by Ace Atkins
These folks were bold and arrogant. Between Nat and several other well-placed agents, they’d be locking down this shit tight as hell.
She slowed and turned off at a historical marker, a grand Indian mound where the Choctaws had buried their dead and valued treasure. There was a black government-issue sedan and an old-school blue pickup truck sitting high on big tires, a VOTE FOR COLSON sticker on the rear bumper.
Nat walked out to the viewing area under a portico to see Jon Holliday dressed in a black suit and Quinn Colson with Boom Kimbrough. She smiled at the boys club but she smiled a little longer at Boom Kimbrough. They’d had a little thing going on for a few months after the shit went down at Sutpen’s Trucking. Too bad it didn’t work out. No way she could keep a steady in the life she’d chose.
“Is this a cigar social?” she asked.
Quinn Colson held out the cigar burning in his fingers.
“Not now,” she said. “Not ever, Sheriff.”
Quinn grinned and plugged the cigar into his lips. Boom sat on the edge of a cinder-block wall. He had a cigarette in his fingers, light glowing against his handsome bearded face as he inhaled. Boom Kimbrough was big and country, quiet and good-looking, straight cool and as dependable as a badass truck. Hmm. She sometimes really missed that man.
“Figured we should all meet,” Holliday said. “Got some trouble?”
“Maybe,” Nat said. “Fannie was meeting tonight with a man I busted a few years ago. A big-ass Indian named Sam Frye. One mean motherfucker that does most of Chief Robbie’s dirty work.”
Holliday and Colson looked at each other. No one said anything for a while.
“That’s the man you mentioned,” Quinn said. “The one I couldn’t ID.”
“Yep,” Holliday said. “Probably the same one who killed Wes Taggart last year.”
“First time we’ve seen him with Hathcock?” Quinn asked.
Holliday nodded. He turned to Nat Wilkins and asked her what she wanted to do.
“Thing is, I’m not so sure he remembered me,” Nat said. “I was just one of the agents and we never went to court. He got out on bond and disappeared. We had the Marshals looking for him somewhere out in Oklahoma.”
“He’s still wanted?” Quinn said.
“Yep.”
“I’d get your ass out of there,” Boom said, tapping the ash of his cigarette on the sole of his work boot. “If this is the same son of a bitch who shot Taggart and Quinn, he won’t think twice about taking you out.”
“Then again,” Nat said, “I take off and disappear and Fannie gets nervous. She starts shutting things down, not keeping the same routine. Damn, boys. We’re so goddamn close. Let’s not fuck this party up.”
Another car rolled in from the Trace, high beams shining on the crew of them and then shutting off cold. The door opened and then slammed, boots clicking around the walkway into the viewing area to the Indian mounds. No one said a word until a woman walked into the grouping and set her hand along her hip.
“Goddamn,” Lillie Virgil said. “Why don’t you just build a fucking bonfire and let everyone know we’re here?”
Quinn again lifted the cigar, and this time U.S. Marshal Lillie Virgil accepted it and took a long pull.
“Got something for you, Lil,” Quinn Colson said.
“More than just that little skank that set your ass up?” Lillie said. “Because I got Dana Ray locked up tight in Memphis earlier today.”
“Someone y’all have been looking for,” Holliday said. “Man named Sam Frye.”
“And who the fuck is he?”
“Fits the description of the man who shot me in the back,” Quinn said.
“Big Indian.”
“Big Indian who works directly for Chief Robbie and who Nat saw with Fannie Hathcock tonight at Vienna’s Place.”
Lillie nodded. She was a tall woman, in her cowboy boots standing nearly the same height as Quinn Colson. She had on jeans and a black blouse with sleeves rolled to the elbows. A U.S. Marshal’s badge dangled from her neck and she carried a chrome-plated Sig Sauer on her hip. Lillie Virgil was known in law enforcement circles as one of the best shots in the South, a star shooter on the Ole Miss rifle team. She’d more than once embarrassed some military vets at the shooting range with her accuracy and smart-ass attitude. Nat Wilkins had worked with her before and respected her.
“OK,” Lillie Virgil said, taking another puff of Quinn’s cigar and handing it back to him. “Mean motherfuckers just happen to be my specialty.”
10
Donnie headed to Memphis the next morning, catching 78 out of Tupelo on up to Airways Boulevard and a crummy little strip mall diner called the Take Off Grill. A jet flew low overhead, the engines making a big racket, as he got out of the GTO and walked across the empty parking lot. Half of the strip mall was burned out, nothing left but the brick and busted windows, leaving the Take Off Grill as the lone tenant boasting the BEST BURGERS IN SOUTH MEMPHIS, SMOKED TURKEY LEGS, FRIED CATFISH, and the HOME OF THE HOT WING CHALLENGE. The building had wide plate-glass windows looking out onto Airways, where Donnie saw Akeem Triplett sitting in a booth along with a fat white man in a flat-billed Grizzlies cap. When he walked in and sat down, Triplett introduced the white boy as Rerun.
“Rerun?” Donnie asked. “That’s funny as hell. Remember him doing that dance on What’s Happening!!? Cracked me up every damn time.”
The fat white boy just stared across the booth at Donnie and then picked up a chicken wing drizzled in blood-red sauce and started chewing meat off the bone. Triplett looked to have on the same white satin Nike workout clothes and nice white shoes as he did when he visited Donnie in Jericho. Donnie wondered if he’d stay away from those wings. He knew Triplett probably couldn’t handle stains on that satin.
“I thought there was three of you,” Donnie said.
“Tyrell’s running late,” Akeem said. “Had some shit to do for Mr. Sledge. Big-ass funeral this morning down in Olive Branch. I got to get back for when they put that motherfucker in the ground. We got to feed something like three hundred people.”
Donnie listened and reached across for a drumstick. He’d gotten up early and hadn’t had breakfast yet. The wing wasn’t so spicy, more sweet, like that red sauce on moo shu pork. Donnie licked his fingers.
“Not bad.”
“You need to check out my big place off Hacks Cross Road,” Triplett said. “Right by the Krispy Kreme. Buffet-style dining and all that shit. Chinese soul food. Come on by anytime. I’ll set your ass up.”
“Chinese soul food?” Donnie said. “What the hell’s that?”
Triplett tilted his head and placed a toothpick in the corner of his mouth, eyes damn near serious. “Wait until you try some barbecue egg rolls, General Tso’s fried chicken, and dirty-ass rice. You’ll see what I’m talking about.”
“Your wings ain’t too bad,” Donnie said, gnawing on that damn bone. “But they ain’t got no heat. What’s up with that? You black folks like your wings sweet.”
“Oh, hell naw,” Rerun said. “I know he didn’t just say that.”
Rerun, trying to act all cool and hip like Triplett, looked more like a country fella who’d overcharge him to snake his toilet. Triplett looked at him, grinning, switching the toothpick to the opposite side of his mouth.
“You think so?” Triplett said. “You want to put some money down on that shit?”
Donnie shrugged. Triplett looked over his shoulder at an older black woman working the counter, gray haired and hump-backed, wearing a blue apron. He nodded over to her and raised a finger. Another jet flew overhead, rattling the plate-glass windows.
“You game for a little hot wing challenge?” Triplett said.
“Why the hell not?” Donnie said. “I once ate a whole fried habanero pepper at the Neshoba County Fair. Not bad going down but sure was hell coming out. Real fi
re in the hole. What do I get if I win this challenge?”
“A Take Off Grill T-shirt and a crisp hundred-dollar bill,” Triplett said. “But if you lose, you got to work this job for free.”
“This job?” Donnie said. “Shit. You still ain’t told me what the hell you want me to do.”
“What is it?” Rerun said. “You scared, Tibbehah County?”
“Just don’t seem worth the effort, Rerun,” Donnie said, looking over at the fat man, not liking his beady little black eyes and sad little soul patch on his fat chin. “But fuck it. Yeah, I’ll try some of them wings with a cold Mountain Dew on the side.”
“Nope,” Akeem said. “Nothing to drink. And you got five minutes to eat five wings.”
Donnie nodded and Rerun wiggled out of the booth and waddled on up to the counter, his big chunky blue jeans falling down below his ass crack. A few minutes later, he wandered back with five wings aligned nice and neat on a Styrofoam plate. A bright red sauce coated the wings and three pieces of celery had been set along the side. The sauce glowed like nuclear waste.
“Five in five minutes?” Donnie asked.
“Yes, sir,” Triplett said.
“And then we get down to business?”
“Depends on how you do with them wings,” Triplett said. “We looking for a wild man, goddamn country-ass crazy, to join our little all-star team.”
Triplett and Rerun smiled, watching as Donnie picked up a warm chicken wing, smelled it, put his tongue to it, and then took a small bite. Wasn’t bad at first, but then Donnie felt the heat up into his head and through his nose. Had he been a damn cartoon character, smoke would’ve come out his ears. Goddamn it all to hell. Akeem Triplett had cornholed him down deep.
“Come on, now,” Triplett said. “What’s a little ghost pepper sauce to you? Show us what you got.”
Donnie’s eyes filled with water and he took another bite.
* * *
• • •
Fannie was early for work, down from Memphis and parked crossways in the lot at Vienna’s Place, sitting in her brand-new white Lexus texting with two dancers from New Orleans she wanted to bring up for a special show. They did an act with whips and chains and a bucket of canola oil that was within an inch or two of breaking five different laws in all fifty states. But she put down her phone when she spotted the car pull in behind her, some kind of sporty little silver coupe, the kind of thing that a frat boy from Jackson like Bentley Vandeven would choose to drive. She unlocked her doors and waited for the lumbering boy to crawl inside and try to stretch out his long legs, all khaki and polo, sporty tan brown loafers and a shaggy-ass haircut.
“Buttons on the side, baby,” Fannie said. “Go on and get comfortable. Me and you got some talking to do.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Bentley said, falling in line with his infuriating Southern manners and bullshit. She recalled a time when he’d come up from Jackson and put his feet up on her furniture, trying to get her to play by those old rules they had for Johnny Stagg. She let those nameless, faceless fuckwads from the cigar bars and steakhouses know she was her own woman, thank you very much. Back then, she had Buster White’s fat ass to back her up.
“Don’t call me ma’am,” she said. “Ever. Ever. Do I look like your goddamn momma?”
“No, ma’am,” he said. “Not at all.”
“I hope your momma is a hell of a lot older than Miss Fannie,” she said. “Unless she was some kind of damn Mississippi child bride.”
“No, ma’am,” Bentley said. “She’s regular age. She had me a few years out of Ole Miss. I have a little sister and a brother, too. He’s older. Lives over in Atlanta.”
“Bentley?”
“Yes, ma’am?”
“Do I look like I give two fucks?”
“No, ma’am.”
“And again, please stop with the Blue and the Gray Southern fried manners shit,” she said. “You learn that up at Ole Miss? Damn it. What the hell?”
Bentley didn’t answer and swallowed. He looked down and checked his phone and then back at his sporty little car. “Should we really be sitting here out in the open? What if someone found out how it all worked?”
“You ever been blindsided in Tibbehah?” she asked.
Bentley started to say Yes, ma’am but then just shook his head.
“That’s right, baby,” Fannie said, reaching down and squeezing Bentley’s khaki-covered knee. “That’s because you’re in my county. Nothing’s gonna go wrong right here. Safe as in your momma’s lap. You pull into the truck wash when I say, open your goddamn trunk, and Midnight Man will fill you up. Your daddy and all his good ole boys can uncork that fine old scotch and jerk each other off, the money train is coming southbound and down.”
Bentley nodded, looking a lot skinnier and more ragged than when she saw him last. His face was sallow and sweaty, more pockmarked with acne. Blondish stubble lined his jaw where he’d missed a few spots shaving. That crazy-ass woman Caddy Colson sure did do a number on this kid. He looked as if his head was all kinds of fucked up.
“You look like you need some company,” Fannie said. “Want me to send you down the highway with a smile? Got this new girl from Guadalajara who can tongue tie a love knot with baling wire.”
“No thank you,” Bentley said.
“You do realize that Colson girl wasn’t worth your time,” she said. “She’s crazy with Jesus. Have a girl working for me now who says that woman would sometimes talk to her dead boyfriend, that convict preacher Jamey Dixon, just as if he was standing right there with her.”
“My personal life is none of your concern,” Bentley said. “And I’d rather you not talk about Caddy.”
Silence hung around for a good long while, so long that Fannie wanted to see just how long it might go on. She looked down at her cell again, those two girls from NOLA naming their price, skills, and availability. Somehow they needed extra for some midget woman they’d met while on tour. Fannie cut them down by a thousand and waited for them to reply. She lifted her eyes up at Bentley, his hands tucked in his lap and his head down.
“Go ahead,” Fannie said. “What’s on your mind, Bentley Vandeven?”
“My daddy needs a favor.”
Fannie looked in her rearview and saw a Tibbehah County patrol car glide past, the deputy behind the wheel giving her a salute. Bentley didn’t speak until the patrol car hit the gas and sped out of the lot.
“Damn, that was close,” he said.
“Nope,” she said. “Not even a little.”
Bentley took a deep breath. “There’s some man named Hector Herrera up here. Do you know him?”
“Nope,” she said. “Should I?”
“Herrera is causing us a whole mess of trouble,” he said. “Daddy’s damn near to having his fourth heart attack.”
“OK, baby,” she said. “Tell Miss Fannie all about it.”
* * *
• • •
Boom was right, Sutpen’s Trucking was back in business. The chain-link fence that had closed off the property had been removed, workers roamed the loading dock, and eighteen-wheelers came and went from an entrance that had been padlocked for nearly two years. Quinn sat behind the wheel of Boom’s ancient Ford in the shadow of one of the dozens of warehouses in the Tupelo Industrial Park north of Tibbehah and straight off Highway 45. He’d been there since sunup watching the action with field glasses and noting the license tag numbers when he could. He took a few breaks over at a truck stop a half klick away. He drank black coffee from a metal thermos and ate cold sausage biscuits wrapped in tinfoil. As the day grew longer, he fired up a cigar, far enough away that no one would notice the smoke streaming from a window.
The waiting was easy. He’d more than a few times had to nestle himself among the boulders in Afghanistan without eating or taking a leak. You had to go and you had to do it right there
and then in your fatigues or risk getting exposed and having a shitstorm fall upon your unit. The damn hard part now was the pain in his lower back that felt like needles shooting into his spine every time he stood up and tried to move. It had been a little more than ten months since the shooting. Two surgeries and a long time with rehab, getting back on his feet, healing up after being shot in the stomach, spleen, and lungs. The shooter had missed Quinn’s heart by less than a quarter-inch.
Sometime after ten, he got out of the truck and noted a lot of commotion up on the Sutpen’s loading dock, five or six men moving large boxes into the rear of a full-size trailer. For a moment, he thought maybe they hadn’t changed the signs and that this warehouse was under new and legal management. He’d wait for the rig to pull out and note the tag anyway, hoping to head on back to Tibbehah and meet up with Lillie Virgil as promised.
Quinn tapped the ash of the cigar against the doorframe and reached for his field glasses. A nice pair made by Steiner, even better than the pair he’d carried with him overseas. What caught his attention most were two men who stood off from the loading dock and seemed to be engaged in some kind of argument. There appeared to be a lot of yelling and gesturing between a skinny little fella who had his back to Quinn and a muscular older guy with a gray goatee and a shaved head. The skinny fella had on a straw cowboy hat and jumped down from the dock onto the asphalt, marching his way to the truck cab.
Quinn couldn’t be sure until the man moved from the shadow out into the sunlight, but then he knew Sutpen’s was really back in business. He watched as Curtis Creekmore, infamous north Mississippi fence, crawled up into the Peterbilt. Quinn shook his head and tried calling Boom, not getting an answer.