.”

  “Let ’em. Then I’ll have a reason to deal with them. Otherwise this is a goddamn waste of my time.” Clayton turned slowly as if to go.

  “Wait, Clayton. He also said—no, wait a minute. You know what?” Mike raised his hands in mock defeat. “Why don’t you hold up a minute and I’ll let him tell you?”

  Clayton turned back but said nothing.

  “Go ahead, Wallace,” Mike said. “Cut him loose.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  “The man said cut him loose, so cut him loose. Start with the gag.”

  Wallace didn’t argue any further. He just nodded at Mike as if he understood something that passed silently between them. Clayton’s senses were too dull to notice but his interest was piqued so he stood still as Cobb pulled a fixed-blade knife from a sheath attached to his belt and leaned over the tailgate. The kid pulled back at the sight of the huge blade and grunted again beneath the gag, but Wallace grabbed a handful of the kid’s hair, yanked his head across the truck-bed and pinned it down. “I’m going to do my best to only cut that tape off your mouth, but if you keep wigglin’ like a sissy, I might end up cutting off some other shit, like a nose or an ear. You listening to me, JoJo?”

  A muffled consent came from under the gag, and the boy held still while Wallace cut across the back of the sticky gray tape and yanked it free, along with some skin and clumps of dirty hair. The boy tried to talk, but despite being freed of the duct tape, his voice was still muffled.

  “Now open,” Wallace said. “And I swear, boy, if you try to bite my fingers, I don’t give a damn what this man says, I’ll gut you like a pig right here.” He gave the kid another good look at his knife and JoJo lay as still and quiet as a copperhead. He opened his mouth as wide as he could, and Wallace used two fingers to slowly pull out about four feet of slobber-covered pink cloth. Wallace felt a little strange doing it, like he was performing a magic trick, and then finally tossed the belt to one of Freddie Tuten’s bathrobes into the gravel. JoJo hacked and licked at his dried-out teeth as everyone watched. When he could talk, that’s all he did.

  “My Deddy is gonna fuckin’ kill y’all.”

  Wallace laughed. “Your Deddy is a crackhead who couldn’t kill time.”

  “Fuck you, faggot.”

  Clayton put his hand on Wallace’s shoulder and moved him firmly aside. The kid stared at him with a teenage cockiness, pumped up more on adrenaline and curiosity than fear.

  “You ain’t been talkin’ five seconds, son, and already I don’t like you.”

  “I don’t give a fuck who you like, pig.”

  Clayton clenched his fingers into a fist and loosened them. He wasn’t going to be baited by a loudmouthed kid. “You can call me anything you want but you know you’re in a hole, right? You know that much. Now listen to me and listen good. I’m gonna try to help you out.”

  “You want to help me, ginger? Then make that ugly motherfucker and his boyfriend cut me all the way loose, and then go lock your doors, before Coot gets here with the cavalry.”

  “There ain’t no cavalry comin’ for you, son. I’m the only shot you got.”

  The boy squeezed his eyes into slits and stared hard at Clayton’s face. The red hair, the calico beard. The tan shirt and hat. Clayton saw the recognition wash over the boy’s face.

  “Well, fuck me, you’re him, ain’t ‘cha? You’re Sheriff Burroughs. You’re the piece of shit that shot his own brother.”

  Clayton felt himself clench the fingers on both hands into tight knots. “Careful, boy.”

  JoJo threw caution to the wind and kept running his mouth. “Man, that’s some cold shit right there. I heard you shot the old boy right through the heart, too. No warning. No knee shot. Nothing. That true?”

  Clayton closed his eyes but it made him feel dizzy, so he opened them back up and stared directly at the kid in the truck still talking—not even taking time for a breath. “I also heard all that business with the feds got you shot up, too. I heard you was nothing but a drunk now—a drunk with a gimp leg.”

  Clayton stood back, wobbled a little, and let the tailgate down.

  The kid just kept going. “You got a limp dick, too? That’d be a shame ‘cause I hear you got yourself a real pretty wife.”

  Clayton tilted his head a little and Mike put a hand on his shoulder. Clayton shuffled it off and put his cigarette out on the rusty flap of metal. “This is your last chance, JoJo.” His words were flat and thin as if he were reading from a script of things he was supposed to say and not how he really felt. “Shut up and listen before you lose the only friend you got here.”

  “Friends?” JoJo laughed enough to rock the truck bed. “Shit, pig. We ain’t friends. But that pretty wife of yours? Now, the two of us could be friends—real good friends if you know what I’m saying? I’ll tell you what, pig. I ain’t makin’ no promises for you three homos, but you let me go, and I’ll see what I can do about lettin’ her off with just a little kiss on my pecker.”

  Mike swung so fast that no one even saw him throw the punch until it connected to JoJo’s jaw. Clayton pushed him back. “No,” he yelled and moved back to take his coat off. “Get this piece of shit out of there and bring him over here.” Clayton walked into the soft earth near the edge of the pond. Mike and Wallace each grabbed JoJo under his armpits without question and dragged him out of the truck. He hit the ground with a thud, taking the force of the fall to his shoulder, but the boy just kept laughing. “Go ahead,” he said. “Rough me up all you want. I can take it, but y’all know as well as I do why you didn’t kill me last night, and it’s the same reason you ain’t gonna kill me now.”

  “Bring him right here.” Clayton stood by the pond.

  Wallace and Mike dragged JoJo to the water’s edge and laid him on his back. His head touched just enough of the pond to send ripples out across the green sheet of glassy water. Clayton ignored the pain in his leg and squatted down next to him. “And why’s that, boy? Why do you think these men have left you breathing?”

  JoJo smiled wide like a shark, a bit of blood smeared across his yellow teeth. “Because you know I’m tellin’ the truth. You know my Deddy will rain fire down on this place like you ain’t never seen. You know ain’t nobody up here got the juice no more to stop us.”

  “I’ll stop you.”

  “Shit, you can’t even stop from slurring your words at, what—eight in the morning? You’re a goddamn joke, Burroughs. My Deddy will be coming for you but I think we’re gonna start with that sweet piece of tail you got back at home.” JoJo blew Clayton a kiss.

  Clayton just smiled, right before he grabbed the boy by his shoulder
and his belt and flipped him over face down in the pond. Clayton stood and watched JoJo try to raise his face out of the three to four inches of water, but with his hands bound behind his back and his feet taped together, all he did was cause himself to sink deeper into the muck. A gurgling sound came from the water and Clayton cupped his ear. “What’s that, JoJo? I can’t hear you. How’s that shit-talkin’ working out for you now?” Clayton wiped his muddy hands down his shirt while JoJo flopped around like a fresh-caught fish. Mike and Wallace moved closer to the water, but Clayton held out a hand and the two men stayed back. “He’ll be fine,” he said. “He said he could take it, right?” Clayton’s words were slurred. He picked up his coat from the ground where he’d tossed it and fished out the whiskey. He cleaned it off and tossed the empty bottle into the water behind him. By the time he’d put his jacket back on a fine layer of bubbles had formed around JoJo’s head and his body began to twitch in the sand. “Pull him back some.”

  Mike and Wallace dragged JoJo back a few inches by his feet so that his face emerged from the water. Clayton lit another smoke from the pack in his coat and pulled on it deep. “Nothing else to say, boy?”

  JoJo didn’t answer.

  “That’s what I thought.” Clayton turned and stood with his back to Mike and Wallace. “Now cut him loose and take him home. I’m not going to say it again.” He started back toward the Bronco. He walked with a limp now, overexerted and unable to hide it. “I want him dropped on his granny’s front porch. I want Coot and the gang to know what’s waiting for them if they decide to follow in this idiot’s footsteps. I want him to spread the word that McFalls County is not run by the Burroughs family anymore, but by the law. The way it should be. Now I’m done talking about it. I’m gonna need to change clothes and I’m late for work.”

  “Yes, sir,” Mike said, removing his ball cap again. He glanced at Wallace who had already squatted down beside JoJo, his boots ankle deep in pond water. Neither of them said another word while Clayton pulled a fresh uniform shirt from a duffle bag in the Bronco. They watched him remove the silver McFalls County Sheriff’s badge from his chest and awkwardly pin it to the clean shirt and then put it on.

  “Clayton,” Mike said. “The sit-down with Florida. We talked about it. Remember?”

  Clayton rubbed the bridge of his nose, and then looked out toward the three headstones in the clearing. Mike and Wallace looked, too. He felt a headache coming, and he scratched at his beard.

  “Clayton?”

  “Just set it up, Mike. I’ll be there. But ain’t nothing gonna change. And make sure they know that they ain’t sitting down with a member of the Burroughs family. They are sitting down with the county Sheriff.”

  Mike sighed. “All right, then.”

  Clayton never turned back around to face them, but he stood there staring at those three slabs of granite on the hill by his truck for another minute or so until his hands stopped shaking. Then he climbed behind the wheel of the Bronco and disappeared, swerving down the mountain.

  “Who did that remind you of?” Mike said.

  Wallace took off his hat and knocked a little dirt from it. “I must admit, Mike. I didn’t think he had it in him.”

  “Well, Halford did. If you ask me, I think it’s why he hated Clayton so much.”

  “Because he had just as much Gareth Burroughs in him as Hal did?’

  “No. Because he had more.”

  Wallace rolled JoJo onto his back. “Well, I’d have to agree with him. JoJo here isn’t gonna be spreading the word to anyone.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You better come here and look at this. I think I had Clayton all wrong.”

  Mike leaned down and looked into the eyes of a very dead JoJo Viner. “Fuck me,” Mike said and kicked the body. It barely moved in the sand and mud. He reached down and moved JoJo’s head from side to side and when the reality of the situation set in, he sank his own chin down hard into his chest. “Goddamnit! This is not what I wanted to happen.”

  “Well, it did. So what do you want to do now? Should we go tell him?”

  “Tell him what? That he just killed somebody? Hell no, we ain’t gonna tell him. Did you see the condition he’s already in? He’ll spiral off the fucking earth.”

  “Then what do you want to do?”

  “Just give me a minute.” Mike took off his hat and rubbed his chin with it. After a moment he slapped it back on. “We do what he said.”

  “You mean we’re supposed to bring this asshole home? And just dump him?”

  “Look, we need Clayton on board if we’re going to fix this place, right? Maybe this is how we do it.”

  Wallace leaned over and used the back of his hand to close JoJo’s eyelids. “This is going to do more than get him on board. This is going to start a war.”

  Scabby Mike looked in the direction that Clayton drove off in the Bronco. “Maybe a war is exactly what we need.” He turned and grabbed the tape between JoJo’s ankles. With Wallace’s help, they tossed the body into the back of the truck. T-Ride looked through the window with significantly less bravado. He’d never seen a dead body before. Wallace gave the kid a nod. T-Ride nodded back and tried to toughen up his expression, but couldn’t and eventually turned away. Mike was right. The kid wasn’t ready for all this. Wallace flipped the tailgate up and immediately lost interest in the dead problem crumpled in the back of the truck. Instead, he brought up something that had been bugging him since he’d gotten back to Bull Mountain. He opened the passenger side door and stood with his arms crossed against the inside frame of it. “I still can’t believe Kate Farris ended up house-wifin’ to a Burroughs.”

  Mike almost chuckled. “Kate ain’t nobody’s housewife, Dub.” He walked around to the back of the truck to tie down the corners of the tarp and lowered his voice to keep out of earshot from T-Ride. “You heard about the Federal that came knocking last year, right? The one that gave Clayton that limp and nearly punched his clock?”

  “Yeah, Agent Jolly, or some shit like that. Last I heard he was MIA.”

  “His name was Holly. Simon Holly. He was an ATF agent.”

  “Was? Don’t tell me you killed a Fed?” Wallace said, sounding impressed.

  Mike smiled against his will. “No, sir. It wasn’t me. Your girl did it. She insisted she be the one.”

  Wallace rubbed at the black and white tattoo work on his forearms. “No shit?”

  Mike cinched off the knot. “Welcome home, Wallace.”

  Also by Brian Panowich

  Bull Mountain

  Like Lions

  About the Author

  Brian Panowich is an award-winning author, a Georgia firefighter, and a father to four incredible children. His first novel, Bull Mountain, was a Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist, ITW Thriller Award winner for best first novel, Southern Book Prize winner, and a finalist for both the Anthony and the Barry Awards. He lives in Georgia with his family. You can sign up for email updates here.

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  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Epigraph

  Begin Reading

  Excerpt: Like Lions

  Also by Brian Panowich

  About the Author

  Copyright

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  THE BROKEN KING. Copyright © 2019 by Brian Panowich. All rights reserved. For information address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

  www.stmartins.com
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  First Edition: March 2019

  eISBN 9781250240033

  First eBook edition: March 2019