by Ace Atkins
Chester had enough. He stood up and dropped a twenty on the table. Just as he turned for the door, he caught the eye of the young one, giggling like something sure had tickled him.
“Something funny?” Chester asked.
“Didn’t know you was there, Mr. Pratt,” Dusty Nix said, smiling bigger than shit. “Sure am sorry to hear about your girlfriend. Me and Daddy want to wish you our thoughts and some of them good prayers.”
“Y’all can go straight to hell,” Chester said. “Don’t come around me again.”
Dusty Nix stood up, the top of his head not even reaching Chester Pratt’s chin. He had his hands on his hips and his skeletal head hung high. Both of the men stinking to high heaven, like old rotten meat and rancid urine.
“No, sir,” Dusty Nix said. “Me and Daddy just getting started.”
“What’s that mean?”
Nix looked back to the kitchen and across the restaurant to six, seven other folks out of earshot. “Don’t you worry, Mr. Pratt,” he said, raising his voice. “We’ll get you that estimate right quick.”
“I don’t need y’all’s help,” he said. “I don’t need anybody’s goddamn help.”
“You sure about that?”
THIRTEEN
The house was endless, a maze of dozens of halls and rooms with all the furnishings coated with a thin layer of dust, black on TJ’s fingertips. She and Ladarius had slept up in that big bedroom on the second floor, while Holly and John Wesley slept downstairs by the big rock fireplace where they watched a marathon of Harry Potter DVDs on a screen nearly as large as a movie theater’s. As she got up that morning, standing on a second-floor balcony and looking out on the lake, she thought this had to be the most beautiful place she’d ever been in her life. If only she’d known there was a world outside Tibbehah County, she would’ve left a long time back.
Ladarius had slipped away early but had come back a half hour ago, carrying in a big wine box loaded down with frozen meat, eggs, and sausage. He and Holly cooked up a mess of it while John Wesley wandered from room to room, sometimes coming up to tell TJ all the amazing things he’d found and asking what he could keep. One room, painted pink with lots of lace and frills, had more toys in it than the Tupelo Walmart, he’d said. John Wesley found a couple of remote-control cars and a few Marvel action figures, TJ saying don’t steal nothing but play with what you like.
She carried a bedspread over her shoulders, her breath clouding before her while she looked out onto the lake, as she stepped off the balcony and back into the room with the big four-post bed. The bathroom had a shower as large as their trailer and a big jacuzzi under a huge oil painting of a naked white woman. Her breasts as thick and heavy as two bouncy pink water balloons. TJ figured that must be the woman of the house, spread-legged and big-jugged for only the select few to see.
TJ crashed down into the king-size bed, back under the swirl of white blankets and soft white pillows where she’d slept hard, and pulled a sheet over her head. She wished she could stay there forever, not go outside and have everyone look to her for what they were going to do next. How the hell did she know what they needed to do or where they should go?
She wished she still had her phone to see what was going on back home but knew Ladarius had been right. They needed to dump everything before they crossed into Arkansas or the law would know where to find them. Right now, every string connecting them back to Tibbehah had been cut.
She felt like she’d been running a long time before this road trip, going back to the first she could remember, about the time her daddy died, and being passed around from house to house until her momma came back and took over, acting like she’d gotten straight and grown up. But that was all a lie. Everything that woman said was a lie. Gina Byrd had never been a good mother or someone TJ or John Wesley could depend on. If TJ hadn’t learned to take care of her own damn self, she wouldn’t have made it. But a kid could learn how to drink spoiled milk or walk two miles to the scratch and dent with a sock full of change for a can of Vienna sausages and saltines. A shoeless kid could wait outside her trailer in the deep winter cold because her mom had brought home a nice new man and all the moaning and knocking kept her awake at night. A kid could do about anything, including when Gina got pregnant again, another new nice man wanting to be part of the Byrd Family Shitshow for a while.
John Wesley’s daddy, a skinny, quiet fella named Carter Havens, showed TJ a lot of love and support and churchgoing until one morning she woke up to Carter standing over her bed and throttling his peter like there was no tomorrow. He’d placed his fingers to his lips and whispered to her to stay still. She’d told her mother. But Gina didn’t listen. She never listened. Soon Carter Havens had gone anyway and then the baby came and TJ became an eight-year-old kid with a real-life doll that ate and shit and consumed every hour she was awake and all through the night. John Wesley would start to cry and Gina would bang on TJ’s door and scream she needed some help. John Wesley hadn’t been maybe six, seven months old when Gina was back at the bars, meeting up with new men for no other reason than to show bony-ass Carter Havens that she didn’t give two shits that he’d gone back to his wife and three kids. That time, those early days when John Wesley had been a baby, might have been her best. TJ had some kind of structure and sense to time. She got up, took care of the baby, caught the school bus, and rode back home in the afternoon to take on chores and watch John Wesley while her momma got dolled up for another night out.
It wasn’t strange. Hell, it was all TJ knew. She figured everyone took care of the younger kids just the same.
But then Gina went from being fast and loose to just plain stupid when she first brought home old Donald Evans. That man just plain-out smelled evil: cheap aftershave and liquor sweating from his skin. He’d look TJ straight in the eye and tell her that she and the baby needed to head on to the back room, him and her momma were about to get down to business. TJ one time made the mistake of wanting a glass of water and saw her naked momma pinned down on the kitchen table, Donald Evans with his pants around his ankles, red-faced and rutting like a pig. Old Donald smiled at TJ when she froze up, heart pounding, not sure if she could move, while he finished up, snatching her momma by the neck and saying he was hungry. Why would Gina put up with that? Why’d she bring such trash into their family?
Donald Evans. Donald Evans. Donald the Fuck. Goddamn, so many bruises, scrapes, and scars from that man. He did oil changes over at the Walmart in town and would come to their trailer in the evening stinking of sweat and grease and high as hell. He’d sit on their couch and watch their TV, pro wrestling and FOX News, flicking around the remote like he owned the place. Her mother so mousy and so damn small, cooking him frozen suppers and laying with her head in the man’s lap. Donald the Fuck not having the human decency to wash the grease off his hands, leaving black smears across her momma’s cheek. Smacking TJ across her face if she ever gave him any lip.
When that man hit little John Wesley, it had gone too far. She tried to talk some sense to her momma but Momma wouldn’t listen. She tried to wrestle the pills and bullshit from her momma’s purse and for the first time of many, boy they got into it. They smacked each other back and forth, TJ having to hold her mother by the throat to keep her away. John Wesley cowering in his bedroom, scared of just what might happen next. The law came then. And they came again—next time she tried to keep Donald the Fuck away from her kid brother. Everyone blaming TJ for being a bad kid, a youth out of control, striking her own damn momma.
TJ pulled the covers up tighter, trying not to think about that time and all the bad times Gina Byrd had brought on herself and TJ and John Wesley. Was she looking for a reason Momma was dead? As much as she wanted to be sad, mourn for her, the thought that Gina was gone gave her a little bit of relief and ease to it all. Carter Havens. Donald Evans. And then a man whose name she couldn’t even recall. He showed up a couple of years ago, just after she�
�d found those pit bull puppies down the road at that abandoned trailer. They were hers and John Wesley’s, not long after a hard Christmas when Gina had gone and disappeared for two weeks and that woman from the state tried to take them both away and put them into a new home. A good home with decent Christian people. TJ had met the new man with no name late one night because of her momma’s screams. He’d gone and pushed Gina through a thin wall and was choking her. TJ did the best she could, finding an old baseball bat they kept for protection and knocking that man down to his knees. He didn’t come to for nearly an hour.
The man left. And her momma didn’t say a word about what had happened. The bruised outlines of the man’s fingers on her neck. When the deputy came, Momma blamed TJ again, although this time TJ didn’t have nothin’ to do with nothin’.
Two days later, TJ came home to find two of her puppies gone and the three who were left bleeding out their mouths and backsides. Someone, but she knew damn well who, had returned and filled the water bowls with bright yellow antifreeze. She tried to feed them milk and hold them warm and tight. But the puppies died. Little John Wesley didn’t speak for nearly a month. Caught up somewhere in his head with sorrow and shame and wondering why the God they loved so much had brought such horrible misfortune on them all.
TJ heard Ladarius again, calling out to her from the bottom of the steps. “TJ. TJ. Where you at?” She kicked off the heavy blanket in the mammoth bed and opened her eyes. Ladarius ran up the steps and peeked into the room.
“Steak and eggs?” he said. “I got us some real good shit.”
“Oh, yeah?” she said. “I could use some good shit right about now.”
“Come and get it, little girl,” Ladarius said. “We’re all waiting for you.”
* * *
* * *
Quinn found Boom inside the County Barn, up on top of the big engine of a Mack gravel spreader, his false hand filled with ratchets and twisting hard.
“Brought you some fried pies,” Quinn said.
“Miss Graves?”
“You know it.”
“Apple or peach?”
“Apricot,” Quinn said. “I ate the peach.”
“That’s selfish as hell,” Boom said, back turned to Quinn. “You know peach is my favorite.”
Quinn waited as Boom finished whatever he was doing and climbed back down the ladder leaning against the truck. The big man headed on over to the workbench running across the far wall and pulled out a ratchet fitted into his artificial hand. He unlatched his forearm and replaced it with his steel hook. The hook reached out and snatched the paper sack away from Quinn. He sniffed the open sack.
“No wonder you scared the shit out of Sheriff Lovemaiden.”
“Speaking of,” Boom said. “You come to check out that car? That man left me a hell of a nasty message when he found out I didn’t deliver it to the state folks in Jackson.”
“Easy to get confused,” Quinn said. “Seeing that it was originally supposed to come back here.”
“Lovemaiden was none too pleased,” Boom said. “What do you want with it? Reggie Caruthers already took prints off the door and inside. Ain’t nothing in there but a whole bunch of trash. Reggie checked that shit out, too.”
“Can’t hurt to take another look,” Quinn said. “How’s the pie? Almost as good?”
Boom didn’t answer, chewing one last large bite as a small radio on his workbench played soul classics from a station in Tupelo. Quinn recognized one of the older hits, “Blind, Crippled, and Crazy” by OV Wright. Boom’s daddy, Deacon Kimbrough, used to play that stuff all the time when he’d drive them all over north Mississippi for youth football games. Quinn couldn’t recall a time that he hadn’t been friends with Boom Kimbrough.
“What you think you’re gonna find?” Boom said. “Y’all already found a damn hacksaw in that shed.”
“Who told you that?”
“Everybody in town knows.”
“Kenny?” Quinn asked.
“I love Kenny, but damn, that boy can’t keep his mouth shut,” Boom said. “Reggie told me those kids hit the road. Folks saying that Gina Byrd didn’t care for her little angel shacking up with a black boy from down in the Ditch.”
“That’s bullshit,” Quinn said. “Gina wasn’t a racist. Hell, she dated black men herself.”
“Never dated me,” Boom said. “I was too damn country-ass for her. She liked those boys who rode up to Memphis and hit those clubs. Ones with gold teeth and spinning rims. Not ones who listened to Charley Pride and hung out in the woods.”
Quinn refilled his coffee from Boom’s pot. He lifted his travel mug to his pal. “Kiss an Angel Good Mornin’.”
“Is Anybody Goin’ to San Antone.”
Boom pointed to the far side of the barn where Quinn spotted the blue Nissan parked all alone and crooked in the corner. They walked over to the car as Quinn reached into his jacket pocket for a pair of rubber gloves, plastic baggies, and small Maglite. The passenger side was open and Quinn began to search through the glove compartment and center console for any papers, personal notes, or bills that might tell him something about Gina Byrd. He’d already found out she had a checking account at Jericho First National and he’d subpoenaed her bank records that morning. He removed anything of interest and placed it into Ziploc bags for testing, hoping maybe the state lab could grab a print if those Reggie took off the door handles and inside the car didn’t work out.
“Gina sure loved Sonic,” Quinn said, placing receipt after receipt in the bag.
“Meth monkeys love those tots.”
“Is that it?”
“What I heard.”
“You hear where she got the money?”
“Who you think.”
“Chester Pratt,” Quinn said. “Her sugar daddy?”
“Old man liked to keep that girl happy,” Boom said. “Same ole sad song.”
Quinn started to hum a few bars of “All I Have to Offer You Is Me.” He had all four doors open now, in the back and reaching under the front seats. A few red straws and some plastic Coke and Sprite bottles. More receipts from the Huddle House, Piggly Wiggly, and the Walmart in town. He read through them all but not finding much. Every receipt, everything in the car, going in the baggies. He’d inventory them all back at the SO and then send them on to Jackson.
“Just heard from Nat Wilkins,” Boom said. “She wants me to meet her down in New Orleans sometime. You know she took that transfer?”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Everyone knows her face in north Mississippi after what went down with Fannie Hathcock,” Boom said. “What you think? You think I should go?”
“No,” Quinn said. “I think your old ass should avoid meeting up with a smart and beautiful woman. As they’re so easy to come by.”
“Took you long enough,” Boom said. “To get what you wanted.”
“But it worked out.”
“Maggie could’ve done better.”
Quinn was up front now, looking under the driver’s seat, roaming the Maglite around the carpet and up under the floor mats. Dirt and trash, a few loose coins. A glint of silver caught his eye, a thin blade caught between the front seat and the console. He reached for it and pulled it out into the overhead light of the County Barn. The blade’s tip was jagged and broken.
“What’s that?” Boom asked.
“Spent blade off a cutter.”
“That’s a roofing cutter,” Boom said, walking up beside him. “Gina Byrd do much of that work?”
“Nope,” Quinn said. “But she probably knew a few roofers, hanging out at the Southern Star.”
“Roofers are rough,” Boom said. “But sheet rockers are the worst. Breathing in that dust all day makes ’em crazy as hell.”
Quinn bagged the small blade and shut the doors. He looked to all the black powder splattered around th
e windows, locks, and across the steering wheel and shifter. Reggie had done a fine and complete job.
“You heard anything about Chester Pratt having a fallout with his brother?” Quinn asked.
“Ronnie?” Boom said. “Shit, man. Ronnie’s dead.”
“That’s what I thought, too,” Quinn said. “But my mom says he’s alive and well. Gone back to selling used cars at the Ford dealership. Apparently, he’s been saying Chester screwed him out of that liquor license.”
“Need a lot of money and connections to get one of those,” Boom said. “Wonder how ole Chester pulled that one off. Being that he’s been the town fuckup.”
“Don’t know,” Quinn said. “But I aim to find out.”
* * *
* * *
Holly Harkins started having regrets a little after midnight, the whole weight of their situation dumped on her head like a heavy concrete block. Not only had she run away, but she’d also stolen her momma’s minivan to help her friends get free from the law. Now they’d gone on to break into a mansion and rob some neighboring houses. Ladarius found frozen steaks at one place, a six-pack of fancy beer at another. That’s where she drew the damn line. They might be outlaws but they damn sure weren’t going to start drinking. Holly poured out every bottle and told that boy to get a hold of himself. Why was she here? What was she doing?
Her whole dumb life she’d made stupid quick decisions. Never thinking things out like her momma told her. Like that time she jumped off that rope swing out at Choctaw Lake and broke her leg. Or last summer when she bleached her hair blonde to be the same color as TJ’s and turned it orange. So many damn stupid things. Agreeing to take pictures in her underwear for that Gibson boy after they only made out once. It didn’t take two hours before every boy in her class had seen her nearly naked ass and those ginormous boobs she hated. Why did she do it? Hell, she didn’t even like that boy, let alone give two shits about wanting to be with him.