by Ace Atkins
“I’m sorry about Boom Kimbrough,” Tyler said. “That wasn’t our doing.”
Quinn nodded. “I know,” he said. “Put down the fucking gun, kid. I really don’t want to shoot you.”
“But he will,” Reggie said.
“What about Ordeen Davis?” Quinn said. “Y’all shouldn’t’ve done that.”
“That’s my Uncle Heath,” Tyler said. “We were racing at the MAG down in Columbus that whole night. Christ Almighty. All me and Cody wanted to do was smoke a little weed and drive real fast. What’s the matter with that?”
“Sorry about your brother,” Quinn said. “Put down the gun.”
“Me and him used to be famous,” Tyler said, laughing a little. “Went all the way out to Hollywood, California, to try and win ten thousand dollars for knocking our stepdaddy in the nuts. People thought we were real cute and funny.”
Quinn had the Beretta on him, finger on the trigger. He took careful aim, Tyler Pritchard stumbling forward, glassy-eyed and mumbling, “If you ain’t on the gas, I’ll be kicking your ass.”
* * *
• • •
The sheriff was gonna shoot him. And that was fine by Tyler.
Go ahead, take his ass out.
Everything was fucked. All of the damn work they’d put into the land, the weed, the deals, and the racing. Fucked up by that redheaded bitch out on the highway. If only goddamn Uncle Heath had just stayed in Parchman.
“Shoot me,” Tyler said.
The sheriff and his black deputy didn’t answer, both standing tall and tough, holding their guns on him.
“Go ahead,” Tyler said. “Don’t matter. You know you want to do it. Kill the last of the wild-ass Pritchard boys.”
“Where’s your uncle?”
“Dead,” Tyler said. “They’re all dead. Except my momma. And she just moved to Tampa.”
The cops didn’t shoot. So Tyler decided to give Johnny Law a little nudge in the proper direction and lifted up that shotgun. That got those boys going, both of them shooting at his ass at the same time. His bloody leg gave out and he fell, the bullets whizzing overhead. As he flipped onto his back, looking up at the bright orange sky, he thought, Ain’t it funny how that shit goes down?
He turned his head to see the eyes of that fucker with the ponytail, openmouthed and deader than hell. A pistol loose by his open hand. Those law boys shot the old man over his damn shoulder.
“Goddamn son of a bitch,” Tyler said, screaming, surrounded by his wrecked race car and busted-up car parts scattered along the hill. The sun going down slow and easy behind the back of those two damn cops. Every patrol car in north Mississippi speeding up to him with lights and sirens firing. The tall brown grass on the embankment blew every which way in the hot summer wind. “Ain’t shit going my way.”
* * *
• • •
Two hours and twenty minutes later, somewhere around 2100, Quinn headed back to the Pritchard property. Tyler Pritchard had been taken off by ambulance and Reggie Caruthers hitched a ride with one of the MHP boys back to the sheriff’s office. He couldn’t wrap his head about all the paperwork and inquiries that were about to follow. He’d been back and forth to Maggie for the last hour, Maggie running through the wedding rehearsal with Jason standing in. She said Jason had done pretty good, doing a decent imitation of Quinn, refusing to say anything else but “Yep” and “Nope” to the pastor. Everyone got a real kick out of it. Now they were listening to bluegrass and eating fried catfish at the farm.
He didn’t tell her that he’d just killed a man on the side of Highway 45. A twice-convicted felon named J. B. Hood from Birmingham, Alabama. Or that in the overturned vehicle, they’d found two baseball bats flecked with blood. Quinn had taken both as evidence, placing them in the back of his truck.
There was a lot of activity down at the Pritchard house as he rolled down their old dirt road, federal agents already swarming across the property. Bright lights showed from the big racing shed. Quinn parked his truck, speaking to a couple DEA agents, one of them pointing over to Nat Wilkins, who stood at the edge of the old house, talking on her cell. Her bouncy hair pinned tight to her head, a DEA windbreaker covering a black pantsuit.
“Boom woke up,” she said.
“I know,” Quinn said. “My soon-to-be wife is his nurse.”
“You mean that white girl with the long hair and all those freckles?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Quinn said. “That’s her.”
“She’s nice,” Nat said. “Smart and pretty. You did real well for yourself, Sheriff.”
“What’d Boom say?”
“He IDed Hood and Taggart,” she said. “We got warrants out for both.”
Quinn placed his hands on his hips, nodding. “Might can help you find J. B. Hood.”
She looked at Quinn, arching her eyebrows. Before he could explain, one of the DEA agents he’d met at Sutpen’s Trucking came jogging up, breaking into the conversation, out of breath. “We got something under that old barn,” he said, pointing. “You just won’t believe all the shit we just found.”
“Want to take a look?” Nat asked, grinning.
“Damn straight,” Quinn said.
27
“I figured they’d find our little business,” Tyler Pritchard said, talking to Sheriff Colson at the hospital. They’d spent most of the night digging buckshot out of his ass and legs, sending up a grief counselor to talk about Cody while he was handcuffed to the bed. “I left the hatch wide open when I ran out. Should’ve covered the damn thing up.”
“That was a hell of an operation, Tyler,” Sheriff Colson said. “Must’ve taken a long time to bury all those bunkers, set up all those lights and the irrigation. Real impressive.”
“Took us a couple years,” Tyler said. “I learned pretty much how to run the whole system off YouTube. Me and Cody got to where we could run most of it.”
“What about the harvesting and packing?”
“We sometimes hired a crew of Mexicans from over in Yalobusha County,” he said. “Blindfold them and drive ’em over in a van. They done good work. Don’t know why folks have so much trouble with Mexicans. They work their fucking tails off. Do jobs that no white man would tackle. I respect that shit.”
The sheriff stood over his bed. The deputy, a nice man named Dave Cullison, had left them alone to run down to the cafeteria for some breakfast. He’d been talking a lot about heaven, trying to make him feel better. The deputy saying that there was even a place up there for his brother, Cody. And that maybe Cody was at rest now, hanging out with Jesus and the Apostles up in that big dirt track in the sky, maybe teaching those boys how to drift in those tight turns. Tyler wasn’t sure he believed all that. But the talk made him feel a little better.
“Sorry about Cody.”
Tyler nodded, laying back in the bed. Somewhere in the night, a nurse had turned on the television. Goddamn Maury Povich Show going with no sound, some fucking three-hundred-pound whore with MONIQUE CONVINCED 16TH DNA TEST WILL FIND CHILD’S FATHER running across the screen. People are just fucked up as hell in this old circus world.
“We didn’t ask for none of this,” he said.
“Maybe y’all shouldn’t have hijacked a truck owned by the Syndicate.”
“Is that who those fuckers were?” Tyler said, his head lowered down, staring up at the ceiling now. “Hot damn. I sure am glad you shot that old bastard instead of shooting me.”
“You’re welcome,” Sheriff Colson said.
“He killed Cody.”
The sheriff nodded, standing there, not looking like himself in a black suit and tie, like he was headed to senior prom or somebody’s funeral. Tyler didn’t study on it too long or ask many questions. He knew where the hell he was headed. He’d become an old man in the federal prison, hoping to Almighty God he survived the work and time without c
oming out like Uncle Heath. Used up, worn out, bitter as hell, with his brain shriveled like an old piece of fruit.
“I need to talk to you about Ordeen Davis,” the sheriff said. “You told me your uncle killed him.”
“That’s right,” Tyler said. “Me and Cody were racing. We didn’t even know Uncle Heath had come home from Parchman. Nobody even thought to warn us. He shot that old boy right in the back.”
“You got anything to prove that?”
“Check with the MAG,” Tyler said. “They all knew Team Pritchard.”
“ME’s having a hard time pinpointing the time of death,” Quinn said. “Given the condition of the body and all.”
“I knew Ordeen Davis,” Tyler said. “I wouldn’t kill him. Uncle Heath was meaner than a goddamn water moccasin.”
“How’d Ordeen get into that box?”
Tyler swallowed, knowing he was fucked but not being so almighty stupid as to tell the sheriff about watching Uncle Heath taking those sheet-metal cutters to Ordeen’s body or helping him toss that toolbox into the Big Black River. Tyler didn’t say a word, just kept his damn mouth shut.
“We found a mess of prints,” Quinn said. “You want to tell me if we’ll find a match to you and Cody? Y’all weren’t in the system before. But now—”
“Do what you want,” Tyler said. “We didn’t touch that boy. That’s all Heath Pritchard’s business.”
“We found your uncle,” the sheriff said. “Down in the grow room.”
“Is that a fact?”
The sheriff nodded. “Someone had shot him in the back of the head.”
“Damn shame,” Tyler said. “Those Syndicate folks don’t play.”
“Looks like he’d been down there for at least a day or so,” the sheriff said. “Someone shoved him into a deep freeze with a bunch of pizzas and cartons of Bluebell ice cream. He was holding an empty bottle of Jack Daniel’s. You think he drank that himself?”
“I want my damn lawyer.”
“Feds got you good, kid,” the sheriff said. “And I don’t give a damn about what happened to Heath Pritchard. That looks like a family matter to me.”
“How about you talk to my lawyer?”
“You got a lawyer?”
Tyler didn’t answer, trying not to react, just watching that fat woman on TV jump out of her chair and run over to a skinny little black man and bitch-slap him right in the face. A couple of Maury’s guards grabbed her by her ham-sized arms and pulled her back to her chair.
“That’s about all I got, Sheriff,” Tyler said. “They took a lot of metal out of my ass and I lost three pints of blood yesterday. Not to mention I got to figure out how to wrangle a funeral for my brother and my uncle while my ass is chained to a bed.”
“You got to give me something more on Ordeen Davis,” Quinn said. “Or we’ll get you for your uncle.”
“Goddamn, Sheriff,” Tyler said. “You really think I got something to lose?”
* * *
• • •
I bet that dickweed didn’t say jack shit,” Lillie Virgil said, standing outside Boom’s hospital room. Boom slept hard, but he’d been awake for a lot of the morning, making jokes and not shedding any tears that J. B. Hood had passed on to that big truck stop in the sky.
“He says his uncle killed Ordeen Davis.”
“Yep,” Lillie said. “That’s what he’ll say. The Duke boys completely innocent in this whole mess while wild card Uncle Jesse came back to Jericho with bloodlust.”
“You know what?” Quinn said. “I believe him.”
“You know what I think, Ranger?” Lillie asked. “I think all the flowers and sponge cake and bullshit makes you want to give the world a hug.”
“You look nice,” Quinn said.
Lillie nodded, wearing a simple black dress, her wild brown hair pulled back into a neat bun. She had a white rose pinned to the dress’s neckline and looked odd without her Sig Sauer at her waist. She’d handed Quinn a cup of black coffee as they’d walked down the hall, both of them wanting to check on Boom one more time before heading to the church.
Lillie crossed her arms over her chest, standing there in the open hallway, nurses and doctors heading on to surgery or recovery. Babies being born, old folks dying, broken bones being set, and people taking treatment for all kinds of diseases. Quinn wondered how Maggie got through this every damn day without it starting to wear on her a bit.
“Appreciate you taking Boom’s place as my best man,” Quinn said. “He and I agreed there was no one else for the job.”
“I know I talk tough,” Lillie said. “And, for the most part, prefer to wear pants. But I do draw the line at getting called a man. There are a lot worse things I’d rather be called.”
“How about best woman?” Quinn said.
Lillie bit her lip, hugging herself more closely around the waist. She looked down at her feet and up at Quinn, smiling into his eyes. “I’d like that,” she said. “Fits me to a T.”
* * *
• • •
I want all this shit out of here,” Fannie said. “All of Taggart’s garbage, beer cans, cigarette butts, his damn clothes. Keep the doors open and burn some fucking candles in here. It’s gonna take a long time to get rid of that smell.”
“Where’d he go?” Midnight Man asked, his big round body moving about the office, pitching trash into a black plastic bag.
“Where else?” Fannie said, lighting up a cigarillo to start the exorcism of Vienna’s. “Down to the Coast with that dumb bitch Twilight, trying to suck the ding-dongs of the big boys down there before he gets taken for that long, last Cadillac ride.”
“You think they’ll kill him?”
“Maybe,” Fannie said, waving away the smoke. “I don’t care. Just clean up this shit and quit asking so damn many questions.”
Fannie left Midnight Man alone and headed out to the railing looking over the bar. It was early—they wouldn’t open up until three—and both doors were wide open, letting in a little fresh air while the air conditioner pumped in the cool. She liked the way the old-fashioned bar shone after a good polish, the big plushy chairs neatly grouped around the stages. The floors were swept, toilets cleaned, and everything was in order again until tonight, when the truckers would pull up their rigs and the frat boys would drive down from Ole Miss and the shots would be poured and the titties would jiggle to get that nice flow of cash going again.
She watched as Ray entered through the front door, looking around the empty stages and down to the VIP room, finally figuring it the fuck out and looking up to Fannie’s roost. He smiled and gave Fannie a wave. He looked sharp and cool in black pants and a pink shirt, real old-school Memphis shit he bought at Lansky Brothers.
“I got your message.”
Fannie looked down at Ray and blew smoke out into the open space over the stages.
“It’s yours,” he said. “They agreed.”
She nodded and headed to the spiral staircase, turning around and around until she met Ray at the bar. He’d already started to help himself, reaching for a bottle of Blanton’s and two clean glasses, pouring out a double for each of them.
“What about you?” she said.
“I’m too old for this shit,” he said. “I got grandkids down in Florida.”
“What did Buster say?”
“Not much,” Ray said, smoothing down his white mustache. “He’s not the type to admit he fucked up bringing in those boys. But when I told him you could get straight with Sledge and Memphis . . .”
“He was fucked.”
“Well,” Ray said, lifting the bourbon to the overhead light and admiring the rich color. “Yeah. Pretty much. He only asked one thing.”
“Not to go after Wes Taggart.”
“I wouldn’t say that name for a while,” Ray said. “If it’s all the same. Taggart’s n
ot the worry. That’s all over now.”
“Then what?”
Ray leaned his head to the side and raised his big brushy eyebrows, holding the whiskey as if about to make a toast. “They didn’t just send Taggart and Hood here to watch over you,” he said. “They were sent to do a little housecleaning around this county.”
Fannie didn’t answer, ashing her cigarillo on a tray on the bar. She leaned into it with her elbow, watching Ray’s face.
“You know about this goddamn election coming up?” he said. “You know how much damn shit around here is riding on it?”
“Of course,” Fannie said. “Do you know how many coochie parties I’ve arranged out at that hunt camp? I’ve given more to this goddamn race than anyone. What they call sweat equity.”
“They want your local sheriff neutered or gone,” he said. “They’re all leaving it up to you to decide which way to go.”
“And that’s our fucking deal?”
“That’s the deal.”
Fannie nodded, picking up the big square-cut glass, raising it to Ray, touching glasses, and then both of them taking a big sip. “Well, goddamn,” she said. “All he had to do was fucking ask.”
* * *
• • •
Quinn and Lillie stood together outside the Calvary United Methodist Church, Lillie complaining under her breath how her underwear was riding up her ass. Everyone already inside, seated and waiting, Diane Tull and the Tibbehah Bluegrass Boys ready with bass, fiddle, and mandolin. Diane Tull pulled out her daddy’s old Dobro special for the occasion. “I know you think it’s gonna happen,” Lillie said. “But I’m not going to cry. Women who cry at weddings just make me want to puke. All that Steel Magnolias bullshit. Do you have any idea how much I hate that fucking movie?”
“I appreciate you doing this,” Quinn said.
“I only came for the barbecue,” Lillie said. “Can’t turn down all this free food and good music. Not to mention you made Rose the flower girl and I had to come anyway.”
