The Fallen

by Ace Atkins

  “If you gonna roll,” Mario said, “fucking roll. Before they come back.”

  The kid was only fourteen but knew how to drive. He knocked it into reverse, backed the fuck out, heading up toward the barbershop in the strip mall, checking out his boys, stuck talking about the Griz and pussy they ain’t getting. He honked the horn, knowing none of those boys could see his ass and Mario riding in style behind smoked glass.

  Mario, a big man at sixteen, fired up a blunt and passed it to the kid, the kid heading onto the road, under the overpass, toward Winchester in the opposite direction of home. The kid cranked up the radio, pumping his fist as Tyke T got that shit rolling hard, maybe liking this one better than the first one that hit, “C’est La Vie.”

  “You crazy,” Mario said. “You goddamn crazy.”

  “Ain’t my fault some motherfucker left the goddamn engine running,” the kid said. “I mean, shit. That’s dumb as hell.”

  “His ass must’ve been wanting that moo shu pork,” Mario said. “Don’t give a fuck about his ride. Man got to eat.”

  The kid took a hit of that blunt and passed it back to Mario, turning left at the Costco onto Winchester, all that bullshit rolling by the window, Red Lobster, Toys-R-Us, super fucking Walmart. His momma worked at that Walmart for ten years and he still got lost in that place. She was probably there now, wanting to know later if he hit those books, just about the time she put her feet up and opened that big box of wine.

  “You smell something?” Mario said. “Smell like ass in here.”

  “That’s your weed.”

  “Ain’t my weed, bitch,” he said. “Somebody done shit in this car.”

  “I don’t smell it.”

  “Well, I do,” Mario said. “What’s wrong with you, man? Your nose broke. Crack a window or some shit.”

  “Call Lashika,” the kid said. “Ain’t she the one with that fine-ass sister?”

  “Come on, man,” Mario said. “Her sister nineteen. She got two damn kids.”

  “Tell her we’ll pick ’em up,” the kid said. “Take ’em down to Beale Street and party a little bit. Say, how much weed you got?”

  “Not enough to block that funky-ass smell,” he said. “Oh, shit. You better slow the hell down. See that? See that shit? You got the fucking police coming up on your ass.”

  “Fuck the police.”

  “Police gonna fuck you right in the ass,” Mario said. “You forget you in a goddamn stolen vehicle?”

  “Come on,” he said. “Come on. Be cool. We ain’t done nothing. Not yet.”

  The kid smiled, putting his hand out for the blunt, as the cop hit those blue lights in the rearview. Oh, shit. He mashed the pedal and headed up to sixty and seventy, weaving in and out of the traffic on Winchester, looking for a place to pull in where he and Mario could get out on foot and run like hell from the fucking police and this ass-smelling car.

  “Over there,” Mario said. “By that church with the statue holding up that big-ass cross.”

  The kid knew the place, the World Overcomers Outreach Church, biggest damn church in south Memphis. He figured he could pull around the back of the sanctuary and he and Mario could run deep into the woods. Goddamn Mario would be pissed, but at least they wouldn’t get busted for stealing the truck.

  The kid skidded around back of the big church, running up and over a curb into the grass by the treeline. He didn’t have to say a word to Mario, who already had the car door open and was running like hell from the two, now three, cops that were on their ass. Damn, the kid felt like puking up all that Rangoon crab shit he’d been eating. He put a fist to his mouth, going right for the trees and then seeing the chain-link fence. If he hadn’t eaten that last egg roll, he might’ve made it. But some big-ass black cop grabbed him by the seat of his pants and tossed him to the ground, standing above him like he was goddamn John Henry. “Don’t think about it, youngblood.”

  Youngblood? Shit. The kid was on his back, pushing himself onto his elbows, just catching the back of Mario’s red jersey deep in the woods and long-ass gone.

  “Who was that?” the cop asked.

  “Nobody.”

  “Nobody?” he said. “Sure. OK. This your truck?”

  The kid shook his head. A bunch of cops parked around the black SUV, headlights shining on those tall rims, opening doors. One white cop threw open the hatch like he was sure they had a bunch of weed or some shit hidden in back.

  “Keys were in it, engine running,” the kid said. “Come on, man.”

  The big black man just shook his head, reaching down, grabbing his skinny arm, and yanking him to his shoes. They got about ten feet from the cars, blue lights flickering, when he saw two of the cops turn away from the truck and head out into the wide parking lot. All the big lights shining up on the Statue of Liberty holding that cross. One of the men looked at the cop holding him and shook his head before tossing his damn cookies on the asphalt.

  “Goddamn,” said the kid. “Shit.”

  “What is it?” the black cop asked.

  “We got a body,” the white cop said, hands on his knees, spitting on the ground. “Damn bloody-ass body under some blankets. Smell about knocked me out.”

  • • •

  The men looked like cops, or some kind of security guards, with their khaki pants and cheap blue sport shirts, camo ball caps, and sunglasses. One of the men wore a pistol on his waist, below his big belly, walking as if holding a bowling ball between his knees. The other man was a little leaner and older, with close-cropped graying hair and leathery skin. He smiled like a preacher ready to spread the Good Word.

  Caddy had first noticed them while leaving the barn, the men getting out of their truck, a two-door white Chevy with lots of mud thrown up on the grille and splashed on the windshield. They came up on her as she carried a big box of canned goods.

  “You Caddy Colson?” the fat man asked.

  “We’re closed,” Caddy said. “Join us for service on Sunday. The Brannon family from Senatobia will be our special guests. Real authentic bluegrass gospel and a fried-chicken lunch to follow. Tell your friends.”

  “You looking for some nigger girl named Tamika?” the older man, somewhere in his early fifties with red pockmarked skin, said. His breath smelled like an ashtray.

  “I don’t acknowledge people who use that word,” Caddy said. “Y’all best move on.”

  “Some nigger girl and some spic poon ain’t worth your trouble,” the fat one said, hitching up his khakis and placing a hand to the butt of his gun.

  “You think of that all by yourself?” Caddy said. “Or did it just come to you?”

  The man shuffled his bowed legs, trying to look tough but looking only weak and fat. The older man spit on the ground, crossing his arms, standing right between her and her truck. The box had grown heavy in her arms and she had grown tired of their shit. She set down the box in the dirt.

  “Be a smart-ass,” said the fat one. “We’d just as soon burn this fuckin’ place down.”

  “It’s been done before,” Caddy said. “Didn’t change a thing.”

  “I don’t think she’s hearing us,” said the gray-headed man, still wearing that big dumbass grin. “Listen up, girlie.”

  “You listen up,” Caddy said, hands on her hips, staggering her stance. This was her place, her ground, and these men couldn’t do a damn thing to her that hadn’t already been done. “You can tell Fannie Hathcock she can go straight to hell.”

  They didn’t answer. They didn’t move, just staring and watching. Her friend Diane Tull, who’d stopped by to deliver some fertilizer and seeds from the Jericho Farm & Ranch, walked from the barn and called out to Caddy, wanting to know if everything was OK. Caddy called back that she was fine, that she’d back in a moment, and waited for them to get down to it. “You boys trading some muscle for a free lap dance?” she asked. “L
et me tell you a secret. Those girls don’t give a shit about you. And they’d really appreciate it if y’all would brush your teeth sometime.”

  Nothing. The men didn’t show anything. They just stared, looking at Caddy from behind their sunglasses like she should pee herself and run off with her tail between her legs. Funny thing about being in the shit most of your life, it deadened you from being scared. Caddy had once ridden out an F-4 tornado in a shelter the size of a broom closet.

  “Oh, wait,” she said. “Y’all been talking to Manuel, haven’t you? You’re the ones who beat the hell out of Ana Maria’s father when he came for her. Same white truck, same ugly faces.”

  “Those girls are gone,” the fat man said, his face swelling big and red like a balloon. “Nobody gives a shit about them. Not their families, not the men pumping them. They ain’t nothing but trash. Just like you.”

  Caddy just cocked her head, kind of curious where they were headed with this, wanting to know who had sent them. They didn’t look like boys who were in charge. They looked like a couple of country yard dogs kept on a tight leash. The older one had a little tuft of white hair poking from his sport shirt, a gold cross around his neck.

  “You don’t remember me,” said the older man. The smile on his face crawling up over his crooked, tobacco-stained teeth. “Do you?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “Oh, baby,” he said. “Baby. That just hurts my feelings. Me and you had a real time together. About five years back out at a fishing cabin on Sardis? One of those long weekends with scotch and bloody steaks and whatever kinda pills you were popping. Damn, I rode your young ass like a thoroughbred.”

  “Get your trashy ass out of here.”

  “Tell me I’m lying,” the old man said, absently adjusting his crotch. He turned to the fat boy and they smiled at each other, happy their dirty little trump card was out in the open. “You had the finest, sweetest little goodies I ever tasted.”

  “Sorry,” Caddy said. “I don’t recall. Either it didn’t happen or your dick must be the size of a sewing needle.”

  The fat man laughed, the leathery dude didn’t move. His smile dropped, eye twitching.

  “Y’all got two seconds to get the hell out of here,” she said. “If you know who I am, then you know who my brother is. And he’s never taken very kindly to men insulting his family. Southern pride and all that.”

  Caddy could hear the blood rushing in her ears and her own breath short and raspy in her chest. The fat man walked away. The older man stayed.

  “Little blue heart,” he said.

  “What’s that?” Caddy said. “What did you say?”

  “Little blue heart with some funny little stars around it,” he said. “On your right hipbone right by your coot. You didn’t wear much clothes that weekend. Lord, you did things to this man that still makes his toes curl. You done dressed up like a cheerleader with nothing under that little skirt.”

  Caddy turned and called out to Diane Tull, who’d been watching the whole thing from the mouth of the barn and emerged with a twelve-gauge, racking in a load with a sharp snick. “Called the sheriff,” she said.

  “Damn good to see you,” the old man said, licking his lips. Not seeming to be in a hurry despite a pissed-off woman coming up with a gun. “Sure hate to pass around town all the things you done. Not with all this Jesus camp you got now. Might hurt your business.”

  “I know who I am and what I’ve done,” Caddy said. “How about you, asshole?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said. “Yes, ma’am. Surely do.”

  The man gave the preacher grin one last time, turned, and walked away, the fat man already behind the wheel and cranking the engine. The leathery man got about halfway there when Caddy couldn’t stand it anymore. She reached down and picked up a big handful of mud, forming a tight ball, and threw it right at the man’s back.

  The wad caught him in the neck and he stumbled a little bit but only turned and smiled, getting in the car and leaving the compound with a gentle little wave. As the truck disappeared, Caddy felt her knees buckle and her hands shake. She had to take deep breaths, watching the empty road until she felt like she could move. Her heart still thumping in her chest, vision tunneled, with everything muffled around her. Breathe. She needed to breathe.

  “You OK?” Diane asked.

  Caddy nodded, placing a hand on Diane’s strong shoulder. The older woman rubbed circles on Caddy’s back, telling her to keep her head up and breathe deep.

  “What the hell was that?” Diane asked as they walked back to the barn.

  “Came to spook me away from asking about the girls.”

  “Do any good?” Diane asked, smiling.

  “Not a damn bit,” Caddy said. “But, damn, I sure feel like I need to take a shower.”

  25

  “Hold the fucking phone,” Fannie Hathcock said. “You did what with the body?”

  Wrong Way shrugged, licking the edge of the rolling paper and sealing the joint. “Got rid of it,” he said. “That Yukon, too. Just like you said.”

  “But you left the body inside the truck?” Fannie said.

  Lyle was chilling on a lounge chair by the Golden Cherry’s empty swimming pool. He had his shirt off, catching some winter sunshine, dirty jeans and boots seeming to be molded to his body.

  “Yeah,” Wrong Way said. “Sure. I guess. I don’t know what the fuck the boys did with it. I told them not to make it some kind weird-ass Weekend at Bernie’s situation and fuck around with that body. I told them to drive that truck up to coon town and let the blacks have it.”

  “And now the cops have him, shit for brains.”

  “Hey,” Wrong Way said, lifting his sunglasses from his eyes. “Come on.”

  “Some black kids boosted that car and went for a joyride,” Fannie said. “Got stopped by Memphis police. One of them got busted and claims to have found it outside some goddamn Chinese buffet with the engine running. They haven’t ID’d the body yet. Does that sound familiar?”

  “Yeah,” Wrong Way said, sliding the glasses back down, leaning back into the lounge chair and crossing his boots at his ankles. “Sort of. But I guarantee no one is pointing their fingers at you. Local police probably got that black kid jammed up a million ways to Sunday. Didn’t you say those boys had shot up those fucking Twins? Detectives probably think this kid fucking whacked your soldier boy.”

  “Shut up,” Fannie said. “Shut the fuck up. And hand me that joint.”

  Wrong Way lifted up the joint and she snatched it from his hand, taking out her little Colibri lighter to set fire to it. She took a good long hit, not caring if his nasty-ass spit was on it but trying to calm down, be cool, and think this thing through. The cops had the stolen car, Jonas Cord, and whatever kind of DNA shit show had been left inside the vehicle. No guns, though. That cocky son of a bitch Wilcox had told her they’d dumped all that shit deep into the Mississippi River.

  “OK, mama?”

  “I ain’t your mama, Lyle,” Fannie said, handing back his joint, staring across the street to Vienna’s. The marquee outside advertising two-for-one drinks and a ten-dollar cover, damn half price for the half-ass action she could now serve.

  “I thought you’d be happy.”

  “I thought you were going to burn the body,” Fannie said. “And take the truck to that son of a bitch in Olive Branch to cut it up in a million pieces.”

  “Thought about it,” he said. “But there was a lot of blood and shit in that car. I thought a little bit of misdirection from Tibbehah County, where the living is slow and sleazy, wasn’t a bad thing. Didn’t you say the cops nailed some dumb-shit kid? I mean, come on. That’s funny as hell. Kid jacks a fucking car with a body inside.”

  “I don’t care about that kid,” Fannie said. “But I wanted the body long gone.”

  Lyle had to arch his back and neck to loo
k up at Fannie’s face, she seeing her reflection in his dark sunglasses. “That boy meant something to you.”

  “Nope.”

  “Sure he did,” Lyle said. “Didn’t he? Damn, I knew you had a heart down there somewhere deep in those big ole bouncy titties.”

  “And you call me mama.”

  “Just a word, baby,” he said. “Why don’t you come riding with me sometime and I can show you a hell of a time? You’ll forget all about that muscled-up Marine. We’re no different than them. We’re a damn family, too. Ride to Live. Live to Ride. Only we have less rules and sleep more. You’ll like it. Did you know Ann-Margret used to ride motorcycles? I read that in a People magazine one time.”

  “Well, you fucked up,” Fannie said. “But what the hell did I expect?”

  “No,” Wrong Way said, stretching out, making a show of placing his hands behind his head, joint between his teeth. “We did good. You’ll see. You’ll see. Just trust me.”

  “Jesus Christ.”

  “Just say the word, mama, and you and me will ride down to New Orleans and party till the money’s gone,” he said. “I got a pair of tight leather pants and an American flag helmet from an old girlfriend that would fit you just right.”

  “Never.”

  “Come on,” Lyle said. “One day, you’ll be begging me to take you away from this fucking Petticoat Junction and blow your pipes clear out.”

  “Why do I keep you boys around?”

  Lyle handed her the joint and pushed himself up to the sitting position. He flipped the sunglasses up on top of his long, greasy black hair and stroked his beard. “I guess ’cause we beat the fuck out of people who give you trouble,” he said. “And make sure that no one gets even an inch from that honeypot you named after your dead grandmother.”

  “Oh,” Fannie said, taking a puff, holding it for a long while. “Right.”

  • • •

  “Why do you think it’s Manuel?” Quinn said.