by Ace Atkins
“Nope,” Boom said. “Not a damn word.”
“Don’t see those Escalades from the airstrip here,” Quinn said. “Not many other destinations in Jericho for them.”
“Maybe they went for Taco Tuesday at the El Dorado,” Boom said. “A side of those margaritas Javier mixes up with grain alcohol. The kind that make Miss Jean recall all those nights at Graceland with your daddy and Elvis.”
“Half that shit never even happened.”
“Does it matter?” Boom said. “Your daddy always said to never let the truth get in the way of a good story.”
Boom rolled on into the parking lot that separated the truck stop from the strip club and drove through the empty spaces by the front entrance. A few of the working girls stood outside with the thick bouncer with a shaved head, smoking cigarettes in short black robes, tall in knee-high boots and plastic platform heels, craning their heads to see just who was passing by. Boom wasn’t shy, lifting his good hand and giving them a salute. Neon and flashing white lights shone off the hood of the jacked-up Chevy.
“Fannie now runs those big rigs right through the garage out back of the Rebel,” Boom said. “There was a time that she’d take ’em out to the airstrip to tear them apart and divvy up the goods. Now it’s all out in the open. Me and you park here for a few hours and we’ll see two, maybe three hot trucks run up into that double bay. They’ll be chopped up and out of state by sunup.”
Quinn nodded. He reached into the glove box for a pint bottle of Jack Daniel’s and unscrewed the top. “How close do you think we can get to the gambling house?”
“You really need more of that?” Boom asked, looking down at the bottle.
“Coming from you?” Quinn asked, hearing more edge than he meant.
“Just asking, is all,” Boom said. “We can’t get far at all to Fannie’s new place. Best we can do is by boat. And last time me and you did that, they started shooting at our ass.”
“She’s got even more girls working?”
“Oh, hell,” Boom said, turning the wheel with his prosthetic hand and taking them back onto the main highway, past the Golden Cherry Motel and its flashing sign with yellow neon fruit dangling and empty concrete swimming pool. “Don’t even have to walk across the street no more for action. Fannie got cribs set up in the back of Vienna’s. Men get their crank worked free and easy out in the open. That damn county ordinance Skinner wanted enforced? About pasties and G-strings? Shit. They buck-ass naked all in that place now. You want pillow talk and a girl will meet you over at the Cherry. Run you about five hundred bucks. Better-looking women can score about eight hundred, maybe a thousand if they’re known.”
“And how do they get known?”
“Internet,” Boom said. “Fannie’s got girls in the Cherry right now hooked up to the web, doing all kind of wild shit for tokens. They’d park a damn rocket ship in their privates for a hundred bucks. Way I heard it, Fannie is making more money on that shit than any damn lap dances at Vienna’s. She’s gone high tech and worldwide. Seems men just can’t get enough of that hot Southern action.”
Quinn turned up the pint bottle of whiskey. He felt the heat spread down his throat and across his chest, offering him a little relief from the pain in his back and legs. It had been a long while since the shooting, but his breath still felt ragged and heavy. He missed running the hills. Running is what had kept him sane.
“You think she’s dialed back on the weed and shit rolling in from Houston?”
“My friend can’t get close to that,” Boom said, punching the accelerator and taking them toward the Jericho Square. “She sees the women and the internet shit running twenty-four/seven but can’t find out where, when, and how much shit Miss Fannie’s been running out of Tibbehah.”
“The drugs and the guns are what Fannie’s always done best,” Quinn said. “The skin trade, out in the open, has never been much more than a money wash for her buddies.”
“Place kinda looks like when you came home ten years back?”
“Nope,” Quinn said, placing the small bottle back in the glove box. “It’s a lot worse.”
* * *
• • •
Buster White finished his second helping of Johnnie Walker Blue and set the glass aside. He flattened his hands onto his big stomach and leaned back into the comfortable leather chair. “I don’t care if you slit that seal yourself. That damn whiskey’s been watered down.”
“You know it,” Fannie said, smiling. “Learned from the best.”
“I am truly sorry about ole Ray,” he said. “Fine, fine man. Ray kept this whole world straight. From New Orleans up to Chicago. I never for one second believed the lies they spread about what happened.”
“That I fucked him to death?” Fannie said, blowing out some smoke.
Buster nodded. He ran his fat tongue over his front teeth and turned his head to cough.
“Oh, that’s true,” she said. “The lie is that I meant to do it.”
She heard feet clatter and gather up on the wooden porch facing the lake. Merv and Frank, casino-issued blue ties pulled loose in the heat, walked into the room and looked at their boss, nodding in his direction. Buster seemed to relax a little, crossing his little fat leg over the other and rattling the ice in his glass.
Midnight Man stood big and thick outside the front windows, looking out into the darkness of Choctaw Lake. Merv and Frank stood near Fannie as she relit a cigarillo and leaned back into the couch, smiling at the security guards. The older one, Merv, nodded back, sucking in his stomach and straightening the lapels on his navy sport coat. Frank smoothed down his goatee, looking to Buster White and then back around the room. He seemed to notice something he didn’t like, staring at the cool air blowing through the vents. The workers had left little plastic strings on the registers, flapping hard and strong. It must’ve been sixty degrees inside.
Fannie refilled Buster’s glass, reaching for the leather strap of her Birkin bag. She took a slow walk behind his chair, setting the bag at her feet, reaching her hands down around his thick neck, noticing the fat rolls under his buzz-cut white hair. She started to massage Buster’s shoulders, feeling her fingers work into the thick folds of skin and fat, flabby muscle.
Buster craned his head to stare up at her and winked. “Fine place,” he said. “Shame I’ll have to burn the motherfucker down unless we come to some kind of terms.”
“You got me, Buster,” Fannie said. “I tried to run. I tried to hide.”
Fannie massaged the skin folds harder, looking to Midnight Man standing outside the French doors. He was nothing but a shadow but saw that she nodded in his direction. Merv and Frank leaned against the bar, Merv checking his watch and looking toward the front door. He should’ve looked toward the back. The side door opened without either of them knowing it, Fannie feeling the hot summer air blow through the cold room. The men just starting to turn as the big Indian passed by ole Kaw-Liga, standing nearly as tall and straight, with high cheekbones, black eyes, and his black hair threaded into a ponytail. He raised a .357 toward the bar and shot through the two men, splattering glass, blood, and whiskey all over the marble.
Fannie was already onto Buster, pulling out her sixteen-ounce framing hammer and whacking it into the side of his thick skull. His fat head lolled forward and then back, teeing himself up for another solid whack, this time misting her hands with fine bits of blood. She recalled that man’s hairless flabby body crawling on top of her so long ago, when she was little more than a kid, pushing nearly all her breath away, twice cracking her rib trying to make something happen out of nothing.
His hands reached out and gripped her forearms. But damn, he was so fucking old and weak. She hit him again. And again. And again. Didn’t take but about thirty seconds and it was all over.
He let out a final raspy cough and then settled into stillness. Fannie’s lithe hands and fine dress c
overed in Buster White’s blood.
Fannie caught her breath, swallowed, and dropped the hammer to the floor. Sam Frye, right-hand man of Chief Robbie of the Mississippi Choctaws, came into her view and placed a steady hand on her shoulder.
“It’s done,” Sam Frye said. “What about their plane?”
“That plane belongs to me,” Fannie said. “I’d been planning on a night like this for more than twenty years.”
* * *
• • •
Quinn and Boom pulled into the Sonic and killed the engine. They ordered burgers and shakes and sat in the old truck with the windows down. The drive-in was full of light and action, high schoolers sitting at little round tables by the take-out window. A sky blue ’69 Camaro with a white racing stripe cruised past. A red El Camino with a rebel flag license plate followed, moving in a slow parade around downtown Jericho. Boom popped out the Charley Pride and plugged in some N.W.A “Alwayz into Somethin’.”
The music reminded Quinn of being twelve and hanging out at Boom’s house after church, playing the music through headphones so his preacher daddy didn’t hear what was going on. Boom’s father called rap “the devil’s music.” Somehow knowing the music was dangerous and evil made it all the better.
Quinn watched as a Tibbehah County Sheriff’s Office patrol car rolled into the lot, a white man Quinn had never seen behind the wheel. He wore sunglasses at night, a blue ball cap down in his eyes.
“You know these motherfuckers?” Boom asked.
“Nope.”
“But you know why they’re here?”
“You know it.”
“What they’re saying about you, about me, about the whole damn county that allowed a woman like Fannie Hathcock to roam free?”
“Sure do.”
“Goddamn Brock Tanner,” Boom said. “We seen this dirty game before.”
The patrol car circled around again, the white man behind the wheel wanting to make sure he’d made his point, established his territory. He slowed for a moment before Boom’s canary yellow Silverado and then scratched off quick from the Sonic, flashing his light bar and heading out into the darkness.
“You scared?” Boom said.
“Damn well terrified,” Quinn said. He lifted the bottle of whiskey and finished it off.
Boom studied his friend’s face for a long moment but didn’t say a word.
3
When Donnie Varner came home from a federal prison in Texas two months ago, his father had thrown him a party out at the Jericho VFW Hall. His daddy Luther had tried his best, offering a catfish and hushpuppy spread, all the sweet tea and Mountain Dew you could drink, and even a special cake made of dozens of Moon Pies. His cousin Randy had brought a nice Bluetooth boom box to play Donnie’s hit list: Guns N’ Roses, David Allan Coe, Marshall Tucker Band, and Confederate Railroad. He sure did love him some “Trashy Women.”
But the damn party had been a bust. Besides Randy and a few cousins that he didn’t give two shits about, no one really showed. Donnie had gotten drunk anyway, slipping out to his daddy’s prized gold ’68 GTO to fill up a red Solo cup with the Jim Beam he’d stashed. At one point, he wasn’t too damn sure, but he felt like he’d had a pretty good time dancing with his big Aunt Hollis, who weighed in at maybe two-fifty and some change and sure could move that big ass across the floor. He thought they’d done some fine work on “Boot Scootin’ Boogie” although he sure as hell always hated Brooks & Dunn. He and his friend Quinn Colson had always been sure those ole boys about dropped the damn atom bomb on real country music, along with the true anti-Hank, Garth Brooks.
Donnie Varner never figured on a ticker tape parade but didn’t expect to come home as a fucking pariah to the place where he’d been born and raised. It wasn’t like he’d killed no one. Or ran buck-ass naked through the Jericho Square. All he’d done was try and work out a business deal between himself, a local crook named Johnny Stagg, and a crew of fucked-up Cartel boys for ninety-seven M4 rifles. All he cared to remember about that time was a woman named Luz who had been—in Donnie’s true and less than humble opinion—the most gorgeous creature God had ever put on this earth. He would’ve eaten glass and walked through fire to have one more last kiss with her.
He thought about Luz, praying as he did every night that she was still alive and safe down in Old Mexico, while he watched the sun rise over the Confederate cemetery outside town. He’d borrowed Luther’s GTO that morning, not asking permission but not trying to hide it, either, and had driven out for a quick meet with Mr. Coldfield. Since he’d been out, he’d tried to gain the old man’s trust, coming out to his furniture store in the late afternoons when the whole warehouse was empty and listening to Coldfield’s grand retelling of how Nathan Bedford Forrest had outsmarted a thousand Yankees under the command of William T. Sherman himself, the motherfucker who’d burned up most of a grand and noble society. Or at least that was the way the old man told it.
The furniture store, Zeke’s Value City, sat right next to the cemetery, a red sheet metal building with a sloping white roof that promised two football fields full of discounts and deals. Donnie sat in his dad’s GTO studying the old headstones of all those boys in gray, bracing himself for another history lesson from goddamn old man Zeke himself as if he’d been there back in the winter of ’64 for the Second Battle of Jericho.
Donnie fired up an American Spirit cigarette just as he saw Zeke Coldfield’s maroon Cadillac wheel into the gravel lot, always right on time at seven a.m. Donnie got out of the GTO and stretched, feeling a little hungover from drinking the night before. Not shit to do around Jericho for a single man but go to Bible study or get drunk. Last night, he’d done both. Donnie stood a little more than six feet, with sandy-blond hair and a little stubble on his face. Most women thought he was handsome as hell. But who was he to judge? Donnie was just a simple fella in jeans and boots and an old black T-shirt. Much better than that stiff prison orange.
“Mr. Coldfield,” said Donnie, shutting the GTO’s door. “You are better than a Swiss clock. I sure hope I have your energy when I get to be your age.”
Donnie wasn’t sure how old Coldfield was but suspected somewhere between eighty and a hundred and fifty. On second thought, maybe the pruned-up son of a bitch really had been around since the Civil War. Coldfield stood and pressed LOCK on his key fob, the old man complaining of “colored children” who’d been using the nearby cemetery to frolic and play.
He walked with the old man, who hobbled up to the front door, unlocked it, and moved to the security panel. Donnie found a square metal box nearby and started to flick on a half-dozen switches in the big store that had probably seen better days back in the 1970s. Some of the dinette sets he sold were so damn old they were actually in style again, straight out of the fucking Brady Bunch. The sprawling warehouse was a patchwork of bright white light shining down from high above.
“Mr. Varner,” Zeke Coldfield said, his head looking exactly like a rotting apple with eyes like blue marbles. “How about you make us some coffee while we wait for the others?”
“Others?” Donnie said.
“Yes, sir,” Coldfield said. “I told you my friends were mighty interested in meeting you.”
“Oh, yeah,” Donnie said. “Nearly forgot all about that.”
“Make a big ole pot,” Coldfield said. “I think there’s a box of Little Debbie snack cakes in the refrigerator. Bring ’em up to my office where we can talk some business. I have the feeling this is your lucky day. I believe I’ve found exactly what you’ve been searching for since you came home.”
“Appreciate that, Mr. Zeke,” Donnie said. “You are a gentleman and a fine American.”
“Two Sweet’N Lows please,” Zeke said, hobbling off through the little dining rooms and big-ass family rooms, lit up with detail and drama like a fucking Showcase Showdown on The Price Is Right. “And a spot of that hazelnut Coffee-Mate.�
��
Hot damn. Donnie Varner knew he was finally about to get front and center with the good ole boys from the Watchmen Society.
* * *
• • •
“Please don’t go,” Jason Colson said.
He held Ana Gabriel’s hand in the darkness of the big barn at The River. Ana Gabriel had stayed there last night, his mother feeding all those left behind and bringing cots to the barn where she’d held Sunday services since he could remember. The girl smelled like fresh laundry, her hand smooth and soft, a purple ribbon wrapping a ponytail. The young girl’s hair was so black and shiny, her eyes so large and brown. Jason could feel his young heart hammering in his chest just being next to her.
“My father will come for us,” she said. “I sent word through our uncle. Everything we own is back at the Frog Pond. Sancho has to get back to school. He is so thickheaded and stubborn, I shudder to think what he’d be like without an education.”
“Y’all can stay here,” he said. “You can ride to school with me. My mother is here every morning. We get up at first light, take care of chores and help feed folks, and then go on to school.”
“But if my father comes for us, he won’t know where to go,” Ana Gabriel said, shaking her head. “He might think we’re lost. Or that the government got us, too.”
“My mother said they bused everyone to Louisiana,” Jason said. The barn was dark and warm, large metal fans like contractors used blew from up on the stage. Didn’t seem to be making a lick of difference. Jason was sweating, worried that Ana Gabriel would get swept up by her father and never come back to Jericho. “Please wait for me until after football practice. Come here after school. We’re having hamburgers and hot dogs tonight. Momma says Señor Hector wants to speak. He’ll know more about your mother. He’ll know more about everything.”