by Ace Atkins
“I don’t like this,” she said. “All this hopscotching is making my teeth hurt.”
Stagg closed up the Church’s fried-chicken box and drummed his fingers on top. He wasn’t smiling now. “I’m getting tired of fetching golf balls for flyboys and cutting grass,” he said. “How about you and me make some plans for the future?”
“Fine by me,” she said. “But I need to know one thing straight off.”
“Yes, ma’am?”
“I need that chicken-fried steak recipe,” Fannie said. “Damn truckers are starting to riot.”
• • •
“After all the wait and bullshit with the mall’s lawyers and Shelby County DA, you can’t see shit,” Lillie said. She and Quinn hunched over a sheriff’s office computer screen together, rewatching the same ten seconds of grainy, faraway security video. “It looks like a goddamn shadow stealing that van. We got much better video from the fucking bank.”
“At least he’s not in a Trump mask,” Quinn said.
“That is a major improvement,” Lillie said. “But now we’ve got just some blurry white dude in sunglasses and a ball cap down in his eyes. He looks like half the fucking contractors eating lunch at the Fillin’ Station. Maybe a plumber or electrician. Too healthy to be a roofer.”
“It’s definitely the same guy,” Quinn said. “The tall one in the bank who was giving orders? We could get the folks in Batesville to work out a sketch.”
“You can only see half his face.”
“He’s wearing Carhartt pants and work boots,” Quinn said. “He’s got some kind of ink on his right arm. Stop it right there and zoom in.”
“Sure,” Lillie said, playing around with image on the monitor. “I see it. It reads ‘Fuck you, Tibbehah County.’”
“You got sharp little eyes, Lillie.”
“This may be something,” Lillie said. “But it still ain’t shit. It’s not evidence.”
“I thought you couldn’t jack cars with a screwdriver anymore?”
“He’s got some kind of computer override in that backpack,” Lillie said. “It’s a little handheld device. Fifteen-year-old kids buy ’em off locksmiths and mechanics. Hell, you probably can get one off eBay.”
“So we got a white man, a little over six feet and somewhere around one-ninety,” Quinn said. “I’m guess he was somewhere in his early to mid-thirties?”
“Say, just where were you at the time of the robbery, Quinn Colson? That shitbird kinda looks like you.”
“Dealing with Fannie Hathcock,” Quinn said. “Remember how she beat the shit out of a customer with a framing hammer?”
“Oh, yeah,” she said, “that’s right. She claimed to be protecting her girls.”
“You know what?” Quinn said, studying the frozen image on the computer screen, two empty paper cups of coffee next to it. “I think I’d know that shitbird on sight.”
“I wouldn’t know that boy if he walked right into the sheriff’s office and tried to grab me by the pussy.”
“God help the man who tried to do that.”
“God couldn’t help him,” Lillie said. “I’d splatter his fucking nuts from here to Toccopola.”
• • •
Rick Wilcox figured he’d open up with a real rouser, something like “Beer for My Horses,” talk a little bit after about being in the Corps, love of his country and all that bullshit. And then he’d take down the room a bit, “Till My Dyin’ Day” by Brooks and Dunn, get everyone on their feet, slow-dancing, maybe singing along with Bic lighters in hand. By the third song, he’d really have them with “Buy Me a Boat,” one of Crissley’s favorites. It was going to be a real win-win tonight down on Beale Street. The gig coming late, Crissley having to work the bar anyway with the American Honey Team, the girls giving away free shots of sweetened Tennessee whiskey, wearing tight gingham shirts, tied up over their bellies, matched up with the tiniest pairs of Daisy Dukes.
Wilcox had on a black T-shirt, a pair of snug Levi’s with split legs to work with his mud boots, and a green baseball cap with a Marine Corps insignia. Any night he wore the hat he didn’t have to pay for a single drink, although Crissley assured him that the band drank for free.
“Jesus, Rick,” Crissley said, marching up to the stage. “You can’t bring a kid in the bar. The manager about shit two bricks when he saw Brandon. Can’t he just sit around and play Xbox with Opie and Cord?”
“He’s tired of games,” Wilcox said. “Besides, he said he wanted to see his daddy play some country songs. You know, he’s never seen me up on the stage. I think it would be good for him, always wondering what his daddy did besides shoot bad guys.”
“Well,” Crissley said, hands on those slim hips, “he can’t stay here. Go send him to the movies or something. I got to work.”
“Work?” Wilcox said, plugging in his Gibson, tuning it at the top of its neck. “Since when do you call showing some skin work?”
“You sound just like Daddy,” Crissley said. “Goddamn you, this is marketing. We’re the fucking American Honeys. Do you know how hard it was to get this job?”
“Only thing hard was in your bossman’s pants.”
Crissley’s face turned red as she poked out her jaw and gritted her bleached teeth.
“Aw, shit,” he said, setting the guitar in its stand and jumping down off stage. He placed a hand on Crissley’s warm back, not a speck of fat on that waist. He pulled her in and whispered, “Don’t fuck up a night with my family, babe. I can replace your ass in two seconds and get every American Honey in this room to jump in my truck.”
She swallowed, teeth still on edge.
“But it won’t come to that,” he said. “Will it? Now, go get me a Coors Light. And a Coca-Cola for Brandon. This is a damn family night. Look at that boy. He’s already having the time of his life. I told him I’d buy him a big-ass plate of ribs later at Blues City Café. This is awesome. Meat City, baby.”
Those cool blue eyes settled on Wilcox, standing tall in her cowboy boots. “I should have stayed with my old boyfriend,” she said. “You know, he played point guard for the Grizzlies.”
“Sure, baby,” he said, arching his eyebrow. “Sure.”
Wilcox looked down at Brandon playing on an iPad on a barstool. The kid looked up, still wearing the Memphis Zoo T-shirt he’d bought him yesterday, and he gave the boy a thumbs-up. Daddy’s got it. The boys in the band climbed onstage, checking the equipment, bar filling up with a few folks wandering in from the neon lights on Beale. At that very moment, Wilcox called an audible and switched up the set. He slid on his sunglasses and launched into “Buy Me a Boat,” putting a real country-ass twang in his voice, although the only country he’d ever known was when he visited his country-ass relatives in Adamsville.
A half-dozen folks dancing now, all women, shaking their butts. Wilcox looked back to the bar and saw Crissley talking to the bartender, both knees up on a barstool, her narrow ass mocking him even as he had control of the whole room. Wilcox knowing he could turn it back around once again, and huddled up with the boys at the end of the song. Skip Toby Keith and go right on into “Something About a Truck,” one of Crissley’s favorites, the song they’d played when they spent those five days together going out to her daddy’s lake house, blasting music and drinking tequila and screwing like rabbits, not wearing a stitch of clothes the whole time.
Soon as he strummed that steady guitar melody, she heard it, recognized it, and turned around from the bartender to look at him. She shook her head and smiled, tapping her cowboy boot and leaning back slow, elbows on the bar, chest poking out big and proud, and smiled.
He smiled back and looked down from the stage at Brandon, who had on earphones and was thumbing through his iPad. Not giving a good goddamn that his daddy was a country music god who could make things happen with a guitar pick. Sometimes he wished he could shake some sense into th
at boy. But Wilcox only shrugged it off, enjoying that familiar neon light, all that flesh, and the sweet taste of that free bourbon.
“Something about a kiss gonna lead to more,” Wilcox sang, stomping his boot and getting everyone to follow. Tonight was his damn night.
• • •
“Maybe we should slow down,” Maggie said, she and Quinn kissing now for an hour straight on his sofa. Loretta Lynn on his kitchen radio singing “How High Can You Build a Fire.” “Good Lord, Quinn. This is moving fast. Way too fast.”
“I always wanted to kiss you.”
“It’s not the kissing I’m worried about,” she said. “Would you please hand me my shirt.”
Quinn smiled and picked up the flannel shirt that had fallen to the floor, Maggie wearing only a black bra and a pair of Levi’s, shoes kicked off as soon as she walked into the door. Tonight was the second night in a row she’d come out to the farm, with Brandon up in Memphis. They’d already had dinner, Quinn cooking a couple of deer steaks with sweet potato fries, and watched nearly five minutes of a Western, before things got interesting.
“You didn’t like the movie.”
“I’m not into Westerns.”
“OK,” Quinn said. “I can work with that.”
“And when you said you always wanted to kiss me,” Maggie said, “then why didn’t you? You had plenty of chances. Remember when we ended up together in that culvert by the ball field? It was just me and you, playing a game of truth or dare.”
“Maybe you got too close to the truth.”
“Maybe you don’t even remember what I’m talking about.”
“There was a little bit of an age difference,” Quinn said. “You were just a kid.”
“And how old were you?”
“I was a grown-ass man,” Quinn said. “I was nearly fifteen.”
Maggie laughed and buttoned up her shirt nearly to the top button. “For you, I’ll keep watching the movie,” she said. “But I need to check back in with Brandon. I haven’t heard from him since my ex took him to Chuck E. Cheese’s for lunch.”
“Are you worried?”
“When he’s with Rick,” she said, “I’m always worried.”
“You know, that’s the most you’ve ever mentioned about your ex,” Quinn said. “I didn’t even know his name.”
“I’ve wasted enough time with that idiot,” she said. “I’d rather not clutter up your mind with him, too.”
“I’m going to have to meet him sooner or later,” Quinn said, clearing off the plates, walking back to the kitchen. He started to run some water in the farm sink to get it hot, Maggie behind him, checking her phone. Loretta Lynn now on to women who were “Rated X.”
“That son of a bitch.”
Quinn put the stopper in the sink and added in some soap. He rolled up his sleeves and looked back to Maggie, who was now seated at the table, running her hands through her hair and looking down at her phone as if she couldn’t believe what she was seeing.
“He brought Brandon to a bar,” she said. “Is he crazy? Well, of course he’s crazy. I’ve known he’s crazy for a long time, but I keep thinking something is going to change. That maybe he’ll start making some smart life choices. But you can’t bring a six-year-old to a bar. Is that even legal?”
“Talk to your lawyer,” Quinn said. “I’d get Brandon to take a few pics. You can use them with the judge.”
Quinn cleaned the plates and set them in a wooden rack. He reached for two more bottles of Coors from the refrigerator and set them down on the table, popping the tops. Maggie looked up, crying. Quinn pulled up a chair and reached for her hands, holding them in his, staring right into her light green eyes.
“I’ve got to go.”
“Where?”
“Memphis,” she said. “He’s somewhere in Memphis. I’m not letting my son stick around a bar. Rick will be drunk. He’s always drunk. And reckless as hell.”
“Can I drive you?”
Maggie wiped her face, mad and determined. She shook her head. Quinn reached over and placed his hand on her freckled cheek. He smiled at her. The room had grown quiet and still. Somewhere out on the hill he heard Hondo barking.
“That might make things worse,” she said, reaching over to the chair and grabbing her keys. “I had a beer before dinner. Can you make me some coffee?”
Quinn got up and filled a blue-speckled pot with cold water. He didn’t speak, only listened to Maggie run down a long list of continual fuckups by her ex. Rick. The son of a bitch.
“I need to know something.”
Quinn nodded.
“Are you just playing with me?”
Quinn shook his head. “No, ma’am.”
“Because if you are, please stop it right now,” Maggie Powers said. “Because I don’t think I could handle it.”
Quinn leaned down and kissed her, long and hard, on the mouth. He felt swelling in his chest, everything dimming around him. He broke away and looked into those pale green eyes staring right through him. They waited for the coffee and he poured her a good amount in a tall tumbler.
Maggie smiled. “I’ll be right back.”
Quinn walked her out and watched her drive away, her car kicking up dust from the gravel road. Hondo trotted up and sat by Quinn’s side, exhausted from chasing deer out of the garden.
Damn, he hated to see her go.
17
“What’s so insane about the situation is that she’s mad at me for spending quality time with my own kid,” Wilcox said, two minutes after K-Bo and Shortbox headed into some shitty apartment building off Central Ave. “Can you fucking believe it?”
“Look at that guy,” Cord said. “Fat shooter by the car? All he does is stand around and try to look tough while eating Cheetos. That must be the one they call Johnny Snacks.”
“Wasn’t like it was a titty bar or something,” Wilcox said. “It was just a regular family-style bar on Beale Street. She knows I don’t sing in church. This is how I get people to hear what I’m doing, where I shake some hands, drink some beers, and sell some CDs of ‘Semper Fi.’”
“So we got two shooters,” Cord said. “Johnny Snacks and that black dude with the gold gun. Armani.”
“Damn that woman,” Wilcox said, seeing the Twins come back out of the apartments and into their black Expedition, Johnny Snacks behind the wheel. “She about tore me a new asshole when she drove up to Memphis. Do you know it cost me more than a hundred bucks to take that kid to the zoo Friday? We spent all fucking day with him Saturday, too. I only did two sets at the bar. Hell, we got home before midnight. Bought him supper at the rib place, just like he wanted. She didn’t have to drive up in the middle of the night like some kind of looney tunes.”
“The Twins will head into the count room with Armani,” Cord said. “But Johnny Snacks is the one who’ll stick around, being a pain in our ass at the car wash. Got a piece in his saggy-ass jeans while waxing vehicles. Watch out for him. He scoping shit all the time. I’m pretty sure he spotted me when I turned around yesterday.”
“She drinks,” Wilcox said. “She parties. Hell, that’s how we met. She just has it in for me. She’s always looking for me to make bad decisions, to fuck up. She’s always asking me, ‘Is this the way you want your son to turn out?’ And I say, ‘What’s so wrong with winning a Silver Star?’ I think Brandon can sleep just fine knowing Big Daddy did his part in the war against terrorism. North at Airways?”
“They’re going to make a last run in Orange Mound,” Cord said. “Into that convenience store by the railroad tracks. Damn, these boys have been busy. To get their stash, we’ll have to kill ’em. No other way.”
“Lot of trouble,” Wilcox said, “just for a cut.”
“Trust me, man.”
“That’s what men say to each other in prison,” Wilcox said, “before they bend over for th
e soap and get cornholed. This is my city. I should make the plan. Where the fuck are you from anyway?”
“Kansas.”
“Somewhere over the fucking rainbow.”
“We got to get clear of Elvis Presley Boulevard fast,” Cord said. “We can head back to me and Ope’s place or over on South Main. Drink a few beers at Earnestine and Hazel’s and dump this piece of shit.”
“Maggie’s trying to get custody terms reworked,” Wilcox said. “She’s using pictures of me and Brandon at the bar as proof of me being a bad dad. I told her him holding that cigarette and the Bud was just a fucking joke. I mean, laugh once in a while. Chill the fuck out.”
Wilcox drove down South Parkway past the Liberty Bowl, remembering hanging out at Liberty Land as a kid, the fucking Zippin Pippin, still pissed at hell at Maggie for turning him into some kind of bad guy. She hadn’t even let him speak to Brandon after she got him in the car and reamed him out in front of Crissley.
“They got to be bagging at least a hundred grand a week,” Cord said. “And they don’t use some bank. All of what they got is at that count room at the Wing Machine.”
“You want to know the truth?” Wilcox said. “She never loved me. She got knocked up and figured she was stuck. The one and only time I ever saw she was proud of me was when I came home after the last tour, with the fucking bands and WELCOME HOME signs. She wanted to be with me then. But when things got tough, the drinking and shit, it wasn’t the same. Now I’m a fucking asshole.”
“Damn, Rick,” Cord said. “Are you listening, man?”
“She’s seeing someone else,” Wilcox said, now heading south. “I know it. I smell it on her. She’s moved on. She’s trying to kick me completely out of the family photo. It’s not a wise decision to poke the bear. You know?”
“Listen, man,” Cord said. “I’m more worried about Opie. I think he’s gone soft.”