Robert B. Parker's Little White Lies

by Ace Atkins

  “Both.”

  Tedy didn’t drink, which was good, as it left all the beer for me. As we ate, I helped myself to a second bottle and walked to the window. I watched a long row of traffic along Interstate 275. We were about a forty-minute drive from Rockdale County. If we were needed, we could be there faster. I held out a little hope from Nguyen that the Feds might come through in a pinch.

  “You’re worried about Hawk,” Tedy said.

  “It’s a strange position to be in,” I said. “One doesn’t often worry about Hawk.”

  “But you feel guilty for bringing him down here.”

  “I didn’t bring him,” I said. “He showed up of his own volition.”

  “Because that woman got killed?”

  “Because the woman was killed, because I’d gotten in over my head with some bad people he knew, and because some kids down in Roxbury had been shot up with weapons from this crew.”

  “That’s a lot of reasons,” he said. “Hawk is a grown-ass man. He does what he wants.”

  “That,” I said. “And then some.”

  Tedy started to unpack, placing his blue jeans on hangers and his sweatshirts and T-shirts in the drawers. He’d already placed his biker jacket neatly on the back of a chair. Everything was very precise. Even the gun and ammo at his bedside.

  “You really are gay,” I said.

  “Would you like to see me dance?”

  “Not really.”

  “So we sit around and wait for Hawk?” Tedy said.

  “For now.”

  “Why not drive out to Rockdale,” Tedy said, “and rattle the preacher’s cage?”

  “Already pretty well rattled,” I said. “We wait for Hawk.”

  I sat down and kicked my legs up onto the bed. I was very sore; my jaw hurt a great deal. I’d changed the dressing and repacked my wounds twice already. I stretched my right leg out and retracted it in. A few years ago, I’d had some knee work. The new knee wasn’t built for what it had been used for lately.

  “I grew up in a church like that,” Tedy said.

  I turned to watch him in the low lamplight.

  “No kid should have to deal with that crap,” Tedy said.

  “My family was Catholic,” I said. “My father worshipped at the house of Jack Daniel’s. We didn’t go to church much.”

  “It’s not easy,” Tedy said. “I was raised to believe how I am and what I am is against God. I went through hell trying to be someone else. That’s why I had to be the best hunter, the best high school football player, the best soldier.”

  “All while being gay.”

  Tedy put his finger to his lips and made a shushing noise.

  “When did you know?” I said.

  “When did you know you were straight?”

  “When I caught three girls from down the street swimming naked,” I said. “I had a very tough time walking home.”

  “For me, it was a Baptist youth camp.”

  “See, you did learn something from that religious upbringing.”

  “And when we were caught kissing, the pastor wanted to see us.”

  I didn’t say anything. The darkness and the cold outside seemed to go on forever. Some office building lights, illuminated in green and red, formed the apex of a Christmas tree. I drank some beer and listened.

  “He made us pay,” he said. “He had a large hickory stick.”

  “What’s with you southerners and your sticks?” I adjusted in the chair, a soreness throbbing in my lower back.

  “People hate things that they fear most,” Tedy said. “I think many people are driven out of self-hatred.”

  “There are also a lot of stupid, racist homophobes in this world,” I said.

  “Yeah,” Tedy said. “That, too.”

  “You good with all this?”

  “More than you’ll ever know.”

  52

  The next morning, Rachel Wallace called me at six a.m. I was already up and into my second cup of coffee. Tedy had gone for a workout at the hotel gym while I continued to move about slowly.

  “This guy Dr. Josiah Ridgeway is a true and authentic prick,” Rachel said.

  “And I found him to be so very charming.”

  “Yuck.”

  “Did I mention he smelled of gingerbread and mothballs?”

  “As his public views seem to reflect nineteenth-century intolerance, I’m not surprised.”

  Tedy walked in the door and left me a new cup of coffee and a blueberry muffin on the bedside table. He was wearing his workout gear and covered in sweat. I took the coffee and walked to the chair by the window.

  “His real name is John Kenton Ridge Junior of Wichita, Kansas,” Rachel said. “I found his real name connected to the EDGE Corporation, whatever the hell that is. Before having his religious conversion, he passed himself off as a financial guru. Back in the nineties, he held get-rich-quick seminars at airport hotels and promised wannabe investors to put their stagnant money to work.”

  “Multifaceted.”

  “Oh, yes,” Rachel said. “He took a hundred thousand from a woman going through chemotherapy and nearly a half-million from some country music producer. When he was sentenced, he refused to admit what he’d done was wrong. He said he’d been a pawn like everyone else and blamed his business partner.”

  “What happened to the business partner?”

  “Oh, he committed suicide,” Rachel said. “Family said he’d been killed. But no one was ever charged.”

  “What an amazing coincidence.”

  “After Ridge was paroled, he tried to loop investors into a plan to produce biodiesel in Ghana,” Rachel said. “He made nearly two million before he was caught and sent back to prison. When he got out, he tried the same scheme, this time pimping Chile. No difference.”

  “At what point did he become the good reverend we know and love today?” I said.

  “About the time he was selling luxury vehicles,” she said. “He’d offer Ferraris and Lamborghinis below market prices, they’d wire money, and then he’d distribute to different accounts set up by other parties. The cars would never arrive and he’d disappear.”

  “Hold on,” I said. “Are you saying that Dr. Josiah Ridgeway isn’t an honest man?”

  “He’s so crooked he has to screw himself into a pair of pants to get dressed every morning.”

  “Nicely done.”

  “Thank you,” Rachel said. “Basically, he’s a piece of human garbage. He’s such a naked ridiculous crook that I found some of what he did was quite amusing. Ten years ago, he had a call-in prayer show in Tampa, Florida, where you could leave a credit card number and he’d lay hands on the camera. That’s when he came in contact with a Florida televangelist who got him into the diamond business.”

  “And how exactly did that work?”

  “This televangelist owned several diamond mines in South Africa,” Rachel said. “You can imagine the working conditions. Pretty much slavery. Very dangerous. Ridge, who by now was our Dr. Josiah Ridgeway, was the broker between America and Johannesburg. It appears he used the funds to start Greater Faith. EDGE Corp and the supposed overseas missions happened later.”

  “With Wells.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “How can I repay you?”

  “By not getting killed,” she said. “And buying me a case of bourbon. Not just a single bottle. Unless that bottle is Pappy Van Winkle and old enough to vote.”

  “Done.”

  “These are bad people,” Rachel said. “They are criminals who incite uneducated masses. They use bigotry and hypocrisy to line their pockets.”

  “Perhaps they should be stopped?”

  “Even better than the booze,” Rachel said.

  53

  We spent most of the day laying low at
the hotel and waiting for Hawk to call. I tested my pain threshold by doing push-ups and sit-ups with Tedy. By last count, we’d hit more than three hundred of both. It felt like hell. My joints ached. My back was still sore. Tedy found a lot of humor in my plight.

  “This is almost like Midnight Express,” he said.

  “Except for one major detail.”

  “Being caned by Turkish prison guards?”

  “There’s always hope.”

  At six, Hawk called. He told me to meet him at a barbecue restaurant off Interstate 20 in thirty minutes. Tedy and I drove that way. It was rainy and cold, slow moving on the highway. It took us forty minutes.

  The restaurant, a rustic-looking one-story building called The Hickory House, wasn’t far off the highway in Tucker. It had old horseshoes and washboards tacked on the walls. A few wagon wheels had been fashioned into chandeliers. It was folksier than the Country Bear Jamboree. Silver tinsel on a miniature tree by the cash register. Gene Autry on the jukebox.

  Tedy and I ordered coffee. Five minutes later, Hawk strolled in and offered Tedy his hand. Tedy stood up, smiled big, and gripped Hawk in his infamous big bear hug. The only person I’d ever seen greet Hawk that way was Susan. He patted Tedy on the back and slid into the booth.

  “Bees buzzing ’round the hive, babe,” Hawk said. “They know you still in town.”

  “Did they think I’d flee Atlanta with my tail between my legs?”

  “They coming for you,” Hawk said. “And this time, I don’t know if I’ll be there to stop them.”

  “What’s it to them?” Tedy said. “If you stay or go.”

  “Spenser pissed off the two head honchos,” Hawk said. “He drawing some serious attention to their operation.”

  “The gunrunning?” Tedy said.

  “Gunrunning, charitable donations, laser light show, patriotic hoopty-doo,” he said. “All that shit, man.”

  “And Connie.”

  “Oh, they killed her,” Hawk said. “Bliss bragged about it. Put one behind the ear and threw down that .32. She was making trouble for Wells. Wanted him to leave his family or else she’d run to the cops.”

  “Shit.”

  “Whole bunch of it.”

  “And what’s up next for our good folks with EDGE and Onward Christian Soldiers?” I said.

  “Pretty much what we thought,” Hawk said. “Brother Bliss and Wells trying to fill up a big ol’ tractor-trailer with a mess of guns and ammo. A little fund-raising trip up to Boston. Seem like they short of cash. Problem is, they halfway there. More trouble you make, the more it spoil their big Christmas surprise.”

  “Let me guess, it’s a big drive for the troops fighting the battle overseas.”

  “Mmm,” Hawk said. “Toys for Tots. Just some good ol’ Christ-loving white boys. Far as I can tell they ain’t never left the States. Bliss got his own work. Doesn’t have a damn thing to do with Christian soldiers.”

  “What do they do at that training camp?” Tedy said.

  “Make a bunch of privileged white assholes from the city drill,” Hawk said. “They got ropes to climb, walls to scale, wire to crawl under. EDGE have them bunk in some ratty old trailers. Ruck in the morning, shoot in the afternoon, and talk Jesus at night. The End Days are coming. Don’t say it while I’m around, but there’s talk of a race war.”

  “You people planning something?” I said.

  “You know it,” Hawk said. “Don’t you watch the news?”

  “My people, too,” Tedy said. “We’re going to try to make straight men dress better.”

  “And what happened to you?” Hawk said.

  Tedy had on an Epcot ’81 sweatshirt cut off at the elbows, threadbare jeans, and unlaced running shoes.

  “Work in progress.”

  Hawk nodded. He rolled the sleeves of his green uniform to the elbows. The insignia on the pocket read EDGE.

  “Tell Bliss you can help with guns,” I said. “And all the ammo they can handle.”

  “And how do I do that?” Hawk said. “Go down to the Walmart and fill my buggy?”

  “Maybe,” I said. “Or maybe I can arrange for some samples.”

  Hawk smiled and nodded. Tedy looked at me. He looked doubtful.

  “Good,” Hawk said. “’Cause I’m getting damn tired of eating grits for breakfast.”

  “I like grits,” Tedy said.

  I nodded in agreement. “Especially with bacon crumbled up in them.”

  “And a lady up in Boston been missing my company.”

  “Just one?” I said.

  Hawk shrugged. He attempted to look modest. But like me, he had a hard time pulling it off. The waitress came over and brought us all some Brunswick stew and a basket filled with hot corn muffins. She refilled coffee for me and Tedy. Hawk drank some water.

  “If I were to make this work,” I said. “And that’s a big if. Just exactly what merchandise would garner their attention?”

  Hawk dipped a corn muffin in the stew and ate, thinking. He reached into his front breast pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper.

  “Thought you’d never ask,” Hawk said. “This here what I call the naughty list.”

  “Lot of guns,” I said.

  “Sho’ nuff.”

  54

  You’ve got to be shitting me,” Bobby Nguyen said.

  “I shit you not.”

  “Don’t you recall the wise words of my grandmother?”

  “Sure,” I said. “She said when opportunity knocks, open the door.”

  “She never said that.”

  “How do you know?” I said. “She very well might have.”

  We were driving down Peachtree Street in Midtown Atlanta. It was sometime between breakfast and lunch and the traffic wasn’t completely horrible. Nguyen picked me up near the ATF offices in his unmarked unit. He said if I came inside, I’d only embarrass him.

  “Boston needs to look out for Boston.”

  “I was born and raised in Biloxi, Mississippi.”

  “But you’re a Boston guy now,” I said. “And Wells came to your town to run his cons and his gun pipeline. That’s why you’re down here three days before Christmas.”

  Nguyen had no answer. He deftly moved in and out of traffic, driving at a decent rate to nowhere in particular.

  “I can’t just set up a sting operation overnight,” he said. “That takes planning. Besides, I’m down here to work with the Atlanta office. I don’t run the Atlanta office. Those guys would truly run you out of town. Or put you in jail.”

  “A deal is already in the works,” I said. “I only need some guns.”

  “That’s crazy,” he said. “If I were to even propose something like that.”

  “What if you just happened to be in the right place?” I said. “At the right time?”

  “And then make the arrest?”

  “Exactly.”

  “I could be accused of entrapment,” he said. “And pretty much lose my job.”

  “You know who Ridgeway is,” I said. “And what he does?”

  “You know I am a veteran federal agent?” he said. “I have conducted one or two investigations in my time. We know he’s a snake-oil salesman from way back. And a true sociopath.”

  “How did you know about my run-in with him and Bliss the other night?” I said. “I didn’t exactly arrive announced. Or even in the front seat.”

  “I told you,” Nguyen said. “We have the church and the compound under surveillance.”

  “But you didn’t see what happened to me,” I said.

  Nguyen didn’t answer, zipping down Peachtree Street, and then slowing as he approached a red light. We sat there in silence, waiting for it to turn. He tapped his fingers on the wheel.

  “You have a man inside,” I said.

  Again, nothing.


  “If you’re down here,” I said. “Maybe your man is down here, too. And if it’s connected to Boston, that would mean it’s Wells.”

  “You think you’re pretty smart?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I do.”

  “But it isn’t Wells.”

  “He got Connie Kelly killed,” I said. “She was going to go to the cops if he didn’t leave his wife. That guy Bliss did it.”

  “And how the hell do you know that?”

  “A little bird told me.”

  Nguyen took a deep breath and then slammed the flat of his hand against the steering wheel. “Wells is a fucking moron,” Nguyen said. “He’s the front guy. The Walmart greeter for Ridgeway and the whole Christian soldier thing. He takes donations, shakes hands. The whole land deal in Boston blew up because that was Wells trying to be clever and going out on his own with Gredoni.”

  “Who killed Gredoni?”

  “Who do you think, hotshot?” he said. “Bliss.”

  “Again, to protect Wells and his dealings.”

  “Gredoni knew a lot about this Georgia pipeline,” Nguyen said. “He could’ve made a lot of trouble for them. He wasn’t going to be left with a flaming pile of shit for that land deal. Wells left him hanging, with a lot of investors calling for his head.”

  The light turned green. Traffic started to move as fast as it could ever really move along Peachtree Street. Nguyen didn’t glance over at me, finding a parking lot in a strip mall to make a U-turn and head back to downtown.

  “That’s it?” I said. “Ridgeway’s acolytes kill two people, run another truckload of guns to God knows where, and you’re going to just play wait-and-see?”

  “We have some considerations.”

  “Your person inside?”

  “It’s not Wells,” he said. “You believe a guy like Wells would stand up and do the right thing?”

  “Good point.”

  Nguyen took a long breath, staring straight ahead at a ribbon of blacktop curving up a small hill. “Son of a bitch.”

  “If we had the guns,” I said, “it’s one-stop shopping. Wells, Ridgeway, Bliss. I can make it happen.”

  “I don’t think so.”