The Fallen

by Ace Atkins

  “How far can they get?”

  “Not far.”

  “Maybe I could go in,” Quinn said. “Try and talk some sense in them. See if they might respect the tactical situation here and cut out some heartache for everyone.”

  “That’s a grand idea, Colson,” Lillie said. “How long do you think it’d take for Rick Wilcox to put one right between your eyes just for screwing his damn wife?”

  “He doesn’t know that.”

  “Sure he does,” Lillie said. “Everybody knows it.”

  “I think they’re going to snatch a couple girls and try to get to a vehicle,” Quinn said.

  “How do you know that?”

  “That’s what I would do,” Quinn said. “The longer they stay inside that barn, the more people we can get out on the roads and less chance they can get where they’ve stashed a switch car.”

  “You think Fannie can get Wilcox on the phone?”

  “I don’t see why not,” Quinn said.

  “Try and work out some kind of deal,” she said. “Be your normal charming self. And when they come out with a couple working girls on their arms, I’ll put a stop to all this bullshit. Just how many do you think they’ve killed?”

  “Fannie said at least five of her boys,” Quinn said. “Maybe more.”

  “I think we’re on some solid as fuck footing here, Sheriff,” Lillie said, reaching for her Winchester rifle and heading away from the flashing lights, through the roadblock, and across the street.

  “Where the hell’s she going?” Reggie said, coming up to Quinn, who was squatting down on his haunches and watching the entrance to Vienna’s. The sign reading THE HOTTEST LADIES IN NORTH MISSISSIPPI.

  Quinn just looked over his shoulder and pointed to the Golden Cherry Motel, the U-shaped building and the chain-link fence surrounding the swimming pool in the center. The red arrow curved under the yellow cherry sign, flashing on and off, directing weary travelers to color TVs, exhaust fans, and air-conditioning. Reggie and Quinn watched as Lillie bypassed the office and mounted the steps up to the second floor of the motel, disappearing for a moment, only to reappear on top of the building, finding a nice spot on the roof to lie down and position her weapon.

  “Lillie Virgil.”

  “Yep,” Quinn said.

  He picked up the phone and called Fannie back.

  • • •

  Opie had stopped the bleeding on what had been his good leg, where he’d been putting more of his pressure, trying to run and hop up on and down off bars. Now he lay on his ass on the stairs, his thigh filled with QuikClot and closed up with a lot of gauze and medical tape. He downed some more goddamn Vicodin with a bottle of tequila they took from the bar. They’d heard the sirens a few minutes back but couldn’t see a damn thing in the windowless barn. Folks started to forget where they were, trying to talk, moving their hands, and Opie had to fire off some shots to get their minds straight. Workers in flannel shirts, frat boys in button-downs, women in bikinis, two-piece lingerie, and one dressed up as Pocahontas, all lay still on the floor again.

  They hadn’t had time to check any of the prisoners for pistols or cell phones, Opie just trying to keep everyone honest with hands on their heads. Or in the case of the bikers, they were either shot up and bleeding out or already on the way to Harley Heaven. It couldn’t be helped. You couldn’t talk sense to men like that.

  “I can cover you,” Opie said. “Can you drive?”

  “Shit.”

  “You don’t think we can beat the damn Mayberry PD?”

  “I can drive,” Wilcox said. “But by the time we hit that door, it might as well be the fucking Bolivian Army out there.”

  “We walk with a couple girls,” Opie said. “You mind if I take Sparrow?”

  “Have you lost your goddamn mind?” Wilcox said. “That dumb bitch is the one who got me shot.”

  “Her feelings were hurt, is all,” Opie said. “She thought we were friends.”

  “Anyone who comes to a titty bar to make friends is a fucking loser.”

  “How many hostages?”

  “One.”

  “One?”

  “We don’t need any fucking cover,” he said. “Only an attention grabber.”

  Wilcox reached for the ruck full of cash and thought about that lovely RPG waiting in the Mustang. “Hit ’em right in the fucking mouth,” Wilcox said. “By the time the smoke clears, we’ll be halfway across the damn state.”

  Someone yelled “Sergeant” and Wilcox turned to see that Hathcock woman standing at the top of the stairs, loose and free, holding out a goddamn cell phone. “Before you bleed out on my carpet,” she said, cigarillo hanging from her mouth, “the sheriff wants to have a word with you.”

  30

  “Wilcox is walking out,” Quinn said.

  “How long?” Reggie Caruthers asked.

  “We didn’t exactly set an exact time,” Quinn said. “But I expect soon.”

  “Do we shoot him?”

  “I’d rather not,” Quinn said. “Too much paperwork. Maybe an inquiry. Lillie and I hate those inquiries.”

  “How will you know?”

  “Whether to shoot him or not?”

  “Yes, sir,” Reggie said.

  “You’ll know,” Quinn said. “We got seven folks with weapons on him and his buddy as soon as he hits that door. He won’t make trouble unless he wants to die.”

  “Maybe that’s what he wants,” Reggie said. “Have you considered that?”

  “I’ve considered about everything I can imagine about this situation,” Quinn said. “And none of it looks good.”

  Quinn picked up his Remington tactical shotgun, loaded with seven rounds of buckshot, pumped and primed, and effective from the hood of Lillie’s Cherokee to the front of Vienna’s door. If he couldn’t make ’em cease and desist within seven shots, he still had his Beretta 9 on his hip to put everything in perspective. He just prayed that they didn’t walk out with hostages. He was willing to take the buckshot to Wilcox, but not with a couple of civilians in the middle of things. Wilcox had breathed hard on the phone, listening to Quinn, and just said, “It’ll be good to see you again, Ranger,” and hung up. Kind of like a threat, but the man sounding dazed and confused, maybe even wounded.

  Reggie crouched next to Quinn, with four more deputies waiting and watching in the dark, not counting Lillie up on the top of the Golden Cherry, ready and willing to shut off their lights in two quick and effective shots. Nobody, including snipers in his own Ranger company, was as calm and effective as Lillie Virgil.

  “Lillie told me you’d just as soon see this one guy on the cooling board.”

  “I’ve got no personal issue,” Quinn said. “Other than he’s robbed the town bank and now probably killed a few bad folks.”

  “She said he was married to that Powers woman,” Reggie said. “The one who got her home broken into?”

  “I know who she is.”

  “Would you rather have him alive?” Reggie said. “All things being the same?”

  “Not my call.”

  “Who decides?”

  Quinn nodded to the front door, which cracked just a bit and then opened wide, two men in black tactical gear and rubber masks, hoods up on their heads, headed out into the parking lot. Quinn spotted Wilcox as the taller of the two, holding an AR-15 in one arm and Fannie Hathcock in the other. Son of a bitch, here they go.

  “It’s his call,” Quinn said.

  “Are you sure?” Reggie asked. “Just doesn’t seem fair.”

  • • •

  “You goddamn fucknuts,” Fannie said. “I hope you get your head shot off.”

  “Shut your filthy mouth,” Wilcox said, walking and talking despite being shot to shit.

  “Ever seen what a shotgun can do to a watermelon?”

  “
You don’t think I’ve seen folks shot?” Wilcox said, moving with her, but more leaning into her for support. “You don’t think I’ve walked straight through sniper fire?”

  “These people aren’t a bunch of goat fuckers with hundred-year-old weapons,” Fannie said. “That head of yours probably looks as big as a silver dollar.”

  “Don’t make a fool out of yourself,” Wilcox said. “I know I got a bunch of butt-hurt dudes just itching to kill me. So what? That’s why I got your ass as my escort.”

  “How’s that leg?” Opie said, walking astride them, keeping the gun trained on all those lawmen hiding behind their cars.

  “No pain, brother,” Wilcox said. “No pain. Let’s walk on through this parade of losers and blow this shit.”

  “You can’t keep me forever,” Fannie said.

  “Lady,” Wilcox said. “I wouldn’t want you for more than the next fifteen minutes. Whatever Cord saw in you is completely lost on me. Fucking a redhead ain’t like fucking Strawberry Shortcake with freckles and that nice smell. Even if you do have a big set of titties.”

  “You make me sick,” she said. “You’re a low-class douchebag with a spray tan and plucked eyebrows. A real American hero with a two-dollar ding-dong and a ten-cent brain.”

  “I think under different circumstances,” Wilcox said, gritting his teeth, leaning in hard to the woman, “we just might have been great friends.”

  “I doubt it.”

  “Oh, come on,” Wilcox said. “We have so much shit in common.”

  “Damn,” Fannie said. “God sure did phone it in when He made you.”

  “Lady, God made Marines so folks like that Ranger would have a hero.”

  • • •

  Lillie had a clear shot.

  She told Quinn to have the boys light up Vienna’s Place with their headlights, making the entire front of that tin-roofed shithouse look as big and grand as an opera stage. She could set up and get to work in less than a second, picking off those shitbirds as easy as a covey of quails flying from the field. Barbecue smoke flowed free and loose from the brick chimney of the Rebel, blowing over the big trucks and the parking lot. All of it deep blackness, white-hot light, and flowing gray smoke. A lovely place to work.

  “Hold it,” Quinn said over the radio.

  Left eye closed, right eye trained through the scope, Lillie said to herself, How about we leave your dick out of this?

  “Wait,” the crackly voice said.

  Those two assholes walked with goddamn Fannie Hathcock between them through the bright light and smoke into a parking lot with dozens of parked cars and trucks. Lillie still had their dumbass masks situated in her crosshairs. She relaxed herself, breathing slow and easy, eye soft on the two targets, moving into the maze of cars, still about twenty yards from where Quinn and Reggie waited behind her Jeep. The blue lights flashing and the neon from the titty bar sign and the motel made her think of a carnival midway.

  “Goddamn it, Quinn,” she said. “Shoot ’em.”

  She watched as taillights flashed on the back of a cherry-red sports car, maybe a Mustang, and one of the boys pushed Fannie inside, where she disappeared. Lillie was about to put down her weapon, ready for the chase that would surely follow into the night, when one of those bastards hoisted what looked like a goddamn torpedo on his shoulder and aimed right for the deputies. The crazy son of a bitch had brought a goddamn RPG to the party.

  Lillie got off a shot about the same time that fucking thing blasted to life, lighting her scope way the fuck up and dissolving Quinn’s Big Green Machine into a halo of bright orange light and a shit ton of smoke.

  She kept watch over the parking lot, through the scattered smoke and flames kicking up from the truck, and spotted the taller of the two men holding that RPG and hobbling toward the waiting Mustang, driver door waiting wide open. Red taillights lit in the dark.

  Lillie didn’t smile, only took in a slow, easy breath and pulled the trigger. Wilcox stumbled and fell like some kind of crazy-ass marionette. The other bastard ran and Lillie squeezed off two more shots, losing the guy among the cars and trucks, the guy hiding down low.

  Son of a bitch. She almost had ’em both.

  • • •

  Quinn was on Wilcox immediately, headed around the fire and smoke that had once been his truck, keeping his shotgun up to his right shoulder, waiting for the second man to pop up and start shooting. He’d heard the shots from up at the Golden Cherry and saw Wilcox knocked off his feet and down next to the red Mustang. The car still running as he got up on it, Fannie sitting in the passenger seat, looking pissed off and bored, and pointed to the other side of the sports car, where Quinn found Rick Wilcox, bloody and beaten, lying on his back on the crushed stone.

  His eyes were open and his Adam’s apple worked up and down, as if swallowing some cool water or trying to speak. Quinn, ears ringing and mouth tasting like soot, kicked the AR-15 well free of Wilcox’s hand and saw the rocket launcher laying, empty and useless, at the man’s feet.

  “Aren’t you gonna chase the other little bastard?” Fannie said, leaning in the driver’s side. “I told you, they shot up six of my boys inside. Most of them are dead. Damn, you waited long enough. That piece of shit blew the fuck out of your vehicle, Sheriff.”

  Quinn squatted down, scanning the rows of cars, checking Wilcox’s pants and hoodie for more weapons. He found a black pistol and a couple more magazines for the AR and tossed them away. Wilcox was bleeding from old wounds on both his thighs and his shoulder, and Lillie’s shot had opened a real nasty bit of bleeding across his chest. Wilcox tried to lift his head but couldn’t, his mouth opening and closing, working like a fish set upon land.

  Quinn pulled off his jacket and pressed it hard against the chest wound, yelling for the deputies to get ambulances rolling.

  “He’s not worth saving,” Fannie said, getting out of the car, slipping one high heel shoe off her foot, the other lost when coming out of Vienna’s. “Just let him die. I won’t tell anyone.”

  “He made the call,” Quinn said.

  “You’re a funny man, Quinn Colson,” Fannie said. “But, I swear, that kind of Boy Scout shit is going to kill you one day.”

  Quinn looked up at Fannie, the woman leaning on the side of the sports car like some kind of spokesmodel, not a trace of humor or irony on her face. She rested one manicured hand on the hood, tapping at it with those long red nails, while Quinn heard the sound of the ambulances coming up from the highway.

  He pressed his jacket harder into Rick Wilcox’s chest and waited.

  “You know I’m right,” Fannie said.

  • • •

  Opie crawled under a half-dozen cars, tearing his pants and cutting up his back on the gravel drive, until he saw a path through the barbecue smoke haze and truck stop lights under a Dodge Caravan, helping himself up and out. He had twenty, maybe thirty meters to clear between the titty bar and the trucks and he could make it in a dead sprint if some motherfucker didn’t shoot him in the back. Sergeant Wilcox bringing the weight of the world on them, knocking out those vehicles with a goddamn rocket launcher. Wilcox was down. He knew it. If he were to survive and fight another freakin’ day, he better move on down the road and put some space between him and the flaming world of shit behind him. He ran for it, getting maybe ten meters before the shooting started, feeling a hard-ass sting in his back but still breaking for it, assault rifle slapping his back, the money Wilcox had divvied up in his rucksack. Damn, so fucking close.

  He didn’t think he’d make it, more shots coming from behind him, thinking, son of a bitch, here it goes, goddamn back in the shit, running from that pop-pop-pop of the Taliban, those prehistoric motherfuckers trying to take his head off. But, damn, if a long-ass tractor-trailer didn’t ride right between him and Vienna’s, giving him a long bit of living, breathing diesel cover, and he could rest a bit. He loo
ked from left to right, thinking, son of a bitch, where could he go now? He could steal a car, hop a truck. Hop a truck. Fuck. Yes, sir. Opie jumped up between that sweet spot of the truck and the trailer, down by all the air brakes and hoses and shit, and held on for all he could as the truck hit the gas and moved on out, wheeling and turning through the brightly lit red flares and all those cops directing traffic. He made himself crouch down, keep against the cab, holding on to the rifle and the money and praying like hell that no one in this shithole saw his face.

  He’d ride it out. Keep on riding until this rig slowed down and he could hop the hell off and pay his way back to the beach.

  Goddamn, a margarita and sand between his toes sounded pretty good right about now.

  He’d ride it out in the darkness. Keep on riding until there was nowhere else to go.

  • • •

  Mingo made his way from the catwalk down to the floor and all the crying and yelling. Girls barely old enough to show their boobies and too young to see bearded old fuckers shot to shit not making sense of the whole thing. He tried not to look, seeing a lot of the Born Losers dead or dying, gasping for air, bleeding out, asking for penance from topless women covered in streaks of blood. Yes, sir. This is how it all goes. Mingo wasn’t sure what to do. Did he walk out with his hands in the air or did he sit tight until the law came inside and told him that Miss Fannie had the top of her head blown off by the local sheriff? All he could think to do was keep walking, try to figure it out, maybe find a way to step away from this. Holy hell. What a fucking mess.

  A young girl he knew sat on the floor with a ponytailed piece of shit known as Crabs. Crabs looked to be dead, or damn near on the way. He was drained of color, eyes open, mouth working, kind of pleading for some kind of help. But, damn, what could Mingo do? Pour him a drink and wish him “Vaya con dios”?

  “Help me,” the girl said.

  “Help’s coming,” Mingo said.

  “He’s dying,” she said. “Goddamn, don’t you see it? Can’t you do something?”