by Ace Atkins
Heath reached up and smoothed down the scales on his rattlesnake boots, having just oiled them before coming to town. When he’d got ’em back at Parchman, some of the scales were so dry they about flaked right off. But he’d got them conditioned again, pulling them on, along with a new pair of Wranglers and that ’MERICA shirt he’d gotten at the Walmart. He wore a red do-rag over his bald head, growing himself a little beard since getting out, dying it black again with some Just For Men in Jet Black. The color may have been too much, as it looked like he’d taken a damn Magic Marker to his face, feeling like a smaller version of old Randy “Macho Man” Savage.
“You mind taking your fucking feet off my stage?” a woman’s voice said behind him.
When he turned, Heath Pritchard stared up at Miss Fannie Hathcock herself, tall, wide-hipped, and big-breasted, wearing some kind of wraparound dress that looked like a cheetah print. The woman’s red hair had been piled up high on her head, and she rested a slim hand on her hip while lifting a man’s cigar up to her lips.
Heath lifted up a hand. “Take my hand, Miss Fannie.”
The woman blew smoke direct into his eyes. “Why?”
“’Cause I just want to tell folks I been touched by an angel.”
She walked past him and kicked his legs off the stage, the stripper, scared now, reaching out and snatching the bikini top off his head and heading back into the back room. He looked up, laughing while she took a seat on the cocktail table, nearly knocking over his Beam and Coke.
“My barman said you wanted to see me.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Heath said. “You’re doing business with my nephews, which means you’re also doing business with me, Heath Fucking Pritchard.”
Fannie just stared at him, her eyes having that nice sleepy, sexy look.
“Sure would love to see what you got goin’ on underneath that Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom,” he said. “But, then again, I just want that fucking money we’re owed. Now that the Pritchards and you are in cahoots.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” she said. “I don’t owe you boys a thing.”
“Hmm,” he said. “I sure wonder what ole Buster White would say about you fucking him over? I used to play spades with his cousin when I was in Unit 29. Bet he’d be real happy to hear from me.”
* * *
• • •
I want you to come pick up your trash,” Fannie Hathcock said, pacing her office with her cell phone up to her ear. “I don’t like to get threatened in my own place.”
“Shit,” Tyler said. “We didn’t know where he was at.”
The lights were off overhead, pulsing dance music coming in through the cracked door and through the floor. She could still smell the stink of J. B. Hood’s fucking cheeseburger and Aqua Velva in her office. “You didn’t send him?”
“Hell no, we didn’t send him,” Tyler said. “He said he was going to Sonic to pick us up some hot dogs and tater tots and that was damn well near two hours ago.”
“He’s run up a two-hundred-dollar bar tab,” Fannie said. “He told me since we were now partners that everything should be on the house for you Pritchard boys.”
“Goddamn, I’m sorry,” he said. “Me and Cody’ll come get him. How drunk is he?”
“As a fucking goat,” Fannie said. “He had two girls in his lap telling each of them he was gonna marry them. Kept on insulting my DJ for trying to keep up with the times. He threatened to kick his ass if he played any more Drake. Tossed forty dollars into his face and told him he didn’t want to hear nothing but AC/DC and Guns and Roses.”
“Uncle Heath is a real G N’ R man,” Tyler said. “I bet he wanted ‘Welcome to the Jungle.’ That was his theme song back when he was racing. They called him The Scalded Cat.”
“I know who he is,” Fannie said, spewing smoke from the side of her mouth. “And what he’s done. I know he’s some kind of Austin Powers fuckhead from the eighties who’s come back and sow his wild oats. But what you boys and I have does not, and cannot, include his worthless ass. Do you understand me? He’s drunk as hell, shooting off at the mouth about people down on the Coast with whom I do business. He keeps talking like that and someone’s gonna end up quick and dead and I can tell you it’s not going to be me.”
“Just kick him out,” Tyler said. “We’re on the way.”
“Did y’all tell him that you gave me what Marquis Sledge gave you?”
The line went quiet for a few seconds. She could hear the boy’s rangy breathing coming from the other end.
“Because he has it in his pea-sized mind that I owe y’all some money.”
Again, a long silence. Nothing but breathing, a little coughing, and then the boy trying to make up some kind of crazy-ass excuse on the fly.
“You got to take care of this,” Fannie said. “I didn’t bargain for this crazy son of a bitch in our deal.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “Yes, ma’am. Won’t happen again.”
“Goddamn right it won’t,” Fannie said, closing her eyes, finally sitting down into her office chair and taking a deep, long breath. “You want to keep that supply chain running with your buddy Sledge? You need to limit your dependents.”
“Come again?” Tyler said.
“Either you kill that son of a bitch,” she said, “or I will.”
22
“Do you really think they’ll show?” Lillie asked.
“They said they would,” Quinn said. “I took them at their word.”
“Do I need to remind you they’re feds?” Lillie said. “Remember what we used to say about trusting those kind of people?”
“Aren’t you one of ’em now?” Quinn said, reaching forward to grab his thermos of coffee. “A U.S. Federal Marshal?”
“Oh, fuck,” she said, reaching for the badge hanging around her neck as if seeing it for the first time. “You’re right. I am.”
Quinn and Lillie sat in his truck outside a Love’s Truck Stop in Tupelo. It still wasn’t light, but Holliday and Wilkins promised to bring some folks to help them out. Quinn had already squared things with Lee County to shut down the roads around Sutpen Trucking and assist with any arrests. He unscrewed the top and poured more into his travel mug, etched with the insignia for the Tibbehah County Sheriff’s Office.
“You getting nervous?” Lillie asked. Her shotgun situated between her and the passenger door.
“Nope,” Quinn said. “How many times have you and I done this?”
“Not the raid, Ranger,” Lillie said. “I’m talking about your fucking wedding. You could raid these shitbirds’ trucking company drunk and blindfolded.”
Quinn drank some coffee, staring out at the open lot, waiting to get word from the feds on what time they were showing up. And what time they’d coordinate converging at Sutpen’s, which was only a few miles down 78 and then south on 45 for a few exits. “I wouldn’t say I’m nervous,” Quinn said. “More like settled to the idea.”
“I bet that makes Maggie’s heart really pitter patter,” Lillie said. “Settled into getting married.”
“That’s not what I mean,” Quinn said. “I mean Maggie and I are grown-ass people with a lot of life experience before deciding to do this. We’ve been talking about it, kind of playing around the idea, since not long after we met. We both know what we want. I guess we’re just pretty much ready to get the bullshit over and start living.”
“You really should put that on a Hallmark card, Quinn,” Lillie said, laughing. “I love you. Now, enough bullshit. Get to work, woman.”
“It’ll be work on both sides,” Quinn said. “Both of us haven’t had the best of luck with some of our previous relationships.”
“That’s the biggest goddamn understatement I’ve ever heard.” Lillie had a dark blue ball cap down in her eyes, a black linen shirt with the sleeves rolled up to her elbows. She wor
e that new Sig Sauer on her hip just in case the shotgun didn’t make the proper impression. “You know what I thought of Anna Lee and her mind tricks. But out of respect for your upcoming nuptials, I’ll keep my mouth shut for once.”
“Appreciate that, Lil.”
“No sweat.”
They didn’t talk for a bit, Quinn checking messages on his phone, keeping in touch with Cleotha at dispatch. Last night, three kids had robbed the Dollar Store off Main Street, getting away with two hundred dollars and all the Tennessee Pride Country Sausage they could carry. Security cameras got the whole damn show. Deputy Cullison recognized two of them and they’d already been picked up that morning at Tibbehah High’s summer school. Two wrecks and a woman who kept calling 911 saying someone was using black magic on her.
“Any word on Boom?” Lillie asked.
“If his condition changes, Maggie’s got me on speed dial.”
All through the night, they’d done their best to keep their minds off Boom and on prepping the raid, going through the priors of J. B. Hood and Wes Taggart. Lillie had found a few warrants in Alabama for Hood and she gladly offered to come down from Memphis and assist locals in his capture and then transport him back to Birmingham.
“That’s a good woman, Quinn,” Lillie said. “She stayed with me and Boom almost all yesterday, laying out everything she knew without an ounce of bullshit. I guess getting shuttled around to all those Marine bases only made her tough as hell.”
“She knows what she’s signing up for.”
“What about Brandon?” Lillie said. “How’s he gonna deal with y’all getting married? New house, new family? All of that crap?”
“He’s a tough kid,” Quinn said. “He knew his daddy was screwed up long before his folks got divorced. He saw things I wouldn’t wish on any boy that age. I think he’s hoping for some calm and quiet. I’ll do the best I can. I’ve taken him and Jason up to Tishomingo to hike, taught him a little about turkey hunting this spring. Plan to get those boys on Choctaw Lake this summer.”
“That’s very Andy Griffith of you, Quinn.”
Quinn drank some coffee as Lillie started to whistle The Andy Griffith Show theme song. A few more minutes passed until four black SUVs wheeled into the Love’s parking lot and idled in front of the McDonald’s. Quinn’s cell phone began to ring, Nat Wilkins’s number flashing on his screen.
“I sure loved that show,” Lillie said. “But I’ll never know why Barney and Andy didn’t take out ole Ernest T. Bass. That asshole was always coming to town and throwing rocks through windows.”
* * *
• • •
You got to see this,” Cody said.
“In a minute,” Tyler said, checking the pH levels in the tank, the water filter gurgling away down in the depths of the family operation. If you didn’t get the goddamn water just right, you’d poison every damn bucket they’d been growing for weeks. “And take off your damn boots. You’re tracking dirt everywhere, man.”
“Just come on over to the monitors and check this shit out,” Cody said. “The old man has fucking lost his mind.”
“Did he ever really have one?” Tyler said, setting down the test kit and walking through a long row of hearty and healthy plants sprouting high from orange buckets. The light in the grow room glowing a weird purple as he trailed Cody back into the second trailer, where they’d set up a bank of monitors.
“Look at that,” Cody said. “Just look at what he’s done.”
Tyler leaned forward, taking off his rubber gloves, and saw Uncle Heath get out of a big-ass Dodge 2500 with chrome rims about the size of a kitchen table. The truck was so damn jacked up, the short little bastard had to hop down into the dirt, circling the truck, running his hand along that smooth black paint. He strutted around that truck like a banty rooster with a ten-inch pecker.
“Where’d he get that?”
“Fuck if I know,” Cody said. “How about we ask him?”
They climbed up the ladder and through the hatch into the bright sunlight in the old barn. Cody headed out toward the dirt road that separated the racing garage from the old homeplace. In the middle of the lot, Uncle Heath had the radio blasting in the truck, playing “Sweet Child O’ Mine” loud as hell. Closer they got, they saw some towheaded woman the color of a fucking Oompa Loompa hanging out a back window, singing along with goddamn Axl Rose.
Tyler walked straight on up to Heath and said, “What the hell is this?”
“Well, it ain’t a skateboard,” he said. “Got the truck, tag, and title out the door for seventy grand. Ain’t that something?”
Cody looked at Tyler, his jaw clenching. His brother turned his head and spit as Tyler looked hard at their Uncle Heath. The man was shirtless in nut-hugging jeans and his snakeskin boots, waving at the piece of trash up in that truck.
“Finally made it to the Sonic,” Heath said. “The truck was too damn big to park by the speakers. I had Candy up there get you boys some breakfast burritos. Did y’all say tots or fries? I can’t remember shit after getting so fucking high last night.”
Tyler couldn’t think of damn thing to say as he shook his head. Looking over at Cody, he could tell his brother was just about to launch himself on Uncle Heath and beat his ass, both of them knowing what that motherfucker had gone and done.
“Where’d you get that kind of money?” Tyler said, grinding his teeth.
Heath gave a shitty little smile while he scratched at his cheek. The woman up in the cab dancing along to the music, looking down at all the boys as she pulled up her T-shirt to show them her fake titties, shaking them like they was at a puppet show.
“Funny-as-hell story,” Heath said. “Someone had gone and throwed that cash into that manure pile out back. Figured as no one wanted it, I might as well put it to use.”
“Momma was right,” Tyler said, Cody walking up, standing at his side. “You really are the family turd that wouldn’t flush.”
“Come on, now,” Heath said. “You boys need to think on things, put everything in perspective. I went to talk to Miss Hathcock last night and straightened out our whole relationship. I sure am sorry to think my kin would be so goddamn almighty foolish as to deliver a truck full of fun up to them black folks without getting paid.”
“That’s our money,” Cody said. “You motherfucking little garden gnome.”
“And this is my land, my house, my garage, and, by default, also my damn operation down there in the depths of Hades,” he said. “You starting to understand the picture? I had to walk through things with Miss Fannie, but the bitch now knows Heath Pritchard is again the fucking cock of the walk of Tibbehah County. Even tossed in Miss Candy up there to keep me company on my victory lap and return to business. You boys better start understanding the hierarchical relationship on our family land. I run things. Y’all either grow or steal what we’re gonna need for Miss Fannie’s grocery list. I run the thinking shit. Y’all got it now?”
The woman up in the truck cab started to beep the horn, waving down to Uncle Heath, her boobies jiggling each time she mashed it and giggled.
“Y’all wouldn’t happen to have some dang rubbers in the house, would you?” Heath said, grinning a yellowed smile. “I done already run through my whole pack.”
Tyler looked across at Cody. Cody spit into the dirt again, looking up at his brother and giving him a serious-as-hell nod. Getting rid of this sorry motherfucker was long overdue.
* * *
• • •
Up on the roof of the Peabody Hotel, Fannie could pretty much see all of Memphis, the snaking path of the Mississippi River, the humpback bridge over to Arkansas, and all those squat little brick buildings sloping down the water’s edge. Her great-grandmother once ran a brothel around here a long time ago, somewhere on Gayoso Avenue. That’s when girls wore long skirts, blouses up past their necks, and waited in the parlor for men to choo
se which one they wanted to take to a back room and screw. Somehow that old-time arrangement was a lot more honest than acting like men gave two shits about watching a girl twirl around a brass pole.
Fannie had been on the terrace for a while with Ray, waiting for those numbnuts from Tupelo to show up, hearing they’d been run out of north Mississippi with their tails between their legs. Ray said it was that black trucker who’d planned the job and later turned them in to the feds. He just couldn’t get over ole Wes and J.B. being screwed in the ass like that.
“That driver’s good buddies with the sheriff,” Fannie said. The wind up on the roof making hell of her perfect hair today. Only a few people on the terrace milling about, standing by the iron barriers, looking out over the Mississippi or down south to where the Delta ran flat and clean to Vicksburg. “Everyone in Tibbehah knows that. I wouldn’t have hired that fella to wash my dishes.”
“The feds are gonna bust apart Tupelo,” Ray said. “But they shouldn’t have put the beatdown on that black fella. Not right now. Not so damn fast.”
“Agreed. That’s just sloppy,” Fannie said. “Those old boys have a temper on them. Beating up the sheriff’s buddy? That’s a pretty damn bold move, but stupid. Colson wasn’t taking that sitting down.”
“Just what do you know about him?”
“The sheriff?” Fannie said. “I’ve pretty much told y’all everything you need to know. He’s a goddamn Boy Scout. Doesn’t seem to be like the rest. I offered him all the pussy he could eat for his bachelor party. Can you believe he didn’t even consider it?”
“Doesn’t matter,” Ray said. “They won’t get nothing at Sutpen’s. Those boys cleaned the hell out of that facility. They spent the last twenty-four hours loading every computer, file cabinet, and scrap of paper that could be used against us. The law might file some wild charges about running drugs and women, but it won’t stick.”