The Innocents

by Ace Atkins

  Quinn let out a long breath and shook his head. Lillie stepped into the light and yanked the CD player cord from the wall. The girl had her eyes closed, a smile on her lips, and kept on dancing.

  “Wrong Way?” Lillie said.

  The man with the long black beard and long black hair smiled. Quinn thought a lot of these guys looked like figures in old biblical comic books he’d read as a kid. All they needed was to trade out the biker gear for some robes and sandals and they’d be set. Wrong Way swigged some more beer and told the girl dancing on the bed to come on down.

  “What’s the matter?” the girl said, nearly tripping as she got down to the floor. Glassy-eyed and happy as hell.

  “Ain’t no music,” Wrong Way said. “Shit.”

  Lillie stepped forward, gun loose in her right hand. “You rode out to The River last night looking for Milly Jones,” she said. “Why?”

  “What’s The River?”

  “Jesus camp for adults,” Lillie said. “Why were you looking for Milly last night?”

  “I don’t know,” Wrong Way said. “Who said I was?”

  Quinn looked down at him: “You threatened to rip apart the place until you found her.”

  “That’s bullshit, man,” Wrong Way said. “Who told you that? That woman looks like a little boy out there?”

  “That’s my sister, Wrong Way,” Quinn said. “Think before you speak.”

  “I don’t care if she’s your brother or your sister or your momma,” Wrong Way said. “What’s the crime in asking a girl to come out to play?”

  “That’s what you were doing?” Lillie said.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Wrong Way said. “She ain’t no angel. Works across the street at Vienna’s. She knows a few of the boys. Said she wanted to come out and ride with us sometime. I guess the other night was ‘sometime.’”

  “Why’d you threaten to trespass into shacks out back?”

  “We didn’t,” Wrong Way said. “Your sister said the girl wasn’t there and we rode off down to Ackerman to get some fried catfish and hushpuppies. Are y’all going to arrest us for looking for some fun? Last I heard, we still had American rights in Mississippi.”

  “Did you find her?” Lillie said.

  “Who?”

  “The girl, dipshit,” Lillie said. “When’s the last time you saw Milly Jones?”

  Wrong Way let out a long burp and reached down beside him. Lillie brought up the weapon, snicking in a round. “Hold up, baby,” Wrong Way said. “Don’t scramble my brains just on account of a cold Silver Bullet.”

  Wrong Way slugged back his beer, crushed the can, and belched. “Other night, she was riding one of my boys’ laps, talking about how much she’d love to get on the back of his bike for a cool summer drive. OK? We done here?”

  “I don’t like you, Lyle,” Lillie Virgil said.

  “That’s OK,” he said. “Neither did my momma.”

  “Did you find the girl last night?”

  Lyle leaned back, trying and failing to look cool and relaxed, studying the ceiling for answers. “Yeah,” he said. “We found her up at that Gas & Go in Blackjack.”

  “She come with you?”

  “No,” Lyle said. “We saw her, asked her to come out and play. She said no. And then we rode off. Scout’s fucking honor.”

  “I guess no one saw all this?”

  “Don’t believe me,” Lyle said, “then go and talk to that towelhead who runs the store.”

  Lillie looked to Quinn and Quinn nodded back. “If we find out you came within a mile of that girl after that, you better start greasin’ your A-hole for Parchman.”

  “Christ, woman,” Wrong Way said. “Damn, you got a mouth, for a public official.”

  “The girl’s dead,” Quinn said.

  “And you aren’t in the clear,” Lillie said.

  Lillie’s stare stayed on Lyle for a long while before she lowered her gun and followed Quinn back out into the light.

  16

  Sitting there in the MED’s waiting room, Linda Carlton’s mind started to wander off through the grief, the downright horror of it all, trying to remember just what had she seen in Wash Jones. Wash was there with his new wife, or girlfriend, or whatever the hell she was, with his arms folded across his fat stomach, breathing through his mouth and leaning over every few seconds to whisper in her ear. Linda believed the woman’s name was Charlotte—apparently, some kind of head case if she’d moved in with Wash. The only kind of consolation Linda had in their marriage was being young and stupid and that the union had produced their son and two daughters. Milly was beautiful. Had been beautiful. It was tough as hell to think about it like that. But she’d been through it all before, losing a child.

  She cried for a bit more. The pills they’d given her gave the whole damn world a fuzzy glow. It wasn’t unlike that sleep pill commercial where that green butterfly floats through the window and lands on your chest. She wouldn’t think twice if a big green cartoon butterfly shot down the hospital hall, landed on her knee, and said hello.

  She could hear Wash’s breathing from across the room. Every few minutes, the fat woman leaned into his ear and he’d say, “Huh?” He’d been a drunk, a pill popper, and a horny goat. She’d once caught him in the Baptist church rec room with meek little Janet Taylor, her panties around her ankles and her lipstick all over Wash’s face. What the hell was wrong with those women? What the hell had been wrong with her?

  “Are you OK?” her other daughter, the living one, asked.

  “No,” Linda said. “I’m not.”

  “Should I get the doctor?”

  “I just want to get Milly and get home.”

  “Milly’s not coming home, Momma.”

  “I know that,” she said. “Nothing’s wrong with my head. I just want what’s left of her. What that son of a bitch didn’t take from us.”

  “Who, Momma?”

  “Who the hell do you think?” Linda Carlton said. “Lord, I need a cigarette. Can we smoke here?”

  “No, Momma,” her other daughter said. “It’s a hospital. They got rules.”

  Linda reached into her purse and pulled out a little bottle of essential oils: ylang-ylang, orange, tangerine, patchouli, and blue tansy. She added a dab to a Kleenex and inhaled the blend. She’d been huffing the stuff as if it had been gasoline since they left Milly’s room. That charred smell did something real bad for your brain.

  Fat Charlotte leaned in and said something to Wash. And Wash gave a stupid little grin and chuckled. Here they were, waiting to learn what to do next when there wasn’t a thing left to be done, and that son of a bitch was laughing. She thought back on that call from him two years ago, calling her out and calling Milly everything in this world but a white woman. She knew that kind of rage too well. When Wash would get to his third beer, he’d look to pick a fight. She’d say one cross word back and, Lord, he’d backhand her and make her fly across the room. He gave her black eyes and busted ribs, Linda spending most of their married life telling folks she’d fallen off a horse. Linda had never owned a horse in her life.

  “What is it, Wash?” she asked, giving him a look from across the room.

  The grin hadn’t left his face, still dripping off his lips like an egg yolk.

  “Huh?”

  “I said, what’s so funny that y’all are giggling about?” Linda repeated, hand shaking a bit, reaching into her purse for her cigarettes and lighter. Let ’em haul her out of this godforsaken place. “Y’all have a little joke going between you. Let’s hear it. I sure do need a laugh.”

  “We were thinking on Milly, is all,” he said. “Charlotte reminded me of that time when she was in that competition up in Southaven. Them girls tossed her up in the air, caught her, and then her shoes snagged on that Tate girl’s hand. Remember? Looked like a bunch of bowling pins scattered across the field.”


  “Wasn’t funny to Milly,” Linda said, trying the lighter with shaking hands. Damn thing couldn’t catch. She kept on flicking it and flicking it. “That cost them the competition. That was for state champs. She blamed herself.”

  “It was funny to watch, is all,” Wash said. “Made me smile a bit. That’s the only things gonna get us through now. Got to smile as Milly is with Brandon and the Lord.”

  “With the Lord?” Linda said, flicking and flicking that Bic. God damn it. “I think she was with the devil first.”

  Wash looked to Charlotte and Charlotte’s face went even doughier and blanker than usual. She pulled the straw from her big Sonic cup to her mouth and started to suck. Wash stood up, using his right hand against the chair on account of the bad knee that supposedly caused his filing for disability. Not because of his damn beer and pill habit or that he’d tried to take the hand of his boss’s secretary and put it on his peter.

  “What you getting at?” Wash said.

  “You remember calling me the other night?”

  “Hell, yes, I do.”

  “You stand behind what you said about Milly?”

  “I was dang pissed-off,” he said. “I was concerned for my daughter’s welfare.”

  “You called her a dirty whore and a nigger lover,” Linda said, pointing the unlit cigarette at him like a stick. “You said you wish you could strangle the holy shit out of her. Is that love, the worry you gave my girl?”

  “Shut your mouth.”

  “You said she had a sickness about her,” Linda said. “You said she had that jungle fever that turned her to popping pills and riding the gold pole. You said you wished she was dead.”

  “That’s a lie,” he said. “Liar. You’re a filthy liar.”

  “Always wondered why you didn’t raise that big voice for Brandon?” she said. “You let him stick a damn gun in his mouth rather than listen to him tell the truth. Our children died in shame.”

  Wash Jones charged across the waiting room, the little TV in the corner playing FOX news, a blonde woman yukking it up about the president being delusional for wanting to take all of America’s guns. He stood over Linda Carlton, just like he had in their kitchen and their bedroom, red-faced and breathing crazy. He gritted his teeth and raised back his hand.

  “Do it, Wash,” Linda said, saying it calm in her head but not hearing much besides a whoosh in her ears. “Hit me. Let everyone know just what a loving father is capable of.”

  He narrowed his eyes at her, his little fat friend at his side, tugging at his arm, telling him they could go get a Coke and some fries downstairs. Linda reached into her purse for that Kleenex.

  Damn, Linda had her baby’s smell all over her.

  • • •

  Sammi Khouraki didn’t seem happy to see Quinn. The kid was eating a fried chicken leg while watching some kind of TV show on his phone. No one was in the Gas & Go. When the door chimed, Sammi lifted his head and then went back to the phone. He had a black ball cap on with a flat crown, a cheap white T-shirt, and a gold chain dangling around his neck.

  “Sammi,” Quinn said.

  The kid didn’t answer.

  Quinn slid a high school portrait of Milly Jones onto the counter. Sammi glanced at it and went back to watching his phone, announcers talking about a skateboarding competition.

  “Know her?”

  “Blackjack doesn’t have a hundred people who live here,” Sammi said. “What do you think?”

  “You went to school with her?”

  “Yes.”

  “And she bought her gas here?”

  “Where else is she going to get gas?” Sammi said. “I knew Milly. And I know someone set her on fire.”

  “You know who?”

  Sammi turned off the phone. He was seated on a stool on an elevated platform and Quinn had to look up at him as he talked. Sammi shook his head. “Naw, man,” he said. “And if I did, I’d keep my mouth shut. I don’t want to get into all this mess.”

  “You’re in it,” Quinn said. “I heard she was gassing up here right before she got killed.”

  Sammi shrugged. Quinn wanted to take the crooked ball cap off his head and whack him across the nose. He wanted the boy to sit up straight, shave that stylized beard, and pay attention. Instead, Quinn stayed silent, waiting for him to talk. Lillie taught him that, only push the folks you wanted to trip up. Like the Born Losers, she played that one just as she intended. She wanted them riled and nervous.

  “Yeah,” he said. “She bought gas. And then she left. You think I killed her or something? Shit, man. C’mon.”

  “Why would you say that?”

  “Because you came back here again,” he said. “This time, you are wearing a star. You people get off on hustling people like me? You hate me because you think I’m like people you used to shoot over in Iraq.”

  “I thought you didn’t know who I was?”

  “You told me you weren’t the law,” he said. “You lied to me. You trying to play my ass?”

  “I wasn’t the other day,” Quinn said. “But I changed my mind about some things.”

  “Because of Milly Jones?”

  “Did you talk to her?”

  “Sure,” he said. “I talked to her pretty much every day. She’d come in for a ham biscuit and a Diet Coke.”

  “What about last night?”

  “She bought a pack of cigarettes.”

  “And gas?”

  “I think.”

  “You don’t know?”

  “OK, yeah,” Sammi said. “She bought gas. This is a gas station. That’s why we call it the Gas & Go. You buy gas and then you go on down the road.”

  Back in the Shitbox, they used to bring gifts—food, money—anything to help get people talking. The better the villagers liked you, the more they were willing to stay out of your way or tell you where the Taliban boys stored their cache. But Sammi was more Memphis than he was Kandahar. He wore that loose, cool, Fuck the police attitude Quinn saw mostly with teens in the projects. Or the What you looking at? rednecks who thought the world was against them.

  “Did you talk to her?”

  “Sure.”

  “What did she say?”

  “A pack of Marlboro Lights,” Sammi said, grinning. “Oh, and she thanked me when I gave her change.”

  Quinn smiled. “You didn’t really know her.”

  “I liked Milly,” Sammi said. “She was my friend. I’m sorry she’s dead. But I don’t know who killed her. She didn’t tell me that someone was chasing her or something. She was just being cool, joking around and stuff. She said she was going on a trip.”

  “Where?”

  “That’s all I know.”

  “When did the Born Losers show?”

  “Who?”

  “You didn’t notice the biker gang rolling up to the Gas & Go?” Quinn said. “Those machines make a lot of noise.”

  Sammi just stared at Quinn with big dead eyes. He’d shut all the way down. “No way.”

  “We know they were here,” Quinn said.

  “How’s that?”

  “Because the guy who runs them told me,” Quinn said. “What happened?”

  “Nothing,” Sammi said. “They have a right to come here.”

  “Did they talk to Milly?”

  “I don’t fucking know,” Sammi said. “Shit. I was inside here.”

  Quinn looked behind the boy to see a small TV monitor that clicked to different spots around the gas station: the pumps, the parking slots, the cooler, a wide shot of the aisles, and then back where Quinn was standing. A poster on the wall showed a trio of fit boys jumping off a yacht into blue water filled with bikini-clad women. It read EXPLORATION HAS ITS PERKS. LIKE DISCOVERING LOCAL FLAVOR. “I need your video from that night.”

  “Don’t you need some
paper for that?” Sammi said. “From a judge?”

  “You want me to go get one?” Quinn asked. “Considering the situation, I don’t think that’ll be much trouble.”

  “They won’t like it,” Sammi said. “They’ll blame me.”

  “Run back that video, Sammi,” Quinn said. “All of it.”

  “I don’t like you,” he said.

  “That’s OK,” Quinn said. “Get in line.”

  “My father says your uncle was just as bad. He said your uncle used to make him pay to do business because he was an immigrant.”

  Sammi stood up and opened up the counter, letting Quinn step up onto the platform, as he opened up a cabinet and fiddled with the surveillance equipment. “Go ahead,” Sammi said. “I’m always happy to be this county’s punching bag.”

  • • •

  Tibbehah County is in the house,” K Bo said. “Damn. I smelled country as soon as you motherfuckers walked in the door.”

  “Where Short Box at?” Nito said, Ordeen hanging back, looking out the window at Elvis Presley Boulevard. Hand-painted sign on the plate glass reading in backward letters .

  “He cooking,” K Bo said. “Y’all want some wings?”

  “Yeah, sure,” Nito said. “How ’bout you, Ordeen?”

  “I like ’em spicy,” Ordeen said, nodding. He was hungry as hell. Hadn’t had nothing to eat since late last night, before they found out Milly was dead. After that, his whole mouth tasted like metal, insides felt like they were rotting out like he’d drank some Drāno.

  “Spicy is what we do,” K Bo said. “We got this shit called Bitch in Heat. You sure you country boys can handle that shit?”

  Nito looked to Ordeen. Ordeen nodded and pulled down his hat over his weave. “Shit, yeah.”

  K Bo disappeared back into the kitchen, yelling at his brother to fire up the wings. And Ordeen and Nito found a booth by the plate-glass window, the wing shop down a mile or two from Graceland. The brothers ran the shop, a car detailing business, and all the other shit from that location. One-stop shopping: get your fill, your car tight, and some drugs all at the same place. Although Ordeen had never gotten drugs right here. He was pretty damn sure they kept things way on down the food chain so they didn’t get hassled. A plaque on the wall said the Wing Machine had been a runner-up as Favorite Hot Wings in Memphis. Ordeen wondering why those boys didn’t make best. They sure as hell did everything Top Fucking Dog since Craig Houston lost his damn head.