by Ace Atkins
“Just Tyler and Cody,” Boom said. “Both of them thinking they real smart wearing these masks like they wear under their helmets. Didn’t even bother covering up their arms. Tyler Pritchard has some real specific tattoos about his heroes of Dirt Track Racing.”
“Retribution for Fannie Hathcock giving them trouble?”
“Sure sounds like it,” Boom said. “If you’re saying the Sutpen’s boys are friends with Fannie.”
“Not me,” Quinn said. “That’s what Nat Wilkins and her people say. Ordeen was the go-between with those boys and Fannie. How come all this shit’s got to come on back to my doorstep?”
“Lucky, I guess.”
Quinn kept on driving, passing by a turnoff for the Owl Creek burial mounds, Waylon wanting to know “Are you ready for the country / Are you ready for me.”
“Good song for the wedding,” Boom said. “You think Maggie’s ready for your country ass after all that time she spent in Nashville?”
“To quote Burt Reynolds—” Quinn said.
“As you most often do.”
“‘It depends on what part of the country you’re standing in as to just how dumb you are.’”
“I didn’t say you were dumb,” Boom said. “Just asking if Maggie is ready to throw all in with the hunting, fishing, cigars, and whiskey.”
“I consider myself a Southern gentleman.”
“She ain’t gonna let Hondo sleep in the bed no more,” Boom said. “You do know that.”
Quinn looked in the side mirror, Hondo’s head hanging out the back window, still panting into the hot June wind. “We’ll work on it.”
“You do that.”
Quinn didn’t like where all this was headed, Boom trying to be real cool and low-key about getting a shotgun pulled on him while delivering a truckload of drugs to Ripley. “Do you think these people can tie you to the Pritchard boys?”
“Only if someone tells them who took that trailer,” Boom said. “And I ain’t saying shit.”
* * *
• • •
The Pritchards drove straight on to Memphis, running that rig through the gates of an old warehouse down from the Kellogg’s factory, the smell of baking Frosted Flakes in the air. As Tyler got out of the Chevy and met Cody by the trailer, he noticed the big red Kellogg’s sign, written in cursive neon, shining in the early afternoon. Cody lit a cigarette and walked up onto an abandoned dock. Looked like some homeless folks had made camp there, lots of refrigerator boxes, sleeping bags, and old clothes strewn about. Cody paced up there on the docks, checking the time, while Tyler looked at that gate hanging open off that chain-link fence, waiting for Marquis Sledge’s people to go ahead and show and take this shit off their hands.
It was hot but cool in the shadow of the old building, everything quiet down in south Memphis, the cereal plant chugging out steam from the smokestacks. Tyler had heard that sometime back some old boy got so tired working in the factory that he’d unzipped his pants and pissed in the cornflakes. He didn’t think he’d eaten a box since but sure could understand how you’d grow tired of someone all over your damn ass.
“What if Sledge asks where we got all this?”
“He won’t,” Tyler said.
“But if he does?”
“I’ll tell him to mind his own goddamn business,” Tyler said.
“And what are we gonna do with this rig when we’re done?” Cody asked.
“Shit,” Tyler said, craning his neck to look up at his shorter brother. “Leave the damn thing where you parked it. Let’s get our money and get on back to Tibbehah.”
Cody drew on his cigarette, his LUCAS OIL cap far down in his eyes. He sucked on that cigarette, deep in thought, Tyler knowing he had something on his dang mind but wouldn’t just speak up.
“What the hell is it?” Tyler said.
“Nothin’.”
“Bullshit,” Tyler said. “Say what you’re thinking on.”
“You don’t have trouble with Fannie Hathcock not wanting her damn cut?”
“No,” Tyler said. “She didn’t do jack shit.”
“She done told us the route of that truck,” he said. “Now, why the fuck would she do that? Because she thinks we’re just so goddamn handsome?”
Tyler took a deep breath, shaking his head, his brother always wanting to be the one to piss in his goddamn cornflakes. Cody hopped down from the loading dock onto the asphalt. The back lot filled with rusted oil drums and old gas pumps, a pile of rotten old sofas and mattresses that needed burning.
“She knowed we was in deep with Sledge,” Tyler said. “And she knowed she’d done fucked up sending Ordeen Davis onto our land. It was a kind of peace offering, a damn olive branch, to get on your good side, so she could be the main distributor of Pritchard weed.”
“Bullshit,” Cody said. “You think that goddamn woman’s ever done something nice for the hell of it? That’s the kinda woman takes what she wants.”
“I didn’t say it was for the hell of it,” Tyler said. “I said she done it to get on our good side, make things work until we can figure out how we can truck in our own shit, expand the family business like Uncle Heath was talking about.”
“But she’s fucking her own damn people.”
Tyler looked at Cody. He could barely make out his brother’s beady little eyes, the son of a bitch making a little bit of sense. He stroked his beard with his right hand, thinking on what that woman done and some of the reasons and ways she might be trying to fuck the Pritchard boys. Tyler was just about to tell Cody that they needed to sit down with the woman at Vienna’s, try to lay out all the terms and specifics of their partnership, when he spotted a line of black hearses turning into the gated yard, moving fast as hell and kicking up dust on the hot streets.
The passenger door of the first hearse flew open and goddamn Marquis Sledge stepped out. Surveying the abandoned lot in a double-breasted maroon suit with a high-collar white shirt and a purple tie, looking like that black bald dude on the Family Feud. As always, he had the damn gold toothpick hanging out of the corner of his mouth, turning back to see the three hearses stacked up behind him. Nobody else got out of the vehicles except him, walking forward, not smiling or offering his hand, just looking up at the rig and saying, “Y’all boys better be straight with me,” he said. “That’s a whole lotta shit you promising.”
“More shit than y’all can cram in them death buggies,” Tyler said.
Sledge swiveled the toothpick around, grinning a little. Walking past Tyler and Cody to the rear of the trailer. He knocked on the back with his knuckles. “OK, boys,” he said. “Let’s see what country done brought to town.”
* * *
• • •
Boom was flat-ass worn the hell out. Driving to Texas and back, having to wait around on those Sutpen boys in Okolona, and then getting jacked in the damn booger woods and having to walk five miles to a goddamn Waffle House. Boom had left his truck in Tupelo, Quinn dropping him at J.T.’s to get a loaner and then finally heading home. It was still hotter than hell at seven in the evening, windows down in the old truck he’d taken, a ’65 Ford with the twin I beam that he’d always admired on J.T.’s lot. J.T. always said he was gonna restore the son of a bitch but never got around to it. He hit the road onto his family’s land, nothing but the green plantings of cotton all across the bottomland, little cut-throughs, ditches, and a long stretch of dirt road to his cabin, a place that been built by his grandfather Lucas. Only one room with a kitchen hanging off the back, but his grandparents had raised eight kids in that house, so he didn’t figure he needed to complain. His house was an authentic Mississippi shotgun shack, moved from the original location, sagging a little bit on the porch. But it was clean and simple and, since he’d gotten home from the service, a decent place to live. He liked the calm of it, being right there in the center of all that bottomland, not a hous
e or big road to be seen for miles.
He parked the truck off to the side by his propane tank, the original laundry line still running out back, two wooden crosses with baling wire between them. He reached into his backseat and got out the six-pack of Coors he’d bought at the Piggly Wiggly, icing it down in a cheap Styrofoam cooler on the way back. He felt for one of the cans, not cold enough, but not warm enough to wait. He popped the top and sat down in one of his chairs, his porch not quite twenty feet across.
He planned to sit here and drink down that whole six, watch that sun go down over the bottomland, and then head on to bed. He felt his eyes get heavy, sitting there, just thinking about that long sleep that was about to come. Tomorrow, he’d get up, brush that beer smell off his breath and go see his daddy about picking up some work bringing in the cotton, and maybe, just maybe, he’d go see Ole Man Skinner about getting his job back. He knew the old man would make him grovel, make him ask real nice about getting some work, although he knew for a goddamn fact they couldn’t keep a good mechanic the County Barn.
He deserved better hours than they’d given him. He deserved more money. But like his grandfather Lucas used to say, “Wish in one hand and shit in the other and see which one gets full first.” That was just like old Lucas, straight shooter, no bullshit, one of the first black men in Tibbehah County to own a decent chunk of land since Reconstruction. Sometime back in the seventies, he’d organized a group of black cotton farmers to get fair pay at the scales. Nearly got himself killed in the process, but the man got what he set out to do.
That first beer of the evening sure was good. Didn’t matter that it was a little warm, just nice to be home, kicked back and leaning into that chair, the sun a big orange ball coming down on the flat of the land. Looking so big and perfect, Boom felt like he could just reach out and grab it.
Boom heard the car before he saw it. Looking down the dirt road, he saw a black SUV kicking up dust behind it, maybe a half mile from his shack. He stood up to stretch, finishing the beer, and reaching for another. He held the can in his hook and cracked open the top with his left, taking a big sip, looking to see who might be coming his way. He hoped like hell it was Nat Wilkins, leaving her a detailed message about how he was out, but wouldn’t exactly mind if she came over to his porch to discuss the matter a little further.
He walked inside and went through his drawers for a clean white T-shirt, slipping it over his head and walking back out just in time to see the vehicle slow to a stop about ten yards from his house. It was a Chevy Tahoe and looked government as hell with the clean shiny paint and the tinted windows.
Boom took another sip of Coors and smiled in the direction of the Tahoe, being a little surprised as both doors opened. He wished Nat had come on her own and maybe he could have talked her into getting a little food on the Square.
But he didn’t see that broad smile and bouncy black hair. He only saw two ugly white dudes step out of the car. Goddamn Wes Taggart and J. B. Hood. Both of them walking on up to the porch, fast as hell, holding aluminum baseball bats.
He knew he could either try to lock those boys out and call for help. Or face them head-on.
Boom took another sip of beer, crushed the can in his hand, and stepped off the porch. “OK, motherfuckers,” he said. “Let’s talk.”
20
Ordeen Davis’s mother turned to Quinn, reached out for his hand, squeezed it tight, and said, “What have you done about my boy?”
The first thing that came to mind was We’re working on it. But that was about as good as saying they had a few leads. Which wasn’t true at all. They had the word of an outlaw biker and some possible prints off the Husky toolbox where they found Ordeen’s body. Not nearly enough to get at the Pritchards. And in the short time Quinn had Heath Pritchard at the county jail before he bonded out, he wouldn’t say a damn word.
“I’m trying, ma’am,” Quinn said. “I promise to do everything I can.”
“Quinn Colson,” Pastor Davis said. “If I may speak directly, sometimes everything ain’t worth jack shit.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Someone killed my baby,” she said. “Shot him the back—”
Quinn started to speak, as no one was supposed to talk about details of Ordeen’s killing until someone was charged. But she held up the flat of her hand, shook her head, and kept going. There was no way he would try to stop a confident black woman from speaking her mind, let alone a woman like Danita Davis, who commanded a ton of respect down in Sugar Ditch. If a supervisor wanted to win her district, he had to appease Pastor Davis and make sure her people’s needs would be addressed.
“Chopped up my baby’s body, put him in a box, and tossed him into the Big Black River,” she said. “Now, I don’t believe in revenge. An eye for an eye. Old Testament stuff. But I do believe with every ounce of my being that there will be justice for Ordeen.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Do you hear me, Quinn Colson?” she said. “I known your mother before you were even born. Used to look out for your crazy Uncle Van when he had that pizza shop on the Square. Tended to your father when he busted up his leg after he tried to jump between two buildings downtown. How is your daddy anyway?”
“Gone to California.”
“God help him,” Pastor Davis said. “But you see what I’m saying? I need more than what y’all are giving me. I can’t get by, my day-to-day, take care of my church, without knowing someone is out there looking out for my family.”
Danita Davis was a small brown-skinned woman with silver hair and high cheekbones. She held herself like a teacher about to whack you upside your head if you weren’t paying attention. Her large brown eyes taking you all in, watching all your movements, your breaths, making sure you were being straight with her.
All he could think of saying at the moment was “I promise.”
“If you don’t,” she said, “that says to me that you don’t believe Ordeen has any worth at all. I know what he was doing. But I also know that boy used to be something more and was gonna come back to the Cross real soon. Me and him talked about it. He was on that dark path, lost as he could be, confused, but he was coming back. Lord.”
She began to cry. This was the part that always made Quinn sick, trying to distance himself from a victim’s pain but at the same time still be a damn human being. It was ten times tougher when you knew the victim and the family. Pastor Davis had been around his whole life, was on a first-name basis with his mother, not to mention what she did for his dad when she worked at the hospital. He thought back on a time he had to sit with the mother of a Ranger from his company. He’d been shot in Kandahar and it had been weeks, long after the funeral, before Quinn was back stateside and could make a personal call. The woman didn’t want to talk, she just wanted him to sit with her. And he did, for several hours and long into the night.
“I’ll find out what happened,” he said.
Pastor Davis nodded, sitting across from Quinn on a royal-blue sofa, pictures of her three children in gilded frames above her head. Her home was a simple brick ranch house, looking pretty much the same design of the place he grew up in, only it was down in Sugar Ditch and on ReElection Road. Down here, this home up on a hill was a damn palace.
“I never quit telling Ordeen that the Lord loved him,” she said. “I don’t blame anyone but myself for the path he followed. I think leaving school the way he did, without a diploma, without any scholarship offers, made him turn on the church. At first, he’d miss a service, and then two services, and then he started to run with Nito Reece. I kept on telling him the Lord loved him. No matter what he’d done, no matter where he’d gone, he could always come back to Jesus.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You believe?” she asked. “Don’t you, Quinn Colson?”
That was a hell of a complex question. And a more complex answer. But he nodded, not wanting to get into a
theological discussion with a pastor who’d just lost her son.
“You know the story of the Prodigal Son.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “I do.”
“I always expected Ordeen to come back home,” she said. “You know, lost and then found? I never, ever was willing to think he’d strayed too far from me or the Lord. Whatever he was doing was on his own time. He’d always come back if I needed him, started showing up some Sundays. But I saw that fat money roll he’d flash and those clothes he wore. Only thing didn’t change was that car he drove. Taking on Nito Reece’s old ride. Why do you think he did that?”
“Guilt,” Quinn said. “I think he figured what happened to Nito might’ve happened to him, too.”
“Coach Bud Mills,” she said. “The Devil comes in all shapes and forms. I think when all that happened with Nito, that really pushed Ordeen too far. That’s when he got in with that Hathcock woman. And I prayed for him every day. I never stopped praying for him. No matter how he told me he was all right, fine, just hustling for that money, I knew. I’m not a fool. I’m a grown-ass woman. I know what goes on at those places.”
Quinn nodded.
“Don’t just ‘Yes, ma’am,’ ‘No, ma’am’ me, son,” she said. “Give me something, Sheriff. What did you find out from that Hathcock woman?”
“She says she doesn’t know,” Quinn said. “She says Ordeen came to work, did his job, and left for the night.”
“And you believe that white woman?” she said. “I stood behind her one time at the Fillin’ Station and I’ll tell you all that expensive perfume can’t mask that evil.”
Quinn watched Danita Davis wipe her face with a kitchen towel. She’d been cooking supper when Quinn had knocked on the door, just doing a nightly wellness check to make sure she was doing all right. He could smell the neck bones on the stove, blackberry cobbler cooking in the oven.
“There was a print,” Quinn said, knowing he shouldn’t be letting the information out, but the words coming.