The Sinners

by Ace Atkins

  Quinn nodded, thinking about his conversation with Maggie about Anna Lee, remembering that time when he’d first gotten back from the Rangers, wanting more than anything to get her back in his bed. And he had, breaking up her marriage, nearly tearing her family apart.

  “So Sutpen’s dead?” Quinn said. “You know who’s running the company?”

  Uncle Jerry shook his head and reached for his Dr Pepper. He took a few swallows and reached down to pat Hondo’s flank. He looked up from under the bill of his ball cap and said, “I wouldn’t get too involved with these folks,” he said. “I think that if Boom’s got trouble looking the other way, it’s best just to move on.”

  “This isn’t about Boom,” Quinn said. “A young man was killed last week named Ordeen Davis. I’m pretty sure Ordeen was doing business with the folks at Sutpen. Just trying to get a better idea of who I’m about to deal with. I looked ’em up on the internet and couldn’t find anything. The corporate records all go back to some holding company down in Gulfport.”

  Jerry’s faded-blue eyes widened. Hondo sat on his rump and looked up at Quinn with his two different colored eyes, tilting his head, trying to look pitiful enough for just a bite of that barbecue. “I don’t know who’s doing what now,” Jerry said. “But twenty years back, folks said Mr. Sutpen did a lot of business with a man named Buster White. That name mean anything to you?”

  Quinn shook his head.

  “You may want to check out the history books,” Jerry said. “Buster was part of that state-line mob back in the day. He got sent off to prison some time back in Louisiana. But he may be back, and if he’s still connected to those Sutpen folks, I’d sure watch my ass.”

  “Always do.”

  “These ain’t some local yokels, Quinn,” he said. “These are some real mean motherfuckers. Yeah, I’ve worked for folks like that. But at the end of the day, I just took a long shower and cashed my damn check. Not everyone wants to know who’s buttering their bread.”

  Quinn nodded, watching Mr. Varner putting out some flames that had started kick up on the grill. He squirted some water out of a Gatorade bottle until the fire settled down.

  “I done some things I’m ashamed of,” Jerry said. “But I figure I wasn’t hurting no one. And I was the one taking the damn risk. If I’m putting my neck out there, I sure didn’t mind getting paid a little extra. In your job, you’re not being asked to clean up all of north Mississippi. It ain’t worth it, son.”

  “I prefer a little action,” Quinn said. Hondo hopped up beside him and he handed him a little barbecue. He snapped it up fast and nuzzled close to Quinn, looking for more. “And don’t scare easy.”

  “You are a true Colson,” Jerry said. “You know, I used to run shine for your granddad. All the Colson brothers did, including your dad. How is that old so-’n’-so anyway? Is he at least coming to his son’s wedding?”

  “I haven’t heard from Dad since he left town last year.”

  “Come on, now.”

  “Not a word.” Quinn ate a little more barbecue and reached for the bottle of sauce Mr. Varner had left on the table along with a roll of paper towels. He poured out a little more sauce on the barbecue and took a big bite. The oak they sat under was big and old, the roots running deep up under the parking lot, buckling the hot asphalt.

  “Your momma said something about him going to L.A.?” Jerry said. “He’s a little long in the tooth and thin in the skin to be getting back into the stunt business.”

  “I don’t think it was anything big,” Quinn said. “He probably went back to that Old West stunt show they do at Universal Studios, playing the town drunk or maybe Cookie, the trail cook. Only thing he left were his two horses to feed and his last electric bill. You remember that old cherry-red Pontiac?”

  “That was the one in that Burt Reynolds picture?” Jerry said, finishing the Diablo sandwich and wadding up the tinfoil. “The one where he and that other crazy-ass stuntman jumped over the river. He said it had been a rocket car and he’d converted it back.”

  “That was all more of his bullshit,” Quinn said. “But, yep. Same car. He finally got that piece of crap running and, one morning, he just shagged ass.”

  Jerry set his jaw, nodding. He slipped off his CAT ball cap, played with the brim, and pulled it back onto his head, making a little tsking sound. “I do love my brother,” he said. “But he was a truly horseshit husband and father to y’all. I’m sorry about that.”

  Quinn looked over to see Mr. Varner forking a slab of ribs and turning it over on the grill, the meat hissing as the smoke blew off down the highway.

  “He tried to make a go of a land deal in Tibbehah and the damn thing went bust,” Quinn said. “I think he was embarrassed and didn’t want to talk about it.”

  “And left his son holding a flaming bag of crap?”

  Quinn nodded. “Yes, sir.”

  “That’d be my brother,” Jerry said. “That man would jump out of an airplane with no parachute, run nekkid with his hair on fire, but he could never talk straight to you face-to-face.”

  * * *

  • • •

  Doc McDuffie was still hanging out, sitting in an easy chair by the pits with a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken in his lap, when Cody walked in from the infield and tossed his helmet onto the ground. Doc pulled a chicken leg from his teeth, wiped his mouth with his stubby little fingers, and said, “You were revving that damn engine way too high,” he said. “Hell, I could hear it up in the grandstands. No wonder you blew your damn load.”

  On the eighth lap, Cody tried to take the lead on that damn Booger Phillips and the engine bucked him, smoke and oil covering his face, nearly driving blind until he was off the track. Tyler had seen the whole thing, watching his brother from the fence line, close enough that he needed to pick the dirt out of his teeth. It wasn’t his fault. Sometimes a car can just fuck a driver.

  “I told y’all you needed a new engine,” Uncle Heath said, handing Cody a red Solo cup filled with Jim Beam. “But don’t you worry. We’ll strip that damn car down to the lug nuts and build her up better ’an new.”

  Cody unzipped his fire suit down to his waist and slunk down in a folding chair, watching as they hauled his race car back out of the infield. Tyler took a seat next to him, not saying anything, knowing his brother was pissed as hell. This was a big race at The Ditch, the goddamn Hooker Hood Classic, and now that snot-nose little shit would be getting the gold trophy and one of those fine-ass Lucas Oil girls. That was like a hard swift kick in the nuts to the Pritchard boys.

  The four men sat close to the fence, no one close to them, the sound of the engines keeping their business private. The next race was stock and already the boys were out there, testing the track, running their vehicles from side to side to warm up the tires, gunning the engines and testing the dirt. The stands were about half full that night, bright lights shining down on the dirt, the air smelling like corn dogs and burned rubber. Families with little kids holding American flags, old coots drinking beer and writing down the winners and losers, girls in cut-off jean shorts and cropped T-shirts trying to make their way into the infield and get a selfie with the drivers.

  No one spoke for a long time, watching the green flag drop and the stock cars thunder off. After the fourth lap, McDuffie put down the bucket of chicken and said, “So you boys want to get into the pill business?”

  Tyler and Cody nodded, not able to see Uncle Heath, who sat on the row behind them, cracking peanuts and yelling at the drivers. Doc McDuffie kept on watching the race while sipping on a Budweiser Tall Boy. The big bearded man had tattoos on his hands reading LOVE on his left knuckles and HATE on his right.

  “Yeah, I know some people,” Doc said. “But y’all need to be a little more specific about you want.”

  Tyler reached into his pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper of the grocery list he’d got from Marquis
Sledge. He passed it on to Doc, letting the old man lift out a pair of reading glasses and set it onto his thick nose, red and veiny. The man looked like a White Power Santa. He lifted his old fuzzy white eyebrows as his lips moved, reading over the words, took off his glasses, and handed the paper back to Tyler. “How about y’all come on and step into my office?”

  The cars zipped around the quarter-mile track, hitting the gas and tossing up chunks of mud on the turns. The mud rained down on the bleachers, plunking down into Tyler’s Solo cup. He picked out the mud chip and took a long swallow, following Doc McDuffie and Uncle Heath away from the track and back through the pits. The car had been dropped by their trailer and Tyler stepped inside the trailer for a moment to crack open a new beer and fill his cup. They headed on through the city of trailers, trucks, and race cars, some of the boys telling Cody “Tough luck” and “You’ll get ’em next time,” lots of handshakes and slaps on the back. They kept walking on out the gate and into the parking lot, where Doc McDuffie had parked a Mercedes diesel sedan. It was navy blue, with a lot of rust bubbling up on the hood, sun-faded and worn on the cab and on the trunk that McDuffie unlocked with a ring of a thousand jangling keys.

  Inside, he pulled out an old hard-leather briefcase and looked around the half-empty lot before spinning open the combo and showing the Pritchards a bunch of bottles and baggies inside. “Y’all got the money?”

  “This all you got?” Tyler said.

  “Hell, boy,” Doc said. “How fucked up do y’all want to get?”

  Tyler felt his stomach drop as he shook his head and walked away from the big old Mercedes to the edge of the lot. Cody was right up behind him, barely listening to Uncle Heath dog-cussing that son of a bitch for not being straight with him. He handed Tyler the cup of whiskey and Tyler drained it before tossing the cup into the weeds. Over the speaker, they could hear the announcer talking with Booger Phillips, tonight’s grand champion, the kid’s high little voice trying to be all humble about it, saying it wasn’t nothing but hard work and that winning is just part of God’s grand plan for him.

  “We’ll get that car straight,” Cody said.

  “I ain’t worried about the fucking race.”

  “I know.”

  “Listening to Uncle Heath was dumber than shit.”

  “Yep.”

  “We done worked too long and too hard,” Tyler said. “What we grow. What we sell. That ain’t nobody’s business.”

  “He’s our kin.”

  “Ain’t no more kin to me than a monkey in the zoo,” Tyler said. “And if we don’t let him know his place, those Born Losers gonna be the last thing we need to worry about.”

  “There are other people.”

  “Who?” Tyler said.

  Tyler heard a yelp and turned back to see Uncle Heath had slammed Doc McDuffie’s fingers in the trunk. The man was convulsing and screaming with pain as Uncle Heath grabbed him by his white Santa beard and yanked his forehead down time and again to the metal.

  “That’s one way of doing it,” Cody said.

  “Man’s got to learn,” Tyler said.

  Uncle Heath then started using the fat man’s kidneys like a punching bag and snatched up the old scuffed briefcase, knocking him harder in the head and scattering all the pills to the ground. He was red-faced and sweating when he turned back to Tyler and Cody and said, “Come on. Let’s go. We got to get that shit loaded up.”

  Tyler and Cody just stood there, watching Doc McDuffie blubbering and crying against the German car, his hands still trapped in the trunk. Plastic baggies and pill bottles all around him.

  “Damn,” Uncle Heath said. “You boys coming or not? Shit, we still got two more races to watch.”

  13

  Three days after those two country-and-western dipshits showed up at Vienna’s, Fannie drove over to Tupelo, to a trucking company off Highway 45 called Sutpen’s, and left her Lexus out in the lot with the motor running. She knew it wouldn’t take long to get her damn point across.

  “Let’s get a few goddamn things straight,” Fannie said, after marching right through the cubicles and rabbit warren offices to a big glass office marked WES TAGGART, busting right in without so much of a tap. “I don’t give a shit what Buster White told you, but Vienna’s Place is not, nor will ever be, up for sale or free for the taking. That’s my business. If you and Gabby Hayes want to flip burgers over at the Rebel and talk politics with farmers, be my guest. Y’all will be a big hit with all the toothless fuckwads wanting to make America great again.”

  “You want to take a seat?” Taggart said, looking a little amused, standing at attention by his desk in a tight black T-shirt with a pack of smokes in the pocket. He crossed his muscular arms over his flat stomach and watched Fannie with an annoying little smirk on his weathered face. “Could I get you some coffee or tea, Miss Hathcock? Maybe a cold Coca-Cola?”

  “I didn’t drive up to socialize,” she said. “I damn well know what you and your buddy do and what you believe is going to happen down in Tibbehah County. But I just got off the phone with White. And after a supreme amount of good ole boy bullshit, he understands just what he is entitled to. I may operate the best damn whorehouse in north Mississippi, but I’m not anybody’s punch.”

  Taggart grinned some more, big and toothy, his nose a little flat and misshapen, and sat at the edge of the desk. “No, ma’am,” he said. “Never thought about that for one second.”

  “Then what was all that bullshit the other night with you two?” she said, so fucking mad her hands were shaking as she reached into her bag for her Dunhills and cigarillo case. “Y’all were casing Vienna’s like you’d just bought the place at auction.”

  “Mr. White and I’ve been talking for a long while,” Taggart said, rubbing his chin and ogling her titties as he spoke. “He just feels like you need a little help running things until we put out a few fires. It’s in your best interest, Miss Hathcock. You need to settle down and just trust me on that.”

  “Trust you?” Fannie said. “Christ Almighty. I don’t even know you and your damn B.J. and the Bear crew. And what kind of fucking fires can you see from over in Tupelo? The last thing I need is a couple ex-cons rolling up in their Cadillacs trying to tell me how to run my business because they were born with a pecker between their bowed legs.”

  Taggart leaned back a little and laughed, shaking his head, while Fannie tried to kick on that five-hundred-dollar lighter but only getting a click-click-click. He reached into his tight Wranglers, hugging his goddamn package like it had sprayed on by Earl Scheib, and snapped open an old Zippo. Fannie took a draw and watched his hard face, still grinning, still amused by her discomfort and anger to the point she wanted to grind out that cigarillo right into his beady little black eye.

  “Mr. White feels we’re getting edged out up here,” Taggart said. “By the blacks. And by a couple of young bucks and their high-tech weed operation. You know who I’m talking about?”

  “Those dumb shitbirds couldn’t find Memphis on a road map,” she said. “They’re just a couple locals giving me a headache. What’s not clear about me saying that I got it all figured out?”

  “That ain’t what I’m hearing,” he said. “My understanding is, they’ve been up in Memphis talking to Marquis Sledge’s black ass about being his supplier and cutting us out of the picture. That doesn’t sit so well with the boys.”

  Fannie blew out some smoke and tapped at the edge of his desk. “That’s bullshit.”

  “No, ma’am,” he said, standing up, adjusting his big turquoise belt buckle. “It ain’t bullshit a-tall. How about you just sit down for a moment and we can talk through how all this is going to work?”

  “You boys want to edge me out, you’re gonna have to man the fuck up and come at me with a gun in one hand and your dick in the other, because I don’t scare easily,” she said. “And I sure as hell don’t roll over on my
back and spread my fucking legs. So what if those Pritchards are talking big-time shit and trying to make a name? Only thinking those boys know how to do is turn left for twenty laps. How you think they’re gonna work with the fuckin’ Mexican cartels through Houston?”

  “I heard they got a new source.”

  “Where?”

  “We don’t know,” Taggart said. “But me, you, and Mr. White are in this for the goddamn long haul. Without the bigger picture, Vienna’s Place is just a snatch-and-titty money wash. How badly do you think Mr. White needs the aggravation your place has been giving him? You got the damn moralists raising hell with our friends in Jackson and then you got that fucking Wild West showdown from last year. You need to think about your value here. And if I were you, I’d be looking to make some good friends fast.”

  Fannie blew some smoke in his direction, her tongue roving at the edge of her mouth. Wes Taggart just smiled back at her with those hard black eyes. His eyes never left her tits until the gray-ponytailed fuck J. B. Hood wandered on in the door and looked left and right like a guard dog waiting to either bite someone or lift his leg. His jaw tightened and his left eye twitched a little as he tried to stare her down.

  “Y’all all right?” J. B. Hood said. “Some folks heard some yelling.”

  “You ain’t got any more caution than a blue-eyed mule,” Fannie said, holding the cigarillo by the side of her mouth, doing her best Gabby Hayes. Hood didn’t get her meaning, looking her over, and then back to Wes Taggart, wanting to know what the fuck he needed to do. Taggart just nodded to the door and Hood left, giving Fannie one last hard look.

  “Let me put it this way,” Taggart said. “What you got don’t work without us. It never has. We’ve always been part of the deal even if you didn’t care to acknowledge who we were and what we were doing for the boys. Who the hell do you think runs the chain from the Coast? Where the fuck do you think you get some of your girls? I got my part. You got your part. Fucking Ray has his part. We want what’s best for all of us.”