The Heathens

by Ace Atkins

  “Her people that Byrd family?”

  Lillie nodded.

  “Lord God Almighty,” Della Mae said. “Why would a good boy like Ladarius go and get himself mixed up with a trashy white family like that? He was raised better.”

  Lillie didn’t answer. A younger black woman about Lillie’s age poked her head in from the other room. She was dressed in black leggings with a long red top that hit down below her waist. When she saw Lillie, the woman gave a big grin and waved.

  “Oh, hey, Lillie,” said Devynn McCade. “What you doing back in town?”

  “Gina Byrd’s dead,” Lillie said. “I came down to ID the body.”

  “Oh, Lillie,” Devynn said, the smile gone. “I’m so sorry. I know y’all were close.”

  Della Mae’s eyes hadn’t left Lillie, the older woman sitting erect with her long, manicured nails clicking together. The room smelled like French perfume and down-home cooking. Della Mae was known for her family cookouts and homemade tamales as well as for dispensing her own justice on folks who crossed her. Devynn took a seat on a nearby couch, staying as quiet as her mother expected.

  “You say Ladarius is in trouble?” Della Mae said.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “And that you’re the one gonna go look for his dumb ass?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Lillie said. “That’s my job.”

  Della Mae looked to Devynn, lifting her chin. Devynn looked at her mother and nodded. Lillie had known Devynn for about as long as she’d known Gina Byrd.

  “Can you bring him back unharmed?”

  “I can do my best.”

  “I need more than that, Miss Virgil.”

  Lillie swallowed and nodded. “All I can offer at the moment, ma’am.”

  The room grew still. Lillie could hear music coming from the kitchen, a gospel station out of Holly Springs playing a song that kept on repeating, “something about the name.” Lillie smiled at Miss Della Mae and then over at Devynn. She kept quiet knowing that the old woman was thinking on what she’d said.

  “All right, then, Lillie Virgil,” Della Mae McCade said. “You gave me your word. If that boy’s headed anywhere, it’s Memphis. He’s real close with his cousin Domino.”

  TEN

  Chester Pratt saw Johnny Stagg’s cherry red Cadillac El Dorado from across the highway, hanging there at the exit to the Rebel Truck Stop like it just might be headed this way. Pratt walked away from the liquor store and out into the rain, hoping to get in his car and out onto the road before Stagg saw him. But damn if Pratt didn’t still have the key in the door when that old ElDo crossed the street and headed right for Bluebird Liquors. If he piled in now, Stagg would know he was being avoided. But if he stayed, Stagg might give him more trouble than he could handle at the moment. Pratt waved as the red Cadillac swung into the parking lot, the driver’s window sliding down and Stagg offering a big toothy grin.

  “Sure got us a cat strangler today,” Stagg said.

  Pratt stood there in the cold without an umbrella, getting soaked to the damn bone.

  “Been trying to reach you, son.”

  “Yes, sir,” Pratt said. “Had some personal matters to tend to.”

  “How about you hop in for a little ride,” Stagg said. “Get on out of the rain. Me and you need to talk.”

  “It’s not a good time, Mr. Stagg,” Pratt said.

  Stagg seemed to grin even wider, his teeth as big as tombstones.

  “Ain’t a request, son.”

  Pratt, knowing he was beat, nodded and reached for the door handle, crawling into the black leather before realizing that the man called Bishop was seated directly behind him. Pratt shook his head at the sheer stupidity of his situation as the windshield wipers tick-tocked across the glass. He sure was fucked now.

  “You know Mr. Bishop,” Stagg said.

  Pratt didn’t answer, not liking at all the proximity to the man who’d busted up thousands of dollars of Pappy Van Winkle’s finest. The hot blowing air smelled like cigarettes and sweat and a little of the cherry air freshener that hung from Stagg’s rearview mirror. Stagg let his foot off the brake and they rolled out of the lot and onto Jericho Road, heading away from Highway 45 and moving toward town.

  “Where we going?” Pratt said.

  “Oh, just a little drive in the country,” Stagg said. “Sometimes I take this ole ElDo for a crawl in the afternoon. I appreciate the opportunity to see the miracle of this lovely county we live in. After five years behind prison walls, you start aching for that kind of scenery.”

  Pratt didn’t answer. Stagg’s radio was tuned low, and he just made out the sounds of Brenda Lee, “Break It to Me Gently.” Pratt kept his hands in his lap as Stagg drove, feeling that man Bishop’s breath on his neck. It smelled like the liver and onion platter over at the Rebel.

  “I hope you aren’t angry about Mr. Bishop’s little visit,” Stagg said, effortlessly driving the big old car. He steered with one hand, half his face shadowed, tapping his fingers in time with the tinkling piano. “He ain’t a drinking man and mighta gone a little too far.”

  “I’ve had a lot on my mind.”

  “I understand,” Stagg said as he approached the old rusted water tower looming over Jericho and the town square. “Sure am sorry about what I’m hearing about that Byrd woman. I understand y’all were kind of friendly?”

  “She was my girlfriend.”

  “Don’t that beat all.”

  “She was murdered.”

  “Whoo-wee,” Stagg said. “Now that’s a real sucker punch. I sure am sorry to hear that. I know Mr. Bishop was real broke up about it, too. Weren’t you, Mr. Bishop?”

  Bishop grunted as Pratt wiped at the back of his neck, that hot breath on him like a gosh-dang dog. The windows fogged up so bad that he didn’t know how Stagg could see, maybe just driving from memory around the old veterans’ monument and then heading north off that spoke, up toward the Blackjack community and beyond.

  “You got any idea on what might’ve happened?” Stagg asked.

  “No, sir,” Pratt said. “Some folks believe her own daughter may have done it.”

  “Her own daughter?” Stagg said. “Hellfire. I ain’t never even heard of such a thing.”

  “She’s been seeing some black boy from down in the Ditch,” Pratt said, swallowing but feeling a little confidence coming back into him. Stagg and his boy asking him questions and letting him talk. “A real thug. Her momma wasn’t happy about the situation. I offered to send that girl to a Bible school for girls up in Missouri. Maybe that’s what did it. Hell, I don’t know.”

  “Things like that happen,” Stagg said, taking the ElDo up to sixty, curving onto the big concrete bridge, over the swirling brown river of the Big Black. “Hormones. All that rap music and hippity hoppity dancing. I can see how it might confuse a young woman.”

  “Whoever did it cut her up into pieces and tossed her into a trash barrel,” Pratt said. “When I first heard about it, I fell down on my knees. I got so sick to my stomach, I couldn’t even feel my legs.”

  “That’s true grief,” Stagg said. “Sure can come on like a son of a bitch. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Sure am sorry to hear about it. Thoughts and prayers, Chester Pratt.”

  They drove for a while, maybe two or three minutes, but it felt like damn near half an hour, before anyone said a word. The music switched over from Brenda Lee and now was on an old Perry Como song about going round and round. Pratt felt like he was spinning himself, looping up and around Tibbehah County with Johnny Stagg and his gun monkey in the back of the ElDo ready to blow his goddamn head off. He felt like he might get sick again, knowing something real bad was coming somewhere around the bend.

  “Oh, hell,” Pratt said, rubbing his hand on his right knee. “Why don’t y’all just go ahead and get it over with?”

  Stagg chuckled. “Get what o
ver with?”

  “Whatever y’all got planned for me,” Pratt said. “I haven’t slept or ate for three days. I feel like I’ve been drinking Drano and my nerves is jangled like a live wire. I can’t sit here and make small talk while we low ride and listen to fucking Perry Como.”

  “Planned?” Stagg said. “Ain’t no plan, Mr. Pratt. I’m your goddamn fairy godfather coming to you live and in person. I was thinking that you might be needing a good buddy right now. Someone to confide in and maybe ask for a little friendship and help.”

  “With what?”

  “Oh, come on now, Chester,” Stagg said. “You really want me to believe that horseshit about that Byrd girl getting jungle fever and cutting up her own momma? From what I heard, you was into that woman for far more than you’re into me.”

  Pratt held on to the dashboard tight, feeling his stomach turn loose. He took in a lot of short quick breaths, everything around him obscured on account of that inner fog of the car. He wiped his hand on the passenger window to see if he was somewhere he could just jump out and run into the woods. He could do it. Maybe even make it before that Bishop fella shot him in the back.

  “I loved that crazy redneck woman,” Pratt said. “I wouldn’t hurt a hair on her head. This whole thing’s got me busted up good.”

  “ ’Course you wouldn’t,” Stagg said. “I bet you’re as innocent as Shirley Temple’s starched white underbritches. But some folks may not recognize how much you deeply loved and cared for her. Won’t be long before that Quinn Colson may be hearing the same type of stories about borrowed money and family squabbles and that woman coming to your place of work, five, six times to demand that you make things right. Right? But, hell. You know that’s another story.”

  Pratt didn’t say anything, holding his breath as Stagg slowed the car on the soft edge of the curving roadside. A sign ahead pointed the way to the community of Blackjack. Another sign pointed west up to Fate. He could hear Bishop moving up behind him, the breath getting warmer on his neck, hearing the breathing with all that goddamn Perry Como.

  Pratt closed his eyes. If he’d been a praying man, he might’ve started talking to Jesus.

  “I invested in you, son,” Stagg said. “And if you get yourself fucked five ways from Sunday, I won’t see a return on what I gave you.”

  “I appreciate all you’ve done, Mr. Stagg,” Pratt said. “Believing in me like you did. Making sure I got that liquor license with my past troubles. Yes, sir. I sure do.”

  “You can stop stroking my ding-dong now,” Stagg said, holding the wheel although the car wasn’t in motion. “Here’s what I’m offering you. I know a surefire way to cornhole those fucking kids and get the law off your ass. But you better decide right here and right fucking now that I’m more than just an investor. I’ll be your partner.”

  Pratt swallowed again. He tried to breathe. Stagg cracked a window and turned on some cool air to clear the windows. Everything was so damn hot and stuffy in that old red car. All he wanted to do was get out and run as far as his skinny legs would carry him.

  “I want half of Bluebird Liquors,” Stagg said. “Understand? How ’bout we head on back to the Rebel where you can sign the papers and make it all legal.”

  “Can you give me a few hours to at least change my undershorts?”

  “Better do it fast, son,” Stagg said. “This here is a limited time offer.”

  * * *

  * * *

  The man looked to have been asleep, taking several minutes to get to the door after Lillie’s constant knocking. He cracked it open, Lillie not faulting him given his ZIP code, and stared through the sliver at her. She introduced them as U.S. Marshals Lillie Virgil and Charlie Hodge.

  The man didn’t seem impressed. He was sleepy-eyed and had a sloped, shovel face. Even from the distance, she could smell the funk on him.

  “We’re looking for a woman goes by Domino,” Lillie said.

  “She ain’t here.”

  The man tried to close the door. Lillie, hand subtly on her Sig, stuck her boot into the threshold. “Mind if we come inside?” she said. “Talk things over.”

  “Y’all got a warrant or some shit?”

  “Maybe a little shit like a badge,” Lillie said, glancing over at Charlie Hodge. The gray-headed man standing ramrod straight at her side, dressed in his blue jeans, black button-down, and tweed coat. As always, he looked as if the whole situation amused the hell out of him. “She’s not in trouble. We want to talk to her about Ladarius. Her cousin.”

  “He ain’t here, either.”

  “Can we come in?” Lillie said. “We’re getting wet.”

  “Shoulda brought you an umbrella.”

  The man stepped back and opened the door a bit more. He was shirtless and Lillie noticed he had some kind of tattoo on his neck. A few more tats on his right chest. He was stocky and muscular, wearing blue work pants and old unlaced work boots. He looked nervous, eyes a little bloodshot.

  “Nobody’s here,” he said. “Damn. What time is it?”

  Lillie told him. The rain whipped up again, blowing sideways out on the second floor of the apartment building. The man shook his head, pissed at the situation before he waved them inside, Lillie shocked the man put up so little resistance. She never expected to get beyond the front door. But she wasn’t one to argue as she passed him on the way in, Lillie being cautious and aware of his hands and every sight and sound in the room.

  “You know where we can find Domino?” Hodge asked.

  The man shrugged. Lillie kept talking as Hodge walked on past and checked out the little apartment. He saw what she did, a nest of blankets on two couches, stray pillows, and pizza boxes.

  “Y’all had some company?” Lillie asked.

  “It was like this when I got home.”

  “Where have you been?” Hodge asked.

  “Work,” he said. “I work nights. Domino works days. That’s how some folks do it.”

  “And where does Domino work?” Lillie asked.

  “Come on, now,” the man said. “I tell you and you go over and harass her. She could lose her goddamn job. Just give me your card or some shit. I’ll tell her you stopped by.”

  Hodge rested a hand on a big overstuffed chair, smiling and good-natured. A real friend to everyone he met. That was until someone pushed him, and no one really liked Charlie Hodge when he was pushed. He became an altogether different man. Lillie figured you got to be like that after working some years undercover with the Born Losers motorcycle gang.

  “Ladarius is wanted back in Tibbehah County,” Lillie said. “He’s on the run with his girl.”

  “Don’t know nothing about it.”

  “Of course you don’t,” Lillie said. “But it’s in the best interest of those kids they get back home. Can’t have anything bad happening to them. They’re traveling with a young girl named Holly Harkins and a boy that’s nine.”

  “A Holly what?”

  “Harkins,” Lillie said. “Holly Harkins.”

  The man stared direct at Lillie, hands in his blue work pants, muscles bunched in his shoulders up to his thick neck. The smell of weed was heavy in the room. The TV was on and showing two healthy folks engaged in some intense barnyard activity. The sound was down low but you could still hear a good amount of yelling and panting.

  “You into nature shows?” Lillie asked.

  “Man, I’m just chilling out,” he said. “Kicking back a little. You know how it is. Watching me some flicks. Y’all got a problem with some natural acts?”

  “What’s your name?” Hodge asked.

  “D’Shawn.”

  “You tell us where we can find Domino and we’ll let you get back to your chilling out, D’Shawn,” Hodge said. “I don’t want you pulled into this family mess. Aiding and abetting some juvenile fugitives. I promise it’s not going to be worth the effort.”


  “I don’t know her people,” D’Shawn said. “Only known Domino since Christmas. Met her down at the shake joint putting on a little show. She was dressed up as Missus Claus. Biggest damn titties I ever seen. She had me sit in her lap and asked me what I wanted her to bring me. I told her how ’bout I give her the best damn candy cane in Memphis.”

  “Beautiful story,” Lillie said. “Some real Hallmark movie shit.”

  “Girl’s trying to work,” D’Shawn said. “She don’t need no trouble.”

  “How about you?” Hodge asked. “Nobody’s looking for you for anything. Right? No old warrants you forgot about?”

  D’Shawn didn’t answer, standing there dead-eyed. The folks on the TV screen about to enter a crescendo of happiness, a lot of groaning and moaning, direct talk about what the man was doing and how much the woman sure was enjoying it. Lillie knew the whole thing embarrassed the hell out of Charlie Hodge, his face colored a bright pink. At his core, Charlie was a goddamn Puritan.

  “Which shake joint, D’Shawn?” Lillie asked.

  “What her cousin do?”

  “Wasn’t him,” Lillie said. “His girlfriend might’ve killed a good friend of mine. Cut her up into little pieces and tossed her into a trash barrel.”

  “That’s some sick shit,” D’Shawn said. “Must be a white girl.”

  “How’d you know?”

  “Shit,” D’Shawn said. “My momma told me a long time ago not to mess with a white girl. They turn your ass inside out. Fuck up your damn mind.”

  “Not all of us are bad.”

  “Maybe so,” D’Shawn said. “Cutting up her own mother? Y’all fucking with me?”

  “No, sir,” Hodge said.

  “Which shake joint?” Lillie said again.

  “Right back down the road at Dixie Belles,” D’Shawn said. “Domino works that lunch shift with the buffet bar. Chicken wings, onion rings, and hot dogs. Horny old men coming right off the airplane and needing some snacks, good loving, and their monkeys jacked. Ain’t no shame in it. It’s just a job.”

  “No judgment,” Lillie said, offering her palms. “How about you, Charlie?”