by Ace Atkins
“Just admit you used me,” Tonya said.
“How’s that?”
“You didn’t want to patch things up,” Tonya said, wearing pink sweatpants, a big blue puffy coat, and pink cowboy boots. Her hair was the color of straw and her face that same deep brown, even without a trace of makeup. “I was a goddamn alibi while you robbed my daddy.”
“Just how can I be two places at once?”
“Kyle and his buds did your dirty work,” she said. “You don’t even have the nuts to take care of your own business. Just like you didn’t have the nuts to close the damn deal on me the other night. Didn’t you see me dancing in my sheer bra-and-panty set in front of that window? At first, I thought you were having trouble with your ding-dong. But as soon as you ran for your truck, I knew there was more. I cried for you, Mickey Walls. I fucking cried for your stupid ass.”
Mickey put his hand onto the diamonds of the chain-link. He offered his ex-wife his best smile.
“I sure wish I could punch your nose through this fence,” she said. “People are laughing at me. Laughing for me fronting you while you embarrassed me, embarrassed my family. Son of a bitch, Mickey. I got buck-ass nekkid with you and ran into the Gulf.”
“That was real,” Mickey said. “That was a special night.”
“So how come you ran off at the stroke of midnight?” Tonya said. “You afraid your fucking Hummer was gonna turn into a pumpkin?”
“I was drunk,” he said. “I started having feelings for you. I couldn’t breathe and got nervous. You just looked so beautiful on that beach.”
“Freezing my titties off?”
“I got scared.”
Tonya just shook her head, not buying one word of it. She put her hands into her puffy coat pockets and walked up close on the chain-link. Mickey sure was wishing the guard would call him soon. He wanted to see the judge, make that bond, and then get home for a hot shower, a cold drink, and some goddamn time to think. He could think this mess through. But whatever way it turned, he needed Tonya Cobb on his side. She goes over to her daddy and momma and there’d be a bigger fight than he wanted.
“Daddy’s ulcer is back,” Tonya said. “Momma is back into the wine.”
“I can’t help that.”
“They’re sleeping on my couch,” Tonya said. “Daddy’s carrying a gun. He keeps on saying people are coming to kill him.”
“It’s over,” Mickey said, giving a soft, reassuring smile. “It’s all over. People just want me and you to keep apart. Don’t let them do that, Tonya. What we have is special. It’s real.”
“Daddy always said you weren’t worth a shit.”
Mickey’s face heated up a bit, the smile dropping, as he tilted his head and looked to Tonya. Damn. There was no pleasing this woman.
“If you don’t go to Parchman,” Tonya said, “I hope you and Kyle sure do enjoy all that cash. I don’t hate you for what you done to Daddy. But why in God’s name did you have to drag me into this mess?”
Tonya turned on her pink boots and walked away. Mickey headed away from the fence, found a plastic school chair, and dragged it into a small patch of sunlight. He sat there until one of the deputies called his name.
• • •
Lillie walked out of the sheriff’s office to get some air and smoke a cigarette. It had been a long while since she’d smoked, but today seemed like a hell of a day to start back. Everything had started at two a.m. when she’d gotten the call from Rusty’s wife, driving down that long gravel road in the dark, seeing Quinn’s old truck and knowing something horrible had happened. She had followed the path to the deer stand, seen the body and the blood smears by flashlight, and called in the deputies and the folks from MBI. She walked miles of forest until sunup, not finding a trace of Quinn. By morning, she knew she had to get back to the sheriff’s office and coordinate—roads needed to be blocked off, maps laid out, and air searches begun.
She smoked and thought of where Quinn would go, who might be following, and how bad he might be hurt. The parking lot was so jam-packed with media trucks and deputies from other counties, she hadn’t noticed the man in the green parka walking toward her until he spoke. “You can’t find him,” he said. “Can you?”
He pulled his hood back, showing his face. Goddamn Ringold, the man who walked behind Stagg. Lillie dropped the cigarette and went for her gun, pulling it on him. The man’s hands shot up, him grimacing a bit as if he were hurt. “Slow down, sweetheart,” he said. “Let’s talk.”
“Hands on the car.”
“Listen to me.”
“Put your fucking hands on the hood or I’ll shoot you right in the fucking head.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Ringold said, doing as he was told.
“Where is he?” she said, reaching and finding an auto on the man’s hip, running down both legs and retrieving a .38 and a knife in his boots. “You people shot him.”
“It’s not like that,” Ringold said, gritting his teeth as Lillie touched his flank. “Let’s just slow down and talk. Be cool.”
“Be cool?” Lillie said. “Y’all shot Quinn. You killed Rusty. There’s no slowing down. Shooting your ass would be too damn easy. I’ll make you cry for it.”
She punched him hard in the stomach. Ringold dropped to his knees and gritted his teeth again, unable to breathe, eyes watering. “Get up,” she said. “You fucking pussy.”
Ringold reached for the Jeep’s hood and tried to stand, Lillie yanking him the rest of the way by the parka’s hood. As soon as he’d steadied himself and caught his breath, he said, “Pull up my shirt.”
“Why?”
“Shit,” he said. “Just look.”
Lillie pulled up the side of his parka and a thick black sweater to reveal a bloodied bandage running across his side and taped on his stomach. “I’ve been shot.”
“He should’ve killed you.”
“Quinn didn’t shoot me,” Ringold said. “God damn it. I’m working with him.”
“Bull-fucking-shit.”
“He told you and Wise that there was someone in with Stagg.”
“Yeah, a fucking pole dancer with her hands around Stagg’s unit,” Lillie said. “You’re too damn ugly for the job.”
“You really believe that?”
“OK,” Lillie said, gun still in Ringold’s side. “Prove it.”
“In my right-hand pocket,” he said. “My shield. Call in to the Oxford office, if you want. But you know I’m right. Why else would I come here? I got nowhere else to go. Stagg knows.”
Lillie found the badge, studied it, and holstered her Glock. “Son of a bitch.”
“We were supposed to raid Stagg’s place today,” he said. “Something happened. Somebody talked and they all know about me and him. Two men came to the motel last night to kill me.”
“And what happened?”
“They sucked at their jobs,” Ringold said. “How many deputies can we get?”
“There’s some good trackers out there,” Lillie said. “A whole team of them from Jackson are taking it step-by-step from where Quinn left his vehicle and Rusty’s deer stand. They think Quinn may have gotten confused and wandered into the National Forest.”
“Quinn’s a U.S. Army Ranger,” Ringold said. “Those boys aren’t known to wander. He’s leading them somewhere.”
“Why?”
“Because those trackers aren’t on our side,” he said. “Stagg goes down and a lot of important folks go with him. They want Quinn dead.”
33.
The first thing you want to do after being shot is make sure you aren’t shot again. Quinn had waited inside the deer stand with Rusty Wise’s body for more than three hours before making a move. There was a hope, just a glimmer of it, that the man who’d pulled the trigger would grow curious and show himself in the clearing. But he never did. Whoever had done it was sma
rt and cautious, waiting for Quinn to run for it. In the time that passed, Quinn pulled off his jacket and saw where a bullet had passed through his left forearm. There was a lot of blood. And judging from the grotesque way his arm hung, the bullet had busted through the bone.
Funny thing was, he didn’t feel the pain—the deep, searing, burn through your flesh and cracked bone pain—until about an hour after the bullet passed through. When the pain hit, it hit hard.
He’d already washed it with a jug of water, wrapped and cleaned it with a snakebite kit, and fashioned a splint from some pieces of plywood and torn pieces from Rusty’s shirt. At full dark, a cold rain falling in rolling sheets, Quinn scavenged all he needed from the stand and ran into the deep woods and onto a path west, away from the main road and where the shooter had been. He kept on moving through the trees and brambles until he believed he’d put a couple klicks between himself and the stand. His breath came out in spurted clouds, the rain collecting on bare tree branches and dripping down into the wet, cold ground.
He wondered how long it would take for Lillie to find Rusty Wise. And after Rusty Wise was found, how many folks might think Quinn killed the man himself? He’d been accused of worse things. After that tornado nearly wiped Jericho off the map, a local police chief named Leonard Chappel—who worked for Stagg—had turned on Quinn and his family. Lillie had killed the chief and Quinn had killed one of his officers, but there had been a third man up in the hills who they never found. A goddamn sniper who left everyone pointing fingers.
The sniper had tried to kill Quinn and Caddy and little Jason. He’d made the Good Reverend Jamey Dixon’s head explode and changed Caddy’s entire world. Nobody ever found the son of a bitch or knew where he’d come from. The only thing Quinn knew was that the sniper had to have operated on Johnny Stagg’s say-so.
The rain stopped after midnight. Time started again for Quinn at 0100, as he marked it with a watch in his pocket since his wrist had swollen three times its size. He walked some more, the pain and the nausea bringing him back to the cold, unpleasant, never-ending time getting his ass smoked on the Cole Range and into the waist-deep muck of swamps in Florida. There was a sergeant, as Quinn had become, who delighted in the worst of it, the hell of the situation that every Ranger has to live through. You didn’t just get through pain, discomfort, hardships, you learned to smile at it, make it your friend, be familiar with mud in your mouth and up your nose, nearly choking to death on green water, running with a ruck, until your body had failed but your mind kept on going. Move, Ranger, move. Go, go, go. Speed up. Endure. Love it.
Quinn had a compass that he didn’t really need but checked in with, knowing the rolling hills and the markers since he’d been a boy. There was a pond somewhere close. A small, forgotten little pond where he’d gone with Caddy when they were kids, Caddy playing house in a homemade Indian fort while Quinn caught, cleaned, and cooked some sunfish and bream. If he could get to the lost pond, he could see back down the way he came. At first light, he’d be able to spot the enemy down in the valley and watch their movements. He just had to keep on heading to the high ground. The high ground is where he would rest.
There had been a few biscuits left, some jerky, and a jug of water. Quinn had gotten all of it on his back, along with Rusty’s .308 and all the ammo he’d had on him. Quinn’s own Beretta 9 fully loaded and tucked in his waistband. The hard rain had frozen on the trees, the clicks of the branches sounding like fragile bits of glass.
He’d found his way to the top, but the pond was gone. In the darkness, he could see the huge impression that it had left, with a small bit of water left in deep pockets. This is where he’d wait through the night. Once he could see again and see who was following, he’d keep moving west.
At the top of the hills, the wind was terrific and very cold. His face was frozen, only a ball cap to protect his head, and thick green barn coat to cover his body. He slid a thick wool blanket from the ruck, pulling it over his shoulder and busted arm with his good hand. The cedars were evergreens and would block the wind for the night. Even though he felt sick, Quinn forced himself to eat a biscuit and drink some water. His teeth chattered, his good hand frozen and his bad hand without any feelings at all.
Sometime later, from where he sat and watched, he saw four different flashlight beams pinging around in the valley. Toward deep night, they were all gone.
Quinn knew they’d be back. And he’d be waiting.
• • •
What’d that man mean ‘the party’s over’?” a black stripper asked Johnny Stagg.
“He didn’t mean nothing,” Stagg said. “He’s just a son of a bitch.”
“Sure was a mess of cussing and yelling come from that back room of yours,” she said. “I thought y’all were going to get down and dirty.”
“I’m a Southern gentleman,” Stagg said. “I don’t get down and dirty.”
“Mmm-hmm,” the stripper said. She didn’t have on a stitch, just a pair of eight-inch acrylic heels. On her long brown arm was a tattoo celebrating the birth of her son. “Is he the law or something?”
“Of a type.”
“Can I get you another drank?”
Stagg nodded to the girl. She wandered back behind the bar, shuffling ice into a highball glass. “Dr Pepper with grenadine and two cherries?”
Stagg nodded again. It was nine a.m. at the Booby Trap Lounge. The Trooper hadn’t been gone thirty minutes, laying out the new law of the land as relayed by Jackson. He said the whole county was in shutdown mode and damage control. He told Stagg not to even think about picking up the phone or calling a meet without his permission. The man had stood across Johnny Stagg’s desk, looking down on him, finger extended, and said, “The Feds are headed this way. I’ll burn this whole goddamn town before I let you embarrass my people.”
And that’s when Stagg had stood up and the unpleasantness started. The stripper laid the drink, popping and fizzing, on the table. “Where your boy at?” she asked.
“I don’t know.”
The Trooper said he was dead. Stagg didn’t believe it.
“Should’ve been here,” the stripper said. “Teach that nasty gray-headed man some manners.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“When Mr. Ringold here, ain’t nobody fuck with Charisma.”
“Who the hell’s Charisma?”
“That’s my stage name,” she said. “My real name is Linda. Linda Allen. You seen my G-string anywhere, Mr. Stagg?”
“You left it onstage,” he said. “Last number of the night.”
“Ying Yang Twins doing ‘Salt Shaker,’” she said. “That’s my signature song. ‘Shawty crunk on the floor wide open!’”
“How ’bout ‘Grandpa, Tell Me ’Bout the Good Ole Days’?” Stagg said, thinking that if Ringold was dead and Colson was dead, the bastards were tracking shit right to his back door. He’d smile and glad-hand over in Oxford at the Grove, but he wouldn’t be taking the fall for the whole show. He wasn’t his daddy. He didn’t shovel shit for a living.
“You look sad, Mr. Stagg,” the girl said, standing behind him, rubbing his shoulders. “Let me loosen you up a bit.”
“Sit your ass down, Linda,” Stagg said. “I’m just thinking on things. You can stay, if you like.”
“Can I drink?”
“I don’t care,” he said. “Help yourself.”
“You always saying for us to keep clean but act dirty.”
“We’re closed,” Stagg said. “Be what you like.”
The girl poured a big helping of Jack Daniel’s with a little ice into a tall plastic cup. She set down the cup, fetched her G-string, and waddled into it, not fooling with covering up her drooping breasts. She sucked the Jack through a long straw like it was Kool-Aid.
“You got a family?” she asked.
“Sure.”
“Boy or girl?”
&nbs
p; “Boy.”
“How old?”
Stagg watched the empty stage in the dim light, wondering how that hunt was going for Quinn Colson. Stagg telling the Trooper to shut it down and leave it, but the man wanting to close the loop. Son of a bitch. He’d killed Rusty Wise. The fucker killed the sheriff to shut him down. The red padded booths, the golden stripper poles shone dull in the muted stage lights. The cleaning crew would be here soon, wiping down the booths and the stage with Lysol, letting in some fresh air before the truckers came back for another round.
“How old’s your boy?” Linda asked.
“I’m not sure.”
“What’s he like?”
“My boy?” Stagg said. “I guess he’s a tricky sort.”
“How’s that?” Linda said, pulling off a blonde wig with short bangs. She scratched her short Afro and tilted her head, really listening, wanting to know what Stagg had to say.
“I guess I just don’t trust many folks.”
“That’s why you check our bags before we leave?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“My son is smart,” she said. “He stay with my momma when I work. I hope he never turns on me.”
“It ain’t a good feeling,” Stagg said. “It’ll play with your head.”
Linda sucked down some more of her drink, telling Stagg more than he wanted to know about her ten-year-old son. She said he didn’t know what his momma did, he thought she worked at the Build-A-Bear over in Tupelo. She hoped to get enough money working two jobs, her other at the new Walmart, that they could leave town, maybe get on to Atlanta. She had people there.
“You want me to leave the lights on, Mr. Stagg?” she said, calling out from the open door, letting in a rush of cold air.
“No, ma’am,” Stagg said. “Shut ’em off.”
• • •
Lillie walked back into the sheriff’s office, realizing that she’d seen three sheriffs come and go in her time: Hamp Beckett took his own life, his nephew was voted out, and now someone had shot and killed Rusty Wise. She wondered if this whole thing wasn’t a big fucking sign that maybe Jericho wasn’t for her. Even if a woman could ever be elected sheriff in north Mississippi, she wasn’t too sure this was a title she’d want to hold.