The Redeemers

by Ace Atkins

  “Sorry to hear it.”

  “Thought you might have heard something,” she said. “You being close to the family and all. Maybe something that might help.”

  “Wish I could,” Mickey said. “Larry and Debbi have been good to me. I was just down on the Gulf with Tonya. You know. Trying to work things out.”

  “Yeah, you told us that,” Lillie said. “Several times.”

  Mickey just nodded, mouth hanging a little open, looking like a man who might have just hightailed it back from Gulf Shores overnight. He had on a wrinkled Hawaiian shirt under an old Carhartt jacket and gray sweatpants with boots. His breath smelled of liquor and he needed a shave. Cleotha was in her office right now making calls to the owners of the condo where he said he’d stayed.

  “You drove all the way back at midnight?” Lillie said.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I got shit to do. Had a good time, but a few things needed my attention back home.”

  “Like what?” Rusty Wise said, leaning onto the back of the chair. “Long way to go in the middle of the night.”

  Mickey looked small and huddled-up in the chair in front of Quinn’s old desk. His eyes shifted to where Lillie stood by the closed door and then back to Rusty. He closed his mouth and swallowed, rubbing the whiskers on his face. “Are y’all trying to say something here?” he said. “I got no reason to rob nobody. You know that. Y’all both know me. I hadn’t ever been in trouble with the law. Maybe two speeding tickets in ten years.”

  Rusty lifted a hand in a stop gesture and said, “Slow down. Slow down. Just asking, Mickey. We had a deputy shot last night.”

  “Shit,” Mickey said. “Who?”

  “Kenny.”

  “God damn,” he said. “Son of a bitch.”

  “He’s in rough shape,” Lillie said, watching Mickey’s hangdog face, trying to read something from any reaction. But he didn’t change expression, dumb mouth hanging open again, small brown eyes looking ahead. “He’s in his second surgery.”

  “Hell of a first day on the job,” Rusty said, pushing his little fat self up off the chair and walking around the unfamiliar desk. “One of my deputies getting shot in a home invasion. You may not think you know something, but anything might help.”

  “Why the hell y’all want to talk to me?”

  Rusty took a breath and looked to Lillie, turning it over to her. Lillie sat down on the edge of the desk, arms crossed, and said, “Larry Cobb said y’all haven’t been the best of friends lately.”

  “Well,” he said. “Shit. Doesn’t mean I want to rob him. Or shoot a deputy.”

  “Nobody is accusing you of shooting Kenny,” Rusty said. “Understand? We just thought you might heard something about what happened. From someone. Maybe folks who work for you who are out to get Larry?”

  Mickey fingered something in his eye and laughed a bit. “Out to get Cobb?” he said. “How about you open up the Jericho and Tibbehah County phone book? I think he probably cheated or pissed off about everyone in it. I can’t believe y’all came to me. Thinking I got something to do with this. You know me. Mickey Walls. I’m the carpet guy. I fix houses. Mr. Big Shot. Shit, Lillie, I laid the honeycomb tile in your bathroom last year.”

  “And it’s looking fine,” she said. “Top-notch groutwork.”

  “This shit pisses me off,” Mickey said. “It really does.”

  “So you hadn’t heard anything?” Rusty said, standing up over by the window, looking out toward the chain-link of the county jail. The morning drunks and prisoners milling about in the dead brown-grass yard, smoking cigarettes, taking fried pies from their people through the holes in the fence. Lillie wished she had a cigarette right about now. She hadn’t stopped since getting the call on Kenny.

  “OK,” Lillie said. “If it were you, who’d you try and talk to about what happened at Cobb’s place?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “How the hell should I know?”

  Lillie nodded at the cold Coke in his hand. “You want me to pop that top?”

  Mickey leaned forward and set the bottle on the desk with a hard plunk. She could tell he was getting nervous with her and Rusty standing over him, asking all these questions, while he clearly looked tired as hell. Probably should give the man a break, let him go sleep a while, and then check back with him. From behind Mickey, Rusty Wise shrugged his shoulders. Useless. Completely useless. Quinn would’ve gotten something from him. He’d come a long way in four years, getting folks to trust him without aiming a gun.

  Mickey looked ready to bolt. He hadn’t been arrested. They had no reason to talk to him other than being the first name Larry Cobb mentioned. But she had one more thing. A good one, and she’d leave him with a little something to consider. For all she knew, he was innocent and had just driven home because Tonya Cobb wouldn’t give it up last night. Even after probably downing a couple pitchers.

  “You still run with Kyle Hazlewood?” she said, just leaving the information hanging there. It wasn’t much, but they had two folks who’d seen Mickey and Kyle together lately. She also had learned that Kyle had threatened to kick Larry Cobb right in the pussy after he thought he’d been cheated. According to Cobb, Hazlewood had done a shit job on his property and Cobb wouldn’t pay him.

  “Some,” Mickey said. “I hadn’t seen him in a few months. Been too busy.”

  Lillie watched him hard and nodded, not saying anything for a good twenty seconds. “And you don’t have any idea who’d want to get back at Cobb for something?”

  “Why’s it got to be getting back at him?” Mickey said, getting good and mad. “Shit, it was probably just a bunch of blacks from Tupelo looking for a place to rob and Cobb’s place is good as any.”

  “You know what he kept in that safe?” Rusty said, smoothing down his brand-new sheriff’s uniform and hitching up his belt.

  “No,” Mickey said.

  “He never told you?” Rusty said.

  “Nope,” Mickey said. “Are we done here?”

  • • •

  C’mon, man,” Kyle said. “You’re the one who told me not to call. For any damn reason.”

  “I sure would’ve like to know y’all just shot a damn deputy.”

  “Wasn’t me,” Kyle said. “That ain’t my deal. I was in the fucking van.”

  Mickey was driving his red Hummer around the Jericho Square, just kind of circling until he decided on where he’d head next. He wanted to go home, but what if some more law was waiting for him again? He knew they didn’t have jack shit on him. They’d probably tracked Tonya down right after he left and asked where he was last night. Shit. Tonya. Last time he saw her brown tan ass, she was tossing his fucking luggage off a high-rise. But there were credit cards used, folks who’d seen them at the Flora-Bama. And his damn clothes were still there. Maybe it’d be best if he just hightailed it back down there, laid low till all this was over.

  “Mickey?” Kyle said. “You fucking listening to me, man? I said that fat bastard Peewee Sparks nearly got us caught and his retard son done shot Kenny.”

  “It’s his nephew.”

  “Hell, man,” Kyle said. “I don’t give a good goddamn. I want you to get on over here and help me with all this shit you wanted. I got my money. Rest is yours.”

  “What’d you get?”

  “Nine hundred and sixty-six thousand.”

  “Dollars?”

  “Shit, yes, dollars,” Kyle said. “Ain’t no Chuck E. Cheese tokens, man. And I got some of Larry’s guns and watches. Jewelry and shit.”

  “Bury it,” Mickey said. “Bury the money and go and toss all the other shit in the Big Black River. I don’t give a damn. But that stuff. The personal stuff is what’s gonna fuck us in the ass real hard.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Just left the sheriff’s office after a little heart-to-heart with Lillie Virgil and Rusty
Wise.”

  “Who the hell is he?” Kyle said.

  “The new sheriff out to make a name for himself.”

  “Where you want me to bury it?”

  “How about where it can’t be found.”

  Mickey aimed the Hummer onto Cotton Road and left the Square and headed back toward 45, seriously considering just going right on back to the beach. Tonya would be pissed. She was always pissed. But he’d call her on the way, say he’d gotten real scared because he was having deep feelings for her. And that scared him. Or some of that Dr. Phil shit. She’d pout a little. But then he’d give her what she’d been wanting later today and all would be forgiven.

  “I got straight with Sparks.”

  “Good,” Mickey said. “I hope to never see those people ever again. Reminds me of why I left my other wife.”

  “Mickey?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I don’t like this,” Kyle said. “I didn’t sign on for no shooting.”

  “Me, neither.”

  “Should have been just me and you,” he said. “Why’d you involve these people? They ain’t right in the head. Bunch of Alabama retards.”

  “I’ll call you later.”

  “They gonna get us,” Kyle said. “You do know that?”

  Mickey ended the call and kept on driving east toward the highway. Not really sure what to do next. All he could do right now was drive.

  • • •

  Quinn’s mother was cooking black-eyed peas for the New Year. That’s just something you did, something every Southern woman did on the first of the year. She’d always cook them with some salty country ham and toss a dime in the pot, the person finding the dime being the one with the most luck for the year. He watched his mother over the stove, stirring, talking about going to visit Caddy in a couple weeks. “Would you like to come along?” she said. “I think she’d appreciate it.”

  “I’ll come if Caddy wants it,” he said. “I think she only cares if I bring her a carton of cigarettes.”

  “That’s not true.”

  Quinn shrugged and got up to refill his coffee mug. He hadn’t gone back to the farm since leaving the hospital to check on Kenny. He didn’t feel like going home, sitting down with Hondo to watch a movie, or listening to his father try to make sense of the night before or talk about the year to come. He just wanted to go to his old home, the place where he grew up, and sit down for a cup of coffee and realize everything was out of his hands.

  “Did you see Larry Cobb?”

  “No,” Quinn said. “But Anna Lee went over there to check on him and Debbi. Sometimes I can’t believe she’s related to those people.”

  “That’s her dad’s brother?”

  “Debbi is her mother’s sister,” he said.

  “That’s right,” she said, unbundling some collard greens and washing them in the sink.

  “You even like black-eyed peas and collards?” Quinn said.

  “Never really thought about it,” Jean said, drying them in a paper towel, and started to cut off the leaves and toss them into a big pot of water. “It’s just what you do. It’s what we’ve always done.”

  “Anna Lee wants me to help.”

  “How would you help?”

  “She says Larry is convinced it was Mickey Walls that ripped him off,” Quinn said. “He didn’t even hesitate when he heard his house had been broken into.”

  “Did more than that,” Jean said. “Didn’t they drive a tractor through his living room?”

  “It was a backhoe,” Quinn said. “They broke through the bedroom wall to get a safe. Pulled it out and left in a black van.”

  “And that’s when they shot poor Kenny?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Quinn said.

  “What did Anna Lee say?” Jean asked. “Doesn’t she know you’re not the sheriff anymore?”

  “She does,” Quinn said. “But she believes I could help them out more than Rusty Wise. She doesn’t care for Rusty and neither does Larry. She said Larry called Rusty a two-bit insurance man who doesn’t have any goddamn sense.”

  “I guess Larry voted on you.”

  “I believe so.”

  “I wish she wouldn’t try and get you involved,” Jean said, turning up the burner on the stove. “I wish she’d just let you relax and finally enjoy your time being home.”

  “That’d be nice.”

  “I’ll make some country-fried steak tonight,” Jean said. “Will you tell Boom?”

  “Of course,” Quinn said. “He was disappointed we didn’t get to eat at Caddy’s intervention. He thought there would at least be some cakes or pie.”

  “Too worried to cook.”

  Quinn drank some coffee. He smiled at his mother. The kitchen wasn’t the one he’d known as a kid. Everything had been ripped away during the tornado, replaced with bright pine cabinets and shiny stainless steel appliances. But the kitchen was still very much Jean, with her Elvis knickknacks, biblical sayings taped to the refrigerator, and pictures of Quinn, Caddy, and Little Jason hanging on the walls. Jean stirred the collards into the simmering water. She added some salt.

  The house seemed empty with young Jason gone. Jean had sent him over to a friend’s house this morning, wanting him to have some fun and not be around all this sadness.

  “Caddy’s going to be OK,” he said. “Don’t worry. She heals up quick.”

  Jean kept on stirring, not looking back, wiping her eyes.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “I think she’s too far gone,” Jean said. “She’s come back time and again. But I don’t think she cares anymore. She told me herself. She’s tired. She’s ready to go on.”

  “Where?” Quinn said.

  Jean didn’t answer. They sat in the kitchen for a long while, not saying a word.

  20.

  Sorry to hear about your troubles,” Johnny Stagg told Larry Cobb, the man sitting still and quiet in a brown La-Z-Boy recliner. His bedroom was missing a wall and shit was strewn all over the place, sodden shirts, jeans and drawers, and paperback books, all frozen to the carpet. Cobb didn’t seem to notice, just nodding and holding a bottle of Wild Turkey in his arms as if it were a newborn. The wind tossed around his thinning white hair.

  “Appreciate that, Johnny,” Cobb said, rubbing his goatee. His red cheeks blazing from the cold and the booze. “It’s out of our hands now. Me and Debbi can’t believe someone would do this. We’re good people. Solid fucking citizens.”

  “Oh, yes, sir,” Stagg said. “It’s a head-scratcher.”

  Stagg figured Cobb was in shock, not moving a bit when he and Ringold parked outside the busted wall and walked on into the bedroom. Ringold milled about, using a stick to pick up stuff in his path: Larry’s big white underpants, a broken picture of Tonya Cobb in a softball outfit, pink pajama bottoms. Reaching down for a book called Become a Better You by that bucktoothed preacher, Joel Osteen. He handed it to Stagg with a grin.

  “Police said we could start cleaning up now,” Cobb said. “It’s not a crime scene no more. But Debbi is real upset. She went over to see her sister and niece, probably gonna stay there tonight. I got to secure this fucking wall with some Visqueen. Supposed to get some rain and sleet again tonight. Look at this shit. Look at this mess. Someone ran a fucking backhoe into the place where I sleep. How’d they know they weren’t going to kill me?”

  “Grace of God,” Stagg said, tossing the book back on the ground.

  “Well, they sure as hell knew what they were coming for,” Cobb said, uncorking the Turkey and taking another swig. He pointed the bottle at Stagg. “Picked up my damn safe with the backhoe and skedaddled on out down the road. But I told that woman Lillie Virgil I’m pretty sure I know who did it.”

  “Who?”

  “You know Mickey Walls?”

  “Of course,” Stagg said.
r />   “He’s the one,” Cobb said, wiping some whiskey off his white chin. “He’s out to get me. Told me so. Man’s got hate in his heart. It wasn’t enough that he ruined my daughter, but now he’s going to go on and try and ruin me and Debbi. But he’s out of luck. You know why?”

  Ringold leaned against a closed door that opened into the house. Stagg caught his eye and said, “’Cause you and Debbi prayed on it.”

  “That’s right,” Cobb said. “Forgive as the Lord has forgiven you and me.”

  “You sure that’s where you want to toss all your chips?” Stagg said.

  “Yes, sir,” Cobb said. “What am I gonna do, grab a gun and run out and shoot the boy dead? Me being the one to end up in jail? I got to find some peace in this, Johnny. If I don’t, I think I’m going to lose my mind. I already had two heart attacks.”

  “How much?” Stagg said.

  “What’s that?” Cobb said, lost in thought, walking along with Jesus on the seashore in flowing robes, filled with his new, high-minded purpose.

  “What’d they steal?”

  “More than nine hundred grand, my guns, some jewels, and my daddy’s pocket watch.”

  Stagg nodded, feeling odd standing in the middle of someone’s bedroom but still out in the elements. There was an overturned bed, and a dresser right side up, carpet on the floor and the sky overhead. Stagg placed a hand in his trouser pocket. Cobb was right. It looked like it might start sleeting again.

  “I’ll get it back,” Cobb said. “Every damn cent. It’s God’s will. Me and Debbi decided. A wicked man ‘spends his days in prosperity but suddenly goes down to Sheol.’ You know what Sheol is, Mr. Stagg?”

  “I guess it’s not a town near Pontotoc.”

  “It’s the Hebrew word for the underworld,” Cobb said. “It’s fucking hell. Mickey Walls will live for all eternity in flames. The man screwed my daughter, tried to run my business into the ground, and now he’s straight-up stolen from me. He took a vow in a church that we were family. He said things to me when we were drunk about me being better than his own daddy. Which ain’t saying much. And now he does this? He destroys the place where me and Debbi sleep? Make love and watch television? If that ain’t a fast track to hell, I don’t know what is.”