The Shameless

by Ace Atkins

  He shifted in his seat in the long wooden pew, feeling the Beretta digging into his hip.

  “You think he’ll start singing some hymns?” Maggie said. The old woman beside her shushed her and held her sign even higher in her frail arms.

  “Maybe ‘What a Friend We Have in Jesus.’”

  “Jesus would think he’s an asshole,” Maggie said. “Nobody cares about what he’s done or that he doesn’t even have a real agenda. This is the most broke-ass state in the Union. How about you fix our damn roads before trying to sell me your Southern history bullshit.”

  “Don’t blame me,” Quinn said. “The Colson family joined up with the Union in Corinth. They didn’t give a damn about supporting plantation owners. We were too damn broke.”

  “Rendezvous with destiny?” Maggie said, arching an eyebrow.

  “This is a race about conviction and moral fiber . . .” Vardaman said, continuing, shaking his fist as he spoke, talking down from the lectern on the hundreds who’d gathered to hear him speak.

  Quinn looked up and locked eyes with Vardaman, the man seeming to lose his place for a beat. He glanced over to a group of men hanging outside the shade of the pavilion, several of them dressed in military-style clothes, guns on their hips. Quinn had heard of them. Folks called them the Watchmen Society.

  “Moral fiber,” Quinn said. “Interesting choice of words.”

  “I don’t think I can take much more,” Maggie said, tugging at his arm. Her wrist was wrapped in thin leather bracelets and chains, nails cut short and painted black. Under her right arm was tattooed the words BE HERE NOW. Back in Tibbehah she’d been a bit of an anomaly, the kind of woman old folks might call a hippie. But Maggie was Maggie and Quinn loved her for it.

  “Don’t you want to hear the big finish?” Quinn said. “I think he might just be warming up.”

  “Not unless his head spontaneously combusts,” she said, sliding her hand down on his knee. “Now, that’s something I’d like to see.”

  Vardaman had kept a big hunt lodge in Tibbehah County for decades, the source of wild rumors and sustained fact, a place where he’d worked out deals with some of the most corrupt sorry-ass people in north Mississippi. Several times Vardaman had been on the fringe of people Quinn had either sent to jail or shot. But Vardaman always slipped clear of it, like a man who stepped in cow shit and came out smelling like Chanel No. 5.

  “If we don’t see this through,” Vardaman said, “you will be forced to bury our rich history and tradition in the red clay of Neshoba. I think our moral fiber is too tough for that.”

  “How about me and you take a walk, Mags?”

  “They sell daiquiris and margaritas by the Tilt-A-Whirl,” Maggie said.

  “Can’t have an elected official drinking during daylight,” Quinn said. “We’ll have to be like regular folks and sip whiskey when the sun goes down.”

  “How about I buy you a sausage biscuit at the Piggly Wiggly?”

  “Now you’re talking,” Quinn said. “And a tall coffee, too. I’d rather spend our time watching the livestock show.”

  “There’d be less bullshit.”

  Quinn pulled a Liga Privada cigar from his shirt pocket as he caught Maggie’s eye and nodded, both standing and making their way out of the pew and past the Vardaman supporters, who were again on their feet, waving their red bandannas. Damn proud rednecks but with few who looked like they actually did manual labor. The Watchmen folded their arms over their chests and stared from behind their dark sunglasses as they left the pavilion. Walking away, Quinn heard something about the Southerners being pushed out of their home by immigrants and gangbangers.

  Vardaman said he wanted his people to stand their ground and turn back the clock to a more glorious time.

  “Turn back the clock?” Maggie said. “Christ Almighty. Is he really going to win?”

  “Hate to tell you,” Quinn said. “But he already has.”

  * * *

  * * *

  “You’re going to kill him,” Twilight said. “Aren’t you?”

  “No,” Lillie said, watching the shadowed figure disappear from the railing and head back into his room at the Star Inn. “That’s not my intention.”

  “But you want to?”

  Lillie didn’t answer. She’d wait until the locals got there, close off any exits, and then knock nice and polite on his door. How it all went down would be up to Wes Taggart’s sorry ass.

  “I’m sorry about your friend.”

  Lillie nodded and, damn, if she didn’t feel herself tearing up behind her sunglasses, just thinking about the condition they left Boom in. Taggart and his late pal, J. B. Hood, had taken to Boom with a couple of Louisville Sluggers, the cowardly way of knocking a man who was six foot six and two-sixty to his knees. Nobody was sure he would make it, as he slid in and out of a coma, coming to and not being able to see or hear right for a while, having to go through therapy just to walk straight. Yeah, Twilight was probably right. She really wouldn’t get too emotional if a shitbird like Wes Taggart happened to make the wrong play.

  “I’m not what you think,” Twilight said, removing the cash from the envelope and counting it out quick with a licked thumb. She tucked the wad into a pink lacy bra.

  “Just what do I think?”

  “I’m not damaged or trash,” she said. “I know what I want. God gave me this body to flaunt. And I’d rather eat filet mignon than a meatball special at Subway.”

  “Preach, Sister,” Lillie said, watching two patrol cars show up in her rearview right by the shark’s mouth. She reached for her door handle and looked right at Twilight. “See you around.”

  “Promise you won’t kill him,” Twilight said. “He’s a real asshole, but I kinda like him. He could be gentle. Said he loved me when he was real drunk on the Turkey.”

  “How far can you get on that money?” Lillie said.

  “Why?”

  “After the show’s over, it’s time for you to start travelin’.”

  “I can get drunk on less than twenty dollars.”

  “Damn,” Lillie said, getting out and walking to the back of the Charger to retrieve her favorite shotgun and some extra shells. “A true talent. Good luck with that.”

  TWO

  Does Senator Vardaman ever come here for breakfast?” Tashi Coleman asked, not two days after arriving in Tibbehah County, Mississippi, from Brooklyn. She’d tried to keep a low profile since coming to town, renting a room at the Traveler’s Rest Motel, dressing down in jeans and a threadbare black J.Crew tee she’d borrowed from her ex-boyfriend, a disgraced writer who famously sold a false memoir to HarperCollins. Steel-toe work boots purchased at a vintage shop, black hair in a bun, no makeup, and clunky glasses to make her seem more anonymous.

  “Sure,” said the waitress at a place called the Fillin’ Station diner, an old joint actually housed in an old gas station. A true and authentic greasy spoon with busted linoleum floors and a single window air conditioner. “Likes grits and eggs, sausage on the side. Decent fella. Not a bad tipper. Why you asking?”

  “Just curious,” Tashi said. “His name’s been in the paper a lot lately.”

  “Why wouldn’t it be?” Mary asked, her hair the color of copper wire and permed tight like Tashi’s mom from pics of her in the eighties. She wore a pale blue apron over street clothes—acid-washed jeans and a plaid top, plain white tennis shoes. “He’s going to be our next governor. The man believes in setting us back on the right course, back to the way things used to be when I was a girl.”

  “And how was that?”

  “Simpler times,” Mary said, her wrinkled face softening. “Much simpler times. You could sleep sound at night without locking your doors. Neighbors spoke to each other. Families damn well went to church.”

  “And what’s different now?” Tashi asked, glancing around the nearly empty diner. J
ust an old, black farmer-looking dude by the front door smoking a very long cigarette. He seemed to be contemplating time and mortality or perhaps the incoming rain. She hoped it rained, it would make for some nice audio for the podcast. “You mind sitting down with me? I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

  “Me?” Mary asked. “What do I know about any of this mess?”

  “I don’t think there’s anyone better to help me figure out this town.”

  “First time in Mississippi?”

  “First time down South.”

  “Signs and wonders,” Mary said. “I knew you wasn’t from here the minute you walked in the door.”

  Tashi felt her face color as she set her iPhone on record and set it across from Mary right by the salt and pepper shakers and Louisiana hot sauce bottle. She self-consciously touched the edges of her thick black glasses. “How?”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Tashi,” she said.

  “What kind of name is that?”

  “Indian.”

  “Like Pocahontas?”

  “My mother was a yogi,” Tashi said. “She told me it means ‘good fortune.’ You know, ‘auspicious.’ She said she always believed great things would happen to me. I guess she’s all but given up on it now.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Mary tilted her head and studied her face. “Just where are you from, young lady?”

  “New York,” Tashi said. “Brooklyn, actually. But I plan to be here for a long time. I really want to settle into Jericho.”

  “Why on earth would you want to do that?”

  “You don’t like it here?” Tashi asked.

  “’Course I like it,” Mary said, closing one eye with suspicion. “Just love it. Can’t you see it all over this old woman’s face?”

  “I want people around here to know me,” she said. “I want everyone to know I’m not just some reporter passing through. I know some people down here don’t like strangers asking questions.”

  “You’ve been watching too many damn movies,” Mary said, wiping her hands on her apron and taking a seat. “This ain’t no Mississippi Burning. Let me tell you, folks around here have nothing but time to talk and talk. Just don’t talk to someone about something you don’t want known. You say one thing on the Square and two hours later it’s out all over Tibbehah.”

  “This is a rough place,” she said. “I’ve read a lot about it. Prostitution. Drug dealers. Wild West shoot-outs.”

  “You mean those old Pritchard boys?” she said. “Unfortunate. Nicest damn boys you ever met in your life. They just got a little above their raising, trying to expand their farming on up to Memphis. Should’ve just stuck to what they knowed best.”

  “And what was that?”

  “Dirt track racin’,” Mary said. “Lord, Cody Pritchard could fly. Like a damn scalded cat.”

  “You know some more people around here who wouldn’t mind being interviewed?”

  “What kind of people?”

  “People who’ve lived here their whole life,” Tashi said. “I’d like to know how this town used to run back in the nineties.”

  “Way back then.” Mary tapped at her waitress pad with her pen. She closed up one eye thinking about it and just shook her head. “Lots of folks. But Mr. Stagg and some of the supervisors are all in jail. Mr. Stagg’s been gone for almost three years.”

  “And who is Mr. Stagg?”

  “Christ Almighty,” Mary said, setting down her pad and sliding into the booth across from her. She pulled a pack of Kools from her apron and set fire to the end of a cigarette with a bright pink Bic. “You want to know how things used to run around here and don’t know Johnny T. Stagg? How much time you got, girlie?”

  “Long as you’ll give me,” she said. “I want to know everything.”

  “Everything?”

  Tashi nodded. “The present, the past, all of it.”

  Mary exhaled a long plume of smoke, resting her arm on the back of the booth. “Tomorrow morning there’s a meeting with the supervisors about building the big cross.”

  “The what?”

  “Some fella from Arkansas just came to town and said Jesus Himself told him to build a sixty-foot cross in Tibbehah County. He’s already got the support of Old Man Skinner and other local wheeler-dealer types. Would it interest you?”

  “You bet.”

  “It’s what you’d call some real local color.”

  “What do you think about it?”

  “Building a big cross?” Mary said. “Oh, I don’t know. I think it’s just Skinner trying to cover up the sign to the titty bar out on the highway. I think it might just class this town up a little. Let people see what we really stand for.”

  * * *

  * * *

  Wes Taggart wouldn’t open the goddamn door, and after finding it dead-bolted, the locals were more than happy to kick it in. Lillie was inside the little motel room first, moving fast and hard, as she’d learned from Quinn Colson, checking corners, watching for that son of a bitch to come out of the shitter. But instead she saw Bugs Bunny on the television, rumpled sheets under the flowered bedspread, and heard singing coming from the shower. The dumb son of a bitch hadn’t heard a thing, hitting the refrain of Waylon’s “Drinkin’ and Dreamin’.”

  She elbowed through the door and slid open the shower curtain just as he got to the part about never seeing Texas, L.A., or ol’ Mexico.

  “Nope,” Lillie said. “You sure as hell won’t. Either clean that little pecker or put it away, because I have warrants for your arrest, Wes Taggart.”

  Bald-headed and corded with muscle, a damn atlas of shitbirdism inked across his arms and chest, Taggart grinned and placed his right hand over his nuts. He held up the flat of his left. “And who the hell is Wes Taggart?”

  “The fella who wouldn’t come clean and got his nuts shot from here to Pass Christian.”

  “Are you willing to bet on it?” he asked. “You can get sued busting in here like this.”

  Lillie pointed the end of her shotgun at his privates. Taggart dropped both hands to cover his rather disappointing package and gave a big shit-eating grin. “You know me now?”

  “If you ain’t the famous Lillie Virgil. Calamity Fucking Jane of the Marshals.”

  “Damn straight, fucknuts.” Lillie reached for the rack and tossed him a towel. “Don’t worry about covering up that Vienna sausage of yours, just show me your hands and come with me.”

  “Christ Almighty,” he said. “What kind of woman talks like that? Where we going?”

  “Someone wants to talk to you back in Tibbehah County.”

  “The fucking Ranger?”

  “You aren’t as dumb as you look, Wes.”

  * * *

  * * *

  “You getting all this?” Mary asked. She lit her third cigarette in less than twenty minutes, sucking in the smoke with hollow cheeks and burning through nearly half of the fresh one.

  Tashi didn’t answer, only shrugged. She just kept on listening to the woman talk about the Who’s Who of Tibbehah County, starting off with a man named Johnny Stagg—great name, by the way—who used to run the board of supervisors until some dumb-ass crooks broke into an associate’s house and robbed his safe full of cash and important papers. Those papers ended up landing Stagg in federal prison on corruption charges.

  “Sheriff Colson sure hated that man.”

  “You mean the sheriff who killed himself?”

  “You don’t know much, do you?” Mary said. “Quinn Colson is the sheriff right now. At this very moment. His uncle was the man who killed himself. His name was Hamp Beckett. He was a fine man, a loving man, and lots of folks aren’t so sure he did himself in. I sure didn’t see it coming.”

  “Were y’all close?”

  “As close as can be,” she said. “He was what you young folks
call a significant other.”

  “Lots of secrets down here,” Tashi said. “Aren’t there? I heard a novelist once say Southerners don’t like to talk about unpleasant subjects. Is that true?”

  “You want some more coffee?”

  Tashi shook her head, not wanting the woman to quit talking. She was onto something, getting right to the heart of what she wanted Mary to say without being prodded.

  “Y’all mind me asking why y’all are here,” Mary said, wiping a speck of tobacco from her lip.

  Tashi swallowed and nodded. “Do you remember Brandon Taylor?”

  “It’ll be twenty-one years to the day in November,” Mary said, spewing out smoke from the corner of her mouth. “The family has suffered every day since they found that boy.”

  “What do you think, Miss Mary?” Tashi Coleman asked.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I didn’t know Brandon. I can’t understand why any of God’s creatures would take their own life. Young boy, his whole life spread out before him.”

  “Some people don’t believe it happened that way,” Tashi said. “Some folks believe he was killed.”

  “I’ve heard the same kind of talk,” Mary said. “Oh, Lord. Twenty years. It was a long time ago. So much has changed. Sometimes I don’t even recognize this little ole town on the Square.”

  * * *

  * * *

  Quinn and Maggie headed back to their cabin, passing by the Spinner and the Tilt-A-Whirl, the daiquiri and margarita stands. They stopped briefly at a shooting game and Quinn quickly won a giant stuffed dog for Maggie. He started to go for a second prize, but the old Mexican man who worked the game, looking lonely and sad with his ancient chihuahua, finally held up his hand to Quinn and said, “No más.”