The Broken Places

by Ace Atkins

  “You know I’ll go out hard,” he said. “You know I ain’t scared of shit.”

  “That’s the dumbest fucking thing I ever heard,” she said. “Run. Save your ass. Let’s go to Florida and eat crab claws and drink margaritas and screw till the sun comes up.”

  “You don’t get it, do you?”

  “Hell I don’t get it,” she said. “You think I enjoyed them guards listening to fucking sounds outside that couple’s house we used? You don’t think they used those security cameras to zoom in on my tits?”

  “Why didn’t you tell me Dixon kept some money back? Why? Why, goddamn it?”

  “’Cause I didn’t fucking know, Esau.”

  “OK.”

  “Are we good?”

  “Yes.”

  “Come on, Esau,” she said. “It’s over, baby. That money’s gone, and if Dixon still got it, he spent it by now. Leave it alone. If it hadn’t been for that tornado, you’d have every U.S. Marshal looking for the tallest tree in Mississippi.”

  “But they didn’t,” he said. “Ain’t nobody seeing me, baby. Town is blown apart. It’s just beautiful.”

  “Now you’re talking like a crazy man,” she said.

  “Hell,” he said. “Now you’re finally listening.”

  “What are you gonna do?”

  Esau was silent for a while, catching Dixon walking from that old trailer and heading back into the barn. He stared at the trailer where his woman and that kid had holed up. He saw rows and rows of red plastic containers filled with diesel to run those generators and stacks of hay bales by the open door of the barn.

  “Esau? Hello? What the fuck?”

  “Huh?”

  “I said, do you even know what you’re going to do?”

  “Yep.”

  “What is it? Jamey is never going to get square with you. Not now, not after all that’s happened in Jericho.”

  “No?” Esau said, licking his cracked lips and grinning. “Then maybe I’m gonna smoke his ass out.”

  Boom came into the sheriff’s office at first light, dirty as hell, holding a gallon jug of water from his prosthetic hand and wiping his face with a clean towel.

  “Woman was trapped in a pile of rubble,” he said. “I don’t know if she was more scared of dying in that mess or seeing my hook reach down for her.”

  “What’d she do?” Quinn said.

  “Took the hook.”

  Hondo rested at the edge of Quinn’s desk, full of water and biscuits after Quinn and Ophelia had found him snoozing in the barn with a couple calves. The dog rode all the way back into town in the truck bed, Quinn dropping Ophelia back at the funeral home while he continued on with search and rescue, patrolling the now-empty streets. “Power?” Boom asked.

  “Twenty percent online in the county,” Quinn said. “City may not have power for three weeks.”

  “Any more dead folks?”

  “Holding at nine,” Quinn said.

  “Kenny?”

  “With his daddy,” Quinn said. “I told him to get gone. We got most of the streets cleared; crews going to be searching through the mess for a while. He needs to rest, take care of his father.”

  “His old man ain’t never been right in the head.”

  “Nope,” Quinn said.

  “You think it’s possible for Ken Senior to get worse?”

  Quinn shook his head. Boom took a swig from the gallon jug and took a heavy seat into the chair across from Quinn. A large topographic map of the county had been spread on the wall, pins and colored threads to track cleared houses, cleared roads, and the path of the tornado. Quinn had a fresh cup of coffee on his desk and a half-eaten sausage biscuit. The other half had gone to Hondo, who rolled over on his back in sleep, back leg twitching in some kind of dog dream.

  “I’m going back to the barn,” Boom said. “Two trucks broke down last night. Both of them waiting on me.”

  “You tired?” Quinn said.

  “Nope,” he said. “You?”

  Quinn shook his head. Hondo startled himself awake and got to his feet, shaking his mottled black and gray coat, and trotted over to put his head into Quinn’s lap. Quinn scratched his ears.

  “Funny thing about PTSD,” Boom said. “This is the first time my head’s been right in a while.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Feels like my ass is on high alert for a reason,” Boom said. “Right.”

  Quinn nodded. “Feels comfortable, doesn’t it?”

  “Broke-down streets, houses all fucked up, and people walking around all bloody and crazy,” Boom said, grinning. “Shit. This is where I live.”

  Quinn toasted him with his coffee mug, the sharp gold light coming through the blinds of his office window. Boom grinned and grabbed his jug and turned to the door, Mary Alice meeting him halfway, not pleased about something. “Sheriff?” she said. “I told him you didn’t have time. But he is insisting.”

  “Who?”

  “Jamey Dixon is at the desk,” she said. “He said it’s an emergency.”

  “I heard about that fire at The River,” Quinn said. “They said it’s under control.”

  “Dixon says it’s not about the fire.”

  Boom raised his eyebrows and shook his head.

  “Great,” Quinn said.

  “You really want to see that SOB?” Mary Alice said.

  “Yep,” Quinn said. “Why the hell not? Tell the preacher to come on in. It’s not like we have other shit to do.”

  • • •

  Esau Davis had crawled out of his truck two hours earlier and made his way to the back of that big wooden church and started soaking the shit out of the timbers with diesel. Nobody saw him as he worked or as he coolly flicked his cigarette down at where the fuel had puddled in the dirt. The fuel turned to flame, zipping up onto the barn and across the wood to bring on a crisp fire and black smoke. Esau didn’t stick around to watch the show but just kept on walking with fascination toward that broke-ass trailer up on the hill, people now yelling and running for the barn. People calling for water, an extinguisher, telling all those folks inside sleeping and tired to please get the hell out. Y’all had a tornado, now here comes a fire. If Esau could pull off a flood later, he could guarantee he could fuck all them up.

  The door to the trailer was open, Jamey’s woman standing on the concrete steps, hand over her mouth. Dixon ran fast for the barn, coming within ten feet of Esau without noticing him walking toward the trailer. The woman ducked back inside, the light on in the trailer, everything dark as hell. The grass and ground still wet and soggy from the storm, mud caking on Esau’s new boots.

  Esau turned back for a moment to see that fire spreading up into the loft, crackling and feeding on the wood, folks running from the back of the barn and around the side. Women and children screamed, some poor bastard with a garden hose trying to peter it out.

  Esau was feeling no pain as he got to the stoop and peeked into the trailer, seeing the girl and the kid lying on the sofa. The woman held the child’s head in her lap, stroking his hair, taking a moment to look up and register just who was that big red son of a bitch dressed like a Mex pimp at her door. She just sat there, smoothing the child’s hair and face without a damn word to Esau. To the boy, she was saying everything was fine, Jamey was taking care of it. Everything was just fine. Just some smoke.

  “Knock, knock.”

  “What do you want?” the woman said.

  Esau smiled, pulling the .357 from his belt and motioning them outside. “Leverage,” he said.

  • • •

  “How’d you know it was Davis that took them?” Quinn asked.

  “Your Uncle Van saw him forcing them into an old truck,” Jamey said. “He yelled and tried to stop them, but Esau sped off. I followed, couldn’t find them. We called y’all but couldn’t get through. Put that fire out ourselves, even though it took off the back of the church. I know you don’t care much for me, Quinn, but I need help.”

  “Feds from Oxford are dri
ving over this morning to keep hunting for Davis,” Quinn said, grabbing the phone. “Even though they thought he’d left the state.”

  “He won’t leave,” Jamey said. “He thinks I owe him something.”

  “You want to explain your meaning?” Quinn was on his feet, coming around the desk.

  “It was a misunderstanding and doesn’t matter now,” he said. “You missing the part about your sister and nephew being taken?”

  Quinn tried to slow himself, his blood starting to heat and an all-too-familiar feeling rising up from his gut. “You missing the part where this shit happened because they were in your company? I’d whip you some more if you didn’t look like you’d already been through the ringer twice. You walk in here with your gimpy leg and wanting me to take care of this mess without you explaining? Let me ask you again.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Why is Esau Davis on your ass? What did you do to him? I know this is about a hell of a lot more than him watching your ass at Parchman.”

  Dixon shook his head, dirty and unshaven, shoulders slumped, unable to face Quinn and look him in the eye. Quinn walked toward him and punched him hard in the thigh where he’d been shot, Dixon falling onto the floor and rolling there in pain, wide-eyed and openmouthed.

  “How about we start this conversation again?” Quinn said. “Why did Esau Davis take my sister and Jason? And how am I gonna get them back?”

  Dixon gritted his teeth, rolling on his back like a turtle but smiling, truly smiling with joy up at Quinn, and nodding. “Yes,” he said. “That’s what I want. That’s what I came for. We are going to get them back. He’ll call. He’ll call me and tell me how to square it with him. Please. Help me. Just follow me and we can get them back. OK?”

  Quinn moved back to the edge of his desk and sat down. He picked up his coffee and took a puff of the last bit of a cigar. Jamey’s eyes had watered from the pain, his face flushed with blood, and he was grinding his teeth.

  “Please,” Dixon said. “We tell the Feds and Esau will kill them.”

  Quinn stood and reached down to yank Dixon to his feet, the man’s bad leg nearly giving out, Dixon holding on to a file cabinet to steady himself. He grabbed Dixon by the neck and force-marched him out of the office and through the reception area, Mary Alice and the other dispatchers staring with open mouths, and out to the Big Green Machine, tossing him in the passenger side and slamming the door.

  “Start talking,” Quinn said as he cranked the engine and turned out onto the road.

  “I told you.”

  “Start talking or I swear to Jesus I’ll drag you behind this truck till you do.”

  • • •

  “Let me explain how this situation is gonna go,” said the convict Esau Davis, driving the truck at the proper speed limit, waving nicely to the cops parked about every quarter mile. “I don’t want to hurt you or the kid. This don’t have nothing to do with you or with the boy. This is between me and Dixon, and I do sincerely apologize for involving you. I don’t usually fuck with kids or women.”

  Caddy didn’t speak. The smell of the man’s body and breath was overwhelming in the truck cab. Jason sat in her lap, her arms tight around his body. He was still and quiet, not sure exactly what was going on. Davis wore sunglasses and spoke in a calm but slurred voice, a pistol resting between his knees.

  “Just don’t give me no trouble. Don’t try to grab the wheel or yell to someone or make a scene. You know I can snatch your ass up pretty quick. Besides, folks here got a lot worse shit on their minds and won’t be out looking for you.”

  “Jamey doesn’t have your money.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong, sweet baby,” Esau said. “He’s the kind of man holding out on us all. You think that boy just love you and Jesus Christ? Lord.”

  “You just want to kill him,” she said, hating to say it in front of Jason but saying it just the same.

  “That’s not true,” Esau said. “I’m not in the wrong here. I ain’t the one who took something that didn’t belong to me, trying to profit from another man’s work.”

  “Y’all killed two men and robbed a bank truck?” Caddy said. “Something’s wrong with your brain. I know what happens to some men in prison. They drink Drano and lie with other men.”

  “How about you just shut your mouth for a while,” Esau said. “I ain’t never hit a woman, but you don’t want this little half-breed seeing my first.”

  “Anyone ever tell you that your breath smells like you’ve been licking a cat’s ass all day?”

  “Damn, you’re a hellcat,” he said. “Dixon must love that.”

  Caddy didn’t speak for a couple miles, trying to figure out just where the convict was going. After he hit the county line and doubled back, she realized he was lost, trying to stall a bit, waiting for something to happen.

  “Just what are you waiting for?”

  “A phone call.”

  “From who?” Caddy said.

  “Don’t concern yourself with that, Hellcat,” Davis said, reaching down to the floorboard and picking up a bottle of Wild Turkey. “All you got to do is sit tight and keep yours and the boy’s mouths shut. Let me think on things.”

  He took a swig of the whiskey and looked down at a cell phone. Caddy kissed the top of Jason’s head as he stared up and studied the odd man in the sunglasses driving the old truck. “Mister?” Jason said.

  Caddy held him tighter and told him to hush. Davis glanced over at the boy. The convict kept driving, snorting as he turned down a county road that cut back over the Trace. “Huh?”

  “Don’t be mad at my Uncle Quinn,” Jason said.

  “What the hell’s that boy talking about?” Davis said.

  “’Cause he gonna shoot you real bad and make you die.”

  Davis took a long swallow of whiskey, Adam’s apple bobbing up and down, and watched the blacktop unfold in his headlights. Caddy smiled.

  Quinn and Dixon drove, Dixon holding his cell phone tight, telling Quinn that Esau would call and work out the terms. But whatever happened, Dixon had to do this alone; Esau specified it.

  “How’d he specify if you didn’t even see him?” Quinn said, hitting the Square and going around it twice. The place torn all to hell, electric trucks setting up new poles, workers clearing off debris, Salvation Army serving food from a trailer where a check-cashing business used to be.

  “He left a note,” Dixon said, reaching into his jeans and handing it to Quinn. Quinn read it. It wasn’t exactly eloquent. Don’t Bring Nobody Nor the Law or I Start Shooting.

  “You believe him?” Quinn said. “Would he kill them?”

  “He’s pretty pissed off right now.”

  Quinn finally broke off the Square and headed east on Cotton Road, a line from the front door of the Piggly Wiggly out to the street. More trailers for Emergency Management and the Red Cross and a mobile command center RV from Jackson. “Why’d they come here, Dixon?”

  Jamey swallowed and nodded. Quinn switched his view from the roadside and the damage to Jamey Dixon’s messed-up face with bruises and scratches, one leg of his Levi’s cut off so he could wear pants over a thick bandage. Dixon was red-eyed and unshaven, long hair worn loose over his shoulders. He looked as if he hadn’t slept in a while. Quinn hadn’t, either.

  “Esau thinks I got some money that’s his.”

  “Do you?”

  “No.”

  “A lie only adds to this shit sandwich you made.”

  Quinn got close to the highway while Dixon studied his cell like he was willing the son of a bitch to ring. Quinn doubled back on the highway, drumming the wheel. His blood was racing, mind working over every possibility of how this could work out, but he tried to stay even and cool. You bring emotions into it, and your enemy has you beat. He needed to figure what could work on the mind of Esau Davis right now.

  “I don’t have his money.”

  “From the truck robbery.”

  “Yes, sir,” Dixon said, lapsing int
o prison mode, looking at Quinn not as a potential brother-in-law or parishioner but the guard. Quinn did not correct him.

  “Who got the money?”

  “Johnny Stagg.”

  Quinn slowed down, turning on his windshield wiper to cast off some dew. He grabbed the stub of a nice Fuente from his ashtray and punched the lighter.

  “You’re being pretty cool about this,” Jamey said. “I kind of expected you to punch me in the throat.”

  “Still could happen,” Quinn said. “But right now I need you to answer that phone and tell me where Esau wants you to meet him.”

  “I need you to take me to the bank,” Dixon said. “I need to bring him something.”

  “You think a few hundred will appease him?”

  “I got more than that,” Dixon said. “It may be enough. We got a lot of donations and such, and I don’t care what happens, as long as we get Caddy and Jason back.”

  “And you really don’t believe he won’t just drop your ass right there and then do something to Caddy and Jason? You thinking this through?”

  Dixon was quiet. Quinn drove.

  “I need to borrow a vehicle,” Jamey said. “He’s only expecting me.”

  “I’m driving us both in.”

  “You can’t do that,” Dixon said. “Didn’t you read that note?”

  “Looks like it was written by a third-grader,” Quinn said, cracking the window, letting out the smoke. He had everything he needed in the truck, the Beretta 9, the Remington 12-gauge in his rack. He could wear the 9 in an abdomen holster; everybody expected you to conceal at your back.

  “I love them,” Jamey said. “I couldn’t have known Bones and Esau would break free and come here. I would do anything in the world for Caddy. I want to marry her. We will get married. She will be all right. She and Jason.”

  “But you can’t get clean of this,” Quinn said. “I don’t know and may never know what happened between you and Adelaide Bundren. But you opened wide the gates of hell when you shook Johnny Stagg’s hand. If you do walk away from this, all of this, you better keep walking out of Jericho and Tibbehah. Understood?”

  “I love them, Quinn,” Jamey said. “They’re my family.”