The Sinners

by Ace Atkins

  Quinn watched her walk, dressed in neat black trousers and a black sleeveless silk top. She made no effort to conceal the automatic holstered on her hip. “You must be Wyatt Earp,” she said, squinting into the sun.

  “How could you tell?”

  “That Beretta on your belt and the cigar in your hand.”

  Quinn stood and smiled, blowing smoke away in the direction of the ancient mounds. It was hot that morning and he’d started to sweat under the starched cotton of his khaki shirt, an American flag on the sleeve and the shield of Tibbehah County on the breast pocket.

  “A private joke with some of the folks in the Oxford office,” she said. “You and Holliday made quite a team taking down Johnny Stagg’s crooked old ass. Folks still talk about it.”

  “Is Holliday coming?”

  “Got held up with some bullshit down in Jackson,” she said. “Some assholes from Ohio came down to rally around a Confederate monument. But he sends his regards. I’m Nathalie Wilkins. Folks call me Nat.”

  She offered her hand and Quinn shook it. She smiled with both her greenish brown eyes and wide red mouth with big, perfect teeth. He’d heard her name before. Wilkins had been part of a north Mississippi task force, working for the DEA, focusing on drug running and human trafficking. Holliday had told him she might be joining them on the meet, as she’d been tracking the flow of drugs up from the Gulf Coast and might know a little about the trucking company in Tupelo.

  “Y’all always meet out here?” Nat asked, scanning the wide green landscape and quiet curve of road where they stood. “Trying to get back to nature or something?”

  “Kind of a tradition,” Quinn said. “When Holliday was undercover, this was a place where we could talk in private.”

  “He told me that I could trust you,” Nat said. “Said anything I know I could share and you’d be straight. Is that true?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “I did my eighth-grade history project on the Choctaws,” Nat said, the cicadas making a high, wild clicking racket out in the tree line. “Did you know they believed these places were the entrance and exit to Mother Earth? That underneath that hill were all kinds of tunnels. It was the place the tribe emerged and where they’d return when they died. No telling how many old bones are in that mound.”

  “My old house is built on a mound,” Quinn said. “When I was kid, I used to take a shovel to the hills. I found all kinds of arrowheads and pottery shards. My Aunt Halley hated it. She didn’t see the sense in the digging, only that I made a big damn mess.”

  “This down in Tibbehah County?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Quinn said. “Born and raised.”

  “Don’t you ‘Yes, ma’am’ me, if we’re gonna be working together,” she said. “I’m from Memphis. Orange Mound proud. Did a few years in the service. Military Police, Afghanistan and all that. Came back home, got that degree, and got hired with Drug Enforcement.”

  “You married?”

  “Do you see a ring on this finger?” she said, grinning. “Divorced. I married my high school boyfriend. How dumb was that? He couldn’t deal with the hours and the attitude. Wanted me to have kids and keep house while he punched the clock at First Tennessee. How about you?”

  “I’m getting hitched in two weeks.”

  “Damn,” she said. “Good for you, Colson. What’s she like?”

  “Beautiful, smart as hell,” Quinn said. “She’s tough, too. Works as an ER nurse down in Tibbehah. We knew each other as kids but lost track until last year.”

  “Ain’t that sweet,” she said. “A real-life love story. Found each other again after all these years. Y’all probably used to climb trees and kiss under that Southern moonlight, making pledges of undying teenage love. So, how’d y’all connect again?”

  “Her ex-husband was a bank robber,” Quinn said. “He shot up a titty bar off Highway 45 and then he tried to kill me.”

  “Hate to say it, Colson,” Nat said. “But you done fucked up trying to get a Hallmark Movie of the Week on that shit.”

  Quinn laughed, taking another puff on the cigar. A few more cars passed, moving north on the Trace. Nat grinned at him, letting him know she liked to mess with him. Quinn felt comfortable with her loose-and-easy style, no bullshit, and straight talk about business. She rested a foot up on the ledge where Quinn sat, looking down at him, watching his face like she was trying to figure out if he was playing with her on the bank robber stuff. “OK,” she said. “Now we’re straight. How about you tell me about this informant you told Holliday about.”

  “He’s a man I know and trust,” Quinn said. “He spotted a kid named Ordeen Davis at a trucking company over at Tupelo a few weeks back.”

  “And what’s that mean to me?”

  “I found Ordeen Davis’s body chopped up in a toolbox a few days ago,” Quinn said. “Someone tossed it into the Big Black River. My friend let me know that this trucking company does a lot of dirty business. They move stolen goods, hijacked shipments, and drugs. He thinks they might be moving people in from Mexico, too. We’ve heard about girls getting caught up in human trafficking up to Memphis and over to Atlanta. Our source on all that disappeared last year.”

  “Dirty, dirty shit,” Nat said.

  “You bet.”

  “And dirty shit happens to be my specialty.”

  “I can introduce you to my friend,” Quinn said. “He promised to stick around long enough to keep an eye out on this outfit. But he wants out fast. I don’t want him mixed up in all this business.”

  “OK,” she said. “I see what you’re saying. But let me ask you this. Just how close of friends are y’all?”

  “How about best man at my wedding.”

  “Oh, shit,” Nat said. “And what’s he doing for this trucking company?”

  “He’s a driver,” Quinn said. “He’s made a few runs for them over the last few months. The outfit forced him to make trips over in Houston and down on the Coast without knowing what he was hauling. He was on his way to quitting after he saw Ordeen Davis doing business there and then Davis turned up dead. He’d known Ordeen since he was kid and has a personal reason for wanting to know the connection.”

  “And y’all think whatever Mr. Davis was doing got his ass stuffed into that box?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Quinn said. “That’s the working theory. He’s been involved with some rough folks in Tibbehah County. I’m looking into them. But I don’t know much about these people in Tupelo.”

  Nat Wilkins tilted her head and closed one eye to examine Quinn’s face. Her big, bouncy hair shook in the hot, dry wind. “Y’all wouldn’t happen to be talking about those fine people at Sutpen’s Trucking, would you?”

  “Now I know why Holliday didn’t think we needed him.”

  “One white boy on this is enough.” Nat reached over and patted Quinn’s knee. “When do I get to meet this friend of yours?”

  “Can you promise me that you’ll keep him clear of this mess?”

  “This man hauling for those mean-ass crooks in Tupelo?” she said. “Hate to tell you, Sheriff. But it’s too damn late. His ass is already knee-deep in Shit City, USA.”

  * * *

  • • •

  It was three hours before the first heats and the Pritchard Racing Team—that being Tyler, Cody, and Uncle Heath—rolled into the west gate of The Ditch, Riverside Speedway, in West Memphis, Arkansas. Tyler knew the old man at the gate and they jawed a little about the condition of the track being too dry and way too slick, how many teams had already set up in the pits, and how the hot weather sure brought out those short shorts and tight tank tops on the ladies. The old man said he knew he shouldn’t be looking, but once he stopped caring, they might as well put him in a pine box.

  “That’s one horny old coot,” Heath said, as they drove slow away from the gate. “He should be ashamed of himself. Proba
bly hands out butterscotch candy to his grandkids. But if that man’s pecker hopped out of his pocket and started singing the ‘Star-Spangled Banner,’ he wouldn’t know where to put it.”

  “Where’d that guard say to set up?” Cody said, driving their big-ass truck, making his way past all the other trailers and car haulers, looking back in the rearview to Tyler.

  “Behind the pavilion area,” Tyler said. “Back past the merch trailers where they got them jumpy houses and games for the kiddies.”

  “And where exactly are we supposed to find this Doc McDuffie?” Cody said, spitting gum out of his open window. “King of the Aryan Brotherhood and friend to the fucking white man?”

  “Doc’ll find us,” Heath said. “He knows to look out for our trailer. Team Fucking Pritchard, all in big letters. Don’t need to tell Doc nothin’. He’s one of the smartest fellas I ever met. Knows all about politics, world affairs, read things in CIA files that make you shit your pants.”

  “Is this guy a medical doctor?” Tyler said. “Or is that some kind of White Power nickname?”

  “Can’t say,” Uncle Heath said. “I don’t know if Doc is his first name or his title. That’s just what we called him at Parchman. He was always looking out for us, bringing in pills stuck into the women guards’ coots. Sometimes he’d get a fucking pharmacy trucked in some fat man’s butthole. If you were with the AB, you didn’t worry about feeling no pain.”

  “You told me he was a real fucking doctor,” Tyler said. “You said they called his ass Doctor Feelgood and that’s how he could get his hands on all those sacks of pills from down in Mexico.”

  “Sure, sure, he’s got connections in Mexico,” Heath said, slumping down in his seat, craning his head around to look into the backseat at Tyler. “Down in Guatemala and Colombia, too. He did business before he got put in prison and moved down to Mexico after to live like a golden god.”

  “So why’d he come back to fucking Arkansas?” Cody said. “If he’s such a damn big hotshot?”

  “To move the dang pills,” Heath said. “Shit, boy. Ain’t y’all been listening to what I got to say? This man used to do lines with goddamn Pablo Escobar. You shoulda heard his stories about the women down there in Colombia with big ole brown titties and nipples big as silver dollars. They damn moved a mountain of coke from down in Colombia with some crazy-ass pilot who lived around here. Had a damn airstrip in his backyard.”

  “I seen a documentary on Escobar on the History Channel,” Cody said. “He was one bad son of a bitch.”

  “And he’s been dead for as long as Uncle Heath’s been in prison,” Tyler said.

  Cody found a slot and drove in nose-first with the trailer hanging back toward the dirt road. The boys sat in the truck, the sounds of gunning motors and zip-zip of the air drill all around them. Heath lit a cigarette and reached to open his door. All the Pritchards piled out of the car and walked back around the trailer.

  “That what happened to Doc?” Cody said, talking about the guy as if he knew him. “He get busted moving all that coke?”

  “No, sir,” Heath said, laughing. “Doc got all fucked up a few years back and stole some old boy’s stump grinder. He rode that son of a bitch halfway across Arkansas before he got pulled over by highway patrol. He got caught with a baggie of weed and some of them fat-burning pills. Motherfucker was higher than a kite. Said he turned to the cop and admitted he’d taken the stump grinder but sure would appreciate them giving his weed back.”

  “This shit’s not funny,” Cody said. “We ain’t got time for this.”

  “Doc McDuffie knows people,” Heath said. “He gets us what we want, move that fucking product, and we won’t need nobody’s goddamn permission to run our own family business. Those scooter boys can blow it out their assholes.”

  Tyler hit the back door on a brand-new thirty-eight-foot Super Hauler, the ramp unfolding down like a fucking spaceship. He unfolded the ramp’s extension into the dirt and walked on into the trailer, turning on the lights and making sure nothing shook loose on the drive up. Cody followed him on inside, checking the straps and tie-downs on the car, looking over the hood at Tyler. Uncle Heath had wandered off to parts unknown, toward the track pavilion where they were selling T-shirts and trying to get folks to sign up for cell phone service. One of those big blow-up figures that shakes and shimmies towered above all the jump houses and little kiosks offering all the free shit a redneck could handle.

  Inside the trailer, Tyler hit the play button on his phone and the Bluetooth speakers started playing Jason Aldean. “Take a Little Ride.” “Been goin’ round and round all day.” It was tradition. The Pritchard family anthem.

  “Fuck me,” Cody said.

  “Goddamn it,” Tyler said. “Goddamn it to hell.”

  “Maybe this Doc McDuffie is the real deal?”

  “Pablo Escobar?” Tyler said. “Cocaine cowboy gets busted stealing a stump grinder?”

  “You got someone else on speed dial who can bring in that many pills?” Cody asked.

  “Either Uncle Heath comes through or our asses gonna get squeezed between the damn Cornbread Mafia and Marquis Sledge’s gravediggers,” Tyler said. “I don’t know why we agreed to this. We done some stupid shit, brother, but this one gets the gold trophy.”

  “If it wasn’t for Uncle Heath, we’d been dragged halfway to Tuscaloosa on those scooters,” Cody said.

  “And if it wasn’t for Uncle Heath,” Tyler said, “we wouldn’t have goddamn Fannie Hathcock tail-grabbing our ass with those scooter boys in the first damn place.”

  Tyler felt his heart beating fast in his chest, his breathing narrow. He sure could use a little hit to calm things down, make the world move just a little slower to make sense of things.

  “Knock, knock!” a voice called out. Uncle Heath stood at the mouth of the trailer with his arm around a fat man about a head taller than him, with a beard about as long and bushy as Tyler’s and wearing a pair of amber-colored glasses. He had big meaty arms and a large belly swelling over his pants. His gray hair had been combed straight back like a television preacher and he wore a T-shirt that read, in big red letters, AMERICA FIRST.

  “Hey, boys,” Uncle Heath said. “I want y’all to meet Doc McDuffie. The best damn friend I ever had in Unit 29.”

  * * *

  • • •

  So what do you know about this Sutpen?” Quinn asked.

  His Uncle Jerry sat across from him at a picnic table outside Mr. Varner’s Quick Mart, Mr. Varner cooking barbecue on an oil drum that had been split in half. Varner had been smoking since early that morning and a low hickory haze hung under the old oak where they sat. As the men talked, Varner flipped the pork and half chickens over the grill, hissing and burning, a pleasant smell in the air.

  Hondo had come with Quinn that morning and sat attentively at Mr. Varner’s feet while he turned the meat.

  “Mr. Sutpen’s been dead for twenty years,” Jerry Colson said. “The trucking company still uses his name. Yeah, I used to drive for them from time to time.”

  “You have any trouble with them?” Quinn said.

  Uncle Jerry shrugged. He was a tall, thin man with a weathered face, prominent chin, and clear blue eyes. He had on a clean white T-shirt, bell-bottom jeans, and a CAT trucker’s hat. Quinn had never seen him without it, although Uncle Jerry had retired about five years ago, spending time now doing a little gardening, a lot of hunting out in the Big Woods, and fishing on Choctaw Lake.

  “What do you mean there, son?” Jerry said. “You mean about being paid?”

  Quinn shook his head. “I mean, did anyone at Sutpen ever ask you to truck some things that made you uncomfortable?”

  “Like driving a tractor-trailer full of Coors beer from Texarkana to Atlanta?” Jerry said, grinning.

  “Sure,” Quinn said. “Stuff like that.”

  Quinn had been working on
a pulled pork plate with beans and slaw, Jerry having the Diablo sandwich with extra-hot sauce and some Golden Flake chips on the side. Mr. Varner didn’t barbecue often, but, when he did, it was a special occasion. Quinn had promised to bring back a few extra plates for Cleotha and Reggie.

  “Did they ever ask you to haul anything illegal?”

  Jerry smiled wide and shook his head. “Now, am I talking to my nephew or to the sheriff of Tibbehah County?”

  “You’re talking to both,” he said. “But, right now, let’s just say your nephew.”

  “Damn Sutpen,” Jerry said. “OK, son. What do you want to know?”

  “Boom told me that you’d recommended him for the job?” Quinn said.

  “Well,” Jerry said, picking at his teeth a bit with his pinkie nail. “Me and ole Boom were at Shooter’s, playing a game of pool and drinkin’ a little beer. He told me all about the trouble he’d been having with Ole Man Skinner and those sorry bastard supervisors. He said he wanted to get back into truckin’ and asked if I knew some folks.”

  “And you sent him over to Tupelo?”

  “I told him I knew some local folks who wouldn’t take issue with his arm,” Jerry said. “A place he could make some good money fast. I figured Boom was a grown-ass man and knew what he was getting into, and if he didn’t like it, he could get himself out. Figured working with crooks you knew was better than getting cornholed by some local good ole boys.”

  “But you knew they were crooked?”

  “I never knew if I had a little extra on my truck,” Jerry said. “And I have to be honest, I never really asked. You got to remember, son, I got my start running Colson shine. As long as I’m getting paid, I don’t give a turkey about what I’m trucking. I just like to get paid well, on time, and Boom seemed to be hurting for some cash. Hadn’t you ever cut a few corners? Maybe done something you weren’t real proud of?”