by Ace Atkins
“How d’you know?” he asked.
“If she wasn’t, she’d be out here with me in the cold, peddling pussy and trying to scrape up some money. What the hell else is there to do in this shithole?”
Lillie stared out the windshield, nodding. “You mind giving me that lighter back, sweetheart?”
7
Quinn checked out of the Traveler’s Rest and headed to his mother’s house at about eight, parking on Ithaca Road, an unfamiliar Honda in the drive. When he knocked on the door, he found it partially open and the television switched on. The sound was muted, and he heard footsteps, before a woman holding Caddy’s child opened the door. It took a few seconds to refocus on Anna Lee Amsden’s face, ten years of his life, twelve to twenty-two, and now Mrs. Luke Stevens. Quite a thing. But things go like that, he thought, not having to force a smile on her, thinking she looked older, of course, but better with those sleepy brown eyes and dark blond hair tied in a ponytail. She was neatly dressed in a white T-shirt and jeans, shoes kicked off by the front porch, all casual and loose as she had been as a teenager, with her crooked nose and long legs jumping into creeks and into Quinn’s waiting arms.
“Did the Army take your ability to talk?” she asked.
“Guess I didn’t expect you.”
“Your momma had to run back to the Piggly Wiggly. I told her I’d watch Jason.”
“It’s good to see you.”
Quinn removed his baseball hat and walked past her, Anna Lee following and plopping Jason down in front of the television, where a cartoon kid was spelling out the words cat, hat, and rat. He turned back to look at Quinn, smiled, and then back to the television.
“She said you were staying at the motel.”
“I’m gonna stay at my uncle’s place a few nights.”
“Heard it was yours.”
“That’s up for debate.”
“It’s good seein’ you, Quinn,” Anna Lee said, smiling, but in kind of a ragged, eye-rolling way, twisting her red mouth up and walking into the family room, reaching for the ponytail and letting her hair spill down to her shoulders. She had nice muscles in her back and lean arms, and a tall, delicate neck. Quinn pretty much liked all of it, knew that feeling wouldn’t change, expecting it, and forgiving himself for it.
“Your momma hoped you’d stop by,” she said. “She even got beer.”
“Praise Jesus.”
“They sell it in town now.”
“I would’ve come back sooner.”
“Hell of a fight with the Baptists, but it passed. We even have a bar downtown.”
“Civilization.”
“Luke’s down there now. He said he had something important to talk to you about.”
“He say what it was?”
“Figured it was something about your uncle.”
Their eyes met, and Quinn smiled at her some more. She reached over to Jason and pulled him into her lap and hugged him close, the boy intent on the television screen, the cartoon kid now counting to ten. All the basics being covered in a single episode. He thought about Caddy, wondering what she’d gotten into now, and knew whatever he or his mother did, it wouldn’t make a damn bit of difference.
“Your momma is worried you’re mad at her.”
“I’m not mad.”
“You could’ve stayed here. She can’t understand why you stayed at that roach motel.”
“I get up at all hours. I’d wake everyone in the house. And with a child here—”
“Maybe you can stay for dinner. Jason doesn’t bite.”
“What’s the name of that bar?”
“The Southern Star.”
“Maybe I’ll get a few drinks first.”
“You might want to get over whatever’s eatin’ you.”
He walked back to the kitchen and fetched a Budweiser, noticing the photo he’d brought home of his platoon outside Camp Phoenix now under a magnet, next to several photos of Jason and several clippings of Elvis Presley. Quinn walked back and took a seat on the sofa, Jason turning around, staring at Quinn and not finding much interesting, turning back to the beginning of Curious George.
“When I was a kid, I used to think we were related to Elvis.”
“Your mom says she met him once.”
“She touched his hand when he played the Mid-South arena,” Quinn said. “It was during ‘I Can’t Help Falling in Love with You,’ and she kept the scarf he handed her. She keeps it in a specially made cedar box.”
Anna Lee adjusted Jason on her lap, stretching out her long legs and wiggling her bare toes, having to crane her neck back to look at Quinn, and Quinn feeling embarrassed, noticing that the blue carpet, the Elvis knickknacks, and even the goddamn old console television, hadn’t changed. They’d lay there, watching television, curfew coming up like a son of a bitch, waiting for his mother to finish that last white wine and turn in, and then rolling around on the floor, crazy and wild, sneaking back to his bedroom, so damn hungry for each other that they barely could catch a breath. It was the quietness and stillness of it that had made it.
“You still with me, Quinn?”
“What’s that?”
“Like I said, you seem like you’ve again lost your ability to speak.”
“The Southern Star?”
“Stay for dinner,” Anna Lee said. “You’d make your mother’s night. Luke’s off. We’ll be out late.”
Quinn finished off the Budweiser and reached for his truck keys. “It’s good seein’ you, Anna Lee.”
“Yeah, let’s do this again in another six years.”
The Southern Star stood on the north part of the town Square between a check-cashing business and a tired old beauty shop. The idea of it, having a bar in Jericho, was such a novelty that Quinn felt a bit self-conscious ordering a beer, and even more so when the bartender, a tiny girl of less than five feet who couldn’t have been much past twenty-one, rattled off a list of what they had on tap and in bottles. Quinn ordered a Reb Ale, spotting Luke Stevens down the counter near the jukebox as the bartender cracked off the top.
“Hoped you’d see Anna Lee,” Luke said, shaking his hand.
“She said you wanted to talk.”
Luke was a little shorter than Quinn, thin, with shaggy brown hair, and wearing a dress shirt with a V—necked sweater. He’d known Luke since first grade, but he never really considered him a close buddy. There had been a time, second grade, when Luke’s dad had told Jean that it was best that the kids didn’t play together anymore. That was after a fight over some action figures and some flying fists left Luke with a black eye.
“What’re you drinking?” Luke asked.
Quinn showed him the Reb Ale and took a seat.
The silver jukebox, a real authentic one that played 45s, pumped out Charley Pride’s “Kiss an Angel Good Morning.”
“Tibbehah’s hell-raiser is back in town.”
Quinn smiled, thinking how Luke made the honor roll and might have been class president. He was the kind of teenager that the cops didn’t tail every time they saw his truck circle the Square and that wasn’t put on the prayer list at church every other week even though he hadn’t been sick.
“A real live drinking hole,” Quinn said.
“We’re big-time. Even got a coffee shop out in front of the tanning salon.”
“Is that what brought you back?”
“Nope,” Luke said. “I just love the high pay and easy work.”
Luke grinned at him, but it was a cutting grin, and it made Quinn remember Luke Stevens in high school, that attitude he’d had, knowing he’d be the one who’d get out of town before anyone else. He always figured boys like Quinn, and Wesley and Boom, would be the ones checking his oil at the filling station. But how in the world can you slight a guy who returns to take his father’s place as the only decent doctor in town, starting a medical clinic for the poor when he could be living it up in Jackson or Memphis or staying down in New Orleans, where he went to med school.
“How’s
your mother?”
“Fine,” Luke said. “She and your mom have gotten to be pretty good friends, both of them widowed and all.”
“My mom isn’t widowed,” Quinn said. “She just tells people my daddy’s dead.”
“You’re joking.”
“It’s a sad fact,” Quinn said. “She’s been doing that since I was twelve.”
“What happened to him?”
“Don’t know and don’t care.”
“I remember how all the kids used to look up to him,” Luke said. “I still think about that time he brought that actress home with him and they rode in the Christmas parade. What was her name? She was on that sitcom with Burt Reynolds. She had huge tits.”
“That didn’t make for a holiday special at the Colson house.”
Luke leaned over the bar and called the short girl, the jukebox clattering and stopping, whirring and slapping on some more vinyl, this time playing Patsy Cline, “Walkin’ After Midnight,” and that steady drumbeat just kind of held Quinn there in that open space, thinking of Anna Lee out back of the football stadium, she and him buck-ass naked and kissing, hands all over each other, when the headlights of her father’s car lit up his rearview.
“Quinn?” Luke said, handing him a fresh beer. “Here you go.”
“Appreciate it.”
He patted Quinn’s back and told him how sorry he was and how much he respected his uncle. He said he’d gone quail hunting with him last year and even did a little fishing in late summer, saying he never saw any signs of depression. “But most of them hide it well. Your uncle put on a good act.”
“Could he have been sick?” Quinn asked.
“Didn’t see any sign of it.”
“Were you his doctor?”
“I’m lucky enough to be the town coroner,” Luke said. “But that’s not the same.”
“You see anything strange about the kill shot?”
“You mean the wound?” Luke shook his head and drank some bourbon.
“Lillie said the entry point didn’t make sense.”
“Makes sense if you’re that drunk.”
A couple women from the nail salon, spray-tanned orange, saddled up next to them at the bar, and Luke introduced Quinn as his old buddy, a Ranger and a national hero. Quinn couldn’t tell if the last part was praise or sarcasm.
“If you’re asking did anything look strange,” Luke said, “I’d have to say no.”
Quinn turned back to his beer, and after a few minutes asked, “So what’d you want to see me about, Luke?”
The two of them sat side by side, the bartender putting down a couple more drinks for them, no one asking for another round but appreciating it.
The jukebox clicked onto some Loretta Lynn, telling ole Doo not to come home drinkin’ with lovin’ on his mind, and just about halfway through Anna Lee walked through the door, getting stopped by a couple of women playing darts.
She’d changed into heels and nice jeans with a sequined tank. She waved over to her husband.
“I guess I don’t want you to feel weird about the situation with Anna Lee.”
“What’s the situation? She’s your damn wife.”
“It’d be nice if we could all have drinks while you were at home.”
“Isn’t that what we’re doing?”
Luke smiled, and Quinn realized his voice had some edge to it. No one could think of anything to say, Anna Lee getting stopped every few feet, talking to everyone in town, Quinn not knowing almost anyone, wondering who in the hell they were. The Southern Star was elbow to elbow, lots of laughter and loud drunk talk. Quinn usually tried to stay out of bars because bars are where all those fights had started.
“If you were the coroner, you worked with my uncle a lot.”
Luke nodded.
“I heard the job had run him down.”
“I know he needed help with all the drugs.”
“I don’t remember a lot of drugs.” Quinn grinned, taking a swig of beer. “Besides some of that dope I smoked.”
“Most all the problems I get as a physician are connected to meth,” Luke said. “I mean, it could be neglected or abused kids, or a woman being beaten up. Your uncle had to deal with the other side of it, people robbing Mr. Varner or the Sonic for fifty bucks, or people jacked up on that shit taking shots at his deputies. You know they call it the workin’ man’s cocaine? Sometimes I wish someone would put me in a padded room and let me try that stuff. It must be some kind of high, to sell your soul away.”
“They grow poppies in Afghanistan like we grow cotton. And the Army was under direct orders to leave it alone. No one wanted to offend the warlords.”
“You see much action?”
Quinn shrugged, Anna Lee weaving her way between them and picking up Luke’s glass of bourbon and downing the rest of it. Luke laughed at her and reached behind her, gripping her ass hard. “Ain’t she a pistol?”
Anna Lee squealed and knocked his hand away.
“I better be goin’,” Quinn said.
Luke excused himself and stumbled his way to the toilet while more sad country music played on the jukebox. Anna Lee elbowed Quinn in the ribs, a soft smile on her lips. “Quitter.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“What do you want it to mean?”
“Good night, Anna Lee.”
Quinn got to the Dixie Gas station before they closed up for the night, reaching for a six-pack in the WELCOME HUNTERS display, paying cash, and then hitting the back roads and sites. They used to call it lowriding, although all of ’em had jacked-up trucks, but it was all slow and cool, prowling the unpaved roads, popping one beer after another, keeping clear of the main roads where you’d find the law. You might stop at some country cemetery to get out and smoke or take a piss, then get back in your automobile, just rolling with the curves and twists, heading out to the very spot you wanted to find, that spot where you found yourself absolutely lost, maybe ducking into that next county.
Quinn couldn’t get lost.
He tried his damnedest, but even after the third beer all of Tibbehah County seemed as clear as a road map. He headed up near the Trace, thinking of following it awhile, just as he popped open a fresh beer. This was the first time he’d been able to get a little loose in several years. As the platoon daddy, he had to pretty much hold it together while his boys could go out and raise hell, Quinn being the one on call to break up fights or raise money for bail. He had to stand tall and be responsible when sometimes it was the platoon sergeant who craved a drink more than anyone.
Not that he didn’t have his fair share of hell-raising as a private. Privates were always into stupid shit, and he hadn’t been any exception. Not long after earning his tab, the 3rd Battalion found itself waiting outside an airstrip in Oman with some of the most elite Special Forces guys in the world. Most of these guys were battle-hard and older than Quinn was now, working with Rangers who weren’t even old enough to drink.
After a few days, one dumb Ranger decided to slip into some black cold-weather gear and don a black balaclava and carry throwing stars made out of Copenhagen cans and nunchucks fashioned from duct tape and 550 cord. While the Delta guys sat in their tents discussing dangerous secret missions, this Ranger private, dressed all in black, was throwing Copenhagen tins at them and yelling, NINJA!, before hauling ass.
The officers never found out the identity of that man in black. But whoever he was, he’s still a legend in the battalion.
Quinn smiled to himself and took a hard turn over the creek and down the gravel road and up into the farmhouse driveway, slamming the truck door behind him and using the front fender to steady himself while he took a leak. He kept on smiling and laughing at that ninja. He enjoyed the way the big oaks and pecans in a distant cattle field had many different branches.
As Quinn finished up, he saluted the moon, and reached into the truck for the last two beers, popping one, saving the other for a nightcap. About halfway to the dark house he heard a dog barki
ng, his first thought being that Hondo had treed something, and the last thing he wanted to do was walk half a mile to save a scared raccoon.
The bark was quick and popping. And then he noticed the sounds of the cows.
And the voices of men in his uncle’s pasture.
Quinn moved into the house and retrieved an old Winchester .45 lever-action, then followed the road, a long dark tunnel with nimble, wiry branches overhead. The cows’ crying growing closer, Hondo’s barking. Men yelling, and then the dog’s yelp.
He levered the gun, put a .45 in the chamber, and continued to walk. Hondo zipped under the barbed wire and walked at his side under the moon. A cold wind shot down from the foothills.
At the fence, he could make out three men, and then five, kicking and swatting at the cows and loading them onto a long rusted trailer. Quinn moved along a ditch, then steadied his hand on a cedar post, staying there for maybe a good five minutes, rubbing Hondo’s ears, before one of the miscreants spotted him and nudged another in the ribs.
They weren’t ranchers. Three of them were nothing more than kids with shaved heads and wearing ragged jackets, another was a fat man with a shaved head, wispy red beard, and a scrawled tattoo on his neck. Quinn took the last fella to be running the show, from the way he was bossing everybody around. He was older, tall and skinny, with hollow dark eyes, and was shirtless under a camouflage jacket with all matter of patches and symbols.
Quinn’s hand left Hondo’s head and waved to them. “Hello.”
The skeletal man broke away from his group and walked to a midpoint between them and Quinn.
Quinn walked toward him, seeing himself and the dog as moon shadow. He held the rifle loose and easy in his left hand.
“Evening” was all that came to Quinn’s mind.
8
The skinny guy didn’t say a word, just kind of stood there. He was a little shorter than Quinn, sporting a shaved head with short black mustache and goatee. He had vacant black eyes and a bulging lower lip packed with snuff, spitting every few seconds. Quinn guessed the guy was trying to stand tough, but he looked more confused than anything, other men now surrounding him in the moonlight like trained dogs. He didn’t break his stance as Quinn walked around to the open cattle gate, some of the cows scattering from the herd and heading back to pasture.