by Ace Atkins
“That’s a sporty little wagon you got there,” a man said. She looked up to see some short fella standing beside an old truck.
TJ nodded and turned back to the spinning numbers on the pump. Behind the store’s plate-glass windows, John Wesley and Chastity flitted about bright colors of snack cakes and candies, stacks and stacks of Coca-Cola and Sprite.
“Tight little chassis, tires with fresh treads,” the man said. “Whew. Sure would like to take that vehicle out for a spin, break it in and loosen up them struts.”
TJ glanced over at the odd little man again. He stood in the shadows, but she still got a good view of his stocky body, black beard, and coal-black eyes. He had on a ball cap, a heavy camo hunting jacket over his blue jeans and mud boots. The man’s chapped face and dirty beard made him look like some kind of creature that had crawled out from the center of the earth.
He licked at his lips before lighting a cigarette. His right foot back behind him resting on the rear tire.
“Where y’all headed?” the man said.
TJ shrugged.
“Where y’all been?”
“Everywhere,” TJ said.
“Everywhere, huh,” the man said, topping off his tank and tapping at the nozzle to get every last drip into his old Chevy. “Ain’t that somethin’. Say, don’t I know you from somewheres?”
TJ didn’t answer. She hadn’t finished pumping thirty dollars but hung up the nozzle anyway and got back behind the wheel, cranking the engine, and wheeling out hard and fast to the front of the convenience store. She honked the horn and Chastity and John Wesley came running out, holding armfuls of candy and Cokes. They were laughing like hell as they jumped into the Land Cruiser.
“What’s so damn funny?” TJ said, spinning out onto the highway, headed south.
“We didn’t pay for nothing,” John Wesley said. “Chastity said I had two minutes to grab everything I wanted to eat.”
“That’s not us,” TJ said. “That’s not what we do.”
“Bullshit,” her little brother said. “Since when?”
TJ cut her eyes over at Chastity, who smiled and popped the sunglasses down off the top of her head. TJ looked up into the rearview mirror to see if she saw that old Chevy truck anywhere. When she didn’t, she let out a slow, easy breath.
“A man back there recognized me,” TJ said.
“You need some sleep,” Chastity said. “You’re not thinking straight.”
“He looked at me like he knew me,” she said. “Kept on talking about this Toyota like it was a woman.”
“Men are gross.”
“He had these small, crazy eyes,” TJ said. “I could smell him through all the spilled oil and diesel fumes.”
“So what?” Chastity said. “He stinks.”
“I smelled that somewhere before.”
“When?”
“When I washed Momma’s bloody clothes,” TJ said. “That funk was all over her.”
* * *
* * *
That fine bright morning, Johnny Stagg was finished with a tour of the halfway completed Frontier Village with ole Randy Nichols and Danny Hayes from the county supervisors. Both of them good ole boys since birth; Stagg working with both their daddies while they were still in diapers. Stagg was glad to learn they knew the ways of the world while promising unlimited and unconditional support to Stagg’s plan to give something back to the community. Of course, a tidy little campaign contribution would be made to both in their private accounts at Tibbehah First National.
The boys tipped their baseball caps and climbed their fat asses in the shiny new trucks provided by taxpayers. The best part about it was the truck was theirs for the taking, along with a brand-new metal barn and all the equipment they needed. Ain’t a better dodge than being a Mississippi supervisor. Stagg sure hated that he couldn’t run again because of slanderous lies and his current criminal record.
Stagg stood in the parking lot waving goodbye to Randy and Danny when his phone jingled in his pocket. One of his waitresses had set the ring to the tune of “(What This World Needs Is) A Few More Rednecks.”
“You got Johnny Stagg,” Stagg said. “Start talkin’.”
“That Bloodgood girl’s with TJ Byrd and her squirt brother.”
“I told you not to call unless you needed something.”
“You sure they headed to that fishing cabin?”
“Got it straight from the girl’s daddy,” Stagg said. “How many other places does that highway lead?”
“You mean south?”
Stagg didn’t answer such a dumb goddamn question. He took a long beat to let that Nix boy figure it the hell out.
“Only one.”
Stagg plugged his right ear with his finger, the drilling and hammering commencing again now that the official tour was over. He turned his back to the new kiddie wonderland and started to walk through the semis back toward the Rebel. He could finally hear that peckerwood Dusty Nix as he got between two tractor trailers.
“Y’all did good getting out of New Orleans,” Stagg said. “Goddamn marshal service raided that house this morning. Ain’t nothing in there but a bunch of dopeheads. Those boys are fucked good.”
“The law know where the girl’s gone?”
“If they knew, them kids would already been caught,” Stagg said. “Now listen, son. The whole goddamn point of this here exercise is to get that Bloodgood girl safe, lily white, and clean and back to her daddy before ending up in handcuffs. Do y’all understand?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“I said, do y’all understand?” Stagg said. “I ain’t got any more time for niceties and pecker pulls.”
A long silence followed, so long that Stagg thought they’d been cut off before that Nix boy started to breathe heavy on the line. “Me and Daddy waiting for the right time,” Nix said. “Just hope that little bitch don’t give us no trouble. ’Cause Daddy sure ain’t in the mood.”
* * *
* * *
“Aw,” Lillie said. “Isn’t that sweet? You brought me and Charlie coffee. Who are the other two for?”
“I’m about a quart low this morning.”
“Should’ve figured,” Lillie said. “That’s a long ride on that hurt back. You okay?”
Quinn nodded and fired up a new cigar with his lighter, spewing smoke behind him. His back and legs ached like hell. He’d only stopped once for a pit stop and some gas, rolling steady from north Mississippi on a big thermos full of coffee that gave out around Kentwood.
“Sorry you came all this way for an empty house,” Lillie said.
“Any idea where they’ve gone?”
“Maybe,” Lillie said. “The Bloodgood girl’s boyfriend is a real prize. Shooting up with his best pals with TJ Byrd and her little brother around. Talked to him right before he nodded out again. Sounds like TJ got tired of the shitshow and moved on. Says they’ve gone down to another family property on Grand Isle.”
“You believe him?”
“I believe him as much as any junkie willing to sell me some bullshit for some time off.”
“Do we know if her father has property down that way?”
“Checked on that very thing before you rolled up, Ranger,” Lillie said. “I sure as shit taught you well. Ole Mr. Bloodgood seems to have a spotty memory of where he owns all his houses. But property records seem to confirm it.”
“The girl’s daddy wasn’t sure if he owned a house on Grand Isle?”
“You know what they say about the rich.”
“That they’re different?”
“No,” Lillie said. “That they can be lying, conniving, backstabbing bastards.”
“Hadn’t heard that one,” Quinn said. “You ready to roll?”
“A team-up?” Lillie said. “A Ranger and U.S. Marshal?”
“Told you it’
d be just like the old days,” Quinn said.
Lillie took the cigar from Quinn’s fingers and took a few puffs. She handed it back as he opened the tab of his second coffee. The wild, green beauty of the park opening up to him, and he wished he could return sometime with Maggie and the kids. Oaks trees starting to bud and small green flowers poking up from the grass.
“Let me talk with Charlie,” Lillie said. “Maybe he can babysit these assholes in case something changes. I don’t want to be on some coon-ass highway if TJ Byrd decides to blow up goddamn Mardi Gras.”
“That kid’s better than that,” Quinn said. “She just wants to make things right.”
“You keep telling me that,” Lillie said. “And maybe one day I’ll believe you.”
TWENTY-SEVEN
Dusty and Daddy crossed that little bridge from the mainland and rolled up on the stilt house later that morning. The skies so dark and gray along the Gulf it damn well looked like night. Dusty had to elbow Daddy awake, the old truck smelling of cigarettes and gas station chicken, turning down the radio playing old-timey accordion music with some French fella wailing and carrying on about some dead woman. Even though it was colder than a Minnesota well digger’s ass, he let down the window to get a feel of what was happening on that neat row of houses, not spitting distance from the beach and backed up with a canal full of docks and boat lifts. Sure was a wonder how some white folks lived.
“Wake up,” Dusty said, hammering the dashboard with the flat of his hand. “Come on, old man. This ain’t no fuckin’ lunch break.”
Daddy garbled out some nonsense and went right for a cigarette, eyes staring straight up at the odd house, built high off the ground like some kind of weird bird standing quiet and still along the street. Row after row of nothing but stilt houses running across that little island, looking cold and dark and shut up for the winter. He figured maybe he and Daddy might come back with Momma Lennie after they got paid by ole Johnny Stagg. Easiest money they’d ever earned.
“Where’s that girl?” Daddy said.
“In that house, I reckon.”
“You reckon?” Daddy said. “Ain’t that her black car parked across the street? One we been following since New Orleans?”
“Engine still warm,” Dusty said. “Just walked over and touched it.”
“Anyone see you?”
Dusty shook his head, smelling the salt on that cold sea air blowing in. They could hear the waves from where they sat, Daddy blowing smoke up into the cracked windshield. Lord have mercy. They sure were a long way from Tibbehah County.
“I ain’t never taken your momma to the beach.”
“Just thinkin’ on that exact thing.”
“Me and her always working,” Daddy said. “Paying for you and your sister to have new britches and shoes on your feet. I think Momma might like to get out some time, get her big white-ass ninnies wet and her old toes in the sand.”
“Y’all deserve it,” Dusty said. “You’re like me. Swinging a hammer your whole life.”
“Didn’t have no other choice,” Daddy said. “My daddy kicked me out of the house after I knocked up your momma. Hell, I tried to explain I couldn’t help it. I was so goddamn horny, I would’ve screwed a sidewinder right in the mouth.”
“Y’all were just kids.”
“Momma was fourteen,” he said. “She done told me that if I held my breath and she prayed real hard no harm would come of it. And we did it each and every Sunday after church let out. Right there out in the woods by the Assembly of God like a couple animals in the rut.”
The flat gray clouds blanketed out the sky, turning everything around them cold as steel clear out to the Gulf of Mexico. Dusty wanted so bad just to close his eyes for a minute, the sound of the surf and the smell of the air soothing him.
“Don’t kill nobody this time,” Dusty said. “You hear me? No matter what happens.”
“This ain’t much different than me and you up on those rooftops chasing water,” Daddy said. “Sometimes it’s easy to see where it goes to hide, but it’s another to see where it sprung a leak.”
“You telling me to be patient?” Dusty asked. “Bide my time?”
“Little Goldilocks will come skipping down those stairs soon enough,” Daddy said. “I can almost smell her.”
Dusty kept on staring at the row houses and all those fancy boats parked up under them, something so damn foreign about it, feeling strange being so damn far away from their land. The unease of it made him feel like he wanted to reach for Daddy’s book of matches and burn something hot and fast.
“Remember what we did to that son of a bitch’s barn back in Parsham?”
“Ha, ha,” Daddy said. “How could I forget?”
“Remember me and you in the woods, laughing our damn asses off as he come out his trailer buck-ass nekkid with nothing more than a garden hose between his legs?”
“I can still smell that horsehair and charred meat,” he said. “Burned up his stock to a crisp.”
Dusty turned his head out the window and spit onto the crushed shells of the road. He looked back to Daddy and nodded down to the gear shifter. “Mind if I borrow that there book of matches?”
“Help yourself, son,” Daddy said, passing along the book with the cover reading southern star lounge. jericho, ms.
* * *
* * *
Nothing was as promised with Chastity Bloodgood. She’d led TJ and John Wesley straight down into the ass crack of Louisiana and onto the narrow sliver of Grand Isle to find a stripped-out house on stilts with no power, no furniture, not a speck of food. They were all freezing inside, sitting around the first meal of the day, a twenty-three-dollar bounty from Jo-Bob’s Gas & Grill from down the road. Two shrimp po’ boys they all shared along with a big Styrofoam clamshell full of dirty rice and three egg rolls with a Cajun dipping sauce. Two Diet Cokes and a Mr. Pibb for John Wesley.
They ate silently in the weak light of their dying cell phones, Chastity getting a short charge on the one she found in Graham’s Land Cruiser while she waited for food at Jo-Bob’s. She pecked away fast and furious, answering fans on the FreeByrd handle and finally speaking, claiming she’d touched base with folks who might help them if the boat to Mexico didn’t pan out.
“Hold up,” TJ said, leaving half an egg roll stuck in the Cajun sauce. “Hold up one goddamn minute. What do you mean if the boat doesn’t pan out?”
“News flash,” she said. “When we drove up, did you see a fucking boat parked at that dock out back? Now, Daddy may have stuck it in dry dock or something for repairs. But just in case he sold it or something, we need a plan. That’s all on me. Nobody else is doing any long-range thinking.”
“There’s nothing here,” TJ said. “Your daddy lost this place just like he lost y’all’s house in Hot Springs. Why can’t you just admit you’re just taking us down goddamn memory lane? There’s nothing here anymore. Nothing for you or me or John Wesley. And your daddy ain’t no different from mine. A man who got big dreams but keeps on getting knocked on his ass. Least my daddy never quit on nothing.”
“You don’t know shit about my family,” Chastity said. “Or my father. He’s the biggest seller of Chevy trucks in all the Ozarks.”
John Wesley looked from girl to girl, his mouth open while he held an unsteady fork of dirty rice.
“I know he chose some new hot piece of ass with silver dollar titties over you.”
“And what about you, TJ Byrd?” she said. “You think you’d have gotten this far without me? I helped you. I made you. If it wasn’t for me, you’d already be up in prison for killing your own mother.”
John Wesley looked up hard with his big eyes, mouth hanging open. “That’s a lie,” he said. “My momma was real sick. Holly Harkins told me. TJ didn’t have nothing to do with it. She died. She’s up there in heaven with Jesus and Dale Earnhardt.”
&
nbsp; “Are you deaf or just a retard?” Chastity asked. “Have you been listening to anything this whole ride, kid? Why do you think your sister is out here running from the law? Holly wouldn’t stand by her. Ladarius got nearly eaten up by some dogs. And I’m the only friend she’s got left.”
“You’re not a friend,” TJ said. “You’re about as real as those boys sending me messages how they want to marry me.”
“Ladarius got eat by some dogs?” John Wesley said. His face bloodless and blank in the soft glow of TJ and Chastity’s phones.
TJ wasn’t sure what to tell her brother as the phone in her hands died out and went black, the only light in the room coming from the glow up under Chastity’s face. She had her head down, already scrolling through like everything was fine and nothing at all had happened between them. TJ held her words until Chastity pulled a whole po’ boy up toward her and snatched up half of it.
“Give it to me,” TJ said.
“Yeah, right.”
“John Wesley hasn’t eaten all day.”
“You sure are a great mother,” she said. “Taking the kid on a wild-ass robbing and killing spree.”
“Better than the one you got,” TJ said, knowing she may have pushed things a little too far.
Chastity threw what was left of that shrimp po’ boy right at TJ, smacking her square in the face with the shredded lettuce and mayonnaise dripping onto her shirt. “Here you go!” Chastity said, screaming. “Take it. Just like you’ve taken or stolen everything else in your life. The world isn’t all about handouts.”
TJ launched herself off the floor and onto Chastity, knocking the girl onto her back, trying to pin her down by the shoulders. Chastity spit into her face and tried to roll away from her, TJ headbutting the girl just like she’d seen on WWE SmackDown, those Bella Twins taking care of business. But damn if that little girl wasn’t tough, grabbing TJ by the waist and driving her straight into the wall, her ass ramming clear though the sheetrock.