The Fallen

by Ace Atkins

  Big T chuckled as if Wilcox were joking, his hands shaking on top of his shaking big fat belly. “You’re a great man,” he said. “An American patriot and gosh dang war hero that’s killed how many of them Muslim folks?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I didn’t keep score.”

  “‘Keep score,’” Big T said. “Ain’t that funny. Would you like some coffee? It was just brewed a few hours ago. Got some kind of hazelnut flavoring it in.”

  “No, thanks,” Wilcox said, stretching his injured leg under the café table. “What I really could use is a car. That last one didn’t really work out.”

  “You ain’t kidding, sir,” Big T said. “I about jumped out of my shorts when I heard some blacks had stolen our truck and left a gosh dang dead body in back. At first I thought I don’t want that thing back, but you know how that goes. We can make that truck as clean as a whistle and send it on down the line at the auction. No one will be the wiser.”

  “Well,” Wilcox said. “That was kind of my fault, too. That was my buddy in the back of that truck.”

  Big T’s chin recoiled back into his fat neck, his mouth open. “What’s that?”

  “The dead man,” Wilcox said, not giving a good goddamn about Big T, this dealership, or ever setting foot in this place ever again. “The dead man was my buddy, Cord.”

  “Them blacks killed your friend?”

  Wilcox shrugged. “A couple black guys,” he said. “Twins. But how about we just leave race out of the picture, Big T? I’m a real open-minded kind of guy. Served with a lot of them. But, yeah. Some blacks killed my buddy. I tried to get help. I tried. They shot me up, too. That’s what’s wrong with my leg.”

  “You said you fell off a riding lawn mower,” Big T said.

  “I was fucking with you, sir,” Wilcox said, grinning. “Mainly because it’s so damn easy to do.”

  Big T chuckled some more, a real Santa Claus belly working under his striped shirt and wide blue tie. Haw, haw, haw.

  “A vehicle?” Wilcox said. “I could use one.”

  “Sure,” Big T said. “Whatever you need, Rick. You’re family here at Big T Southaven Ford. If I can’t help out a veteran, then I just don’t deserve to wear this American flag tie clip. Or salute the flag every morning when I get here at eleven. It’s what I do, sir. It’s who I am.”

  Wilcox stared at Big T through hooded eyes, the older man looking like a squat, golden-eyed fucking toad. He took a long breath and moved to salute him. Big T stood up from his desk and returned the gesture. “How about we go see what’s on that lot?” he said. “I’m real sorry to hear about your friend. I didn’t know they shot at you, too. I thought them folks just jacked y’all.”

  “It’s complicated, Big T,” Wilcox said.

  “Well, if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness,” Big T said, walking through the showroom, waving to a redneck family dressed in matching camo duds, looking inside a brand-new Shelby. “You know who said that?”

  “Mickey Mouse.”

  “Come on, now,” he said. “Work with me here, son. Jesus. Jesus said that.”

  “The way I feel,” Wilcox said, “and the things I done, I’m pretty sure that Jesus might think I’m still just a real asshole.”

  “Don’t talk that way, son,” he said. “Come on. I know you and your buddy went through some hard times. I didn’t know he’d been killed. That’s the first I’m hearing what happened to y’all. Memphis isn’t a good place. I stay away from the city much as I can. You just need some time by yourself. Think on things, pray on it. He will forgive you for whatever you done. You know, if Charlie Manson had a change of heart and asked God to forgive him for all them things he done, Jesus would do it. I know that just the same as I know my name is Big T.”

  “Hallelujah, sir.”

  “How about that Chevy Silverado over there,” Big T said, pointing as soon as they hit the fresh air. “Woman just traded her in last Tuesday. Got leather seats, navigation, and a moon roof. You could take Miss Crissley down to the Tishomingo Park and go camping, if you know what I mean. Lie on y’all’s backs and count the stars. You’ll feel better in no time.”

  “How about the Shelby?”

  “You sure do love that Shelby.”

  “Big T,” Wilcox said, placing his hand on the man’s shoulder more for support than friendship, “I believe that little red car would drive me right to the heart of Jesus.”

  “You mean it, Sergeant?”

  “You bet,” Wilcox said. “Not to mention, if the law starts riding my ass, I can leave them in the fucking dust.”

  “Damn, you make me laugh,” Big T said. “You Marines sure got some dark humor about you.”

  “You’ve got no idea.”

  • • •

  Fannie spent the night in Memphis and was back at Vienna’s for the Friday night rush. The parking lot, thankfully, jam-packed with pickup trucks and semis, the inside of the bar filled with tons of sweaty, horny drunk men ready to separate themselves from their cash. Ordeen working the bar, Fannie barely having time to wave as she passed across the floor and headed up to her office. Mingo was up on the railing, watching the floor, and he opened up the office door with the special key only he kept.

  “How did it go in Tunica?” Mingo said.

  “Like shit.”

  “Can I get you a drink?”

  “Nope,” she said. “Let’s get on with the count. Bring up the cash when the shift changes over. Looks like some of the night crew is running late.”

  “Delta called in sick,” Mingo said. “And Capri has a flat tire.”

  “That’s bullshit,” Fannie said. “She took a job at the Pink Pony just as soon as we shut down the Champagne Room. Can’t blame her. That’s missing out on a lot of cash. How’s it looking?”

  “Bar’s fine.”

  “How far are we down?” Fannie said. “Don’t sugarcoat it, kid.”

  “From last month?” Mingo said. “Probably four grand. It’ll go up as we get into the night.”

  “Once the lap dance got introduced, it’s hard to go back,” Fannie said. “That’s like taking away the color from a TV. Or the sugar out of your sweet tea. Once you get used to something, that old way won’t do.”

  “We got four rooms working now at the Golden Cherry,” Mingo said. “I expect to have a full house around midnight. Girls are working hard to sell private shows, but I told them the law might be around. I told them if they touched any of the customer’s peckers, their ass was gone.”

  “And what do the customers say?”

  “Oh, you know,” Mingo said. “They’re all about ‘Come here, baby’ and ‘No one will know if I pull it out. Pet my willie.’ Typical shit.”

  “But you got the girls scared.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Mingo, please shut the door and come here,” she said. “I have something very personal to ask you. Something between us.”

  He nodded and shut the door, the rap music shaking the catwalk, the floor under their feet, and the surveillance screens on her left-hand wall. She watched each little island of action on the screens. One girl, upside down, legs wrapped around the golden pole, spinning on back to earth. Another girl, spreading her legs wider than the Grand Canyon, stashing some bills in the garters on each fat thigh, probably some up her ass.

  “Has anyone been asking you about those two girls we got from that shitheel Blue Daniels?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “I shouldn’t have done it,” Fannie said. “Too clumsy to work the floor and not experienced enough for the Golden Cherry. But that nigger owed me money and getting those two girls was about as close as I’ll ever come to collecting. So damn glad we sent them on down the line.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Y
ou know if either one of them got close to our girls?”

  Mingo shook his head. “Like you said, they never worked the floor,” he said. “Mainly, they just lived at the Golden Cherry, watched soap operas, and ordered pizza and fried chicken until you needed them. They did one or two private parties and then you wanted them gone.”

  “They were smart-asses,” she said. “Both of ’em. They talked back to me, wanting to know about the money they’d earned. And when I explained they still owed me for what Blue Daniels owed me, they turned on me. That Ana Maria called me something in Spanish and I know it wasn’t ‘ma’am.’”

  “She was a real pistol.”

  “Someone’s talking, Mingo,” she said. “Someone at Vienna’s knows we had those girls here and knows they worked some nasty shit up at the hunt lodge. Goddamn, it’s put me in a rough spot with Buster White. I never knew that country-fried Louisiana poon hound was so in tight with a Southern gent like Vardaman.”

  “You saw Mr. White?” Mingo said. “What’d he say?”

  “Oh, hell no,” Fannie said. “He wouldn’t leave Biloxi if two virgins were playing ‘The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down’ on his scrotum. I met with Ray. He said some of the boys had some real concerns about the trouble these little twats could cause their good buddy.”

  Mingo nodded, staring dead-eyed serious at her. Fannie glad as hell to have someone like Mingo to listen when she talked, clean up the shit she needed, and run the place when she had to run up to Memphis or over to Tunica like some lapdog in heat.

  “Where are they now?”

  Fannie was watching one of the monitors, spotting one of her girls getting real cozy with some young dude in a ball cap and sunglasses. It never stopped amazing her how married men thought they needed to pull some real cloak-and-dagger stuff just to look at titties. Their wives probably damn glad to get them out of the house and keep ’em from humping their legs.

  “What’s that?” Fannie said, seeing the girl grab the man’s hand and lead him across the floor. Fannie watching it happen from monitor to monitor.

  “What happened to the girls?”

  “Shit,” Fannie said, “I don’t know. I gave them to some of those MS-13 boys over in Batesville. I assume they put them to work at some chicken ranch up in Tennessee. I just couldn’t stand them yammering at me. I sure as hell bet that one Mex girl would be calling me Miss Hathcock right about now if someone’s peter wasn’t shoved down her crawhole.”

  Mingo got up and stood behind her, watching the monitors, while she pointed out the man in shades and hat leaving with one of their girls. They watched the man leave by a side door and the girl follow right behind him.

  “Make sure you check every one of her orifices for the money,” she said. “Those clever little bitches are going to rob me blind.”

  28

  “I’d like you to meet Sparrow,” Opie said. “Sparrow, this is my friend I told you about.”

  “And what’s your name?” Sparrow said.

  “Woody Woodpecker,” Wilcox said.

  “And what would you like tonight, Woody?” Sparrow said. Shaggy brown hair with a pink streak, tiny titties under a thin purple T-shirt, and a smart little mouth. “Your buddy paid up for the next hour and you can pretty much do anything you can think of. But don’t touch my butt. I really hate that stuff.”

  “I don’t want your butt, Sparrow,” Wilcox said. “In fact, how’d you like a little shot of tequila? Me and my buddy just like to party and talk. We get real lonely sometimes.”

  “You want me to talk about how I used to mud-wrestle my sister?” she said. “Or that time I tore my dress in school and had to see the principal?”

  “Damn,” Wilcox said. “I really wish we had more time. That last one sounds like a real winner. But we just want to know about Vienna’s Place. It’s fascinating. What’s it like inside there?”

  “Why don’t you just come in and see?” Sparrow said. “I took your buddy to the Champagne Room. Only the Champagne Room ain’t what it used to be. I had to dance five feet away from your buddy’s dick. I was real careful about it. At first I thought he was a cop, with the baseball hat and sunglasses and all. Are y’all cops? Because I can’t stand to be busted tonight. I got two babies waiting at home to see their momma. Wait. Hold on a second. Didn’t you say something about tequila?”

  Wilcox pulled the bottle of platinum Gran Patrón from beneath his seat and handed it to her. The stripper knocked back a good few gulps and spilled a little on her thin purple T-shirt. She had no bra on under the shirt and small white booty shorts with big plastic heels.

  “Something a-matter with you?” Sparrow asked. “Your buddy just gave me five hundred dollars cash to come out here on my smoke break. And all you want to know is what’s it like inside Vienna’s. I mean, it’s a titty bar. What else do you want to know? We spin around on gold poles and smack our ass. It ain’t high art.”

  “I’m shy,” Wilcox said, laughing. Taking another swig of the tequila, finding a nice healthy glow between the liquor and the Vicodin. “I don’t like folks looking at me.”

  “You don’t want me to grind your big ole peepee?”

  “Maybe later,” Wilcox said, looking into the rearview at Opie, smiling big and enjoying every damn minute of it.

  “OK,” she said. “And what song would you like?”

  “What’s that, baby?” Wilcox said, eyes fluttering a bit. “What did you say?”

  “When I give you a lap dance, what song do you want to hear?”

  “You know that song ‘Buy Me a Boat’ by Chris Janson?”

  “Oh, hell yes, I do.”

  “That’s what I want,” Wilcox said, going into song. “Wish I had a rich uncle that would kick the bucket. And that I was sitting on a pile like Warren Buffett.”

  “You’re gonna make me cry,” Sparrow said. “That was our senior-class anthem. Damn. Are you a professional singer or something? You sound just like him.”

  “As a matter of fact, I do sing a little,” Wilcox said in his corny radio announcer voice. “Got me a band. Now, sweet baby, before we get down to the ninnies and pecker pulling, how about you tell me about those mean creeps who watch the door?”

  “You mean the bikers?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Wilcox said, “I do mean the bikers. Who’s around tonight?”

  “Well,” Sparrow said. “Let me think. You got Lowrider working the door. I think Jack Straw and Bubba Bear and Tinker are at the bar. They’re pretty fucked up tonight. Miss Fannie came downstairs and blessed them out for drinking too much and leaving her bottles all around. The girls like ’em, though. Bubba Bear is the sweetest man I think I’ve ever met in my life. He brings me roses every Thursday.”

  “How many?” Opie said from the backseat.

  “Wait?” she said. “You said y’all weren’t cops. Why do you want to know?”

  “We had some problems with those biker boys last time,” Wilcox said. “Just want to watch my back.”

  “Oh,” she said. “Well. That makes sense. Can I get another hit of the tequila before we go back inside? Miss Fannie takes shots out of our cashout. Can you believe that shit?”

  “You said Miss Fannie came downstairs,” Wilcox said. “What exactly is upstairs?”

  “The Nest,” Sparrow said. “We’re not allowed up there. Only Miss Fannie, Wrong Way, and this Indian kid who works the bar named Mingo. It’s where they lock away the money from thieves and all that.”

  “Goddamn,” Wilcox said. “Learn something new every day. How about we all go back inside and say hello to the other little birdies. I think we’re all about to have a hell of a time.”

  “Woo-hoo,” said Sparrow. “But I still get to keep the money, right?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “And y’all won’t make no trouble?”

  “God forbid,” Opie said, all o
f them crawling out of the Shelby. Opie opened up the Mustang’s trunk for the two rifles with slings, extra ammo, and his RPG. Wilcox took the RPG in both hands and slung it into the passenger seat for safekeeping, following some wobbly stripper on six-inch plastic heels.

  • • •

  Between stopping off to judge the Rotarian’s annual wild game feast and then having to run back downtown from the sheriff’s office, where some drunk numbnuts had driven his ’89 Impala into the local tanning salon/coffee shop, Lillie had gotten little rest. She’d been on the Square for almost two hours, watching work crews remove the broken glass and jack up support beams by the smashed porticos and shaky overhang. Kenny working traffic alongside of her, not shutting his mouth the entire time.

  “The driver said he had a fainting spell,” Kenny said.

  “Happens when you’re two points over the legal limit.”

  “You think?”

  “Either he was cracking open a fresh beer or he was texting his sweetie,” Lillie said. “But I bet the final words he typed were ‘OH, SHIT.’”

  “I can see it,” Kenny said. “Destroyed two brand-new tanning beds. Tonya Cobb is going to shit a golden brick.”

  “Better be gold,” Lillie said. “That woman spent enough time in the sun. Her skin looks to be the color of an old belt.”

  “How was the Rotarian dinner?” Kenny said.

  “Lucky me,” Lillie said. “I got to judge all three categories. Deer, fish, and wild hog.”

  “Damn,” Kenny said. “I bet that was some good eating.”

  “To be real honest,” Lillie said, “I thought all of it tasted like shit warmed over. Any asshole can dump some fucking Ro-tel on a piece of fried bluegill and make it taste decent. Mr. Benedict sure was thrilled about his recipe for venison nachos. But, I swear to Christ, Kenny, I’m going to be shitting for a week.”

  “You want me to stick around till Tonya gets here?” Kenny said. “You can head back to the office. I know you got shit to do.”

  “I always got shit to do.”