The Sinners

by Ace Atkins

  Son of a bitch. Boom hung up, picked up his own phone, and called Nat. Three rings later, she picked up.

  “They onto you,” Boom said. “What y’all got planned ain’t gonna happen.”

  * * *

  • • •

  Tyler Pritchard was watching an old VHS tape of the time he and Cody were on America’s Funniest Home Videos. He hadn’t seen it in a long time, the tape starting to wear out from all the views and the nearly twenty years that had passed. The picture was grainy, an electric fuzz at the bottom, but it was clear as day watching their dead stepdaddy trying to teach them baseball. He had him and Cody out back of their trailer, Cody with the bat and Tyler doing the pitching. Their dumb-ass stepdaddy, drunk on his tenth beer and a half bottle of Beam, stood a little too close to Cody, making sure their momma had them on the video, and got the everliving shit knocked out of his nuts. Tyler wasn’t sure if the old colors were playing with the picture, but it sure looked like their stepdaddy turned green as he pitched over and fell on the ground, their momma setting down the camera sideways and running for his dumb ass.

  Damn, if Tyler didn’t snicker a bit every time he watched it, snorting some weed smoke out his nose, all on their fifty-inch Sony at three o’clock in the morning. He hadn’t been able to sleep. Uncle Heath had bonded out of jail that morning and was wired, keeping them up till midnight to play poker and then making them watch Young Guns 2 until he started to snore in his chair, a cold Popeyes chicken leg in his hand. “Goin’ down in a blaze of glory . . .”

  Tyler got up and turned off the TV, careful to rewind the tape back to the beginning. He wondered what would happen if he lost it or the damn thing broke. Maybe those folks at AFV had a damn library of the greatest nuts shots of all time. He knew they’d had thousands of folks knocked in the cojones with garden rakes, golf balls, and nunchucks, but, goddamn, watching his mean-ass stepdaddy taking a Louisville Slugger to the balls was, well, just damn perfect. What some folks might call therapeutic.

  The front door and back screen doors were open as Tyler walked up to the five computer screens set on an old desk, popping the keys, checking the cameras along the dirt road, the race shop, and down into the grow rooms. He carefully looked at the detailed image of each one, amazed at how damn good cameras had gotten in the last twenty years. You could make out the detail on a leaf of a plant. Watching that old video, he didn’t think he could really see his stepdaddy no more through all the grainy fuzz. Probably the only image left of the dumb bastard besides some Polaroids his grandmomma gave them at the funeral.

  Tyler wandered on in his bedroom, flopping on his back, checking through some texts between him and that girl Rhonda that he’d met at the MAG down in Columbus. She’d sent him some pretty damn good pics of her in a bikini, modeling her tan skin and bright smile in the bathroom mirror. Sometime last night—hell, he couldn’t remember, on account of being drunk—he’d asked her to show him her titty. And she’d just responded with a winky-faced smile. He didn’t know whether that meant Hold on, it’s comin’ or Go fuck yourself.

  He tossed the phone on the bed and closed his eyes, trying to get some sleep, when the phone started to pulsate. His ringtone playing “Copperhead Road” as he pressed ACCEPT and told whoever the hell it was to get to talking.

  “You boys know your way to Okolona?” a woman said.

  “Who the fuck is this?”

  “It’s happening,” the woman said, telling him the address of some truck stop off 45. “Those bastards are moving more pills tonight than a goddamn Walgreens.”

  * * *

  • • •

  Boom filled up and parked away from the pumps by a gathering of eighteen-wheelers resting and waiting before getting back on the highway. He locked up the cab and headed on into the truck stop, a little place called Smokie’s, made to look like an old-time general store, with stonework and unpainted wood. As soon as you walked in the door, a life-sized statue of John Wayne greeted you at the candy display, caught in mid-draw with a pack of Twizzlers in hand.

  He used the bathroom and sat up on a stool by the kitchen counter, everything made out of corrugated tin and barn wood. He looked up to the daily specials on a chalkboard and decided to go on and get right down to breakfast, asking the waitress for two sausage biscuits and a large Mountain Dew.

  She wanted to know if he’d like some American cheese on those biscuits and Boom just looked at the woman like she’d gone crazy. Only a damn fool puts cheese on a biscuit.

  Nobody was in the truck stop besides two waitresses, a cook, and the young girl working the register in the convenience store. Some folks would filter in and out, but Boom was pretty much alone in the restaurant. A television hung on a far wall playing goddamn Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. Boom remembered his daddy watching that show in reruns, Gomer always fucking up and getting yelled at by the Sarge. His daddy making a point about how much damn fun they were having on the base while all the other Marines had gotten their asses shipped off to Vietnam. That was before his daddy’s conversion, when he was still on that Kools and Crown Royal diet, heading out to the clubs at night, stepping out on his momma, doing whatever he could to get off their land and find some action in Tibbehah County.

  But he was a good man now. A deacon. A man of God who hated the smell of liquor and wouldn’t think twice about telling you about it. Like the man put it, he’d “Come to the Cross.”

  “What’s your problem with cheese?” asked the waitress, an old white woman with dyed red hair that showed a big split of white down the center part like a skunk. She had ruby-tinted glasses on and big gold hoop earrings.

  “Just don’t like cheese, is all.”

  “We got other stuff,” she said. “I can make you a plate of eggs if you want.”

  She said eggs like it started with an a. Looking tired, she sat down beside him at the stools, noticing the hook for a hand but not finding the right way to ask about it. Boom used his left hand to eat, resting the elbow of the prosthetic on the counter, glancing up to see Gomer Pyle trying to untrain a Marine German shepherd.

  “That was a funny show,” she said.

  Boom nodded.

  “Don’t make ’em like that no more,” she said. “Nothing but sex, violence, and trash. You could watch that with your whole family. I think that’s what’s wrong with folks out there today. I got that DirecTV and, Lord, the things I’ve seen on my screen, I wish I could wash my damn eyes out.”

  “Maybe you should unplug your TV,” Boom said, drinking down some Mountain Dew. Not a damn bit tired after being on the road for nearly seven hours. He felt like he could make a run up to Chicago and back and not be the worse for wear.

  “Can’t,” she said. “Got to watch my stories. Did you know Days of Our Lives has been on more than fifty years? That’s got to make it the longest-running show in history.”

  Boom nodded, finished up his biscuit. Gomer Pyle being told to not get too close to the dogs, they were trained to attack strangers. Gomer being Gomer, he just couldn’t figure out why those nice doggies could be so mean.

  The woman reached into her apron and pulled out a vape pen, blowing out some steam that smelled like cinnamon. She nodded as she exhaled, looking down at his hook. “You in the service?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Wasn’t like TV,” she said. “Was it?”

  Boom shook his head, glancing down at the screen of the phone Sutpen had given him, waiting for it to ring, so he could head on down the road. He looked up to see a hand-painted sign by the fried pies that read SAVED BY GRACE. Boom looked back to the woman, who rested her hand over his steel hook.

  “I dated a boy in high school who went over to Vietnam,” she said. “I sure did love him. Sometimes when I’m feeling sorry for myself, I wonder what my life would’ve been like if he’d come home and I married him. Maybe I wouldn’t have made all those damn mistakes, having to turn my
life around at fifty-five.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “He was a fine young man,” she said. “When I heard he’d been killed at the Hamburger Hill, my legs went out from under me, fell right to the floor.”

  She pulled on the pen again, blowing out some steam, her mind somewhere way off in time, thinking on things as you do at four a.m. “Where you headed?” she said.

  “Don’t know,” Boom said, studying that hand-painted sign a bit more, looking like someone local had made it, ripped a piece of old wood right off a rotten barn.

  “Ain’t that your rig out there?” she said.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “And you don’t know which direction you’re headed?”

  “No, ma’am.” Boom shook his head. “Wish I did.”

  * * *

  • • •

  Fuck me,” Tyler said.

  “We can’t jack his ass here,” Cody said. “They got ten trucks all around that trailer. We wouldn’t get a mile down the road without Johnny Law hightailing it after us. And that Freightliner don’t run like no race car.”

  “Son of a bitch.”

  They’d parked their white Chevy away from the pumps, down in some deep shadow by a road off the highway. They’d watched as the big black driver had locked up the rig and gone on inside the building. From where they waited, they could see him through the window, sitting up at the counter, talking it up with some old redheaded woman. It almost looked like they were sitting there praying over a plate of food. There was something damn familiar about that man, but Tyler couldn’t quite make out his face.

  “We can’t do it here,” Tyler said.

  “Well, if we can’t do it here, we can’t do it nowhere,” he said. “Where did that Hathcock woman say he was headed?”

  “Ripley,” Tyler said. “Those good ole boys got a compound up there. They got spooked by some kind of trouble down in Tupelo. But I ain’t gonna jack him up in Ripley, neither. You know how many peckerheads gonna greet that truck with shotguns, just waiting for someone to ride on up and try to take that whole shipment off their hands.”

  “Wait,” Cody said, sitting in the passenger seat and holding up the flat of his right hand. “Wait just one goddamn minute. We can’t jack him here. And we can’t jack him at those crooks’ place. Then we’re gonna have to get him somewhere between them two points.”

  “We got a big truck,” Tyler said. “But we ain’t gonna be able to run no Freightliner off no fucking road.”

  “What if he has to stop?” Cody asked.

  “Like a roadblock or something?” Tyler said. “Maybe on that old two-lane?”

  “Use your fuckin’ head,” Cody said. “We make that big rig peter out somewhere down the road and we swing on in behind his ass when he’s got to stop.”

  “I can’t get to that truck’s engine without someone seeing me,” Tyler said. “And I sure can fuck it up, but not with no time delay.”

  “What about if we put water in his tanks?”

  “He just filled up,” Tyler said. “Besides, if that did work, how the fuck are we supposed to move that trailer? With a Chevy Silverado?”

  “OK, smartass,” Cody said. “You tell me how we do it, then.”

  “No water,” Tyler said. “I ain’t doing nothing I can’t fix. Not under five, ten minutes, once we get things under control.”

  “Then what?”

  “Hold up,” Tyler said. “Hold up. Jesus Christ. I can’t hear myself think.”

  “It’s got to be the damn fuel.”

  “Maybe the air line.”

  “Cut off the air to the tank?” Cody said. “OK. OK. Sure, man. I like it. Maybe tie that tube. How long you think you can drive like that before the gas tank sucks up all that air?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Will it work?”

  “I said I don’t fucking know,” Tyler said. “But I’d give it twenty, thirty miles. That gas ain’t gonna flow into that engine, and that old black boy will have to pull off and check on things. That air will vacuum out the tank, just like pouring out a jug of milk.”

  “And we slide on behind him and offer help,” he said. “Like a couple redneck Samaritans.”

  Tyler nodded, thinking on it from behind the wheel. He pulled at that long-ass Moses beard, deciding this felt like the right plan. Right as fuckin’ rain. “Sorry for calling you fuck brain,” Tyler said. “You can be right smart when you want to be.”

  18

  Boom could make Ripley in a little under an hour, scooting up to New Albany and then hitting Highway 15 north toward Blue Mountain. He’d been to Ripley plenty of times, to the First Monday sale, where they sold everything from antiques to tools to hunting dogs, both bred and stolen. Boom paid his tab, tipped his CAT hat at the old waitress, and headed on out to the door, the slash of light shining over the pumps leaving his rig in shadow. As he headed across the open lot, little red and yellow lights glowing on the parked trucks, he checked to see if anyone was around before calling up Nat Wilkins on his private phone.

  “Ripley,” he said, giving her an address.

  “We make arrests in Ripley and we might as well kiss the Sutpens good-bye.”

  “They onto you anyway,” Boom said. “What the hell’s it matter?”

  “We’re not just after what you’re hauling,” she said. “We want their records, cell phones, to interview everyone who works there. It ain’t just drugs. It’s girls, pills, stolen shit. You trucking that stuff in to Sutpen’s place made our warrant work. You ain’t trucking into Sutpen’s and that warrant is dead.”

  “And my black ass is hanging out in the wind,” Boom said. “I feel like a goddamn pimp, bringing this stuff up to Ripley. I’d just as soon dump this shit in the Mississippi.”

  “Come on, now,” Nat said. “You know how this all has to work. Be patient, Boom. Be cool.”

  “Be cool?” Boom said. “Yeah, sure. But y’all ain’t the ones behind the wheel.”

  * * *

  • • •

  You know who that is?” Cody said.

  “Yep.”

  “That’s fucking Boom Kimbrough.”

  “No shit,” Tyler said. “How many big one-armed niggers you know up in north Mississippi? I didn’t see it when he walked in, but I see it now. Ain’t nobody said nothing about Boom driving that rig.”

  “Son of a damn bitch.”

  Tyler watched Boom use his good hand to take hold and hop up into the cab, then he turned back to his brother. “Why’s it got to be fucking Boom?” he asked. “He’ll know it’s us. I ain’t doing this shit.”

  “You know what Uncle Heath would say?”

  “Uncle Heath can suck my damn balls,” Tyler said. “I ain’t killing Boom Kimbrough to hijack some pills for Fannie Hathcock. You remember how he come through for us when we blowed out that engine that time? He machined the block, crankshaft, and cylinders back like it had come straight from the factory. Boom’s a goddamn artist.”

  “Yeah,” Cody said. “I remember.”

  “This ain’t gonna happen.”

  “Unless he don’t recognize us.”

  “Come on, now,” Tyler said. “We knowed that man since we was kids. How many damn times has he helped us out, sitting around the County Barn talking racing and cars. Ain’t Boom a big Dale Jr. fan? Hell, we was just shooting pool with that son of a bitch a few weeks back.”

  “I still don’t know how he shoots pool with one damn arm,” Cody said. “I’m not even sure it’s legal, way he sizes up that goddamn cue in that hook of his.”

  “’Course it’s legal,” Tyler said. “And we ain’t fucking with no Boom Kimbrough.”

  Cody crawled into the back of the truck, rooting all around through the junk they tossed there: a mess of car parts, crates of oil and beer cans, dirty T-shirts, old paper sacks
from Sonic, and maybe a few women’s panties. He sure as hell hoped Cody didn’t come back with a pair of some girl’s panties, wanting them to disguise themselves with goddamn cotton lace hip-huggers.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Tyler said. “But it ain’t gonna work. Let’s just head on back and talk to Miss Hathcock straight. She’ll understand. We can wait for another time. Boom can’t be driving that shit for Sutpen’s every night.”

  “And who’s gonna talk to Marquis Sledge?” Cody said. “As the good ole boys come up from behind us and fuck us long and hard in the asshole. Nope. We can’t wait. None of the damn shit can wait.”

  Cody reached up between the two front seats and handed Tyler a couple of those neoprene face masks they had to wear when racing down in Florida. In the summer, it got so damn dusty, you’d about choke out after the fifth lap. These were some good ones, all black, with a damn skull as the face. They looked like those things scuba divers wore under their goggles, only with a little mouth piece that filtered out all the dust and dirt.

  “That’ll work,” Tyler said.

  “Hope you fucked up that tank right.”

  “I plugged up both of ’em,” Tyler said. “I used that Pro Seal putty. Goddamn Boom Kimbrough. You think someone’s just fucking with us? Maybe that Hathcock woman wants to see our asses get killed.”

  “Man’s got to eat,” Cody said. “But I never saw Boom as the criminal type. Ain’t he real good friends with the sheriff?”

  “Best friends,” Tyler said. “They’d known each other since they were kids. I heard that when they were in school, those two stole a damn firetruck. Both of them had the choice of either jail time or going in the service.”

  “And Boom comes back with one arm.”

  “And Quinn comes back to being sheriff.”

  “That’s just fucked up, man,” Cody said. “Can’t blame the man for wanting to be on the other side of Johnny Law.”