by Ace Atkins
“Brock Tanner won’t give you the time of day,” Quinn said, reaching for the Tabasco for his eggs. “And so you come complaining to me? Sorry, sir. Since you threw in with Vardaman and his Watchmen people, I really don’t give a damn. Those folks wanted me dead.”
“Now hold on,” Skinner said, raising his voice to the point that a young couple by the front door turned around. “Hold it one gosh-dang second. I never said I was a Watchman. And from what I read in the newspaper, one of those men tried to save your life.”
Quinn nodded, taking a bite, chewing slow. He looked across the table at the vein pulsing in Skinner’s temple. Skinner wiped the sweat from his forehead. “Not having the guts to shoot me and trying to save me are two different things,” Quinn said. “That big Indian is the one who shot me in the back. I don’t suppose your Watchmen friends have any information on where he came from or who he is?”
Quinn lifted his coffee to his lips and stared across at an old man that he’d learned to despise over the years. The man exuded a complexity of weakness, piety, entitlement, and greed that had pushed him into wanting to lick the boots of every politico, crooked businessman, and shady preacher in north Mississippi. The combo had served him well. Skinner was a very rich man for Tibbehah County, maybe the richest one in two counties, although Quinn had no idea what he did outside running the supervisors.
“I want to help you get your job back,” Skinner said. “I want to facilitate whatever cockamamie process there is to get you back in the sheriff’s office and get these folks from Jackson the hell out of Tibbehah.”
Quinn looked up, not expecting anything like this from Skinner. The man had run interference on him since he’d taken over the county Board of Supervisors after Johnny Stagg went to prison.
“I didn’t sign up for this,” Skinner said, pointing down at the table. “The whole damn state has gone crazy. What I’ve seen with my own two eyes is hard to even contemplate. That nasty woman Fannie Hathcock has run buck wild. Did you know she even put some kind of laser light show up on the Tibbehah Cross? Instead of seeing a simple declaration of faith, the lights read ‘Party Tonight. Repent Sunday.’ What kind of sick person does something like that?”
“Sorry, Skinner,” Quinn said. “I’ve already been shot in the back four times. I’ve grown a little cautious.”
“I know you don’t trust me,” Skinner said. “But I don’t trust these new people.”
“You sure trusted Governor Vardaman,” Quinn said. “Go talk to him.”
Skinner nodded, pursing his purple lips, and looked down at his folded hands. He didn’t say a word.
“I want to make amends,” he said. “I want to do what’s right. I already spoke with folks down at the County Barn to get your friend Mr. Kimbrough back on as mechanic. Our vehicles haven’t been running right since he left.”
“That’s between you and Boom.”
“And then I want to get you back,” Skinner said. “Supervisors will make a motion on it tonight.”
“And how do you know you’ll get enough votes?” Quinn said.
“This old fella can still work a miracle or two,” Skinner said.
He reached his withered hand out to the middle of the table, arm shaking, waiting to see if Quinn would accept. “What do you say, son?”
* * *
• • •
The old ways were dead.
Sam Frye knew it but preferred not to live in that world. The young people always laughed at him when he spoke in the native tongue or talked of spirits, most of the tribe now Methodist or Baptist. But he watched for signs, paid attention to dreams. He might not have ever come back from Oklahoma if his dead son Mingo hadn’t appeared to him. He had pennies over his eyes and cried out that he was lost and wandering, unable to see or find his way home from a broad, wide-open pasture where there were no trees and only a brightly lit moon.
“Did he speak?” Chief Robbie asked, being one of the few who still believed in such things.
“No,” Sam Frye said. “He cried. He pleaded. This was two weeks ago and I still can’t clean it from my head. The mist covered both of us. I couldn’t reach him.”
“That’s what causes you pain,” Chief Robbie said. “Because with Buster White dead, too, there will be no answers. Fannie Hathcock had promised you that you’d be able to speak to him before she killed him.”
Sam Frye nodded as he stood in an empty ballroom on the second floor of the main casino on the Rez. Chief Robbie had been holding talks for investors into his latest plan, an outlet mall and theme park right outside Gulfport called Takali, meaning “lodge.” He had artist renderings and small models of a giant roller coaster and large indoor water park. To hear Chief Robbie say it, the whole plan was to educate outsiders on Choctaw ways. The mascot of the lodge was a mischievous raccoon named Oka, who would adorn thousands of T-shirts and signs across Takali, pointing the way to river rapids and perhaps, if they were lucky, a Wahlburgers.
“You told me that White’s people had my son killed.”
Chief Robbie nodded. “We sent Mingo to work with Fannie Hathcock to watch the Syndicate. Buster White didn’t like this. He was very upset.”
“Fannie told me if I would assist her, she’d give me time with White,” Sam Frye said. “She lied. She denied me this.”
“What did she say?”
“She says she didn’t mean to kill White,” Sam Frye said. “She said she only meant to knock him unconscious. That’s why she didn’t use a gun.”
“But she hit him more than once.”
“She hit him as though she was hammering a nail into a very old piece of hardwood. His brains and blood splattered across her.”
“She wanted him to stay quiet.”
Sam Frye nodded again. They left the banquet room and moved out of the great hall and onto the main casino floor, the tables empty in the middle of the day, only a few elderly people bused in from the Coast playing the slot machines, pinging and whirring in the neon-lit space.
“You shouldn’t have come back from Oklahoma,” Chief Robbie said. “It’s too soon. There has been a woman looking for you. A U.S. Marshal from Memphis who wants to find out what happened in Tibbehah County last year.”
“There is no description, no details,” Sam Frye said. “The sheriff was in no shape to remember. To him, I’m nothing but a shadow. A bad dream. That part is over.”
“Perhaps,” Chief Robbie said. “But is it worth the risk? Come back when we start building Takali. Everything will change then. We will be bigger than the old Rez where you and I grew up, playing stickball and living off government handouts and that bad cheese. We are in charge now. We have everything.”
“I want to stay close to the woman,” Sam Frye said. “I must know.”
“You can no more trust that woman than a hissing snake,” Chief Robbie said. “She speaks from the side of her mouth and tells falsehoods that will get friends to wrestle each other to the death. If you stay with her, she will intoxicate you, turn you. I promise you. She did it to me. She is a sorceress. A poisonous flower.”
“No one knows who I am,” Sam Frye said. “Only those Watchmen people. And some of them are dead.”
Chief Robbie patted Sam Frye on his back, walking toward the exit door and the bright hot light from the outside world. Sam could smell the casino already permeating his clothes, the sweat and stink, the alcohol and cigarettes. He already felt that he needed another shower.
“Now you have two women to watch out for,” Chief Robbie said. “This Marshal may not know your face but is hunting you all the same. If she gets close, you’ll have to leave Mississippi. You can’t come back here. Not for a while anyway.”
“Takali?” Sam Frye said, smiling.
“It’s a fun word,” Chief Robbie said. “The marketing people like it, too. They agree it’s something white people can pronounce.”
>
* * *
• • •
Quinn knew Donnie Varner was back in town but hadn’t laid eyes on him since the sentencing in Oxford. But there he was, Donnie himself, making small talk with a young woman in a tight yellow dress walking a bulldog on the Jericho Square. Donnie looked unchanged in the eight years he’d been away, left hand on his hip and his right hand plucking the long cigarette from the corner of his mouth. Something he said made the young woman laugh and she and the bulldog headed across the street toward the new Chinese restaurant, the Golden Dragon. Quinn left his truck and headed out to meet him, Donnie not recognizing Quinn until he crossed under the big oak and into the sunshine.
“Do my eyes deceive me?” Donnie said, squinting.
Quinn smiled and held out his hand.
Donnie looked at it, shook his head, and then outstretched his arms, wrapping Quinn in a bear hug. Quinn feeling relieved, as he’d had to testify against Donnie in federal court, detailing what he knew about the man doing business with the Zetas in Tibbehah County.
“How you feeling, brother?” Donnie said.
“Might ask you the same.”
“Nobody’s been shooting at me,” Donnie said. “Not in a long while.”
“Those Cartel boys got you pretty good,” Quinn said. “You’re lucky they didn’t kill you.”
“Takes a lot more to kill ole Donnie Varner,” he said, grinning. “You see that woman I was just talking to? That’s damn Rita Wright, Pat Wright’s little sister. She wasn’t nothing but a kid when I left. But damn, she ain’t a kid no more. That little yellow dress about busting at the seams.”
“You’re too old for Rita Wright,” Quinn said. “You forget we’re the exact same age.”
“Nope,” Donnie said. “I’m six months older. And six months smarter. I rode a bike, drove a car, and got nekkid with a woman long before you and Boom. Y’all can deny it all you want. But those are some braggin’ rights, son.”
“And got arrested.”
“Before you and Boom?” he said. “Oh, hell no. Y’all might not recall my daddy not allowing me to hang out with either of y’all junior year. He said you two were juvenile delinquents on a highway to hell.”
“That doesn’t sound like Luther.”
“Sorry,” Donnie said. “He said you two were a pair of serious fuckups that were going to get your damn nuts caught in a bonfire of shit.”
“Better,” Quinn said.
“How’s your daddy Jason doing?”
“Haven’t heard from him in three years.”
The two walked together down the busted concrete path toward the gazebo and fallen soldier memorial. They knew or were related to at least twenty men on the plaque, one of them Donnie’s uncle who never made it back from Vietnam, dying at Hamburger Hill. Four boys Quinn and Donnie knew from high school. Three dead in Iraq. One in Afghanistan two years after Quinn returned from the service.
“Listen,” Donnie said, blowing smoke away from Quinn but the hot wind bringing it into his face. “I’m sorry for not reaching out when you got hurt. Luther told me about it almost straight off. I wanted to write you a letter, send flowers, or some shit. But I was embarrassed about where I was and knew I couldn’t do a damn thing for you. I apologize for that.”
Quinn shook his head. “Meant to come see you in Texas,” he said. “I should’ve found the time.”
“You been a little busy,” Donnie said, punching Quinn in the shoulder. “You know we do get the goddamn internet in jail. A tornado takes out half the town. Johnny Stagg’s sorry ass finally gets arrested. And you go and get married. Signs and fucking wonders.”
Quinn pulled an unfinished Liga Privada from his T-shirt pocket. He tugged his dark green sheriff’s cap down in his eyes, making sure that even out of uniform, his presence was known and contested the status quo. The grass across the Square had yellowed and withered over the summer, leaves already dropping from the big oaks in the heat. The burned-up leaves spinning and twirling across the lawn and into the street. They needed a hard rain bad.
“And now you got a son?” Donnie asked.
“Brandon,” Quinn said. “He’s eight. And Maggie’s pregnant now with a little girl.”
“Damn, son,” Donnie. “You have been busy.”
Quinn nodded, not really sure what to say. Donnie had been frozen on ice for the last eight years. He could never go back to his profession running a gun range and the shop. The best his buddy could hope for was Luther letting him run the register at the Quick Mart, maybe making him full-time manager until Luther wanted to retire. Quinn knew Donnie wasn’t the type to find a lot of enjoyment in selling hot sausage biscuits and live bait for the rest of his life.
Donnie sat down beside him on the park bench. Quinn was hit with the sudden image of he and Donnie as much older men running the Memorial Day festivities. White hair and humped backs, looking over the better parts of their lives in the rearview. Quinn took a puff of the Liga Privada and let the smoke out, scattering out in the still air.
“You know Daddy sold the gun range to the Bundrens?” Donnie asked.
“Heard that,” Quinn said.
“They plan to build the new funeral home outside town and sell their land to some folks wanting to start up a Popeyes chicken.”
“Progress.”
“Yep.”
“Square looks good,” Donnie said. “Coffee shop and tanning salon. Candlemaker and gift shop. A new florist and three new restaurants. How’s the Golden Dragon?”
Quinn made the so-so gesture with his right hand.
“Been bunking out at Daddy’s,” Donnie said. “He kept my Airstream. I spent the last few days getting rid of the damp smell and plugging those bullet holes. Thinking about pulling it on out to where they used to have the old drive-in theater. Remember that place?”
“My dad used to take me there when he’d visit from Hollywood,” Quinn said. “When I was seven, he took me to see Malone. I remember him walking back to the projection shed and telling them to run it back and show the stunts he performed. Strange thing watching your dad blown up, set on fire, and shot at. Jason always thought the whole thing was funny as hell. A real joke.”
“Ain’t nothing funny about getting shot at.”
“Never is.”
“You ever figure that’s the reason you got into the Army?” he said. “On account of you thinking crazy was the same thing as being brave.”
“I went into the Army because my Uncle Hamp didn’t give me much choice.”
The men didn’t talk for a while, just watched the cars and trucks slowly circle the Square. A man gunned the motor on his Harley before turning off on Jericho Road on toward Highway 45. The smell of burnt oil and exhaust hanging in the air. A beat-up red truck with the windows down blasting Big & Rich. An’ this town ain’t never gonna be the same. Donnie heard it and spit his disdain onto the gazebo floor.
“Can’t wait to get me a little space,” Donnie said, turning to look at Quinn. Donnie had on worn jeans and a black Sun Records tee, blond hair grown long and shaggy. “I love my daddy, but damn, how he can snore. I can also do without the morning roust and Bible study. Luther sure has grown devout and humorless in his old age.”
Quinn nodded.
“Don’t you worry,” Donnie said. “I don’t plan to stay long. I got a little business to tend to and then plan to boogie on down the road. Maybe Florida. Maybe back to Texas. Eight years gives a man a long time to think on things.”
“That OK with your probation officer?”
“Yes, sir,” Donnie said. “She finds me charming as hell.”
“You know you can be and do anything you want, Donnie,” Quinn said, offering his hand. “Don’t let the shitbirds drag you down.”
“Don’t you worry, Sergeant.” Donnie stood up and stretched. He ground the spent cigarette under a pointy-t
oed boot and winked at Quinn. “I’m doing my dead-level best to keep on the straight and narrow. See you around.”
5
Fannie Hathcock hadn’t been sure what to do with Buster White’s body. There were plenty of ways to discard the tub of lard without it ever being seen. But she wanted something more, a shameful tribute to the former crime boss of the Gulf Coast, a disrespectful epitaph to his fetid breath, horrible hygiene, and nasty-ass legacy. She finally decided to have her boys run him on back to the Coast in four Hefty trash bags salted with lime. They tossed them into a dumpster behind an Olive Garden off I-10, not ten miles from the big casino castle he once ruled. A phone call was placed to the cops, and by the next night, Buster White’s face was all over television. There was talk of ties to organized crime and hints of a battle with a notorious family in New Jersey. The whole damn thing just tickled Fannie pink. She had the new bartender Nat fix her a third Dirty Shirley, half grenadine and half gin, and settled in for a slow night at Vienna’s Place, counting her money and enjoying the goddamn beauty of being the last bitch standing.
She plucked a cigarillo into her mouth. Nat, a beautiful green-eyed black girl with an enormous afro, reached across and lit it without being asked. Her arms long, lean, and muscular in a sleeveless red top.
“What’s on the schedule tonight?” she asked.
“Bus of frat boys coming up from State,” Nat said, chewing gum. “Might have some visitors from that family values convention up in Tupelo. You know how much those youth pastors love them some titties.”
Fannie lifted her cocktail glass in Nat’s direction. Nat was a fine new addition to the club who did not smoke or drink and declared she would never take the stage or work a back room. She could stock the bar and run the kitchen with the best of them. Her references in Memphis and New Orleans so damn good, Fannie wondered why in the hell a woman like that would want to work at a truck stop titty bar. But when she and Fannie got into the matter of salary, it made sense. Someone like Nat, no matter how good she could pour a drink, could never make coin like this at some hipster joint up in Cooper-Young.