by Ace Atkins
“Where?”
“Inside that toolbox,” he said. “We sent it off to Batesville. It might be something. But we don’t know yet.”
“You stay on it,” Pastor Davis said, standing. “Don’t you let it go. Keep pushing on that Hathcock woman. She may not have done it. But everybody knows she knows who did. That place should’ve been shut down a long time ago.”
“That woman has a hard time telling the truth,” Quinn said. “Sometimes I don’t know if she understands the difference between right and wrong. Not much I can do to her as long as she follows the law.”
“What did Paul say?” she said. “All things may be lawful. But not all things are expedient.”
* * *
• • •
Nat Wilkins knew she’d probably pushed Boom too damn far. But this was the first time they’d ever had someone inside at Sutpen’s. Two years ago, they’d had an illegal working to load the trucks in Gulfport and six months ago had this secretary in Tupelo who’d had a come-to-Jesus moment and suspected they weren’t doing the Lord’s work. But everything was so damn compartmentalized that they would never be able to shut down all the shit they were running. They might get them on moving some drugs, but those good ole boys would lawyer up and blame it on the driver. If they wanted to make a federal case on those boys, they’d need all of it. They’d need wiretaps, they’d need multiple runs of drugs and girls, and they’d need Boom, and maybe a few more like him, to testify against those crooks. From the sound of Boom on her voice mail, she was pretty sure she’d just blown her best damn witness.
It was dark by the time she hit the Tibbehah County line, already trying Boom several times but not getting an answer, and not really expecting for him to pick up. She knew where he lived, and if she were to get him to sign back on for one more run, she’d have to have her say in person. Besides, the man was kind of growing on her a bit. He was tall, big, and handsome, with a strong jaw and a real man’s style. She liked his cool, relaxed way of talking, easygoing manner, and that simple Southern charm. Her ex had been a real piece of work, a moneyman, a banker, who wanted a football team of babies and for her to finish going through her career phase and stay at home and tend to family business.
Marcus P. Jarrell projected some type of success, but underneath that thousand-dollar suit he had legs like a chicken. Strip away that cocky swagger and he wasn’t nothing but a scared little boy. Damn Boom Kimbrough probably never even owned a suit, wouldn’t know what to do with a martini, straight up, extra olives, but the kind of man who was good with his hands, knew how to fix things, make her feel like a woman instead of Marcus’s momma.
The thought of the time she wasted on Marcus’s narrow little ass just pissed her off as she turned off the highway and onto the county road to Boom’s place. Man, he said he lived in the country, but this was damn countrier than country. The GPS got to be wrong because it was taking her right into the middle of a cotton field, nothing but row after row of that green cotton, the evening light fading to a bluish black. The wheels of her Explorer wiggled slightly over gravel and mud, Nat thinking maybe she needed a four-wheel drive to get through this mess. Her headlights shone down the long road until she finally saw tiny lights on some kind of small building.
As she drove closer, she saw it was an old-time tin-roof shack, like something from old sharecropping days, with colored Christmas lights hanging from the porch. An old blue pickup truck was parked outside. Her headlights shone across the porch and into the house.
She left her engine running, not sure if she had the right place, and stepped up onto the porch. Looking inside the screen door, she didn’t see anyone or hear anything as she knocked. The lights were off and she could barely make out a small kitchen, a small gas stove, and a small circular table. Nat knocked again and called out Boom’s name.
When she moved to the side, more light spilled into the kitchen and she saw a trail of blood. Her heart went up into her damn throat as she opened the door and reached for her gun, not sure who might still be hanging around. She didn’t get two steps in when she saw Boom’s big body lying on the kitchen floor, not moving a bit, face bloody as hell, his good arm hanging at some kind of crazy angle.
“Boom,” she said. “Boom. Come on, now.”
She got down to her knees, closing her eyes against what she saw, her stomach turning. She put her ear to his mouth.
His eyes were closed. But he was still breathing.
* * *
• • •
Fannie had tried to tidy up the office a bit, find the glass of her desk under all that trash, while Wes Taggart had disappeared for the afternoon. But the son of a bitch was back that night, heading up the spiral staircase and slamming the door, stripping off his T-shirt and walking over to her bar sink to start to wash up.
“Honey,” she said. “You think you might go outside to hose off? That’s where I wash my crystalware.”
Wes didn’t even turn to acknowledge she was in the room as he used his wadded-up black T-shirt to mop over his forearms and under his pits. He tossed the shirt down to the floor, splashing water up into his face and combing back his long brown hair with his fingers. He kicked off his boots and walked over to her leather sofa, laying down and staring at the ceiling. Without so much of a glance in her direction, he said, “Get me a whiskey.”
Fannie wasn’t so much pissed as kind of amused by the situation. She picked up the phone and told Midnight Man to bring up a bottle of Jack Daniel’s and a setup. Fannie stood and walked over to him, noticing a little dried blood on his blue jeans.
“Looks like you had a hard day at the office.”
“There’s only one way of dealing with some folks.”
“Peace, love, and understanding?”
“And when that don’t work,” Wes said, “got to try a fucking Louisville Slugger.”
“Did I ever show you my framing hammer?”
Wes didn’t answer. Fannie walked back behind the desk and pulled out her sixteen-ounce hammer she kept in her handbag. She waved it in his direction and said, “Sometimes the customers won’t listen to reason,” she said. “You try and make them understand to keep their fingers and peckers to themselves. But you boys just can’t control your appendages. I once had some local painter who tried to grip one of my girls like a bowling ball. I shot this thing right between his eyes just to get his attention.”
“That’s real sweet,” Wes said. “You got any cigarettes?”
“I don’t think we have the same taste.”
“It don’t matter,” he said. “Just give me whatever you got.”
Fannie placed the hammer back in the purse, right near her pistol, and pulled out her cigarillo case, hating like hell to waste a Dunhill on a shitbird like Wes Taggart. He couldn’t tell fine Turkish tobacco from a pack of American Spirits. But she wandered over on her tall heels and plucked a dry smoke into his lips. He looked up at her from the sofa, under his shaggy bangs, almost like he expected her to light it for him. She’d rather hold his damn pecker while he took a piss.
She tossed him her lighter and he caught it in one hand as J. B. Hood came on into the room, crowding the office, stinking it up with his ancient testosterone and Aqua Velva. The old ponytailed fuck had a cheeseburger in his hand, getting real comfortable about helping himself in the kitchen. He walked across the room and sat right on Fannie’s desk, ketchup running down his chin, as he chewed with his mouth open. “You order up a bottle of whiskey, Wes?”
Taggart didn’t answer.
“That old boy’s blood sure was flying,” he said, dabbing the ketchup off his chin. “That one eye snapped shut quick. He came charging like a goddamn bull, thinking he was gonna knock you to the ground. But you damn swung that bat like fucking Jose Canseco, I swear you busted half his ribs right then and there.”
Wes turned his head and stared at Hood. “Can you please shut
the fuck up for two seconds?”
“Why?” he said. “Don’t tell me you feel bad about what we done.”
“Me and J.B. had some trouble,” Wes said, turning his head to Fannie, firing up her cigarillo. “One of our rigs got hijacked up around Blue Mountain. Pretty sure one of our drivers set the whole thing up.”
“’Course he set it up,” Hood said. “Ain’t no way some thieves just passed by as he was having some mechanical difficulties. That nigger was in cahoots with those sonsabitches.”
“I told you I don’t care for that word,” Fannie said.
“‘Sonsabitches’?” Hood said, snickering. “Ain’t you all politically correct. Can’t say ‘bitch,’ can’t say ‘nigger.’ Everyone is so goddamn sensitive about saying the right word. Makes a white man feel like he’s walking on eggshells.”
Fannie walked over to Hood, nearly toe to toe, as he sat on the edge of her desk. She reached down for a napkin and dabbed some either blood or ketchup off his elongated forehead. He didn’t respond, only kept mawing up that last bit of the burger, talking about how that never in the history of America had the white man ever been a more endangered species.
“Do you know who took the truck?” Fannie said.
“Nope,” Wes said. “Driver said they were wearing masks. But hell if he didn’t work with a couple boys.”
“What’d they get?” Fannie said, tilting her head, seeming to be interested as hell.
“Better off you not knowing,” Wes said. “Why don’t you just go make sure the cooze is shaking it down on the floor, baby? We’ve already lost enough goddamn money for one night.”
Fannie nodded and left the room, closing the office door behind her with a tight click. Through the cracks, she could hear Wes starting to tear J. B. Hood a new asshole for being so goddamn stupid for agreeing to hire some old boy who was best friends with the sheriff. “What the fuck were you thinking?”
Fannie couldn’t help but smile as she passed Midnight Man on the spiral staircase, going down, as he was headed up.
* * *
• • •
How bad is it?” Quinn asked.
“I’ll skip the normal bullshit about trying to calm you down and make you feel better,” Maggie said. “Because it’s bad. He’s got nine cracked ribs, a broken arm, and a fractured skull. He’s stable but in some really rough shape.”
“Is he conscious?”
“Barely.”
“What do the doctors think happened? How’d somebody do this?”
“You want the medical explanation?” Maggie said. “Or the straight stuff?”
“What do you think?”
“Someone turned Boom into a damn piñata,” she said. “Beat him senseless with something hard and left him for dead.”
Quinn let out a long breath, standing there in the hospital hallway with Maggie. Maggie looked at him, hands on her hips, green scrubs splattered with blood. She was trying to be tough, control her emotions. But Maggie wasn’t like Lillie and her mouth quivered a little bit as she spoke, trying to keep eye contact, be professional, and relay the news as best as possible. Down the hall, Caddy, his momma, and Luther Varner sat in the waiting room, hoping that Quinn would come back and let him know what was going on. The whole way to the hospital, driving damn-near eighty miles per hour, he’d been thinking Boom was dead. The bastards from Tupelo came up here and got him.
“Can I see him?”
“You don’t want that,” Maggie said. “Not now. Besides, doctors have sedated him. He’s in a deep sleep. They do that sometimes with trauma patients when it’s too much to take.”
Quinn didn’t know what the hell to say, staring over Maggie’s shoulder at an old woman trying to walk down the hall with an IV drip. He felt his eyes blur with hot tears as he clenched his jaw and his fists, hanging somewhere between sadness and absolute rage. He needed to talk to Nat Wilkins. These federal people had fucked around long enough and needed to clean house of all these bastards.
“You OK?” she asked.
Quinn nodded, but his face broke slightly.
Maggie cried, shook her head, and wrapped her arms around him, Quinn just hanging there in space, hands loose and useless at his sides, unable to damn move. These people had come into their county, their home, and beaten his best friend to a pulp. His right hand clenched and unclenched at his side.
Quinn rubbed his face and walked back to the waiting room. Caddy and his momma huddled together on some chairs, watching a fuzzy television playing some old episodes of Bonanza. Hoss and Little Joe at the local saloon, watching a couple toughs in an arm-wrestling contest.
Luther Varner, all wiry muscle and bone and leathery skin, looked up from the television set. His eyes were red, weary, and tired as hell. “Is he dead?”
Quinn stood over the three of them, crossing his arms and shaking his head. “He was beaten up real bad,” he said. “He has some broken bones and a nasty crack in the head. The doctors have him stable and medicated. He’s asleep. His dad and a couple of his cousins are with him now.”
“Thank God,” Jean said. “Thank God.”
Caddy dropped her head into her hands and started to say a silent prayer, her lips moving as she stayed quiet with her eyes closed. Her face was red and chapped, streaked with tears.
Maggie had followed him, walking up, standing with Quinn, and placing her hand on his back. He didn’t know what else to add, except to comfort his family and friends and then figure out where Nat Wilkins had gone and just what she planned on doing about it.
“Why?” his mother asked.
Quinn looked over to Maggie and shook his head. He swallowed and found his mouth and throat too damn dry to speak.
“Someone robbed him,” Maggie said. “Nobody knows why. They found him unconscious at home.”
Luther Varner got to his feet, the old Marine’s eyes and jaw hard, looking Quinn dead in the eye. “My ass is sore as hell,” he said. “I hate sitting around.”
Quinn nodded at them all. “If something changes, Maggie will let y’all know,” he said. “I better be getting back to the office, find out what I can, before Boom wakes up.”
Caddy and his mother nodded. Luther stepped up close to him, reaching around to give Quinn a big bear hug. As he did, he whispered into Quinn’s ear, “When you find these fuckers, you damn well better call me,” he said. “Don’t you dare have all the fun yourself, Sergeant.”
* * *
• • •
Uncle Heath was so damn excited to see the boys back home that he forgot to put his pants on. He stood in the kitchen, pacing back and forth, in nothing but a pair of Fruit of the Looms and his rattlesnake cowboy boots. He loved hearing every damn detail, from how Tyler figured out how to block the airflow on that truck down to wearing those neoprene masks with the skull faces on them. He had his hands on his hips while he walked, looking probably like he had in the Parchman yard, muttering and talking to himself, grinning and slapping his thigh when he heard something he liked. “And what’d that mean ole nigger up in Memphis say?” Heath said. “I bet you he about nearly shit his damn britches.”
“He was real happy about it,” Cody said, going to the freezer for some Jäger he kept there and setting it down on the kitchen table. “They got all the shit transferred to their vehicles and gone before we could even shake hands on the deal.”
Heath stopped pacing. “But you did?” he said.
“Did what?” Cody asked.
“Shook hands on that fuckin’ deal?”
Cody kind of shrugged and poured out some Jäger into a couple of old jelly jars, each one with a different Pokémon character on it. Tyler held his up to the light to see old Bulbasaur just as Uncle Heath smacked Cody upside the head and said, “Did you or didn’t you?”
“Fuck me,” Cody said.
“I sent y’all up to trade with the
m niggers ’cause I thought you could handle it,” he said. “Don’t you ever show a weakness to a gosh dang black. Someone like Marquis Sledge will cut you boys up like a porterhouse with dippin’ sauce on the side.”
Tyler took a final swig of his Jäger and reached for the bottle for another shot, running his tongue around his teeth, savoring every last bit of that green licorice taste. “Since when was it you that sent us anywhere?”
“Don’t you get smart, boy.”
“We did what we did to save our ass,” Cody said, rubbing the back of his skull. “You done fucked us with ole Doc McStuffins. I don’t see we had any damn choice but take Miss Hathcock’s advice.”
Uncle Heath looked down at the floor, shaking his head at this whole damn sorry situation, as he reached into his tighty-whities and scratched his nuts. “Calling out your blood and calling a gosh dang whore. You know that woman’s probably sucked on more hot dogs than a stray mutt at a carnival.”
Tyler sat direct across from his brother at the dinette. Cody hadn’t touched his shot, reaching for a plastic baggie on the table and rolling him a joint. This pressure, all this tension in their family abode, was getting too damn much for him. The light above them was one of them old-fashioned ice cream parlor fixtures, scattering different colors over them; red, blue, yellow. A damn candy kaleidoscope.
“Boys, I done my time,” Heath said. “Twenty-three years scheming and dreaming, thinking on shit I done wrong and done right. You can’t fuck with that kind of knowledge. Better than having a Ph.D. from a fancy school up North. What I’m trying to tell y’all is, don’t get used up there. Y’all are in the goddamn driver’s seat. The Pritchards the ones doing the damn work, growing that weed, hijacking them trucks. Making sure everybody in north Mississippi comes to the party locked and damn loaded.”
“This thing this morning,” Cody said. “Me and Tyler talked about it. That was a one-time-only deal. We ain’t in the business of robbing folks.”