by Ace Atkins
“Think me and you might make some good use of our alone time?” Quinn asked.
“Hold that thought, Ranger,” she said. “Did you check the hospital later on?”
“It can account for two, three days after Gina was killed.”
“Sometimes folks don’t come in until it gets real bad,” she said. “Infection setting in. They might put it off because they don’t want to call attention to themselves or don’t have insurance. I can check with the desk in the morning.”
“You also know some folks at the clinics, too,” Quinn said. “They may share something with you they wouldn’t share with my deputies.”
“Roger that,” Maggie said.
“You making fun of me?” Quinn asked.
Maggie nodded, and Quinn leaned down to kiss her hard on the lips.
Quinn could barely remember the cold house and the quiet empty rooms before Maggie and Brandon showed up in his life. The bourbon, the rain, and Tanya Tucker only enhanced the feeling. He was sure he’d have to get back on the road in the morning, maybe sooner—Lillie and the marshals were getting close. They had to be by now. How far could four kids with no money get?
“You look like you’re a million miles away, Quinn Colson,” Maggie said.
“Hopefully only a few hundred.”
“Lillie will bring them in safe,” Maggie said.
“I’m not worried about Lillie,” he said. “I’m worried who else might get there first.”
* * *
* * *
Bishop had been parked up in the pine thicket since nightfall, where he’d smoked a half pack of Pall Malls and drank two Red Bulls while listening to the America First radio hour. Illegal Immigrants Running Wild. Minorities with Their Hands Out. Hollywood Homos Radicalizing Youth. So much immorality and recklessness in this country that he wanted to puke. If it weren’t for all the mess last year, Governor Vardaman getting caught by the Feds and Colonel Pierce getting killed, the Watchmen would’ve been much further down the road. He never thought he’d have to take a job working for goddamn Johnny Stagg, enforcing peckerwoods and white trash that caused trouble. But here he was, late at night in his black Tahoe, hiding behind some skinny trees.
He’d killed the lights and only left twice to reconnoiter and take a piss. A quarter mile away was a nice view of the front porch where he’d go hunting, taking out both those Nix boys like Mr. Stagg wanted. Quick, easy, and efficient. He’d be sitting down to a Lumberjack Special at the Rebel before the sun came up.
Before he headed to the Nix place, Bishop had done a little checking with two of his brother Watchmen. One was a sheriff’s deputy in a nearby county and the other had been a death house guard over at Parchman. Both of them knew about the Nixes. The father was a damn piece of work, a killer and pervert who’d done time for manslaughter and diddling some little kids at a storefront church over in Parsham. The son wasn’t much better, in and out of jail for assault, meth running, and arson, the deputy told him, for a barn burning that had happened five years ago. Some kind of pissing contest with a fella who’d been unfortunate enough to share a border with these two shitbirds. Not that it mattered one damn bit, but punching the ticket of the Nix boys wasn’t going to be a great loss for humanity. The law, the politicians all gone too soft in this country, letting people like the Nixes come in and out of jail like a revolving door. His brother in arms, the Parchman gun bull, had told him that trash like that wouldn’t commit crimes if things were much rougher inside. Prisoners didn’t have to do a goddamn thing but eat good food, sleep, and watch TV. Life ain’t all about fried chicken and mashed potatoes, pounding your damn pud while watching Judge Judy.
Bishop squashed the cigarette into the empty Red Bull can and crawled out of his truck. He pulled at his brushy beard before reaching in back for his .308 Browning rifle and two automatic pistols. He’d worn all black tonight, from his ball cap down to his Merrill boots. Slinging his rifle over his shoulder, he guessed those boys wouldn’t be but a hundred, hundred fifty yards away when he went to hunting.
Bishop cut the barbed wire and passed without interest under a dozen no trespass signs, one of them hand-painted and boasting that the owners of the land had both a gun and a backhoe. Bishop had to hand it to these little fucking midgets, they sure did have some redneck style. Bishop was serving the public good by thinning the herd a little. The law wouldn’t give a damn. How many enemies could those Nixes have out there? The list would be damn endless, Bishop thought, moving careful and quiet in the wind and the rain. No moon tonight. Going dead silent like Colonel Pierce had taught him in maneuvers down in Guntown.
It took him about twenty minutes to get to that old trailer, where he could watch the house. He checked the back porch of the Nixes’ busted old place, the lot filled with junk cars and chicken coops, the trappings of feral white folks, and saw he was a good hundred yards away. From that range, Bishop knew the bullet would drop a few inches, and he’d have to aim high on both those boys. Drop them in the light of the porch and head back quick to his Chevy.
All he needed now was a little diversion. Bishop opened up his rucksack and pulled out a quart of fire starter. Using the old junk cars and thick weeds as cover, he worked over to a woodshed, where he squirted the accelerant all up and down the walls. He clicked on his Bic and watched flames zigzag and light up the building as he ran back to his hidey-hole with his .308. Bishop nearly started to giggle at the game he was playing on those two midgets, smoke curling up into the dark sky. He couldn’t wait to see them running from that house, yelling and screaming, dumber than a damn box of dildos.
Bishop jumped up into the old trailer, the roof torn away as the light rain fell over him. The blue tarp over the open ceiling buckling loose and flapping around in the wind. He got to his knees and lifted the rangefinder to his eye.
Bishop picked up the rifle, steadied his hand, and took in an even and slow breath. Damn, this was gonna be fun. He sure hoped those Nixes jumped up and yipped like the armadillos he used to shoot with his .22.
He started to giggle again as a tiny hand put a blade to his throat and whispered, “Evening there, stranger.”
“Me and Daddy smelled you a mile away,” another man said, his face and body nothing but shadows. “Guess you can’t read worth a shit.”
“Want me to gut him, son?” the old man said.
“Naw,” the young one said. “Take ’em down to the processing house. Let’s see what this fella knows.”
* * *
* * *
Chester Pratt’s phone buzzed a little before midnight. He picked it up, half asleep, answering like he was working the register at Bluebird Liquors. “Uh-huh, yeah, what do you want?”
“Why’d you say all those lies on TV, Chester?”
“Who’s this?”
“Who the hell you think?”
“TJ?”
“Goddamn right it’s TJ,” she said. “Better check online. I responded to your bullshit. And I’m not going to stop talking till folks get smart and realize why you wanted Momma killed.”
“Slow down,” he said, pulling the phone from his ear, not recognizing the number. “Let’s talk through this.”
“I’m done talking,” TJ said. “I want my fucking money, Chester.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Momma gave you my money,” she said. “Having her killed don’t change a goddamn thing. I won’t stop until I get what’s mine and your ass is being cornholed in Parchman.”
“Good Lord, girl,” he said. “Where’d you learn to talk so filthy?”
“Filth deserves filthy talk,” she said. “I’ll call back tomorrow night with instructions on how I want my money sent.”
“I can’t get that all in one day,” he said. “That’s a whole lot of money.”
“Ain’t my problem, Chester,” she said. “Fair is fair.
”
“Where are you?” he said. “The law is on you. They’re coming fast on your heels, little girl. You and that colored boy.”
“Make things right,” TJ said. “The truth has a way of shaking out.”
* * *
* * *
TJ ended the call at the marina where they’d left Chastity’s boat. Ladarius had crossed the road to a Motel 6 to steal them a new car, Chastity now saying they should head south. She told them all about a fishing cabin her daddy barely even knew he owned in a place called Grand Isle. It was raining hard now, and all their clothes were soaked all the way through.
TJ handed the phone back to Chastity.
“Can that kid really steal us a car?” Chastity said.
“That kid can steal anything.”
“All my money is gone,” she said. “My credit cards canceled. That fucking creep canceled my credit cards.”
“Maybe that’s for the best,” TJ said. “No credit cards. Only burner phones. We keep to ourselves until I get what’s coming to me.”
“I heard you talking,” Chastity said. “He’s not going to pay.”
“The hell he won’t.”
“If you can get me to Grand Isle, my father has another boat,” she said. “A big one. We can all get free of this. I think we can make it all the way to Mexico.”
“That’s crazy.”
Chastity shrugged, shivering in a pink hoodie, blowing into her fists and shuffling her feet. “God, it’s cold,” she said. “Come on. Where’d Ladarius go? Did he leave us?”
“He’ll be back,” TJ said. “Soon.”
Holly and John Wesley sat under the darkened awning behind the marina. John Wesley had his head laying on top of his luggage, cold and half asleep. God, what a damn mess. TJ should’ve never brought him along. She prayed all this would get sorted out soon. A shitbag like Chester Pratt couldn’t keep talking out his damn ass forever; whatever he did would come back on him. That much she knew. That kind of thing was in the Bible. Being on the run had made a believer out of her.
“I got something,” Chastity said. “Something we can trade for money.”
The crazy girl laid down the big black duffel bag she’d dragged down to the dock with her, TJ convinced it was full of high-dollar dresses and shoes, maybe a bottle or two of that good wine in the basement.
She unzipped the bag and pushed aside some jeans and sweaters and a pair of sparkly boots to show TJ a heavy, dark pile of metal.
“Where you get those?” TJ asked.
“My daddy’s,” she said. Chastity’s bag was bulging with a fancy-looking rifle, a few handguns, and boxes of ammo. “Someone will buy ’em. Somewhere.”
“You stole your daddy’s guns?”
“Sure,” Chastity said. “The TV was too big.”
* * *
* * *
Momma Lennie opened the door and stepped into the processing barn just as the damn fun had started. Dusty and Daddy had stripped that old military boy buck-ass nekkid and bound his hands in chains that lifted him onto his tippy toes. He struggled to breathe with duct tape across his mouth, his face turning a bright red. Under the fluorescent lights, the stainless steel they used to butcher deer, hogs, and cattle shone slick and clean as a mirror.
“Just what the hell’s happening?” Momma said. She was tall and skinny, nearly twice as big as Daddy, wearing her Disney Princess nightgown. Old Tinker Bell touching her sparkly wand to the sky. This Grandma Believes in Holiday Magic! “This the man who tried to burn down my shed?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Dusty said. “Caught him red-handed. He’d set up at Uncle Frankie’s old trailer with a deer rifle, about to try and blow a hole in me and Daddy.”
“What for?” she asked. “What’d y’all go and do now?”
Daddy had taken to cutting a fresh field-stripped deer swinging next to the man, slicing a juicy rump roast with his pocketknife, and dropping the meat on the table. “Only know one fella want us dead,” Daddy said, licking the blood from his fingers. “That’d be ole Chester Pratt. Ole Mister Fancy Pants sent you out to the Nix place? Ole Mister Fancy Pants wants you to take out the trash same as we done took out his whore?”
That thick-bearded man tried to yell and scream through that duct tape. Dusty figured it would smart like hell if they ripped it from his mouth. But he yanked it off anyway, kind of curious just what the man had to say about dealing with old Chester.
“I don’t work for Chester Pratt,” the man said, turning his head to spit. A good bit of his beard pulled out and stuck on the tape in Dusty’s hand. “Christ Almighty.”
“You shouldn’t never have trespassed, son,” Daddy said. “Who was it, then?”
“Let me go and I’ll tell you,” the bearded man said. “All right? This ain’t personal. Someone paid me to punch both y’all’s tickets.”
“Chester Pratt,” Dusty Nix said. “Right?”
“Goddamn Chester Pratt couldn’t find his own asshole with a gallon of Vaseline and a divining rod,” the bearded man said. “I work for Johnny Stagg. Come on. Let me loose. You don’t want no more trouble. You kill me and Stagg just gonna send someone else. Probably a whole mess of them.”
“What’s your name?”
“Call me Bishop,” he said.
Momma Lennie snatched up a butcher knife and walked up to where Mister Bishop hung from the ceiling, slid along the rack with that deer ready to butcher. Her hair was gray and stringy, eyes hollow and black since she quit the smoking and drinking. She flicked at his shrunken pecker with the sharp end of the knife.
“Save his ding-dong for the dogs,” Momma said. “They got a taste for that ole bully stick.”
“Please,” Bishop said. “Turn me loose.”
“Tried to burn us out,” Daddy said. “Then planned to plug us both on our own fucking porch. Shit, boy. Ain’t no reversing down that road and waving adios.”
“Why’s Mr. Johnny T. Fucking Stagg give two shits about the Nix boys?” Dusty asked.
“Help me and I’ll tell you.”
“Turn off the lights when y’all are done and don’t make too much of a mess,” Momma Nix said as she walked back out the door. “Y’all stole all my damn bleach last week.”
Bishop rattled the chains and started to yell and carry on, while Daddy nibbled the bloody bit of backstrap in his hand. Dusty stood back and stared at that hairy bastard just hanging there, wondering if they might keep him in storage until they figured out what Stagg wanted besides them being dead.
“Sorry, boy,” Daddy said, white whiskers covered in blood. “You made the play.”
“I want his rifle,” Dusty said, looking down at the man’s feet. “And them fancy military boots.”
“What about the meat?” Daddy said.
“Might make a damn fine gift for Mr. Stagg.”
“Haw, haw,” Daddy said. “I like your thinkin’, son.”
Dusty turned on the sausage maker while Daddy went to the cupboard for a jar of pickled jalapeños and some of that good Cajun seasoning they got at the Piggly Wiggly. Daddy licked his lips, setting the plastic bin in front of the grinder.
Dusty walked up on the man, who was rocking and swaying from the chains, and patted his big belly with his free hand, the other holding the .45 auto he’d taken off him. “Hell, we may not need to add that much pork fat,” he said. “This fella got enough ’round the middle.”
Bishop yanked and pulled, chains jingling like church bells in that metal shed. That fat boy’s face purply red, eyes looking like they might just pop from his head.
Dusty pressed the pistol to the man’s temple.
Lots of moaning and crying. A big pool of piss spreading across the concrete floor just before Dusty pulled the trigger. Blam.
Bishop hung limp and heavy off the chains. Dusty Nix nodded to his daddy to start on the cutting.
“Good thing Momma went on back to the house,” Daddy said. “I don’t think she’d want to see what’s coming next.”
EIGHTEEN
The next morning, the day after she’d tracked the kids to Forrest City, Lillie Virgil and Charlie Hodge headed over to Hot Springs, Arkansas. A security camera at a cabin on Lake Hamilton had shown none other than Ladarius McCade breaking in and stealing a freezer full of T-bones. By the time Lillie and Hodge arrived, the PD had sent out patrols to houses around the cabin and connected the kids to another break-in, this time at a big-ass mansion down the road owned by Vince Bloodgood, a fat fella who presented Lillie with his business card straight off. President and CEO of Bloodgood Motors in Fayetteville.
“I think these killers must’ve taken my baby,” Bloodgood said, shaking his head. “She’s a beautiful girl, frail and scared, ran off from home two days ago. Me and my wife have been worried sick. That’s her car right there. Nice little Mercedes G-Wagen. Gently pre-owned. Bought it for her sixteenth birthday. How are you doing for a vehicle, Miss Virgil?”
“Why do you think your daughter joined up with those kids?” Lillie asked.
“Wait till you see the mess inside my home,” Bloodgood said. He wore a dark blue double-breasted suit, a white shirt with a wide red tie, and styled his hair in an exaggerated comb-over. “Police almost finished up doing what they set out to do. House is a real wreck, ma’am. Looks like that Byrd girl had quite the time, sleeping around every bed like she was Little Miss Goldilocks with her pants on fire.”
“Is that what you saw?” Lillie said. “Ain’t that something.”
“Sexual action all over my family home.”
“Mm-hmm,” Lillie said. “And just why’d your daughter run away again?”
“She never really run off,” Bloodgood said. “Chastity got some idiot at the rehab center to drive her to Fayetteville for her vehicle. Don’t you worry about that detail. I called up that center and made sure that ole boy was fired. We’d paid up for two more weeks.”