The Redeemers

by Ace Atkins

  “I’ll give you another ten thousand,” Mickey said. “How’s that sound?”

  “Fifty sounds better,” Peewee said, not skipping a beat.

  Mickey tilted back the whiskey and passed it on to Uncle Peewee. Peewee chugging that bottle, Adam’s apple bobbing up and down, like he was drinking a pitcher of sweet tea. Whew.

  “OK,” Mickey said. “What the hell. Like I said, it ain’t about the money. I’m just trying to fix that son of a bitch for what he’s done.”

  “What’d he do?” Peewee said, Chase not giving a good goddamn. He found a good spot to lay down in the van between the center seats and stared up at the roof. Uncle Peewee had pasted a bunch of Playboy centerfolds up there and then covered ’em up with an inch of shellac. The shellac had started to yellow and age, but you still could get a nice look at all those women with big hair and titties. One hell of a view.

  “Y’all ever heard of reclaimed wood?”

  No one said anything.

  “Well, I got the idea a few years ago to start tearing down ole barns in the county that no one used anymore and selling the planks to rich folks up in Memphis,” Mickey said. “Me and my buddy Lee would strip the wood and then Larry would run it through at the mill. We got to be partners in the deal and were doing pretty good until me and Tonya started getting into it.”

  “Who the hell’s Tonya?” Chase asked.

  “My ex-wife.”

  “The one he was screwing last night,” Peewee said. “He said she got big ole brown titties. I’d love to cover her ass in some butter spray. Haw, haw.”

  Chase kept on looking up at all those California women he’d never meet, getting a little tickled about things being said, and started to laugh. “Big ole brown titties,” he said. “What, is she Mexican?”

  “Hell, no, she ain’t Mexican,” Mickey said. “I’m just saying me and Cobb had ourselves a partnership until he didn’t like me no more.”

  “Why’d he sue you?” Peewee said.

  “He accused me of cheating him and then got some goddamn CPA to root around in my asshole until he could make it so,” Mickey said. “He was a liar. The damn accountant was a liar. It was a fucking witch hunt. Cobb didn’t have no right to half the profits. He was only milling the timber. I was reclaiming the goddamn wood. I was transporting up to Memphis. I ran all the sales out of Walls Flooring. Half the installs I did myself.”

  Peewee handed Mickey the bottle, knowing the man sure could use some whiskey. Uncle Peewee was wise like that. A damn born leader, not unlike Gene Stallings. Mickey took a big old swallow and then passed it on to Chase. Chase raised it up and drank, Rebel Yell screaming down his throat and into his belly. “Whew,” he said.

  “You really think your boy is gonna crack?” Peewee said.

  Mickey didn’t say anything, staring straight ahead into the dark parking lot of the Mickey D’s. Chase handed the old man the bottle to take another hit. Old Mickey Walls sure did look like shit warmed over, bad things that had happened, or might still happen, turning over in his mind.

  “We can’t have the law after our ass,” Peewee said. “You can have them damn books. But I think we need to reconfigure our fucking situation.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, right now ain’t nobody ever heard of Peewee Sparks in Jericho, Mississippi, and I plan to keep it that way.”

  “I ain’t saying shit,” Mickey said.

  “I trust you and know you are a man of honor.” Peewee swiveled around a bit in the captain’s chair, scratching his chin. “But I would prefer to keep our secret among the folks in this here van.”

  “Shit.” Mickey snorted, glass-eyed. “And just how the hell do you aim on doing that?”

  25.

  They drove as they always did, Stagg in the passenger seat and the Trooper behind the wheel, running his cruiser upward toward ninety, then a hundred, as they headed south this time on Highway 45. The Trooper hadn’t said a goddamn word since the Rebel, listening to Stagg lay out what had been going on with Larry Cobb and who probably took those books with all those facts and figures. The Trooper shuffled in his seat, reached up for his dip cup, spit, and said, “People wondered how long it would take for you to fuck yourself, Mr. Stagg.”

  “Excuse me, sir?”

  “Things hadn’t been right since the storm,” the Trooper said. “You gotten sloppy.”

  “Did you hear a fucking word I said?” Stagg said. “It was Larry Cobb that got us into the shitter. It’s his safe and his doings. I didn’t know he’d been keeping books on our deals.”

  “But you suspected it,” the Trooper said, mashing the accelerator, moving up and around two pickup trucks, dark night flashing by the windows. “Reason you called me first off. If you hadn’t known, how come you hit the fire alarm?”

  “I asked you to pass things on,” Stagg said. “I don’t want any more trouble. I want to make things right.”

  “You brought Cobb into this.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You vouched for him,” the Trooper said. “I was at that party at the man’s hunt lodge with the booze and cooze. You said Larry Cobb was a solid man and a fella we could all trust. You put your damn name on his. God damn it. Now you just might’ve fucked us all high and hard in the ass. Don’t you get it? Son of a bitch.”

  “I never asked you to do nothing,” Stagg said. “Besides, I don’t ever recall you ever bein’ a part of our dealings.”

  The Trooper nodded, spit in the cup, and took the cruiser on up to past a hundred. He reached down and fiddled with the heater, getting the air going hot and fast. Stagg feeling a little sick in his guts, reaching for the control to let down the window but finding it was stuck. The bastard noticed but didn’t say nothing, just kept on dodging around all those cars, taking them down, out of the bottom, and into the next county, big signs for the Choctaw bingo parlors and luxury hotels and casinos. The world of Chief Billy and Fannie Hathcock.

  “Can you let down the fucking window?” Stagg said.

  The Trooper hit the control, window sliding down, and Stagg could breathe again, fingering at the second-to-top button on his dress shirt. Man tries to do the right thing, notify the right folks, and then he gets treated like he’s the one who caused the mess. Ringold had given that Mickey Walls a long leash to fix it, but now Stagg wasn’t so sure. If he turned over the whole thing to this buzz-cut leather brain, Tibbehah County could become a goddamn bloody mess.

  “Man drank a bottle of Vardaman’s finest hooch and then passed out on the toilet,” the Trooper said. “He’d left one of your girls tied to the bedpost. She nearly had to nibble off her foot like a trapped coon.”

  “I never said the man had class,” Stagg said. “I said he could get things done. Get everyone paid. He could get the equipment, put together a nice deal for all of us.”

  “God damn us.”

  “Just pass on the message.”

  “God damn you.”

  “I’m not dealing with you anymore,” Stagg said. “Something’s broken in your goddamn head. You do know that? Don’t you ever speak to me like that.”

  The Trooper spit one more time into the Styrofoam cup and then turned the wheel hard and fast to the right, hitting the brakes, spinning out, leaving smoking tire across Highway 45. A goddamn semi barreling down the road, horn blaring, nearly broadsiding the cruiser. Stagg gritted his teeth and was about to tear the Trooper a new asshole when the man pulled a sidearm and stuck it right into Stagg’s mouth.

  “I don’t need no one’s brain splattered into my vehicle, Johnny,” the Trooper said, more cars zipping around the cruiser. Blue lights flashing in the fast lane where he’d idled the vehicle sideways. “But you better come through with this shit. Don’t you dare track mud into our fucking house. You ain’t nothing but country come to town.”

  Stagg wanted to speak, but t
he barrel of the pistol was shoved deep into his throat. He could taste the blood from a cracked tooth.

  “You understand the situation, Johnny Stagg?” the Trooper said. “We brought you in from the wild and you just shit all over the floor.”

  The thickness and metallic taste of the pistol brought tears to Stagg’s eyes. He couldn’t breathe and knocked the man’s hand and the gun away.

  Another eighteen-wheeler blew past, the Trooper’s breath coming out rough and asthmatic like a smoker, before he knocked the vehicle in gear, crossed over the grassy median, and sped on back to Jericho.

  • • •

  How was supper?” Lillie asked.

  “Country-fried steak with peas and greens,” Quinn said. “One of the few things little Jason won’t turn up his nose at. He sure hates her meat loaf.”

  “Can I admit something?”

  “Shoot.”

  “I’m not fond of it, either,” she said. “But her country-fried steak is top-notch. Especially when she uses the cubed deer meat.”

  “She did,” Quinn said. “Processed it myself.”

  “Of course you did,” Lillie said. “Probably made the hide into a coat. The antlers a gun rack.”

  They stood outside, shoulder to shoulder, against Lillie’s green Jeep. Her passenger window was down and Quinn could hear the familiar radio patter from dispatch. Even on a full stomach, with enough money in the bank to last the rest of the year if he was careful, he still missed it. He liked the patrol, running the back roads of his county, checking on folks, keeping the world in order. Just a day off and he already felt sloppy as hell.

  “She made you a plate,” Quinn said.

  “Why’d you think I came over?”

  “You didn’t get my message?”

  Lillie shook her head. The front door opened and Jean waved to Lillie and Lillie waved back. She yelled that she had a plate for her and some coffee in a to-go cup. As she closed the front door, Lillie said everyone should have a momma like Jean Colson. Lillie reached into her Cherokee and snatched a pack of cigarettes. She tucked her hands deep in her green jacket while she smoked.

  “I got you a witness who saw Kyle Hazlewood loading up the Jaws of Life.”

  “At the fire station?” Lillie said.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Thought you were going to take it easy.”

  “Anna Lee wanted me to check on things,” Quinn said. “Her being related to the Cobbs.”

  “You’re no different than the rest, Quinn,” Lillie said, smiling. “Always working for pussy.”

  “I don’t want to get in y’all’s way.”

  “There’s no ‘y’all’ to it,” Lillie said. “As soon as I get a better job, I’m getting the fuck gone from Tibbehah County.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Join up with the Wild West Medicine Show,” Lillie said, blowing smoke from the side of her mouth. “Shoot cigarettes out of women’s mouths. How the hell should I know? Be a cop? About the only thing I know. Who’s the wit?”

  “Miss Peaches.”

  “No shit,” Lillie said. “You ever have her chicken? God damn, that’s some good stuff.”

  “I told her you’d keep it confidential, if you could,” Quinn said. “She’s worried Kyle might try and mess her and her family. Her grandkids.”

  “Kyle wouldn’t kick a mean dog,” Lillie said. “That’s always been a problem. He won’t speak up for himself. He lets people run flat over him. I remember one time his damn brother stole his brand-new truck and Kyle wouldn’t even file a complaint. I know Mickey Walls was the one who talked him into this mess. Kyle is just goddamn stupid enough to fall for his bullshit—like half the women in Jericho.”

  “You think Hazlewood shot Kenny?”

  “I don’t know who shot Kenny,” Lillie said. “But putting Kyle with the equipment sure does help. I think I can push Rusty to get a warrant.”

  “How’s he doing?”

  “You really want me to answer that?”

  “Can’t be as green as me when I started,” Quinn said.

  “You learned fast,” she said. “You had it in you. Rusty is just another fucking politician. You can’t make things change without upsetting folks. Rusty doesn’t want anyone mad at him. He wants to glad-hand, bullshit about, and be everybody’s buddy. I bet he gets a damn hard-on when he puts on his golf shirt with that embroidered star. He just wants to hold court down at the Fillin’ Station and suck on his apple pie.”

  “Let me know how it goes,” Quinn said. “Miss Peaches says she’ll speak to you private.”

  Lillie nodded, flicked her spent cigarette into the road, and pushed herself off the side of the Cherokee. “Did Anna Lee tell you about our talk the other night?”

  “No,” Quinn said. “What did y’all talk about?”

  “Nothing,” Lillie said, smiling and patting Quinn’s face. “Now go and get me my supper.”

  • • •

  Ringold picked up Stagg down in Sugar Ditch, where the Trooper had let him out. At the Rebel, Johnny left him and made his way on into the Booby Trap, low time, a couple girls on the poles with a few hangdog truckers watching. He walked down the corridor to his office, unlocking the door and heading straight to the back room, where he brushed his teeth twice and gargled with Listerine. When he smiled in the mirror over the sink, he could see where the bastard chipped a tooth.

  He hadn’t felt so much humiliation and degradation since he’d been a boy and two older kids had beaten him bloody and then pissed all over his face. Another time, his daddy made him eat a dog turd for not finishing his supper, telling him he didn’t have no respect for his family.

  Stagg ran a finger inside his mouth and found that the veneer was about to slide off his old rotten tooth. That goddamn son of a bitch.

  He picked up the phone and dialed the 601 area code for Jackson. He’d get this shit straight right here and now. After he left a message there, and on two other numbers, he called Ringold on his cell. Two minutes later, the boy walking in the door. Stagg feeling some kind of comfort in the man’s protection and loyalty. The man stood ramrod straight at his desk, wearing a military green watch cap and black ski jacket.

  “He threatened to kill me.”

  Ringold nodded.

  “Man’s a fucking sociopath.”

  “Probably.”

  “Girls he’s been with,” Stagg said. “Lord, my girls won’t lie with him. Cigarette burns and sore cooters.”

  “What’d he say?”

  “Let’s clean up Cobb’s mess and then I’ll fix it.”

  “They just want you to feel small,” Ringold said. “Like you don’t matter. Just a piece of the machine.”

  “Who?”

  “Mr. Stagg, I met plenty of them,” Ringold said. “They use you. They use your county, your hospitality, wipe their asses with all you give them. I don’t know why you do it.”

  “Well, I ain’t doing it no more.”

  “They’d be nothing without you.”

  “Damn right.”

  “That nut job comes into this county again,” Ringold said, “you just say the word.”

  Stagg fingered the busted tooth as he thought, the TVs showing feeds from the Rebel and the Trap lighting up the far wall, folks shoveling in his ham and eggs, buying up his diesel, tossing out dollar bills to see his girls’ titties. Stagg swallowed, his mouth still tasting dirty and sickly. The room was dark and shadowed.

  “Don’t you kill the fucker yet,” Stagg said. “How about you just shake that Walls boy for me first? I don’t give a damn what you got to do, but help him get his mind right.”

  Ringold nodded. “Yes, sir.”

  “Mr. Ringold?”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “I appreciate you,” Stagg said. “You understand that?”
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  Ringold nodded and left. Stagg sat in the dark office for a long while, watching the surveillance cameras and tasting that metallic dog shit in his mouth.

  26.

  Quinn drank black coffee and bourbon and smoked cigars late that night with his father and Boom Kimbrough. There was a big fire ring behind the farmhouse, built of old stones and burning bright with busted tree branches, big fat logs, and discarded bits of barn wood. Jason was telling Boom about the time he’d jumped a car off a dock and onto a barge in the Mississippi River for White Lightning, thinking that he’d broken his back, unable to move his legs for a couple hours after they pulled him out.

  “Was it worth it?” Boom asked.

  “Nearly killing myself for a paycheck?”

  Boom nodded.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever felt more alive than when I was truly worried about dying.”

  “Not me,” Boom said. “When I thought about dying, I thought, ‘Oh, fucking shit, here we go. I’m about to fucking die.’”

  “You remember the accident?” Jason said, tapping the ash off his cigar.

  “Wasn’t no accident,” Boom said. “Motherfuckers laid out a whole road of IEDs for us. Only one worked. All of ’em went off and we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

  “Was it worth it?” Jason said.

  “For the pay or to serve my country?”

  Jason shrugged. “I guess to be a part of the war. America and all that?”

  Boom drew hard on the cigar, the orange plug glowing bright in the corner of his mouth. “How about you ask me that in about twenty years, Mr. Colson? I kind of still miss my arm some.”

  Quinn reached into the fire ring and pulled out a blue, white-speckled pot filled with coffee. He poured a little into his mug of bourbon. Jason had bought him a nice bottle of Eagle Rare for Christmas that he’d just opened. He added some coffee to Boom’s cup, bypassing Jason because he didn’t care for coffee this late. A mean wind shot through the forest and down into the open back field.