by Ace Atkins
“Would you believe your Uncle Jerry,” Boom said. “He’s the one who recommended me for the job.”
“Yep,” Quinn said. “That sounds about like my Uncle Jerry.”
“Hate to drag his ass into all this,” Boom said, “but he might know something. Ain’t no kid deserved to be killed like that. They threw away Ordeen like he was just some trash. That don’t sit too well with me.”
“This wouldn’t be the first time Fannie Hathcock lost some hired help,” Quinn said.
“Nope,” Boom said. “Sure as shit wouldn’t.”
The cows made some mournful noises across the pasture, Hondo trotting off the porch and heading into the darkness to make the rounds. Quinn walked back for a second beer. Boom said one was enough for him. They sat there in silence for a bit, enjoying the warm breeze, the empty, quiet sounds of the hot wind through the trees. He and Boom could be together for a long while without saying a damn word, same as it had been hunting and fishing when they were kids. They didn’t feel the need to fill that silence with a bunch of empty-headed talk.
“This place is a lot different from when you got back,” Boom said.
“People in town said for me to burn the house down,” Quinn said.
“Took us two days just to clear out your uncle’s trash,” Boom said. “Nothing good in here but some old records and guns.”
“And a suede coat and a bottle of fine bourbon from Johnny Stagg.”
Boom nodded, silent again for a while. Quinn drank his beer, watching Hondo, now just a flitting dark speck among the cows as he worked them a little, letting them know who was in charge. Nearly ten years Quinn’d been back and he wasn’t sure he’d made a damn bit of difference.
11
Quinn and Reggie drove together onto the Pritchard property early the next morning, the gate wide open, welcoming them onto the land, passing all those NO TRESPASSING signs about not calling 911, BEWARE OF THE DOG, and how the best way to meet the Lord was to keep on coming. The sun was up, high in the pines, the gully running alongside the road choked with weeds and full of beer cans and paper wrappers. As they drove, the sunlight flickered through the rows of planted trees and through a big Confederate flag flapping from an overhead oak branch. A skull in the center of the Stars and Bars wore a cowboy hat and grinned with its big skull teeth.
“Real fine folks,” Reggie said, riding shotgun with Quinn. “True Southern hospitality.”
“Gate was open,” Quinn said. “To me, that’s the same as a welcome mat.”
“Sorry if I don’t believe you, Sheriff,” Reggie said. “I’ve heard stories about these people, none of them good. These boys been on their own since they were kids, running wild, shooting guns and racing cars. I heard they’re not real fond of black folks. I pulled one of those boys over last year for speeding and it was like I’d smacked him in the face. Watched his goddamn hands the whole time, boy mean and red-faced, looking like he was about to make a move. Never did. Took the ticket but never said a word but ‘Yep,’ ‘Nope.’ He tore that ticket from my hand and drove off. Pissed-off as hell.”
“I’m sure he’ll be glad to see you again,” Quinn said. “Which one was it?”
“Damn,” Reggie said. “I don’t know. Hard to remember which one of those boys is uglier. It was the tall one with the beard, looking straight out of those Old Testament comics.”
Quinn hit a curve in the dirt road and headed toward an old tin-roof house, not unlike Quinn’s but only one-story and in some pretty sorry shape. The tin roof was rusted, the paint flaking, and the front porch sagging loose, busted and ragged. He slowed his truck by some old junk cars and trucks, a couple of Sea-Doos on the back of a trailer. Across from the ragged house was a brand-new metal barn with the side doors open. As Quinn and Reggie got out of the air-conditioning into the humidity, they could hear the high buzzing sounds of machinery and smell the oily smoke coming from the open doors. A radio was on, playing some of that modern country with the electronic beat, Auto-Tuned vocals, and an attempt at rap. The singer talking about a woman having a body like a back road. It was some god-awful shit.
As they headed into the garage, a stocky guy without a shirt holding a bottle of red Gatorade looked up from where he was cutting some sheet metal. He had goggles on top of his head, his muscled body covered in sweat, cigarette hanging from his mouth. Tattoos covered his back with checkered flags and angel wings. He looked to be in his late fifties or early sixties, with wrinkled, leathery skin and a bald head.
Quinn introduced himself. And Reggie.
“I know who y’all are,” the man said, not getting up from the workstation. “I seen you on the cameras. Hard to miss that big star on the side of your F-150. That the V-6 or V-8?”
“V-6,” Quinn said. “Got a Turbo Boost on it. Pulls all that I need.”
“I heard those motors have improved,” the man said. “Some dumb bastards can’t get that V-8 sound out of their heads. They just want to growl them pipes but don’t give a damn about performance. Performance is what it’s all about. Just ask the ladies.”
Quinn nodded and took a look around the shop, big and wide open, about thirty feet tall, with flags flying from the metal crossbeams. The concrete floor was spotted with oil stains covered up in cat litter, a handmade workbench strewn with tools and open bottles, gas cans, and oil filters. He looked over at Reggie, who was checking out a race car that had been taken down to the chassis, skeletal and sleek, a motor hanging nearby from some chains.
“I’m looking for Tyler or Cody.”
“They ain’t here.”
“You know when they’ll be back?”
“No, sir,” the man said. “I sure don’t. Can I help you boys with something?”
“Those boys drive a 2017 white Chevy Silverado?” Quinn said, knowing the answer. “Black Widow edition.”
“Yes, sir,” the man said, making some marks on the metal, looking down at his hands, and not seeming to pay a bit of attention. “They surely do.”
“Do you know if they were at the Walmart yesterday?”
“No, sir,” the man said. “I don’t run their business. But I figure we all got to get to the Walmart once in a while. Only place I know where you can get toilet paper, Twinkies, and shotgun shells.”
Quinn nodded at the man, waiting for him to look up from his work, and then looked over at Reggie, who stood by the wall, looking at dozens of gold trophies set on plastic storage racks. Reggie raised his eyebrows at Quinn, hand on the gun at his hip. The older guy finally looked up and stood, hitching up his tight blue jeans. They’d been tucked inside a pair of rattlesnake cowboy boots.
“Anyone ever tell you that you favor your Uncle Hamp?” the man said, cupping his hand and lighting a cigarette. Quinn studied the man’s face. His smile broke into a wide grin, cigarette dangling from his lips. “Yes, sir. I knew your daddy, too. He was one crazy fool. I was there the day he jumped seventeen Pintos on his motorbike. Hell of a day. Baptist church gave out free popcorn and fried pies.”
Quinn didn’t say anything. He just watched the leathery man coming around the table, eyeing Reggie and then looking back to Quinn. He was thick and hard for an old guy, tough and muscled, with small black eyes and a tight brown hole for a mouth. When he grinned and coughed out some smoke, his teeth were small, ground-down, and yellowed.
“You’re Heath Pritchard,” Quinn said.
“Yes, sir,” he said.
“Hadn’t been told you were out.”
“I done my time,” he said. “Spent the last twenty-three years at Unit 29 at Parchman, thanks to your Uncle Hamp. He’d been bird-dogging my ass for years until he finally found a way to get me.”
Quinn knew the stories. He’d been in middle school when infamous outlaw Heath Pritchard got busted for growing fifty acres of marijuana between his rows of corn. People in Tibbehah still talked about him like he’d been
some kind of Robin Hood, battling it out with the law and Johnny Stagg, keeping his little empire running until the sheriff’s office burned his world to the ground. Most people still saying he’d been set up by the law, Uncle Hamp taking care of Stagg’s business. Truth be known, Quinn wasn’t too sure that wasn’t true.
“Why y’all looking for my nephews?” Heath Pritchard said. “They take something from that Walmart? If they did, I’m good for it.”
“Yesterday there was a fight in the parking lot,” Quinn said. “Someone got shot. And we have a witness who saw your nephews’ Silverado. They noticed the Pritchard Racing Team logo splashed on the side.”
“You think my boys shot somebody?”
“No, sir,” Quinn said. “But we’re hoping they saw something. We believe some members of a local motorcycle gang were in town.”
“You’re talking about the goddamn Born Losers,” Pritchard said. “Those are some mean hombres. They’d been stinking up this county since way before I went in jail. I thought y’all had run them out of town.”
Reggie walked up to where the men stood, Pritchard looking over his uniform and then back at Quinn as if not believing what he was seeing. Quinn handed the man his card, telling him to have one of his nephews call him when they got back home. Pritchard picked up the card, reading it with his lips moving, and then staring back at Quinn and then over at Reggie Caruthers. He licked his dry lips. “Sorry to hear about your uncle.”
Quinn nodded.
“My hopes and dreams had been to come back to this town a free man and whip his ass.”
Quinn stopped and turned so close to the man that he could smell the rancid sweat and testosterone on him, dusky, like some kind of wild animal. “And they would’ve put you right back into your cage.”
“Maybe,” Pritchard said. “But sure would’ve been goddamn worth it.”
Quinn stood still close to Pritchard, not saying a word, just waiting for him to make a quick move. Instead, the man started laughing and laughing like he’d just heard an off-color joke in church. He even held on to his bare sweaty belly as he giggled as if he couldn’t control himself.
“I’m just messin’ with you, Sheriff. I’ll tell my boys to give you a call. We sure as hell can’t have no violence at the Walmart. That’s just downright un-American.”
“You checkin’ in with your parole officer?” Quinn asked.
“Oh yes, sir,” Pritchard said. “You better believe it, Sheriff. We plan to eat fried chicken and pray every chance we get. We’re right as rain.”
Quinn nodded at Reggie and they both walked from the garage, the bad country music turned up even louder. He stopped at his truck and looked out at the ragged property. The falling house, the tall metal barn, and endless rows of corn. They crawled into the truck and headed back out the dirt road.
“What the hell was that about?” Reggie said.
“Trouble,” Quinn said.
“The smell of that man?” Reggie said. “Good Lord.”
* * *
• • •
Black people get buried by black people and white people get buried by white people,” Tyler said, stroking his bushy beard, hands in the back pockets of his Wranglers, looking around, trying to be cool about the meeting with Mr. Sledge. “That’s how his family got so rich and owns half of south Memphis. Rib joints. Filling stations. Wigs and fucking weaves. His people been putting black folks in the ground since the Civil War and they been banking that shit ever since. Look at this place. It’s like a goddamn fortress.”
“It’s creepy as hell,” Cody said, looking around Sledge Funeral Home—WHERE DIGNITY AND RESPECT ARE KING—at all the open satin-lined coffins, gold-framed portraits of serious black men in suits and wide ties, and the wall-to-wall green shag carpet leading to the chapel and little private offices. The outside was nothing but sandstone and brick with a six-foot-high black iron fence surrounding the funeral home, a fleet of Cadillac limousines and hearses parked in the private lot.
“Hey, fucknuts,” Tyler said. “How ’bout you just sit there, shut the hell up, and let me talk? You open your mouth and you’re gonna piss this guy off. We need him to listen to what we came to offer.”
“That ain’t gonna happen,” Cody said. “We’re wasting our damn time. That’s just some shit pie in the sky put there by Uncle Heath.”
“Oh, is that right?” Tyler asked. “Mr. Sledge buys our product. He moves our product. He asks for more ’an we can give him. What’s good for his black ass is good for us. I don’t trust our crazy uncle any more ’an you. But shit, man. If Uncle Heath can deliver? Wooh. Man. That’d sure be something else.”
“I don’t trust Uncle Heath to flush the dang toilet.”
“Let him do his part,” Tyler said. “And we’ll do ours.”
An old black woman with gray hair wearing a black pantsuit walked up and led them into a big office without saying a word. Her perfume stuck around after she left, Tyler thinking she must really lay it on thick having to be around dead folks all day. He glanced around the office, a grandfather clock in the corner ticking off the seconds. There was a big ole desk with feet like eagle claws and a fat white leather chair behind it. The walls were that same dark paneled wood lined with glowing brass lamps and framed pictures of black people with big Afros and colorful clothes. The same thick green shag carpet covered the floors, with two very old and tall brass ashtrays by the plush white chairs where they sat. It was so damn cold that Tyler got goose bumps on his bare arms.
“I liked going to the Wing Machine better,” Cody said. “Drop off some weed, get paid, and then get fed. The Bohannons were OK. I’m not so sure about all this.”
Tyler stared at his brother as the side door opened and in walked Mr. Marquis Sledge himself, in his silky pants and silky shirt, unbuttoned too far down his old chest and showing off a thick gold chain. He wore big, gold-framed glasses, a straw hat like men wore in old movies, and kept a thin little mustache over his lip. The man had to be older than seventy, tall and thick, with wide-set eyes and copper-colored skin.
He shook hands with the Pritchard boys before taking a seat behind the desk and leaning back in his chair, giving them that What you white motherfuckers want? look but not saying a damn word. Sledge pulled a gold toothpick from his pocket and stuck it into the corner of his mouth, using his fat tongue to swivel it around, resting his hands on his belly.
“I know you’re a busy man, Mr. Sledge,” Tyler said.
“Gotdamn right,” he said. “So why we got fucking Mississippi come to town? What you country boys want? Ain’t y’all getting paid? Yes, sir. Mr. Sledge pays right and on time.”
“Everything’s fine,” Tyler said. “It’s good. We just wanted to talk a little new business.”
“New business?” he asked. “Shit. You know I don’t like being seen with white people. Bad for my reputation. If someone asks, you boys tell ’em that you come over to clean my gutters or fix the toilets or some shit. I don’t want nobody talking about how Mr. Marquis Sledge is out shaking hands and making friends with a couple Cracker Barrel Slims.”
Tyler looked over to Cody and Cody slouched into his seat, letting out a long breath. Cody had on a T-shirt with the sleeves cut off that said I GOT MUD IN MY BLOOD. A Dale Jr. ball cap down low in his eyes.
Sledge rotated the gold toothpick in his mouth with his fingers and leaned back into his white leather chair. “But that shit y’all got,” he said. “That’s some fine-ass weed. Folks loving that shit, asking me, ‘Hey, Marquis. This shit come from fucking Hawaii?’ And I say to them, ‘Yeah, man. That shit come from Hawaii.’ Because if they smokin’ it up and thinking about volcanoes and hula dancers with coconuts on their titties, that’s just good for business. Ain’t no reason they got to know you trucking in that shit from down in Petticoat Junction.”
Tyler glanced over at his brother’s slouching and shot him a
look for him to sit up straight, keep some eye contact with Mr. Sledge. This man was the real sponsor of Pritchard Racing. Without him buying what they grew, they’d never have gotten out of all that debt. They were going to have to sell off the land, the garage, and their cars before he came along. Sledge saw him eyeing his brother and switched the toothpick into the opposite side of his mouth, leaning forward in the desk, clasping his hands together, and wanting to know what the hell they wanted.
“We got some problems in Tibbehah County.”
“With the law?” Sledge said, rubbing his hands together. “Don’t you be bringing that shit to my doorstep. No, sir. Anyone been following your ass? DEA? MBN? Damn, motherfucking FBI?”
“No, sir,” Tyler said. “We got some trouble with the big boys down on the Coast.”
“Oh, yeah?” he said. “The fucking Cornbread Mafia? Yeah, I work with those motherfuckers from time to time. I don’t like it. But what other choice I got?”
Tyler looked to Cody and they both nodded back at Sledge. Sledge played with the gold toothpick, taking it from his mouth, examining the end, and then pointing it right at Tyler and Cody.
“Goddamn Syndicate,” he said. “Those rednecks been wanting to shut down my Soul Train Line since the seventies. Never touched me. But, damn sure, how they tried. I thought we had an understanding, but that shit that went down last year? I got my own idea of what really happened.”
“Sorry to hear about the twins,” Tyler said. “They were always straight with us.”
“You know I helped raise Short Box and K-Bo?” he said. “Their daddy used to do my embalming. Helped them get set up in that business down on EP Boulevard.”
“Damn shame,” Tyler said.
“Yup,” Cody said, still slumping, looking at his dirty fingernails, grime and grit shoved up under ’em. “Dang fine folks. Christians even.”
Sledge swiveled his chair around and pointed to a picture on the wall of two black kids in the middle of a sparkling brandy glass. Next to the glass was a red rose, the picture shellacked onto a square of cedar wood and turned into a clock. “I wouldn’t gotten back into all this mess if those boys hadn’t been kilt,” he said. “Police say it was just some crazy men robbing the Wing Machine, but I always knew there was more to it. Those country-fried motherfuckers in Biloxi been wanting to put them boys down like mangy dogs for a long-ass time. I believe those robbers were just fronting for them, thinking they could cut out the fucking middleman and have all the grass and pills flow in straight from down in Old Mexico. Man, those boys knew how to wear their Sunday clothes. And they sure as shit knew how to make some goddamn wings. Set your asshole on fire.”