by Ace Atkins
“I’m starting to get the idea.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?’
“I wasn’t sure,” Quinn said. “And I didn’t know if I could trust you.”
“Well, you’re in it now,” Dinah said. “I think I know where to find this woman.”
“OK.”
“Want to come along?”
“How about Hondo?”
“Not unless he speaks Spanish, too.”
38
THE CARNIVAL HAD SET DOWN IN SOUTHAVEN, MISSISSIPPI, JUST OVER the Tennessee border and right outside a big Harley-Davidson dealership and civic center that mostly hosted monster truck and livestock shows. The tractor trailers had unloaded the rides and games, and workers in bright yellow ponchos scrambled to put the massive parts together, fixing lights and unrolling canopies, shimmying up big metal arms and crawling up and down ladders. The parking lot was filled end to end with RVs and trailers, a small army setting up to bring the mid-south fair to north Mississippi Wednesday Night Through Saturday Only.
Quinn sat beside Dinah in her car. The rain had stopped, and the carnies seemed to be busting their asses to make sure they opened up as planned. He noted a lot of tough wiry old rednecks working as carnies, but a lot of Hispanics, too. One trailer featured the talents of the fearless flores family, a set of motocross bikes parked in front. “What’d you say her real name was?” Quinn asked.
“Laura Zuniga,” Dinah said. “If you saw her, you wouldn’t forget it. She was some kind of Miss Rodeo beauty queen in Texas before getting mixed up in this mess.”
“And how will I know Alejandro?”
“Hard to miss a guy who has tattooed numbers and symbols all over his head.”
“I’ll try and be alert.”
Quinn stretched his legs and checked the time on his watch. Dinah stared straight ahead as the midway took shape.
“Just how stupid is your pal Donnie?” Dinah said. “Why would anyone want to get involved with an outfit like this?”
“Donnie kind of has a knack for bad choices,” he said. “I used to get myself in just as much shit, but was caught less frequently.”
“Would you ever sell U.S. Army weapons to a Mexican drug cartel?”
“Maybe he’s doing it for the girl,” Quinn said. “Donnie one time broke into a rich man’s hunting lodge and said it was his, all to impress some girl from Memphis.”
“He should know, then, that this girl’s boyfriend and Alejandro’s boss goes by the name of Tony the Tiger. This guy operates one of the biggest cells down on the Gulf Coast.”
“Donnie won’t care.”
“When the Tiger was down in Mexico, bands wrote corridas about him. You know, like folk songs about old bandits? One group wrote this song about his sexual prowess and how his enemies would die in a rain of bullets or something.”
“Love to hear that.”
“It sounds much better in Spanish.”
“Donnie’s mother died when he was young, and his daddy let Donnie do whatever in the hell he wanted. He couldn’t cross Luther or anything, but it was like he was told to be a man from the time he was born. I think that kind of rearing can work or make a kid reckless.”
“How about you?”
“Same.”
“Reckless how?”
“Just stupid shit,” Quinn said. “Adding liquor to the punch at a church picnic, stealing a couple goats and leaving them in a teacher’s car. One time, Donnie and I stole a change machine from the coin Laundromat. Chickenshit stuff.”
“And you didn’t get caught?”
“Hell yes, I got caught. But Donnie got it tough from his daddy. Luther never had much of a sense of humor.”
“I think I like this Quinn Colson,” Dinah said, a big grin on her freckled face. “I thought you always had your boots spit-and-polished and jeans ironed with a crease.”
“If my uncle hadn’t led me into the Army and the Rangers, I might be running things right along with Donnie.”
The door opened to the trailer of the Fearless Flores Family, and a young woman walked out dressed in a leather jacket and pants. She checked over one of the motocross bikes, straddled it, and gunned the motor, peeling out through the maze of trailers. A beaten old man wandered through the cars and trailers, carrying big clear plastic bags stuffed with pink-and-blue cotton candy. A younger man pushed a rolling cart filled with balloon toys of Dora the Explorer and SpongeBob.
“How’d you know Laura would be here?”
“We know her through Alejandro,” Dinah said. “That’s his trailer right there.”
She pointed at a small camper hooked up to the back of a red dually Chevy. Even though it had quit raining, the windshield was flecked with water drops. They’d been watching the carnival for the last hour.
Quinn leaned up toward the windshield. The door to Alejandro’s trailer opened, and a very beautiful black-haired woman walked out. She walked up to a large Mexican man and spoke to him for a long while and then moved away and answered a cell phone, looking out into the parking lot and passing right by the window where Dinah and Quinn sat.
“She know you?” Quinn asked.
Dinah shook her head.
“Well, that’s her,” Quinn said. “That’s the woman Donnie called Luz.”
“What exactly did he say when you asked him about her?”
“He said he’d just picked her up, tried to get into her pants, and she left.”
“You country boys are such charmers.”
Dinah got out from the driver’s side and walked out into the sideshow. “Stick tight. I want to get a look up close.”
DONNIE WATCHED LUZ walk all the way from the civic center lot to where he’d parked at the Harley dealership. He leaned against his Tundra and smoked, tired from the drive up to Memphis that morning and hoping all this would come together. He didn’t care to drive all this way again for nothing. It was more than a hundred miles to Memphis and another hundred back home.
“Why are you here?” Luz asked.
“Well, hello, doll,” Donnie said. “This your last stop, right? Ain’t it?”
“After this, we leave for Texas.”
“Without guns?”
“That’s all finished,” Luz said.
“Didn’t you want to say good-bye?”
Luz shrugged and tried to walk away. Donnie grabbed her by the arm and pulled her toward him. “I don’t need any more money. Go ahead and try to find you some M4s down at the El Paso Walmart.”
“Be quiet,” Luz said. “Let go of my arm.”
She twisted away, Donnie’s hand still on her but his grip loosening. A girl on a motorcycle rode right past his face and then zipped around a curve, doubling back, and came up behind Luz. Donnie felt for the .38 at his back, but she gunned her motor and took off into the civic center lot.
“Friend of yours?”
“She and her brother do high-wire stunts, ride motorcycles in circles in a big round cage. She will jump through a flame. I’ve never met anyone like her. I admire her.”
Donnie smiled and said, “Maybe you’re just attracted to crazy people.”
Luz looked around the wet parking lot, her eyes settling back on Donnie, not so much as cracking a grin. “So, what do you want?”
“Y’all want the same deal? It’s there.”
“Still?”
“Yep.”
“I will talk to Alejandro,” Luz said. “It’s not for me to decide.”
“Let’s go see him right now. I ain’t driving all the way back to Tibbehah without knowing what y’all want.”
“He’s not here.”
“OK,” Donnie said. “I’ll wait.”
“You are crazy,” Luz said. “He blames you for what happened at that farm. Six of his men are dead. Don’t you understand what he does?”
“Condolences,” Donnie said, cupping his hand to the wind and lighting up a smoke. “Call him. Tell him I’m ready to deal. Same deal one more time. If he doesn’t want it, then adios to
all y’all.”
“It’s not the same as before.”
“If you don’t call him, how ’bout I march right on into the carnival and ask around?” Donnie said, blowing smoke sideways out of his mouth.
“You’d make trouble because you are mad at me? You want to show me that this is all about the guns.”
“Hell, it was fun. We both got what we wanted.”
“So I’m like a carnival ride?”
“I didn’t say I got gypped or nothing.”
“Such a fool.”
“Bible says never to call a man a fool,” Donnie said. “Jesus said it was a one-way ticket to hell.”
“Only if it is not justified,” Luz said. “The self-righteous are always fools.”
“Call that freak show and let me know the deal,” Donnie said. “This is all business. Let’s not take a detour over to Bullshit City.”
Luz looked him over as things clicked around in her head. She finally nodded and said: “Where?”
“There’s a Huddle House two exits south,” Donnie said. “You know where I’m talking about? I’ll keep my phone on.”
Luz nodded.
DINAH CLIMBED BACK IN the car and wheeled out of the lot, windshield wipers clearing off drops of rain.
“What did you see?” Quinn asked.
“Your buddy and Laura Zuniga having a heart-to-heart.”
“Did they leave together?”
“Nope,” Dinah said, reaching for her cell phone, looking at the screen and setting it down. “He headed back to the interstate, and she walked back into the carnival. I don’t know what they were talking about, but Laura didn’t look happy.”
“Now what?”
“Well, I guess I need to take you back to Jericho.”
“Can you stay the night?” Quinn asked as she curved onto Interstate 55 South. “I’ll send Hondo outside. I’ll cook you breakfast. We can head out and pick up Donnie in the morning.”
“Too late for that.”
“How’s that?”
“Expect to meet a few more agents in the coming days,” Dinah said, taking the car to up toward ninety. “This was fun, Quinn. But we’re going to have to cool it for a while.”
“Y’all are going to set up some wiretap, surveillance, and the whole show on Donnie?” Quinn said.
“I’m sorry about your friend,” Dinah said. “But gunrunning over several states and a national border isn’t a local problem. You should’ve known that.”
“Yeah,” Quinn said, studying the passing countryside and occasional roadside exit. “But Donnie Varner definitely is.”
Dinah turned to him, briefly.
“God help him,” Quinn said.
39
DONNIE WAS ON HIS FOURTH CUP OF COFFEE WHEN HE SPOTTED Alejandro’s big red dually pull into the Huddle House parking lot. For some reason he hadn’t noticed the airbrush detail on the pickup gate: Jesus, Our Lady of Guadalupe, and a busty woman all stood by a golden-haloed pickup. Dear Lord and Holy Mother, please pray for my transmission. Donnie laid down some cash and walked around the side of the Huddle House, plenty of truckers cutting into their steak and eggs and peering out the window to keep Donnie safe. Another truck pulled in right beside Alejandro, and a couple more hombres piled out of the beaten Ford with its exhaust hanging by some baling wire. Donnie waited for everyone to get out and settled, the walkway on the side of the restaurant and over to where Alejandro stood with his elbow cocked on the gate, maybe fifteen feet. Alejandro saw him but didn’t acknowledge it.
Donnie walked halfway and nodded to Alejandro.
Just about the time he thought this mess was a dang waste of time, Alejandro motioned him forward with one hand. The kid shooter was with him, way the hell out in some dead-weed field, staring out at traffic.
Donnie looked back to the big wall of windows and the truckers jawing or picking gristle from their teeth. He took a breath and took the steps toward them, walking confident on shaky legs.
“Buenas noches,” Donnie said. He grinned, all cool and easy, and nodded to the big thick men. “Can I interest y’all in some country-fried steak?”
Alejandro looked to his men. One of the beefy guys with the Wyatt Earp mustache relayed something in Spanish to Alejandro. Alejandro set on Donnie with those dead black eyes and nodded.
“So, we got a deal or not?” Donnie said. “Don’t mean two shits to me.”
Donnie took another long breath, scratched the back of his neck, and fired up a smoke.
The kid shooter walked back from the field and spoke to Alejandro. Alejandro jawed something back to him and studied Donnie some more. Donnie figured they were doing some serious thinking about how to make this work one more time. The traffic flowed steady way out on the overpass, red and white lights blurry far out in the distance. Donnie knew it’d be a good two hours home.
Donnie smiled at Alejandro and offered his hand to secure the deal.
Alejandro looked at it and then cut his eyes at the two men.
The kid whipped out a little .38 with a two-inch barrel and jabbed it into Donnie’s stomach while the big men snatched his ass up off the pavement and tossed him into the backseat of that old Ford. The kid took Donnie’s gun, and a heavy one sat on his legs and covered his mouth, a gun jabbed down hard into his ear.
They played that Mexican polka music for a long while, not speaking once, till he felt the road go all bumpy under him. That’s when Donnie decided maybe he should’ve thought this whole thing out before driving out of Tibbehah that morning.
DINAH WAITED FOR QUINN to check in at the sheriff’s office and then drive back to the farm. She was sitting with Hondo when he walked into the kitchen. He’d brought a couple blue plate specials from the Fillin’ Station diner for supper, fried chicken, greens, and black-eyed peas with corn bread. She’d made some coffee, and said she needed to drive back tonight. All were anxious to get going on Donnie Varner bright and early.
“So we cool it,” Quinn said after they finished dinner and he walked her to the door.
“We don’t have a choice.”
“And you’re going to drive back tonight?” he asked, leaning in.
Dinah nodded.
He tucked her hair behind her ear and ran his thumb down her jaw to her chin. She looked down, and he lifted her chin up to him. He wrapped one arm around her and moved his mouth to her ear. “You have to leave right yet?”
She nodded.
He began to unbutton her blouse, pushed her backward, and walked her into his bedroom. She didn’t speak, only leaned back into the bed as he undressed her, holding on to the metal headboard, twisting out of her clothes, porch lights bleeding through curtains and across her pale skin. Lips parted and eyes closed, she wore only lace panties and a very thin silver necklace.
Quinn took off his shirt just as Dinah stretched her body with a long breath, tugging at the headboard, and said, “Damn you.”
DONNIE NEVER FIGURED digging his own grave would be any church picnic. And he’d figured just about right. Alejandro’s boys had driven him to the one section of Mississippi or Tennessee or Arkansas that he hadn’t seen and kicked him out into a forest. Alejandro threw him a shovel as one of the big men went to the back of their truck and returned with a sack of lime. When Alejandro pointed his own gun at Donnie, Donnie didn’t need a diagram. He started digging way out on some no-name road, out in the Booger Woods.
The boys watched him as he worked, leaning against their pickups and smoking cigarettes. The headlights on both trucks shined through Donnie and deep into the woods. At one point, Alejandro told a joke that really tickled them all, and that was about all Donnie could take. He stopped digging, placing the shovel handle under his chin in the now knee-deep mud, and said, “Alejandro, what’s it like to be so damn ugly? You know, even a stray dog wouldn’t want to fuck you.”
Alejandro looked to one of the big men, who translated: “Incluso un perro callejero no te jóde.”
Alejandro didn’t think it was all
that funny. He pointed his gun at Donnie and fired off a couple rounds into the hole. Donnie shrugged and asked for a cigarette. That didn’t seem to need any translation in the dark, and Alejandro pulled a pack from his shirt pocket and bent down to light it for him. Donnie guessed this was one of those crazy Mexican respect things. You can shoot a man in a grave he dug, but you shouldn’t deny him a damn smoke.
The night was cold, a lot colder than it had been all year, and when they’d stripped Donnie of his weapon, they’d also taken his coat. He felt like his shirt and jeans were made of paper, and the soft earth below his boots felt colder than hell. But the cigarette was some sort of gift to him, nice and warm, bringing him to the idea that at least he’d be dying in Mississippi. Coming back home hadn’t always been a certain thing. If he’d been maybe two steps closer to that damn Haji, he would’ve been scrambled eggs across that bazaar. Coming back from all that, skin grafts and all, sure put things in a different color scheme. After it all, he’d enjoyed every smoke like it was going to be his last. And here it was, his last smoke, and a damn menthol.
“Only folks I know smoke menthols are blacks and women,” Donnie said, flicking the butt of the smoke into the woods and continuing on with the grave. He figured there would be a point when they’d see fit he’d done his work, not having to make it regulation or nothing. Digging was taking his breath but not warming him up none, now hitting a mess of thick roots and stone, face filling with blood as he tore into those roots, cutting through them with the dull blade of that shit shovel. He looked up to the mustached banditos, not getting a glance back. But the kid, that damn kid shooter, did the strangest thing. He looked to Donnie and nodded. He smiled for a moment.
Alejandro spoke to his fellas and then walked to Donnie, pistol extended but loose in fingers, coming for him.
Donnie caught his breath, tossed the shovel far into the woods, and stood deep down in that hole and looked at the Mex bastard right in the eye.
“I took your guns and coke, man,” Donnie said. “You were correcto. Por teléfono policía. Fuck you and fuck your mamacita.”