by Ace Atkins
“You know me,” he said. “Shit. Didn’t those folks shoot Kenny? I worked fifteen years with Ken Senior. I was a pallbearer at his service. I cried as much as Kenny. What that family went through in that shitstorm. God help them. His mother was picked up like a rag doll and tossed a half mile away. Didn’t she get impaled by a goddamn two-by-four?”
“Just because you let somebody borrow a tool doesn’t mean you used it,” Rusty Wise said. Lillie had instructed Wise to be the calm, patient one. Not exactly the good cop, but the understanding one. The guy who tried to talk sense and be rational. Lillie would do her best to work Kyle over. It wasn’t hard for her. Busting their balls just came naturally.
“I didn’t touch them things,” Kyle said. “I did not borrow them. I had no cause to be at the firehouse. We didn’t have a single call since Christmas.”
“What happened on Christmas?” Lillie asked.
“Demetrius Clark set fire to his old lady’s Kia,” he said. “Don’t you remember?”
“Oh, yeah,” Lillie said. “Wasn’t Demetrius’s finest hour. She was his ride to work.”
“Why’d he do it?”
“She was fucking ole Shane Gardner,” Lillie said.
“Bull?”
“Yep.”
“That’s one big ugly son of a bitch,” Kyle said. “Demetrius better watch his ass.”
“Folks can do stupid shit when they get mad,” Rusty said, thumping the top of his Copenhagen can. “If they’d just take a minute to think things over, their life might have gone a different way.”
“Rusty,” Kyle said. “Y’all ain’t listening to me. I didn’t bust into Larry Cobb’s house. Y’all can check my house and look for all that goddamn cash. I look like I’m swimming in it?”
Lillie had been looking at the linoleum as he spoke, but her head jerked up at that last part. “Who said anything about cash, Kyle?”
“Y’all did.”
“No, sir,” Rusty said. “We never said word one of why we brought you in. We were just asking about property that belonged to the Tibbehah County Volunteer Fire.”
“Come on, now,” Kyle said. “Shit. Everyone in town knows Larry got about a million bucks taken from him. You think that’s secret? What else would a man keep in his safe?”
“Guns, jewelry,” Lillie said. “Nekkid pictures of his wife.”
“I don’t have none of that,” Kyle said. “Hadn’t seen none of that. Besides me working for the fire department, donating my time and sweat to help folks out, why do you think I’m a part of this mess? You want to give me one reason?”
Lillie lifted her eyes to Rusty. Rusty picked up a Styrofoam cup and spit in it, giving himself a dramatic little pause, looking Kyle over. Kyle did look rough as hell this morning. His thin beard was as gray as an old dog, but his longish hair—too long for a man his age—still had some brown in it. The whiskers not matching what was on top. The same way the puka shells on his neck, and the slick, worn motorcycle jacket, just didn’t seem right with his bony, worn-out frame.
“You and Larry Cobb have a falling-out last month?” Rusty said. “Something about some dozerwork out on his land?”
“Yes, sir,” Kyle said. “That’s correct.”
“And Larry wouldn’t pay you?” Lillie said.
“He never was gonna pay me,” Kyle said. “That’s Cobb’s way. He found something to criticize and make a point of so he wouldn’t have to write a check. He’s the cheapest son of a bitch I ever met in my life.”
“Did it piss you off?” Lillie said.
“Hell, yes, it pissed me off.”
“And you threatened to get back at him?” Rusty said.
Kyle’s face flushed a high red. He nodded, flexing his jaw muscles. “That’s right,” Kyle said. “I told him that I was gonna whip his ass. This all being on the telephone. But I hadn’t seen him since. I told him to keep out of my goddamn way. But you know what? If I’d seen him, I would have whipped his ass. I’d of done it, straight-up and man-to-man. I ain’t into none of this sneaking around, breaking and entering. I got a problem with you and we work out that shit together.”
Lillie swallowed. Rusty spit again, that seeming to be his best interrogation talent. Lillie got up and came around the desk, looking down at Kyle Hazlewood. The man looked dirty, worn-out. Black dirt under his fingernails and smelling like a damn ashtray. He didn’t look like a man who got a good rest last night. Kyle looked bone-tired.
“Anyone see you last night?”
“My dogs.”
“Besides your dogs.”
“No, ma’am,” he said. “I’m a working man. You think I’m out drinking whiskey and shooting guns on New Year’s?”
“You got a girlfriend?”
“I did,” Kyle said. “But there ain’t no reason to bring her into this mess. She’s already pissed-off at me as it is. I think she’s dating the goddamn meat manager at the Piggly Wiggly. Said I never took her nowhere.”
“Mickey Walls knows how to treat a lady,” Lillie said. “He took Tonya Cobb down to the Flora-Bama last night. Drove all the way home this morning just to tend to some business. That is something.”
“That’s ole Mick.”
“He tell you about it?” Lillie said.
“Mickey?”
Lillie nodded. Kyle shook his head and looked at the floor.
“Y’all haven’t talked in a while, huh?”
Kyle shook his head, pulling out his pack of cigarettes from his red racing jacket, signaling it was time for him to be getting on. “Nah,” Kyle said. “Me and him been really busy. Didn’t know he and Tonya were back together. Good for them.”
Lillie looked to Rusty and Rusty grinned a little before spitting in the cup again. He wiped his chin.
“You’re right, Kyle, we have known each other a long while,” Lillie said. “So I guess I should take you at your word you weren’t at the firehouse last night. And that you and Mickey weren’t hanging out at the Huddle House or the Sonic last week, either.”
Kyle didn’t say a word. Lillie shrugged and looked to Rusty Wise.
“Some of this just isn’t adding up for me,” Rusty said. “Can we come at it again? Start off real slow.”
24.
He’s going to break,” Mickey Walls said to Peewee Sparks. Both of them having a serious man-to-man conversation in the back of Peewee’s ROLL TIDE conversion van, parked at a McDonald’s on U.S. Highway 82, right outside Columbus, Mississippi. “Doesn’t even want to lawyer up first.”
“They don’t know nothing.”
“Kyle thinks the sheriff knows that me and him been planning something,” Mickey said. “They know he took that contraption from the firehouse yesterday to break into the safe. He’s been sitting in the sheriff’s office for the last two hours.”
“So what if you and him been talking,” Peewee said. “How the hell they gonna know what was said unless the dumb son of a bitch told them?”
“I don’t know what he said.”
“Even if they know y’all talked, what’s it matter?” Peewee said. “Aren’t y’all buddies and shit? I mean, god damn. That ain’t nothing. What I want to know is, where is the fucking money?”
“Put up and buried deep.”
“Good,” Peewee said. “Good.”
“What I need to know is, where are those books?” Mickey said. “If I don’t have enough troubles with Kyle and my goddamn crazy-ass ex-wife, I got some bad dudes wanting to skin my ass alive. I don’t have time for that shit.”
“No kidding,” Peewee said, talking to Mickey from the captain’s chair, swiveling to and fro as they spoke. The man up in the high seat, in charge, and kind of bemused by the situation Mickey found himself in. Thank the Lord he didn’t involve his dumb-ass nephew into this. But he sure as hell brought him along. He told the kid to go on in the McDonald�
�s and get himself a double cheeseburger and fries and that they’d be done in a minute. “What’s wrong with your ex?”
“I kind of left her down at the beach without any money and without a vehicle,” Mickey said. “She was drunk and thought we were about to get into some romantic sex and all. And then I left after y’all couldn’t get the safe out of the house. She finally answered my call after I’d called her about fifteen thousand times. She told me I might as well go fuck myself because that was the only action I’d be getting for a long while.”
“She good-looking?” Peewee said, grinning. Licking his lips. He wore an old navy hoodie sweatshirt, a T-shirt with Bear Bryant’s face popping out from the center, the hatted head prominent on Peewee’s big expanding belly.
“Where are the fucking books, man?” Mickey said. “I don’t need any shit. I was straight with y’all and want y’all to be straight with me.”
“Is she good-looking?”
“What the fuck does that have to do with anything?”
“Just trying to get a visual,” Peewee said. “Get her in my mind while you tell the story. What’s wrong with that?”
Mickey swallowed, trying to slow down the blood pounding in his head right now. He was getting a fucking migraine right behind his left eye. He ground the heel of his hand into the socket and said, “She’s blonde.”
“Big tits?”
“Yep.”
“Double D’s?”
“C cup,” Mickey said. “How many women you know with double D’s?”
“What else?”
“She’s tan.”
“Tan all over?”
“Yes,” Mickey said. “Even her ass crack is tan. Brown as a nut. Now, where the hell are those fucking books so we can separate? I ain’t gonna lie to you. Things are not looking good. I want both of y’all to lay low and get off the grid. Comprende? Me and you ain’t never talked.”
“Me and the boy’s headed down to New Orleans for the Sugar Bowl,” Peewee said, zipping up the hoodie, covering a good bit of the Bear’s face but leaving the famous hat exposed. “So don’t you worry a bit about us. We long gone, bud.”
The interior of the van was the same houndstooth pattern as the Bear’s hat, the exterior painted a Crimson Tide red, with the faces of Alabama football greats airbrushed on the side. These boys were card-carrying morons. But they were Mickey’s morons and he hoped to hell they had more sand than Kyle Hazlewood. Kyle had turned into a true, authentic disappointment.
“All right,” Peewee said. “We’re here. Let’s talk about what this shit is worth to you.”
“What’s it worth?” Mickey said, raising his voice a good bit. “Your boy stole it from us.”
“How’s that?” Peewee said. “Who took what? What belongs to which one of us? Ain’t none of this real clear in my head, Mr. Walls.”
“How much?”
“Well,” Peewee said. “I guess it boils down to that fact. You know, I was doing some thinking.”
“Of course you were,” Mickey said.
Just then, the sliding door to the van ripped open, giving Mickey’s heart a start. But it was only Chase Clanton hopping up into the van with a big bottle wrapped in brown paper. “To hell with a cheeseburger,” he said. “There’s a liquor store next door. Didn’t check my ID or nothin’. Come on, boys. Time to celebrate. I got us some Rebel Yell.”
• • •
Y’all hungry?” Luther Varner said, working behind the register at his convenience store. “I made extra sausage biscuits for today. Peaches fried some chicken. I can get her to make some up fresh, too. Where you been? Hunting?”
“Just riding,” Quinn said. “Killing time before supper tonight.”
Quinn and Boom had just walked in from the cold, in their heavy jackets and boots, after waiting until dark for Mickey Walls to show at his house and then driving over to the carpet-and-flooring shop when he didn’t. After he’d gotten the call from Varner, they’d left the shop and headed up north on 9. The glass case at the Quick Mart was filled with tamales, chicken, greens, green beans, hush puppies, and fries. Tonight, his mom was making those collards, black-eyed peas, and cornbread. He couldn’t disappoint her.
Tall and lean, old, gray crew-cutted Luther Varner leaned over the counter, packs and packs of cigarettes, custom knives, and ammunition stacked behind him. The tattooed skull jarhead popped from his veiny forearm, a long cigarette between his fingers. “Y’all been looking for Kyle Hazlewood and Mickey Walls?”
Quinn nodded. Boom sidled up to him, his hand filled with some beef jerky and carrying a Mountain Dew in the crook of his arm. He set it down for Varner to ring up. Varner, still leaning over the counter, nodded his head to the back door, toward the kitchen where Miss Peaches cooked. If you lived in the north part of the county, Varner’s was the last stop for supplies. A modern general store with an ICEE machine and two fancy coffeemakers that could make up the worst shit in north Mississippi.
“Can I ask what y’all are doing?” Varner said.
“Thinking of refinishing the heart pine at the house,” Quinn said, smiling.
“Bullshit,” Varner said. “Those two shitbirds are mixed up with this Cobb business.”
“Haven’t you heard,” Quinn said. “I’m no longer sheriff.”
“Yeah, I heard something like that,” Varner said. “But I’ll bet a hunnard dollars you still got a gun on your hip.”
Quinn smiled.
“That shit don’t go away,” he said. “Never does.”
“I’m asking around for a friend.”
“Sure,” Varner said, plugging the long cigarette in his mouth. “That’s good. Because Peaches won’t talk to no one else. Sure as shit not to some fat turd insurance adjuster.”
The old black woman was still frying chicken in back of the store. She lifted up some brown chicken parts from the fryer and dumped them into an aluminum tray lined with paper towels. A big stainless steel bowl of coleslaw sat on a nearby table, a wooden spoon stuck in the center where she’d been stirring. Peaches was a big woman, with thick arms and chest, a plump face and gold glasses. As usual when she worked in the Quick Stop kitchen, she wore a red apron and a plastic cap over her hair.
After she put down the chicken, she walked over to Quinn and gave him a hug. “How your momma and them?”
“Good,” Quinn said. “Everyone’s fine. How about Bobby?”
“Just got him a job at FedEx,” she said. “Gonna be driving a truck over in Batesville. But he’ll get home twice a week. Got Mondays off. You want something to eat?”
“My mom’s making supper.”
“You saying your momma a better cook than me?” she said. “Don’t you mess with me, Quinn Colson. I remember when you, Boom, and Bobby was in kindergarten. Playing grab ass out by the lake. Shootin’ BB guns and raising hell.”
“You really want me to be full at Miss Jean’s house?”
Peaches smiled and picked up the tin of chicken, shaking it around on the paper towels to drain off the grease. “Luther tells me you been looking for Kyle Hazlewood?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“What’s that boy into?”
“Not sure yet.”
“Is this gonna get me into any trouble?” she said. “’Cause I don’t need no headaches right now. If it comes down to it, I’ll swear on it. But I watch my grandbabies after school. And if someone was to—”
“Miss Peaches, I’m not sheriff anymore,” he said. “Just trying to make sense of something.”
She nodded and grabbed a paper plate. She added a fried breast and some coleslaw, a handful of hot French fries. Boom had followed him into the back and Peaches didn’t say a word to him as she made the same plate, only with more piled high, and handed it to him. “Y’all growing boys,” she said. “Don’t you dare tell Jean.”
Boom took the
plate to a little table by the fryers and started to eat.
“You talking about last night?” she said.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I seen Kyle outside the fire station in the middle of the night,” she said. “He was loading up something into his truck. I didn’t stop, but I waved at him. He just stared at me as I passed. Like he was mad as hell about something.”
“You sure it was him?” Quinn said.
Peaches just stared long and hard at him. “I don’t know what that boy was doing, but I knew it didn’t look right.”
“About what time was this, ma’am?”
• • •
Chase Clanton tilted back the bottle of Rebel Yell and took him a good, long swallow. Wiping his mouth with his shirtsleeve, he passed it back to Mickey Walls. The man drank most of the whiskey, relaxing in the back of the party van like they was old buds. Uncle Peewee swiveled to and fro in his captain’s chair, trying to make plans, hatch ideas, on how this new deal was going to work out. “I ain’t trying to rob you, Mr. Walls,” Peewee said. “I’m just trying to fill my belly, make things right.”
“Shit,” Mickey said. “Just like every other son of a bitch in the world. ‘Make things right.’ You know what? I don’t even give a good goddamn for the money. You know why I wanted to hit Cobb’s house?”
“’Cause he got a million dollars?” Chase said. “And watches, guns, and shit?”
“Shhh,” Peewee said. “Let him talk.”
“The man rebuked my goddamn honor,” Mickey said. “Here. Pass me back that bottle, kid. Shit. That’s some rough stuff.”
“You don’t like it,” Chase said, “then don’t drink it.”
Chase had been the one to buy the bottle and offer to share it. The man acting like it was his. Chase still didn’t understand why he and Uncle Peewee had to drive all the way down to Columbus for them to meet. If the man wanted them books that goddamn bad, maybe he should’ve driven his ass over to Gordo. He wasn’t real wild about Peewee taking the wheel after downing a half bottle.