by Ace Atkins
Until then, Miss Fannie was shutting down for a short while.
So long, big-ass chicken fried steak. So long, ponytailed truckers with halitosis. So long to ice cold cocktails on that vintage bar and the whir of the money counter. Damn, it’s been a grand old time.
Fannie Hathcock took one last look around at the little islands with the brass poles and the catwalk in the rafters where she could view all the house action and then turned off the lights.
* * *
• • •
Quinn and Holliday hit the sheriff’s office right at 20:00, getting intel that both Brock Tanner and three of his deputies were still inside. They’d rush the dispatch and the deputy meeting room while a team of four would secure the jail guards and the exits in case any of the men made a run for it.
They found Mitchell Danbury first. The chief deputy was seated at the SO conference table parceling out a bucket of chicken and cold biscuits from KFC to other men who’d been special hires by Brock Tanner. Tanner and Danbury had been buddies in the Army, Tanner bringing him up to Tibbehah after Danbury got fired in Louisiana.
Danbury didn’t show much. He set down the box of chicken and raised his hands, his right still holding a drumstick, as he muttered, “Goddamn son of a bitch.”
The front of his Tibbehah County uniform was dirty and stained with grease, his pockmarked face downturned and dark. Holliday ordered Danbury and the other deputies to lie down on their stomachs and he and Quinn worked to disarm them and zip-tie their hands behind their backs.
“You want to tell me what the fuck’s going on?” Danbury said, face flush to the linoleum floor.
“You boys are being charged with accessory to murder,” Holliday said.
“Murder?” Danbury said. “Whose fucking murder?”
“Hector Herrera,” Holliday said.
“You Fed boys are goddamn crazy,” Danbury said. “Been that way since Hoover tried on his first set of pantyhose.”
Holliday placed a foot on Danbury’s shoulder blades and told him to shut his mouth.
Quinn headed out back into the hall, passing the empty, unmanned dispatch station as he walked back to his old office, the door slightly ajar. He could just make out the profile of Brock Tanner rushing away from his desk and buckling on his gun belt. Just as he hit the doorway, Quinn elbowed him hard in the throat, sending Tanner reeling backward, holding his neck.
Tanner reached for his gun and Quinn knocked his hand away. He head-butted Tanner, knocking him down on his ass. Quinn lifted the Remington pump onto his shoulder.
“We knew y’all were coming,” Tanner said, wiping the blood from his nose.
“Glad to see you prepared.”
Quinn reached down and pulled the Glock from Tanner’s holster, tucking it inside his belt.
“This is a joke,” Tanner said. “Your ass will be in prison and those Feds will be out of their goddamn jobs.”
“Is that a fact?”
Holliday and another agent from the Memphis office walked into the room. Holliday reached onto the desk and tossed a box of Kleenex to Tanner. “Got a little something on your face.”
“This is nothing but a damn witch hunt,” he said. “A big ole nothing burger of lies.”
“Talk to your boss, Vardaman,” Holliday said. “He’s the one who sold your ass out.”
“Bullshit.”
“I’d tell you more,” Holliday said. “But I’d hate to spoil the surprise. Y’all will hear it all at your first appearance.”
“Hear it all?” Tanner said. “What the hell are you boys talking about?”
Tanner pushed himself up by his elbows, ripping Kleenex from his box and mopping at his face. Tanner’s face, which always looked perpetually dirty from a five o’clock shadow, was a mess of blood flowing from his nose and smeared across his jaw.
Quinn looked around the office, the walls bare and blank, his framed American flag off the wall and hidden in a dusty corner, a side window open with a box fan whirring away the August heat. The desk was a mess of files and papers, Styrofoam cups and empty cartons of half-eaten food.
Holliday reached down and ripped the silver star from Tanner’s sunken chest. He tossed it over and Quinn snatched it in midair.
The weight of it felt right in the palm of his left hand. Quinn nodded.
“Sheriff,” Holliday said. “Please secure these prisoners for transport back to Oxford.”
* * *
• • •
At that same moment, Lillie and her partner Charlie Hodge burst into Vienna’s Place carrying guns and wearing their black U.S. Marshals vests. Lillie yelling up at the DJ playing a goddamn Post Malone song to please shut the fuck up.
“I hate Post Malone,” Lillie said.
Charlie Hodge, slim and gray-haired, looked over at her and shrugged.
“You don’t have a fucking clue what I’m talking about.”
“Can’t say I do, Lil,” he said. “Last time I was in a joint like this they were playing Boots Randolph.”
The big room had gone wonderfully silent, the women onstage just standing there dazed, not sure whether to drop down and gather up all those crinkled dollar bills or put their hands up. Lillie reminded them to stand still as two teams from the DEA gathered up all the patrons, twenty or so fine gentlemen, to line up against the far wall.
One of the agents, a black man with a bleached blond afro named Horatio Jones, was talking to the bartender and pointing up to the darkened crow’s nest. The woman shook her head.
“Where is she?” Lillie said.
“Says Fannie hasn’t been in all night,” Jones said.
“Check it out,” Lillie said. “Look behind the bar and under the sofas in that VIP jerk parlor back there, too. She’s around. No way that woman crawls out of Tibbehah County.”
Lillie took the spiral staircase up to the catwalk, holding her flashlight under the chrome Sig Sauer she had in her right hand. She walked slowly into Fannie’s office, checking over the big glass desk, coffee table, and bright purple chairs. In one corner of the room, a big, old-fashioned safe sat open and empty.
Someone hit the overhead lights and she turned to see Charlie Hodge leaning in the doorway. “Just how did she know we were coming?” he said. “Girls working to code, too. Topless with those little G-strings on. Everyone nice and cooperative as a church social.”
“Where’s Midnight Man?”
“They got him over at the Rebel,” Charlie said. “Want to head on over?”
Midnight Man was working the giant brick barbecue pit inside the restaurant. He had on sloppy big black pants, an XXXL white T, and an apron coated in blackened streaks and red sauce. His face was sweating, eyes bloodshot from the smoke, and looked to be genuinely surprised some federal agents had come to ask him a few questions.
“Where the fuck is Fannie?” Lillie said.
“Don’t know,” he said in a croaked, soft whisper. “Y’all try the bar?”
“Yeah, we tried the fucking bar, Midnight Man,” Lillie said, leaning against a stainless steel table with pork half-pulled in aluminum containers.
“Don’t know what to tell you, Deputy Virgil.”
Lillie held out the badge that hung from around her neck, clearly stating she was a U.S. Marshal. Damn.
Lillie shook her head, reached out for a slab of pork and tasted it. Lots of bad things you could say about Midnight Man, mainly the company he kept, but no one would ever complain about his barbecue. Half the town had mourned when he’d stopped working the pit regular to work security for the titty bar.
“We’re looking for Fannie and a woman named Nat who worked over at Vienna’s,” Lillie said. “You know Nat?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You know where Fannie took her?”
He slowly turned his big head, left and right. He st
ood silent as the meat sizzled on the grill, spitting and popping, smoke getting sucked up into the vent.
“You remember when we busted Johnny Stagg’s ass?” Lillie asked.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And do you recall how your ass didn’t get thrown in jail with him?”
Midnight Man stared, his giant eyes watering as he lifted up his apron to wipe them dry.
“You’re a smart man,” she said. “The more you help, the less time you’ll get.”
Midnight Man didn’t react. He just stared, flat-footed and dead-eyed in the restaurant at the Rebel. “Where you think?” he said in a croak. “Y’all do realize that woman has her own goddamn airplane.”
“Is that where she has Nat?”
Midnight Man didn’t answer.
“Come on now, Midnight Man,” Lillie said. “Ain’t no good barbecue in prison.”
“Why you asking me a question that you already know the answer?”
“She’s dead,” Lillie said, a damn rock in her throat. “Right?”
Midnight Man just stared back at her, his eyes flat and lifeless. “Miss Hathcock the meanest got-damn woman I ever met in my life.”
27
Fannie was a half mile from the old airfield when she spotted the flashing lights and the roadblock. Cresting the hill and taking that curve at seventy, it was too late to U-turn and head back to town. She slowed, catching herself in a line with five other cars and trucks, waiting her time, trying to keep calm as she felt like her heart was about to jump out of her chest. She pulled the trucker cap down in her eyes and knotted her hair into a ponytail. Moving up inch by inch, a few more car lengths until some asshole from the highway patrol shined a goddamn flashlight in her face.
“Oh, Lord,” Fannie said. “What’s going on?”
“License, please.” The trooper was big and white with a square jaw and a head like a cinder block.
Fannie reached into her Birkin bag and gave him the ID from one of her dancers, a nice-looking young woman from Baton Rouge named Debbi Dupont who danced under the name Aquamarine. She had red hair and gorgeous green eyes and the biggest set of natural tits Fannie had seen since she herself had turned eighteen.
“Where you headed, Miss Dupont?”
Fannie tapped at the wheel of the Chevy, staring out behind the MHP cars, the burning flares and the shadowed purple hills in the distance. A damn half mile away.
“Church,” she said.
The patrolman eyed her, looking her up and down, the black bra up under her tank top on regal display. She glanced down at her large freckled titties and then lifted her eyes up at the patrolman. She softened her smile and gave a dumb little shrug.
He stared at her a long moment, licking his lower lip, and then handed back her driver’s license. “Y’all have church this late at night?”
“We have church every night, baby,” Fannie said.
“Y’all must be some real holy rollers.”
Fannie turned her head and under her breath said, “Bet your fucking ass.”
The patrolman’s jaw hung open for a moment and then he motioned his flashlight to the highway back behind her. “Road’s closed, ma’am,” he said. “You’re gonna have to double back and find another route to that prayer meeting.”
* * *
• • •
By the time Quinn and Holliday made it out to the airfield, the Feds and their SWAT team had cleared all the buildings and arrested fifteen of Fannie’s most trusted employees, including Carl Byrd, who looked to have returned to fine form, chopping up eighteen-wheelers and reselling the parts. The Feds had gathered Fannie’s people into one of the old Quonset huts to interview them before sending them to the jail for processing.
Quinn wore his Tibbehah County Sheriff’s cap, the silver star pinned to his plain khaki shirt. He had his Beretta clipped to his belt, Remington pump in his right hand.
“No Fannie,” Holliday said, walking back from where he’d been speaking to an older black woman in an FBI vest. “No Nat.”
“Could she have already flown out?” Quinn asked.
“Nope,” Holliday said. “We’ve been watching this field since sunup. Nothing has come in or out.”
“Someone tipped her.”
“Lots of folks loyal to Vardaman in Oxford,” Holliday said. “They knew something was up as soon as we brought in the Watchmen.”
“Lillie said one of Fannie’s people said Nat’s dead.”
“Midnight Man?”
Quinn nodded.
“He would know,” Holliday said. “Right there walking behind Johnny Stagg and Fannie. That ole boy is a survivor. Right now, he’s got nothing to lose.”
Quinn didn’t say anything, and Holliday got quiet. Holliday had put Nat on point and dead center of the action, the same spot he’d been in years before when he became Johnny Stagg’s right-hand man to bring him down. Nat was a tough woman who’d personally busted apart the whole Pritchard Brothers dope empire, but the big prize was always the Syndicate. She put herself up front to take on Fannie. The thought of what happened to her made Quinn feel uneasy, wishing he’d been doing something besides just recon with Boom up in the hills. Boom. Damn. He’d have to tell him.
“If we can’t find her,” Holliday said, “maybe I’ll leave you alone with Brock Tanner at the jail.”
Quinn thought about it. The woods around the airfield dark and endless, no moon out tonight. “Then I’d be just like him,” Quinn said. “That’s something I’d like to avoid.”
“I hear you,” Holliday said. “And with those ears, Tanner probably heard you, too.”
“Honor and duty,” Quinn said.
“Those without it are always the loudest.”
Quinn nodded, walking out to the edge of the gravel road, staring at the runway, which was freshly paved, small lights blinking red and blue. He recalled being out here several years ago, trying to catch an escaped convict named Esau Davis. Davis came after Caddy’s boyfriend Jamey Dixon on account of some stolen loot Dixon had used to start his church, The River, now burned up and gone. He could still see Dixon’s head exploding in a pink mist and hear his sister’s screams. Quinn wished they would bulldoze this whole damn place, let it return to nature.
As Quinn and Holliday headed back up to the Quonset huts, one of the agents called them over to the hut farthest from the road. Quinn had already been in and out of three of them, marveling on how Fannie had expanded her operation over the last few years. The warehouses were lined floor to ceiling with stolen electronics and truck parts, commercial grade tools, and even workout equipment. One of the huts contained countless classic cars and trucks, a collection that might’ve rivaled the old Tupelo Auto Museum.
Quinn followed Holliday and the agent inside the hut and saw two semis, four dually trucks, three Dodges and a Ford, and a dirty, but new, white Lexus. Holliday, careful not to touch the car, leaned through an open window and looked inside.
The floor was oil-stained and dirty, one of the semi’s engines out on a massive workbench in several pieces. Holliday looked over to Quinn and pointed inside the Lexus. Quinn saw what Holliday had found. The gray leather backseats were coated in blood, the headrest a damn mess.
Holliday borrowed Quinn’s flashlight and shone it into the open window. Caught in the sticky mess on the leather, looked to be human skin and a clump of black curly hair.
Quinn felt all the air leave his body.
He walked out of the Quonset hut to catch a breath. The air was humid and thick, frogs making a racket down in a nearby creek. He stayed there for a long moment looking out at the blue blinking lights on the airfield. What had that woman done?
As he gritted his teeth and turned back to the gathering of Feds, his cell vibrated in his pocket. Message from Maggie. She’s coming early. Headed to Tupelo with your momma.
* * *
• • •
Lillie was with Reggie Caruthers now, just like the old days when they were both working for Quinn at the sheriff’s office. Reggie had met her out at Fannie’s new lake house, a big, sprawling compound of river rock and cypress, an outdoor fireplace large enough to park a Buick. Reggie had gone ahead inside with two folks from the DEA as Lillie finished a phone conversation with Charlie Hodge, who’d met Quinn and Holliday at the airfield.
Nothing. Nada. That woman had pulled an Elvis Presley and left the fucking building. They had roadblocks on every major highway in and out of town, the Rebel and Vienna’s Place shut down, and now it looked like not hide nor red hair of that bitch could be found out on Choctaw Lake. Lillie had to admire the damn balls on Fannie, opening up her own high-end pussy palace for the sleaziest and neediest turds in the South. A private club for old men hopped up on Viagra and bourbon, horny enough to hump the shit out of the old Confederate statue at Ole Miss.
“Hadn’t been inside before,” Reggie said, walking up, shotgun thrown over his shoulder. “Nice place. Wonder what all that cost her? The land, shipping in all that stone from up North? Shame it’s all going to be owned by the government now.”
“Yeah,” Lillie said. “I just might start to cry. What a fucking loss for the entire community.”
“You think she’s long gone?”
“Yep.”
Reggie nodded. He was still in good shape, short and compact and strong. He looked sharp in his fitted tan uniform and silver star on his chest. She’d trained him from the start, after Quinn had been beaten by an insurance salesman in an election a few years back. She’d taught Reggie the difference in law enforcement and the Army, just as she’d done for Quinn Colson ten years ago.
“But if she was still around,” Lillie said. “And spooked.”
“I heard Fannie might’ve had a few safe houses in the county,” Reggie said. “Don’t know where. Place I saw her car parked most was over at the Golden Cherry. I told Brock Tanner about her webcam girls over there but he never paid me no mind.”