The Redeemers

by Ace Atkins

  He was a tall, very thin, almost gaunt-looking black man who’d put in nearly thirty years with the sheriff’s office. He’d been a loyal friend to Quinn’s uncle and a good deputy for Quinn. He was the kind of deputy who had the ability to ask a felon how his momma was doing as he laid on the handcuffs.

  “Just got off the phone with Mr. Cobb,” Ike said.

  “Where is he?” Lillie asked.

  “Tunica,” Ike said. “Him and Debbi were coming back anyway. Cussing about getting ripped off. I didn’t get two words out of my mouth and he asked about his closet. Wanting me to check his closet. I told the man it was kind of hard to tell where his closet at.”

  “What’s he looking for?” Lillie said.

  “Mr. Cobb said that he had a big-ass gun safe,” Ike said. “I walked through there with that lady with MBI and there ain’t no safe. Not anymore.”

  “He say what was inside?” Quinn asked.

  “Nope.”

  “You ask?” Lillie asked.

  “Figure it was guns.”

  “Lots of trouble just for some guns,” Quinn said. “Where’d that backhoe come from?”

  “Lumberyard,” Ike said, pointing down the hill. “You can follow the trail it cut up through the trees. They stole it down here and rode it on up to the house. Larry Cobb’s gonna shit a brick when he sees his house. His wife’s lacy drawers flying in the wind like flags.”

  “What about the rest of the house?” Lillie said, turning toward the garage and a back door. “Anything else gone?”

  “Nope,” Ike said. “They left a couple good TVs. I saw some jewelry and things on the floor of the bedroom. Looks like they only came for that safe.”

  “Larry have any idea who?” Quinn said.

  “Yes, sir,” Ike said. “He said right off it was Mickey Walls. He said for us not to waste any time but go ahead and arrest his son-in-law. Or ex-son-in-law. Either way, Cobb said Mickey was out to get him.”

  “Lil?” Quinn asked.

  She nodded. The sleet had stopped and there was only the cold wind now. Someone up on the hill, one of the Cobbs’ neighbors, had a fire going and Quinn could smell the woodsmoke. He thought about Anna Lee back in his house in his warm bed, fire going in the stove. As they turned to the back of the house, Quinn spotted his old truck, the Big Green Machine, bucking and racing up the hill. Light bar flashing blue across the bare trees and over the muddy ground.

  Rusty Wise jumped out of the truck, wearing a neatly pressed tan uniform and ball cap, and trotted on up to where Quinn stood with Lillie and Hondo. Hondo sniffed at the man as he got close. Rusty wasn’t smiling. The star on his shirt gleamed bright in the porch light.

  “How long ago this happen?” Rusty said.

  “About an hour,” Lillie said.

  “You didn’t think to call me?”

  “Cleotha said she’d notify you.”

  Rusty looked to Quinn, up and down, boots to cap. He pushed his jaw toward the house and asked if they’d cleared the place.

  “No one’s in it,” Lillie said. “Cobbs are missing a gun safe. And their bedroom.”

  “Gosh darn it,” Rusty said, face turning a bright red. “How come no one called me? Today of all days.”

  “What’s today?” Quinn asked, not being too helpful himself.

  “According to the calendar, it’s January first,” Rusty said. “And I’m on the taxpayers’ clock.”

  “You bet.”

  “I know you felt you had to come on out because of Kenny and all,” Rusty said, rubbing the back of his neck. “But we’re all good. We can take it from here. Right, Lillie?”

  Lillie folded her arms over her chest. It was hard to see her eyes with the ball cap far down on her nose. She didn’t say a word.

  “Well,” Rusty said, reaching down, petting Hondo on the head. “What a damn mess. Has anyone called ole Larry yet? Great Gosh Almighty.”

  Rusty walked over to Ike McCaslin, Ike pointing down toward some broken tree branches and the path of the backhoe that was now parked in the Cobbs’ front lawn.

  “Did he just say, ‘Great Gosh Almighty’?” Lillie said.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Is he the sheriff or a fucking youth pastor?”

  “He’s a good man, Lil.”

  “Maybe.”

  “He doesn’t want me here.”

  “I’m too old for hand-holding,” Lillie said.

  “You had to hold mine for a bit.”

  “Man looks like a fucking sausage squeezed into that uniform.”

  “Good luck,” Quinn said. “I’m headed to the hospital.”

  “Quinn?”

  He looked back.

  “Can you at least find out about those Ninja Turtles?” she said. “I want to make sure Rusty is prepared for any gosh-darn thing that comes his way.”

  • • •

  When you throw on the house lights, isn’t everyone supposed to get the hell out of here?” Ringold asked.

  “Yes, sir,” Johnny Stagg said, looking at the mess the party had left. Not liking it a bit. “But you’re not looking upon a crew of like-minded folks. You’re looking at fornicators, deviants, and road trash blown up our way. It’s just who we serve here. I’ve often thought of myself more a zookeeper than a bar owner. You just have to rattle the fucking cages and give a few direct pokes to get them moving on.”

  “I had to break up three fights tonight,” Ringold said.

  “Any of ’em give you trouble?”

  Ringold just smiled behind that big black beard and took a sip of Coors. His bald head reflecting the fluorescent light.

  “You go ahead and toss them stragglers out in the parking lot,” Stagg said. “I got to get straight with my dancers. I’m always straight with them. But, Lord, how they love to play hidey-hole with that tip money.”

  “You gonna search them?”

  “Any woman wants money bad enough to keep it in her orifice surely deserves keeping a dollar or two,” Stagg said.

  “Can I ask you something, Mr. Stagg?” Ringold said, not having to call him mister, but Stagg appreciated the gesture. Or maybe Ringold had just gotten high on all that free cold draft and was feeling like he was back in the service. Stagg his captain.

  “Shoot.”

  “How do you stand it?” he said. “If you don’t care for these people, is the money worth it?”

  “First off, money is everything,” Stagg said. “Don’t make it any harder than that. You think any of those jackasses up in Oxford would let me eat and drink with them in the Grove if I didn’t have money? I see their looks and their sly smiles. But they want to see me. Have to deal with me because I’m that Mr. Stagg, Mr. So-’n’-So, from Tibbehah County. They don’t care what I do or what I own. Only that I’m rich.”

  “And this?”

  Ringold leaned back against the bar, a bit reminiscent of maybe Jack Palance at some time or another, elbows behind him to hold his weight. He tipped the glass back, grinning, watching all the drunken fools try to make one last go of paradise. One more minute of booze and pussy. Johnny Stagg had seen it a hundred times, the reason he hadn’t had a drop in more than thirty years. He reached into his back pocket, grabbed his Ace comb, and worked a bit on the ducktail and pompadour. He sucked his teeth and shook his head. The five frat boys trying to get the two strippers out to their car. The lonely farmer with cow shit on his boots who’d brought a dozen roses to some crack whore from Byhalia. And there was one of Tibbehah’s own county supervisors trying to get a last-minute pecker pull from a black girl who wasn’t two months into her eighteenth year. The man was a deacon at his church and the most outspoken opponent of Jericho legalizing cold beer a few years back.

  “It’s like a little aquarium, son,” Stagg said. “I kind of enjoy sitting back most nights and just seeing what floats o
n in. You got it all. Human tragedy. Desperation. Fistfights. Blood, guts. Crying. Fucking. Man will do about anything in the world for whiskey and pussy. I always figured this place is like a trap. We bait it and they come on in.”

  “But you don’t have to,” Ringold said. “You turn a good profit at the Rebel. And with other business.”

  “Maybe I like it?”

  “Do you?”

  “Do you like what you do?” Stagg said, grinning. Ringold holding his eye, returning to the beer. Stagg thinking that this boy didn’t care to be around him any more than those khaki-pants-wearing bastards in the Grove. Money, money, money. Sure can make the son of a manure salesman smell like Chanel No. 5.

  Ringold wasn’t listening. He’d turned his back to Stagg and walked on over to meet big old Midnight Man, who’d just ran off two horny truckers still trying to get inside the bar. Midnight Man was talking wild with his hands and pointing to Stagg. And Stagg wandered up and listened, thinking it was about some scuffle in the parking lot. But instead heard, “Someone robbed Mr. Cobb’s place and shot a deputy.”

  Ringold turned to Stagg, listening and waiting for what he’d want him to do. Stagg swallowed hard and let out a breath.

  “They kill Cobb?” Stagg said.

  “Mr. Cobb wasn’t there,” Midnight Man said, standing as big as a two-ton ox, in a barbecue-splatted white T-shirt and an XXXL parka. “They got his safe, though. Ripped the goddamn thing clean out of the wall of his house.”

  “Shit,” Ringold said.

  “Yes, sir,” Stagg said, nodding to Midnight Man, letting the man know he’d done good to tell them right off.

  “What now?”

  “Go find Cobb’s stupid ass and find out what they got.”

  “You all right, Mr. Stagg?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Thought you didn’t care much for Larry Cobb.”

  “We’ve done a lot of business with each other,” Stagg said. “I’d prefer none of the dirt to rub off on me.”

  Stagg reached into his coat pocket for a napkin he’d kept from supper. He dabbed sweat off his forehead, feeling light, as if he was trapped in some kind of fucking heat box. You could smell all the trucker sweat, coconut perfume, and cigarettes. The smell of spent men and desperation. He couldn’t breathe right until he’d stepped out in the cold and caught a hard wind coming off Highway 45. He cracked a peppermint candy into his mouth to relieve himself.

  Within a minute, Ringold had walked outside to join him.

  “I need you to find Larry Cobb and tell ’im we need to talk,” Stagg said. “Don’t let that sack of shit offer no excuses.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Stagg walked back into the Trap and into his back office. He had another call to make. If ever it was time to break glass and get the Trooper on his side, it was now.

  • • •

  How about a cold one, kid?” Uncle Peewee asked.

  Chase smiled, took a can of Bud Light, and returned to the stack of concrete blocks where he’d been sitting. He’d been sitting there for damn-near two hours while Kyle what’s-his-name worked on that old safe. Just a bunch of shredding and clanking, the old boy tearing at it, swearing at it with hammers, crowbars, and that big contraption he took from the firehouse. But he figured it must have paid off. Uncle Peewee wandered on out of the metal work shed with a smile on his face, his shirt unbuttoned wide and showing off his sweaty white belly. Man was sweating like a hog.

  “We done it.”

  “You did it?”

  “Yes, sir,” Uncle Peewee said, raising his can of Bud to the boy. “We sure did. And, man. Holy shit.”

  “Lots?”

  “More than they thought.”

  “How much?”

  “That boy’s still counting,” he said. “But it’s not just the cash. That ole bastard had antique guns, coins. One of them fucking Rolex watches. This one made out of real gold with diamonds.”

  “What about that?” Chase said. “That wasn’t in the figuring. We get a cut of that shit?”

  Peewee shrugged, swallowed some beer, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He reached down to find his shirttail to clean off his dirty glasses. Looked like his uncle had been working hard. Chase had tried to help until that old Kyle, cigarette bobbing in his mouth, told him to go on and git. “Go outside and play with yourself,” he’d said. Now, who the hell talks like that to a grown man? Play with yourself. Shit, man.

  “We made a deal,” Peewee said. “I ain’t going back on it. He’s cutting us in on ten grand apiece.”

  “How much you think is in there?”

  “Might be a million,” he said. “Might be more.”

  “After all we done?” Chase said. “What the hell?”

  “I gave my word,” Peewee said, lifting his chin, looking at him with big eyes in still-dirty glasses. “Means something to me.”

  “You’re drunk.”

  “Hell you say.”

  “They get a million?” Chase said. “And we get shit.”

  “Kid,” Peewee said. “Do you have any idea how much pussy a man can purchase with ten grand?”

  “Hmm,” Chase said, sliding down off those concrete blocks, hands deep in his pockets. “That’s the difference between you and me. I don’t pay for pussy.”

  “Wait till you get old and fat,” Peewee said. “You’ll toss out every penny you got.”

  Chase just shook his head and brushed past his uncle and into the work shed, where Kyle was unloading the safe and stacking all the shit he’d found on a workbench. The cash raised up about two feet and spread out about two feet square, more coming out of the metal box. Along the long wooden bench were several guns. Some of them looked like they went all the way back to the Civil War. A gold pocket watch. The fancy wristwatch with diamonds. A bunch of old coins, stacked neat and clean, in blue books. Some dang porno tapes. Not DVDs but damn old VHS, advertising women with big hair and big hairy pussies. A fat diamond ring and a red velvet box filled with diamond earrings as big as walnuts.

  “Whew.”

  “Step back,” Kyle said. He was sweating, too. His skinny-ass old-man body looking bony, a thin strip of gray hair down his chest.

  “I ain’t touching nothing.”

  “I’m taking inventory.”

  “Sure was a haul.”

  “And you’ll get what you’re gittin’.”

  “I understand.”

  Kyle got up off his knees, bare chest, dirty jeans, and work boots, and walked over to the bench for a fresh beer. He popped the top and looked to have drunk half of it straight down. He watched Chase, standing there, not doing a goddamn thing, with his hands in his ’Bama hoodie and trying not to make any trouble. But then Chase realized Kyle was wondering about the gun he’d used on the policeman. And maybe it was in the hoodie right now, waiting to take out old Kyle’s gray ass and scoop up the rest for a trip back to Gordo. But, hell, it only made him laugh.

  “What is it?” Kyle said.

  “You think I’m going to shoot you.”

  “No.”

  “Sure you do,” Chase said. “You’re scared as a bitch.”

  Kyle reached on the counter for a pack of cigarettes, shuffled out one, and walked on over to where Chase stood. The old man slapped the dog shit out of Chase, sending his head reeling back, and reached into his hoodie pocket for the .32 he’d bought with his own goddamn money. Kyle stuck it in the small of his back, tucked into his belt, and returned to work.

  “Wait outside,” he said. “Tell your uncle that money is coming.”

  “Go fuck yourself.”

  Kyle didn’t answer, just went back to unloading the cash and making his selfish little piles like a fat man at a buffet. Chase came on out back as Peewee was relieving himself on the blocks where he planned to sit. “You get the money?
” he said, looking over his shoulders. “I’m getting ready to get gone, kid.”

  19.

  We appreciate you coming in, Mickey,” Lillie Virgil said. “Come on in and take a seat.”

  “Can you tell me what the hell’s going on?” Mickey said. “I hadn’t been home an hour when two deputies come pounding on my door and telling me to put my pants on.”

  “Glad you have on pants,” Lillie said, Mickey Walls moving on past her inside the sheriff’s main office. “Makes things a little more professional.”

  “I told them I’d cooperate with whatever they need, but neither of them told me nothing the whole ride into town,” he said. “You know I just got back from Gulf Shores? I went down there to party a bit with Tonya Cobb. You know Tonya.”

  “Of course I know Tonya,” Lillie said, pulling a chair up to the desk that had been Quinn’s. “She used to teach Sunday school at the First Baptist before she got into all that trouble with the youth pastor.”

  Mickey didn’t answer, taking a seat as Rusty Wise walked into the room, holding a bottle of Coca-Cola. The room was empty except for the desk, a couple chairs. Nothing at all on the white walls but hooks.

  “How was your trip?” Rusty said.

  Lillie shot him a look, as both of them had agreed that she’d be the one who’d take over the questioning. It had been a long time since he’d been a cop and he had no experience as a detective. But he should at least know to let the suspect tell the story, not lead him or validate him in any way. Any son of a bitch who watched Law & Order could tell you that. Rusty gave a shy smile and moved back behind the desk but didn’t sit down, just leaned over the back of a ladder-back chair, eyes watching Lillie.

  “Larry Cobb’s place got busted into last night.”