by Ace Atkins
“You see Lillie today?” Quinn asked Boom.
He shook his head. “Why?”
“She said she and Anna Lee had a talk, kind of leaving it there,” Quinn said. “Like I was supposed to understand what she meant.”
“Shit, I know what she meant,” Boom said.
Jason Colson grinned wide. Quinn looked at his father, shaking his head. “It’s not like that.”
“Hell, anyone can see that woman is crazy about you,” Jason said.
“Boom?” Quinn said. “You want to explain it?”
Boom shook his head, tapped his ash on a fire ring stone and looked across the blaze to Quinn. “Ain’t easy to explain,” Boom said. “I see it, too.”
“Shit.”
“I know Lillie keeps a big part of her world private,” Boom said. “I can’t recall her being out with a man. But I can’t recall her being out with a woman, neither. I know she has friends in Memphis. I know she’s got her own personal world that she doesn’t want to share with anyone in Jericho. But let’s just say she’s like that.”
“So she told off Anna Lee?” Quinn said. “Because Anna Lee didn’t mention it.”
“Nope,” Boom said. “Knowing Lillie, I bet she said she’d whip her ass if she messed with your head again. Like I said, Lillie is looking out for you.”
“She’s my friend.”
“Never fuck your friends,” Jason said, toasting the men with his coffee mug. “Me and Susan Anton had a hell of a thing going. That’s when she had this show with my buddy Mel Tillis. A country variety show. Got canceled after four weeks and Susan and I ended up at a bar on Hollywood Boulevard, drunk as hell and into each other’s arms for comfort. Never was the same.”
“It’s not like that,” Quinn said.
“And it shouldn’t be,” Boom said. “But no matter what Lillie is or ain’t, she still cares about you. She wants you to be happy.”
“What do you think?” Quinn said.
“About you and Anna Lee or about Lillie?” Boom said.
Quinn drank some of the bourbon and coffee, picking up the end of a shovel and moving the hot coals into the center of the ring, then moving some branches in closer. The smoke and heat from the fire, the smell of the cigars, relaxed Quinn. He preferred not having a roof overhead. Later on, he’d probably get a sleeping bag and he and Hondo could stay out until first light.
“Don’t know about Lillie,” Boom said. “Don’t care.”
“And Anna Lee?”
Boom looked at Jason and then back into the fire. He tapped the cigar again, the ash not growing much since the last time. He then just looked at Quinn with heavy eyes and said, “Ain’t my business.”
Jason stood up and kicked some stray embers, stomping them out. He tossed his cigar into the center of the fire and touched the brim of his cowboy hat. “Morning’s coming soon enough.”
“Every day’s a gift,” Boom said.
“Damn right,” Jason said, walking down a path he’d worn to his trailer, disappearing into the darkness beyond the fire. Quinn and Boom watched him go, the thought of Jason Colson being back home still odd to both of them.
“Who the fuck is Susan Anton?” Boom said.
• • •
The names on the stockings above Rusty Wise’s fireplace read Taylor, Tyler, and Skylar. But Lillie already knew the kids’ names from the ads Rusty had posted during the election. He ran on the ticket of being a strong family man. I LOVE MY WIFE AND KIDS bumper sticker kind of shit. Truth be known, Lillie wouldn’t blame him if he didn’t give two shits for his wife. She was pretty horrible. Chunky and mean, without a polite bone in her body. When Lillie had shown up at the front door, she’d just kind of rolled her eyes and gone back to the kitchen, where she was baking a pie and sipping on chardonnay. Maybe she should have been back in the living room taking down the goddamn stockings or the dead tree that looked sad and tired in the corner. Brown needles spread across the floor.
“Little late, isn’t it?” Rusty said, drinking some coffee and watching his television show, something about World War II, in sweatpants and red socks. “I was about to turn in.”
“I got something,” Lillie said, exciting and ready to move. “More on Kyle. More on Mickey Walls.”
“Can it wait till morning?”
“No,” she said. “No, sir, it can’t. We need to rustle up a search warrant on this shit. I just saw Kenny, and the nurse told me he won’t be walking on that leg for another six months. Right now, I don’t have much patience.”
“Y’all OK?” said Rusty’s horrendous wife in the kitchen, running a knife with icing around some cake, the glass of wine in hand.
“Fine,” Rusty said. On the television, the battle for Remagen waged on with the capture of the Ludendorff Bridge. A lot of shelling, with all the action in black-and-white. A lot of talk about Adolf Hitler and something big about to happen called Operation Plunder.
“I got someone who saw Kyle Hazlewood loading up the Jaws of Life into his truck, same time as the Cobb robbery,” Lillie said.
“Who?”
“Will it get me a warrant?”
“I don’t know,” Rusty said, scratching himself. “I mean, shoot. It’s late. The judge is probably asleep. I don’t want to start ticking folks off the first day on the job.”
“Can’t be having that.”
“C’mon, Lillie,” Rusty said. “You know what I mean. What else we got? That’s just part of a theory you have of what he’s been doing. Just ’cause he was messing around with fire station property doesn’t mean he was involved in a felony.”
“Yeah,” Lillie said. “He was probably using those things to scratch his nut sack.”
“Ah, heck. Come on, now. It’s late. You got what? A couple folks who seen Mickey and Kyle talking. So you caught him in a lie right there.”
“Why would he lie?” Lillie said. “Why would he say he and Mickey hadn’t talked much when they’d been sharing a shake and fries over at the Sonic? And then cuddling up over at the Huddle House. It just doesn’t make sense. We get a warrant to search his place, we might be able to make some sense of it.”
Rusty sat down hard in his big recliner as some German commander set some charges on the bridge and then tried to blow it up. He mashed the button but nothing happened, as his troops were firing machine guns on the Allies. Rusty scratched himself some more, thinking, and then shook his head. “Why are you so set on Mickey? We know he was down at Gulf Shores. Everything checks out.”
“For a total of six hours,” Lillie said. “Just enough time for the break-in to happen, for the shit to hit the fan, and for Kenny to get shot.”
“I’d appreciate you not using profanity in my home.”
“God damn it,” Lillie said. “Come on. Let’s go, Rusty. You let those boys kick back a while and they’ll have time to practice their stories. I nearly had Kyle today. He was so fucking close. He nearly told me. He didn’t like what had happened to Kenny. He wants someone’s ass for it.”
“Lillie,” Rusty said. “I got children in the next room playing Scrabble. This is a family day. I’m fine with getting up at any hour for police work, but I can’t have you coming over here at all hours unless we got something solid and ready to move. Like I said.”
“You don’t want to push Judge Lackey,” Lillie said. “You want him getting a good night’s sleep. God forbid these fucking morons who shot Kenny might be inconvenienced. I have a witness who saw Kyle Hazlewood loading up the Jaws of Life just as the robbery was happening. Right before Kenny got shot. We know from Larry Cobb that Kyle and Mickey have intimate knowledge of his house and his safe. And probable cause to fuck up his world.”
“So what do you want, Lillie?” Rusty said. “What is it?”
“I want a search warrant based on probable cause,” Lillie said. “I want to search Kyle’s house an
d his workshop for evidence that he was busting in that safe last night. I don’t want to give him another minute to make peace with what he did to Kenny or hide his handiwork. Do you understand how time is of the goddamn essence?”
Just then, one of his children—Taylor, Tyler, or Skylar—walked into the room in her pajamas, wanting to known when Daddy would come back and finish playing Scrabble. Fucking Scrabble. Maybe Rusty could make a play for the word I-N-C-O-M-P-E-T-E-N-T.
“I’ll be right there, sweet thing,” he said, patting her on the fanny. “Man talk.”
Rusty grinned. Lillie didn’t acknowledge his stupidity. “Come on, Rusty,” Lillie said. “Let’s do this. Make something happen right off. Make a name for yourself.”
Rusty nodded, considering it. On television, the bridge was captured intact and Hitler was pissed as hell about it. For the next ten days, Adolf ordered the Luftwaffe to shell the shit out of it. Lillie waited for Rusty, seeing if he’d put on some pants and get on with things. Instead, he rubbed his jaw to simulate thinking that just wasn’t happening. “I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know.”
“Fuck me,” Lillie said. “Can we at least try and get a warrant for their phone records, try and establish their communications that night?”
“How about we talk tomorrow, Lil,” Rusty said. “Right now, I’d like to just wait and see. I think it’s going to be interesting as all get-out to see what those ole boys do next.”
• • •
So you want to dig it up now?” Kyle said. “Christ. It’s ten o’clock, man. You said not to touch this shit for a good long while. Pretend like we ain’t never had that money and that maybe someday, maybe in a few years, we could take it out.”
“Well,” Mickey said. “Things’ve changed. Johnny Law’s right on your ass. We need to move it or lose it. Or you want to wait until they come over with a fucking search warrant.”
Mickey and Kyle stood face-to-face out back of Kyle’s house, on his busted-ass porch, Mickey parking in a vacant lot down the road and doubling back. Kyle had been waiting but not really prepared, in a tired old blue bathrobe, smoking Marlboros, and drinking a Bud Light. Underneath the robe, he seemed to be naked except for a pair of boxer shorts and cowboy boots.
“They wouldn’t have found that money,” Kyle said. “I know what I’m doing.”
“How about you just humor me?”
“You take what’s yours, but I’m leaving mine right where it’s at.”
“That’s not thinking,” Mickey said. “That’s not thinking at all.”
“Well, maybe I hadn’t figured out what I’m gonna do.”
“What the hell you mean?”
“Maybe I should just give it back to Cobb,” Kyle said. “I ain’t no thief.”
“Son of a bitch.”
“Do what you need to do.”
“You give that money back and they’ll know it was me who put you on to it.”
“How you figure?” Kyle said.
“What are you gonna do? Just knock on Larry Cobb’s door and say I sure am sorry I busted through your fucking house and stole your million dollars?” Mickey said. “You don’t think they’ll have a few more questions?”
“I’d never say your name,” Kyle said. “You know that. But what happened later. The mess of the thing. With Kenny and all. Shit.”
Unbelievable. Fucking unbelievable. Mickey should’ve never gotten Kyle involved in this, knowing how weak he could get, gone to pieces as soon as the law started asking some questions. Kyle was a good man. But, god damn, he’d never learned to lie. Everybody who has any sense knows how to lie. You get through life lying, telling people what they want to hear and keeping your ass out of trouble.
“You’re fucking up,” Mickey said. “You know that?”
Kyle swallowed. His reddened cheeks sunk against the bone when he inhaled from the cigarette. He pulled the robe closer around him in the cold, taking a little plastic flashlight from his pocket and walking down the porch steps. “Come on. Grab that shovel.”
Mickey picked up a shovel set against a chair and followed Kyle deep into his backyard, passing an old swing set that had belonged to the man’s kids before they moved to Gulfport, and down around the big tin work shed he’d built himself. Mickey carried the shovel in one hand, following Kyle to the edge of the woods and a long patch of rocky ground strewn with river pebbles. Kyle got down on his knees and clawed at the dirt and stones, uncovering a round plastic top about the same size as a pickle bucket.
“You put the money in a septic tank?” Mickey asked.
“Know anyone want to root around in there?”
“Shit,” Mickey said.
“Yes, sir,” he said, flicking the cigarette far away so it wouldn’t connect with the methane. Mickey handed him the shovel and he scooped the edge of the lip and popped the top, bringing forth an ungodly stench that made his eyes water. He stood back, took a breath, and handed Mickey back the shovel on one bad, cold night.
“Oh, God,” Mickey said. “Hell, that stinks.”
“I doubled ’em up in some Ziplocs inside of trash bags,” Kyle said. “I tied ’em all tight with some fishing line and ran the line to where the PVC runs to the inlet. You can’t even see it. The line is two hundred test. For sportfishing. Same line me and you bought down at the Gulf this summer.”
“Good times,” Mickey said, gripping the handle of the shovel tighter, as his friend got down on his knees again and reached his arm up to his elbow into the shit tank, feeling around for the fishing line. The smell was something terrific. Thank God for the cold air blowing it on down the road.
“I ain’t cut out for this,” Kyle said. “I’ll get the money to Larry in a way he won’t know it was me. You can do whatever you want. Buy a fucking yacht and some hoochie momma to rub you to bed. I won’t stand in your way.”
Mickey watched his humped back, the digging arm. “Appreciate you, man,” he said.
The wind had kicked up good and cold from the north, scattering Kyle’s blue robe off his skinny old legs and cowboy boots. The man wasn’t paying attention, reaching deeper into that black hole, feeling around for that lost line. Mickey stood above him holding the shovel, spade up to the stars, watching his friend and listening to the gurgling deep inside.
“How was the beach?” Kyle said.
“Me and Tonya took a dip in the Gulf,” he said. “Ice-cold.”
“I wouldn’t care,” Kyle said. “Wouldn’t mind putting a boat in and trolling around for some of them big bull redfish. You know, before the season’s over.”
“I’d like that.”
“Yeah?” Kyle asked, looking back over his shoulder. He smiled up at Mickey, looking relieved, as he kept on feeling around in the dark and back down in the hole.
“Sure thing.”
“Damn, this line is cutting the whale out of me,” Kyle said. “You mind giving me a hand? Pass me that shovel.”
Mickey set his feet good, lifted the shovel far overhead, and came down hard and fast against Kyle’s skull. The sound wasn’t unlike an egg breaking. Mickey felt sick, not sure if it was from the sound or the smell, but steadied himself, walking away from the hole and reaching for his phone and dialing up Peewee Sparks. “Y’all still in for a disposal job?”
27.
Rusty Wise had only been sheriff for fifteen days now, but Lillie was a bit irked that he’d spent more of his time buying gear for the office and himself than he had tracking down the shitbird thieves who’d shot Kenny. Today, coming on mid-January, Rusty was finally doing something, getting off his ass and driving over to fucking Gordo, Alabama. He’d made sure to wear his new four-in-one tactical jacket, paying two hundred and fifty for it because of all its many secret pockets and the internal sherpa liner. “You can even zip up both sides, depending on what side you’d draw your weapon,” he’d told Lillie on the driv
e. Already carrying that Glock 19 on his hip, star on that fucking jacket, like he’d been wearing them half his life.
They were in an empty room together that morning, not unlike every cinder-block shithole interview room in the country. Fluorescent lights. Busted linoleum floor. The local police had pulled in a man named Bryson Joseph Sparks, aka Peewee, for them last night. After Kyle Hazlewood went missing a couple weeks ago, Lillie pulled his phone records, showing him and this Peewee fella burning up some airtime on New Year’s Eve.
“Either they are in love or in cahoots,” Lillie said.
“I never saw Hazlewood running,” Rusty said. “Shoot. You were right, Lil. We should have brought him in right off. We had probable cause.”
Lillie closed her mouth and took a sip of weak-ass coffee the locals had given her. They sat there and waited a good long while until B. J. “Peewee” Sparks was walked into the room and sat down in a metal ladder-back chair. Lillie introduced herself and Sheriff Wise, hating calling him that but knowing it would mean something to a guy like Sparks.
He was a hefty-looking turd, sloppy and wild-haired, wearing coke-bottle glasses and a sweatshirt for Tabasco reading Laissez les bons temps rouler. “Heard you just got back from New Orleans, Mr. Sparks,” Lillie said. “You have a good time?”
“Ain’t nothing else to do down in that place,” Sparks said. “Them people sure know how to live.”
“I guess you know why we’re here and why we wanted to talk to you?” Lillie said.
“No, ma’am,” Sparks said. “No, I don’t. But you sure are a tall drink a water. How tall are you?”
“Five-ten,” Lillie said. “How tall are you?”
“Tall enough to climb a solid gal,” Sparks said. “Haw, haw.”
Rusty Wise’s face went white, expecting Lillie to jump out of her chair and throttle the fat man’s neck. But men like Peewee Sparks never bothered her. They almost always made dumb-ass sexist comments like that because of a lifetime of rejection from women, including their own mothers, and some form of impotency. Violence would only be wasted on a broke-dick fella like Mr. Sparks.