The Shameless

by Ace Atkins

  He was nearly close enough for Quinn to reach out and snatch his ass. And then Quinn’s cell phone went off. “Everything Is Beautiful” rang out up and down the creek.

  * * *

  * * *

  “Not answering,” Maggie said.

  “Where’d he go?”

  “Remember that trouble out at Vienna’s Place?” Maggie said. She and Boom waited at a booth at the El Dorado, Caddy taking the kids for one last stretch of door knocking a few blocks away. The restaurant smelled of tortillas and fried meat. At the next table, a woman from the bank was having a birthday party. The waiter put a sombrero on her head and served her a drink with the colors of an American flag.

  “Sure,” Boom said. “Boyfriend making trouble for one of the dancers. Pulled a gun on Quinn.”

  “That’s the one,” Maggie said. “So this guy bailed out and has been harassing this girl. She’s had Quinn on her speed dial, calling Quinn every time he tries to make contact. But Quinn said she was shacking up with some new guy and that the old boyfriend didn’t know where she lived. I don’t know what happened, but he said he had to go out there. Tonight.”

  “She asked for him personal?”

  “I guess.”

  Boom nodded, not saying anything, just kind of staring off into the street, all the pretty lights on the town square. Rain just starting to fall in Jericho, kids and parents making a run for it from the gazebo back to their cars. Some running into the El Dorado, looking for shelter. Several waiters and cooks walked up to the next table, singing “Feliz Cumpleaños.” Shaking maracas, banging on the table, the whole damn deal.

  “I’ll call Cleotha.”

  Boom nodded.

  “You don’t like it.”

  “Call Quinn again,” Boom said. “And then call dispatch.”

  “I’m sure he’s fine.”

  “He’s fine.”

  “I’m starting to get paranoid,” Maggie said, dialing her phone as Boom stood up and reached for his Carhartt jacket, sliding in his good arm, the right side pinned tight to the coat. The big gun stuck in his leather belt.

  Quinn’s phone went right to voicemail. Maggie called dispatch right away, getting Cleotha and asking where Quinn had called in from last. She looked up at Boom as she repeated the address out on Perfect Circle Road.

  “Don’t you worry,” Cleotha said. “Kenny done gone with him. Make sure that crazy woman and her boyfriend don’t give him no trouble. I’ll get him on the radio and tell him to call, Miss Maggie.”

  Maggie put down the phone and looked up. Boom was already gone, darting across the slick streets to where he’d parked his GMC pickup. The trees blowing sideways as leaves shook loose and free like confetti.

  * * *

  * * *

  The man was down, and Quinn had his gun. He left the man facedown and handcuffed to the root ball, moving out with what he’d confiscated: a folding knife and a fully loaded Glock 19. The other men had scattered, searching for Quinn in the woods and following the creek bed from high on the ridge, scanning the moonlit water. As they disappeared upstream, he dropped back down into the creek, the moon going back under the clouds now, raining like hell, soaking his shirt and jeans, feeling the creek’s water seep into his cowboy boots, as he looked out for more Watchmen and for a place to pull himself up out of the bed and fight his way back to Kenny.

  He’d made a call. Deputies were on their way.

  At a bend in the creek, he saw a little outcropping where he could lift himself up, blue lights from Kenny’s cruiser flickering over the lip of the bed. His ribs ached like hell as he pulled up, digging into the earth with his fingernails, trying to crest the hill. He spotted a gathering of Watchmen, their vehicles parked at the side of road. He spat some more blood from his mouth and gritted his teeth as he tried harder to pull himself up and out.

  He heard the shots just as he felt the bullets tear into his back. His hands broke free, sending him tumbling down the muddy hill and rolling into the now rising creek, raindrops pinging the shallow water. Quinn dragged himself to the sandy bank as the big Indian tromped across the creek toward him, gun in hand, moving quick and with purpose, one of the Watchmen tagging alongside him, telling the Indian that they need to leave now, the cops had to be on their way and he was done with all this bullshit.

  Quinn pushed himself up onto his elbows, trying to stand, to keep moving, but his body failed him. He gritted his teeth even more, telling himself this wasn’t nearly as bad as that night fight in Kandahar, pitch-black and hand-to-hand, with some insurgent trying to cut his throat. Or as bad as getting shot in the back of his leg and shoulder during a raid of a Taliban compound, dirty, ragged faces multiplying and waiting, peeking out from the rocks, ambushing his team and the helicopter.

  “Let’s go,” the short man said to the Indian. Quinn briefly remembered grabbing that man by his nose, bringing him to his knees. Now the man was trying to stop this Indian from firing the kill shot and taking him out. Ain’t life funny.

  “Sure,” the Indian said. He turned and shot the man in the head, dropping him fast and hard, then came toward Quinn, gun raised and chin high, looking to finish it.

  The Glock was lost, Quinn was bleeding out, and the bed was obscured with darkness and rain as he heard more shooting over the hill and a lot of yelling. So much goddamn pain that his mind couldn’t process it. He was going into shock. Somewhere, a big motor revved, and there was crashing and the sound of glass breaking, and then the entire damn creek bed lit up with headlights as a truck went flying over Quinn into the little ravine, landing hard and mean in the water, doors flying open and Boom appearing with a big-ass gun in his hand. He raised it and began to fire. There was more yelling and then rain. And then, damn it. There was nothing but darkness as Boom called out to him.

  Quinn. Quinn. Goddamn you.

  TWENTY-NINE

  When Tashi Coleman heard that Quinn Colson had been shot, she flew straight to Memphis, rented a car, and drove the hundred miles down to Tibbehah County General. Quinn was alive and in the ICU, no visitors, no new information. Most of his family and friends were camped out in a sitting area outside the security doors. The light was dim, a television in the corner playing a new episode of Dr. Phil, the good doctor taking on a woman and her bratty daughter from Beverly Hills. The girl nearly in tears because her mother wouldn’t buy her a Mercedes G wagon, costing the woman a quarter million, for her sweet sixteen. The girl said she wouldn’t settle for anything less since the G’s interior matched her Chanel purse.

  Caddy was seated with her back to the television, her son Jason sleeping with his head in her lap and covered in a blue blanket. She looked up as Tashi walked in and took a seat across from her. Quinn’s mother smiled from across the room, where she stood with Boom Kimbrough, both of them speaking in quiet, personal tones. Boom looked up at Tashi and nodded to her, still continuing the conversation.

  “I’m so sorry.”

  Caddy nodded, placing her hand on Tashi’s knee, and smiled. “I had to turn off the news,” Caddy said. “I can’t stand to see that man’s face on television. Smiling and grinning, talking about values and change. He’s gonna win. Votes are pouring in for him.”

  “Nothing matters anymore,” Tashi said. “Everything we did and exposed. The pictures of those parties Vardaman hosted out at his hunt lodge. No one cared. Everyone just said they were fakes trying to tarnish a great man’s reputation.”

  “I saw the pictures,” Caddy said, rubbing her sleeping son’s head. “Those were as real as it gets. I bet a lot of divorce lawyers in Jackson had their phones lighting up.”

  “What about those men who shot Quinn?”

  “Vardaman said they acted under their own volition,” Caddy said. “He claims that the Watchmen Society is in no way affiliated or endorsed by his campaign.”

  “Bullshit,” Tashi said, trying to keep her voice do
wn. “They worked all his rallies. The one they found dead in that creek? He was the ringleader, hosted some kind of website that pushed all kinds of nutso conspiracy theories.”

  Caddy looked worn and tired, eyes red and heavy, as she touched a gold cross that hung around her neck. A heated debate going on in the television, more about the fifteen-year-old getting a job, maybe volunteering at a soup kitchen, and giving up her dream of owning that Mercedes. Dr. Phil telling the girl he once waited on cars at the A&W Root Beer while wearing roller skates. “Roller skates!” Dr. Phil repeated with pride.

  “That man has no moral center,” Tashi said. “He doesn’t care what happened to Brandon. And apparently this state doesn’t, either. They just want to hear him talk and promise they can return to a time that never existed. What’s the point of reporting it? What’s it all matter? Didn’t make a damn bit of difference.”

  The bratty girl on television was arguing that a thousand-dollar allowance was nothing. She couldn’t live like that. “When you indulge her,” Dr. Phil said, “you’re doing that to make yourself feel better. She doesn’t need a job babysitting. This girl needs a job in the world.” Thunderous applause, everyone in the studio audience pleased with Dr. Phil’s direct and personal advice. Tashi was pretty sure the girl was screwed. She wasn’t going to get that damn G wagon Mercedes.

  “How’s Quinn?”

  Caddy didn’t answer the question, just gave a soft smile, eyelids puffy and heavy. “I think you’re wrong.”

  “About what?”

  “That nothing matters,” Caddy said. “It all matters. If nothing matters, we all better just give up and quit. I’ve done that before and I’m not doing it again.”

  “We’re putting together the podcast now,” Tashi said. “Some of the producers want to move it up a few months on account of everything that’s happened. The coverage we’ve gotten about Vardaman’s ties to Brandon. Maybe it will help.”

  “This isn’t the end of that story.”

  “I know.”

  “What y’all did just kicked things off,” Caddy said, staring straight ahead, beyond Tashi and over her shoulder. “Y’all did good. But there’s a lot more to this than Brandon Taylor. These people in Jackson running things don’t give a damn about anything except for filling their coffers while people go hungry.”

  “Quinn will be OK?” Tashi said. “I heard he’s going to be OK.”

  “We all have a purpose,” she said. “No matter how folks try and use us. We all are part of His will.”

  “And God will make things right?” Tashi said, not recording but recording everything in her mind. “That’s what you believe?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Caddy said, nodding, absolutely sure of it. “It has to. God would never leave us hanging like that. Never.”

  * * *

  * * *

  It was nearly midnight at Vienna’s Place and most of the election results were in, Vardaman kicking the crap out of his competition, not even damn close, taking the state by more than eighty percent. Not that the news was unexpected, but Fannie poured herself another celebratory glass of pink Veuve Clicquot, the same stuff that Ray always had chilled for her. Tony Bennett on the stereo, the bed turned down with rose petals and chocolate on the pillows. Maybe a few new outfits from Agent Provocateur with all the bustiers, thigh highs, and little snaps and clasps that he liked. Fannie raised her champagne to Ray, that slam dunk election, and to her dearly departed grandmother who set her on the right career path. Don’t you ever take shit from anyone, Vienna always said. And don’t you ever forget that a man keeps his brains in his shorts. Use that pecker like a steering wheel.

  Fannie had been working to be in control of her damn life since she was a knobby-kneed teenager, washing stains from the towels and sheets, bleaching all that shit clean, promising herself that she’d be the one calling the damn shots one day. And that she’d always, always be in control. Midnight Man reached across the bar and poured the last of the champagne, turning to the TV she was watching and then shaking his head as he walked off.

  “Don’t tell me you didn’t see that coming?” Fannie said, smirking a bit. “Vardaman’s political porn to these fuckwads.”

  “Yeah?” Midnight Man said in that low, hoarse whisper, almost to himself. “We always see that shit coming.”

  Fannie drank the champagne, tasting so sweet, bubbles tickling the back of her throat. Damn. She and the Chief were finally in charge. After the Chief’s people paid Buster White a visit and laid down the fucking law, that fat bastard was of no more importance than a senile greeter at Walmart. She’d run north Mississippi and now part of the Coast over to New Orleans, and the Chief would take his cut and do his business through the Rez. The Chief had put the terms to Buster White, the son of a bitch not taking it so well, nearly having a heart attack himself, making threats, and promising retaliation that they all knew would come. When Vardaman was in charge, she’d have to keep that fucking leash tight, but she’d still be taking that man out for a walk every week.

  Up on the television, the new governor of Mississippi stood on the dais with his wife, a fat, brassy blonde who looked zonked out of her mind, and two college-age kids, a boy and a girl. He was speaking to the crowd of his lunatics, using his hands to emphasize the words that Fannie couldn’t hear. She could only see the scroll at the bottom of the screen. VARDAMAN WINS BY A LANDSLIDE.

  Vienna’s was in fine form tonight, a couple hundred guests ogling the girls, tossing dollar bills, feeling high-rumped waitresses and being led back to the VIP room to open up their wallets and throw down their credit cards for one more bottle, one more dance, so much fucking fun that those men never wanted it to end. And there was Fannie, the fucking queen of it all, sitting at the bar, anonymous and alone, winning at damn-near everything that she ever wanted. She had the state, the corridor, the drugs, the stolen shit, the fucking tractor trailer shipments, the Cartel contacts, the whores, domestic and international, and the promise of it all, that it would only get bigger and better. Ray was dead. Buster was nothing. She and the Chief and that grinning bastard on television.

  Let that dumb son of a bitch Skinner try to close down her least profitable business and erect that cross. She’d hang that old fucker from it by his dick.

  She sipped the last of her champagne, turning to see two teenage girls locked in an embrace on the center stage, that Katy Perry song “Roar” pounding on the speakers. Eye of the tiger. Dance through the fucking fire. Two men in their twenties, nicely dressed with good clothes and good teeth, stared down from the end of the bar at her. She looked down at the amazing display of cleavage she was sporting tonight in her little black dress and couldn’t blame them. But, damn, if only those boys knew, she’d bring them both to their fucking knees and make ’em cry for Momma.

  Fannie smiled, leaning back on her barstool, nodding to the music, as the DJ played another song. “Hey, Midnight Man,” Fannie Hathcock said, turning back to the bar.

  Midnight Man leaned over the bar to hear her better. “Yes, ma’am?”

  “I like that,” she said. “Tell him to play that shit again.”

  * * *

  * * *

  Maggie was the first one to see Quinn. The doctors and some of the other nurses had done their best to keep her up to date, talking to her straight and direct like a nurse and not like a stranger. She’d appreciated that and did her damn best to absorb the information and relay it to Quinn’s mother and sister as she always did as part of her job. She lost any part of that, her clinical professionalism, and she felt like she just might curl into a ball and not get back up. She had to stay up for Brandon and Quinn and for herself. It was just like Quinn always said, always keep on the march, keep moving, don’t let the enemy see you wounded. As a two-time military wife, even if the first one was to a professional asshole, she knew how to toughen up and keep on with the mission.

  It was late, she
and Caddy trying for the last hour to get Jean to please go home and get some rest and Jean not having any of it. She and Caddy were camped out in the waiting area with Boom and old Mr. Varner. Varner nearly getting ejected from the hospital for showing up at the front desk with an M4 carbine and telling security that he’d be standing guard for the night.

  All of it. So much chaos and craziness. TV news crew outside. The two lengthy surgeries. The waiting, the praying, the details of Quinn’s old injuries. His body had already been through so much. Shot up two days shy of his twenty-first birthday and then three times after that. The doctor had explained all the scar tissue they’d had to cut through to get to the four bullets. A collapsed lung, a shattered shoulder blade, so much lost blood.

  She’d pulled a chair close to him. He was still asleep from the last surgery, tubes running into his nose and an IV drip in his arm. His vitals were good and strong. He could breathe on his own. He’d come awake for a while, right before the last surgery, and had joked about that Indian in the creek being a bad shot. That man getting away, state police and FBI out looking for him statewide.

  “Come back, Quinn,” she said. “Come back, please.”

  She felt something stir, Quinn’s fingers moving in hers. Maggie started to cry but tried like hell to compose herself, biting her lip. Boom walked into the room, standing side by side with Maggie, placing his good arm around her back.

  “How’s your truck?” Quinn said, lips dry and voice weak.

  “’Bout the same as yours,” Boom said. “Looks like shit.”

  “These folks trying to get us to quit?”

  “Yeah,” Boom said. “Pretty fucking dumb.”

  “But we don’t quit.”

  “Never,” he said. “Our heads too goddamn thick.”

  Maggie leaned over and kissed Quinn on his cracked lips, his eyes opening briefly, and whispered into his ear that she loved him. Quinn’s eyes closed again and he was fast asleep.