by Ace Atkins
“You think she’ll call you?” Boom said.
“Yep,” Quinn said. “And I think Dixon will come and see me.”
“But you don’t think he’ll have much to say?”
Quinn shook his head. Boom had closed the big bay doors to the County Barn once Quinn had driven his F-250 inside and killed the engine. The electricity had been knocked out in the last hour or so, and a diesel generator chugged in a far corner. Three orange extension cords pulled from the generator across the concrete floor to the benches where Boom worked.
“I remember something about that armored car being stolen,” Boom said. “Some Feds were down here interviewing people if they saw anything. The truck serviced the Jericho bank but never made it. You think Dixon was in on the job?”
“Robbery was a year after he was sentenced,” Quinn said. “Newspaper stories I found said that truck was carrying almost a million dollars.”
Boom gave a low whistle and told Quinn to get back into his truck and try that winch again. Quinn hit the button, and he heard the motor whiz and engage. Boom gave him a thumbs-up and Quinn got back out. That winch had been sticking since Christmas.
The metal barn was as dark as a cave, wind and rain shaking the structure. Opposite his truck, a single bulb hung over an engine of one of their Crown Vics. Since he’d been elected, Quinn had asked the county supervisors to buy new vehicles. Every meeting, they came up with more road projects and more ways to deny Quinn’s request. One supervisor said he couldn’t rightly spend taxpayers’ dollars all willy-nilly. In the same meeting, he agreed to a five-thousand-dollar pay raise and the construction of a barn on his own property.
“A crew just left out of here with sandbags for Sugar Ditch,” Boom said. “Mount Zion Church taking on some water.”
“I got Kenny and Dave Cullison down there,” Quinn said. “Highway by the three-way is submerged. You need a johnboat to cross it.”
“When you think this shitstorm is gonna let up?”
“Never.” Quinn shrugged. “You mind if I catch some sleep?”
“Here?”
“Faster to roll from here than back at the farm.”
“How you gonna sleep?” Boom said. “All I got is that old truck’s bench seat in the office.”
“That works fine,” Quinn said. “I got a radio and a cell. If this thing rolling in looks as bad as they say, I won’t be sleeping for a few days. They got tornado watches for every county north of I-20.”
Boom nodded. He had a screwdriver fitted into his hand, a long cigarette hanging out of his mouth. “Got a horse blanket back there somewhere. A pillow, too.”
“Appreciate it.”
“Caddy will come around,” Boom said. “Anybody who’s been bad fucked up and then gets some perspective will do what it takes to not get back to that place.”
“She’s not backsliding,” Quinn said. “She just has some misplaced faith.”
“You mind me asking you something?” Boom said. He pulled the cigarette from his mouth and ashed it.
“Have I ever?”
Quinn pulled the handheld from his truck and his jacket. He walked back into the dim patch of light where Boom worked from his spotless rows of tool benches. There was the comfortable smell there of tobacco and grease, reminding him of his grandfather’s work shed. Tools gleamed brightly and clean fitted into their proper slots.
“You ever think that maybe Dixon is the real deal?” Boom said, tossing the cigarette into an empty coffee can, leaning back under the hood of the Crown Vic. “I known a few people who come out of prison straightened out and clean. Just ’cause those men broke out doesn’t mean he’s a part of it.”
“You do know exactly what happened to Adelaide Bundren?”
“Everyone knows,” Boom said. He turned back around, walked to the tool bench, and fit a ratchet into his hand and added a socket. “But let’s say he did that when he was under the influence. Maybe he really don’t remember what happened. Ain’t nobody ever said that he pushed her.”
“He was convicted of killing her.”
“They said he chased her out into the street,” Boom said. “But is it possible he didn’t? That she just ran? Both of them were a real mess back then. They were part of that crew that hung out at Mr. Horace’s place. That juke joint in that old single-wide.”
“Doesn’t much matter. Our esteemed governor left this flaming pile of dog shit on our doorstep as he left office.”
“But if he did chase her,” Boom said. He popped a cigarette into his fresh mouth and picked up a lighter. “And he was all fucked up back then. Do you believe we should forgive him?”
“As sheriff?”
“As a Christian,” Boom said.
“Hell, I don’t know,” Quinn said. “I got to get some sleep, Boom.” The police scanner squawked in Quinn’s hand, water rising down in Sugar Ditch. Two tornadoes touching down in Cohoama County. “We can debate this shit later.”
“But what if something had happened to someone who’d been with me when I was drunk and high?” Boom said. “You know how many times I was driving drunk before I got myself clean?”
“Don’t want to know.”
“You would have forgiven me.”
“That’s different,” Quinn said. “You’re my friend. And you never killed anyone.”
“Me and you both killed a lot of folks,” Boom said. “But me and you both figured what we were doing was right.”
“Line of duty isn’t in the line of being fucked up.”
Boom nodded. He blew smoke from his nose. “Hell of a point.”
“Dixon beat up a lot of women before he got to Adelaide Bundren,” Quinn said. “Even if he hadn’t killed her, would you want him to marry your sister?”
“They’re getting married?”
“That’s what Caddy says.”
“Oh, shit,” Boom said, laughing. “What’s Miss Jean say about that?”
“I don’t think Jean knows.”
“How about Jason?”
“I want Caddy to think on this before she talks to him.”
“So maybe in that time, you can connect Dixon with those two shitbirds out of Parchman.”
“If that’s the case, I’d like to make things clearer for her.”
“Be real clear if the preacher goes back to prison.”
“I thought you were the devil’s advocate,” Quinn said.
“Caddy sees something in him.”
“But would you trust Caddy?”
“Your sister has made so many bad decisions I just figure she’s due for a good one,” Boom said. He thought on that as he ashed his cigarette again and set back to work on the old Crown Vic.
Quinn found the pillow and the horse blanket in Boom’s office and was asleep in two minutes.
• • •
Jamey Dixon was beat to shit. But it was an amazing thing to witness the power of a .357 against his spine. He limped like a hurt dog as they walked toward the Booby Trap lounge, its big neon sign facing Highway 45 coloring oil-slick puddles. He’d said that’s where Johnny Stagg kept his real office, the other one in the truck stop just for show. Dixon said this was the place where they could talk out the entire situation. With the gun pressed hard into his ear, Esau made Dixon call Stagg and make sure he was waiting for him.
If anyone gave them any shit, he and Bones would shoot them down. They didn’t have a lot of time to converse.
The titty bar wasn’t nothing special, like a hundred places Esau had been in over the years, from Shreveport to Gulfport. Spinning colored lights and loud music and broke-ass girls working the pole. Most of the girls here looked young and underfed. Most of them had little tits and no asses and wore too much makeup and perfume. The whole place smelled of smoke and cherries and coconut oil. A bunch of old truckers wandered in and out of a back room, the place where they could get their pistons greased.
Dixon nodded toward another door and another room beside the bar. They wandered on over, Dixon looking like w
alking roadkill, face bloody and bruised, and asked a pretty girl pouring drinks if she might inform Mr. Stagg they had arrived.
“Don’t get nervous,” Bones said. “You won’t be the last preacher seen inside a whorehouse.”
“And then y’all let me go?” Jamey said.
“Ain’t for you to decide,” Bones said.
“He ain’t gonna give up nothing,” Jamey said.
The bartender had disappeared into the back room. Esau kept the gun on Jamey, holding it real close as a skinny thing in a pink bra and panties did the splits and then turned around and smacked her ass to a Skynyrd song. She didn’t even have enough meat to make it shake. Bones shook his head in shame.
The door opened and a fat guy in a cop uniform emerged. Esau started to pull the gun fast, but the guy just motioned for them to come on in. He wore a buzz cut and had one wandering eye. His badge said he was the chief of police of Jericho and his name was Leonard.
They moved down a long hall and into a curve and then the fat cop stopped them cold. “Give me that gun.”
Esau shook his head.
The fat cop, Leonard, reached for his hand like he had some kind of power, and Esau whipped him hard across the mouth, knocking his fat ass against the wall. Bones was on him, pulling a gun from the man’s waist and checking down his body and legs for more. He found a little .22 on his ankle, pocketed it, and walked on into the office.
Inside, a weathered old hillbilly in a bright red sweater had his feet kicked up on a desk. He was talking on a phone, not a cell but a real-deal old push-button phone held to his ear. When the three of them walked on in, his hooded eyes wandered over them and he said into the mouthpiece, “Let me call you back.”
Esau gripped Jamey Dixon by the neck and threw him onto the man’s carpet. The fat cop stumbled on in after them, shaking his head like there was something stuck in his ear.
No one spoke for a while.
Dixon tried to get up. Esau knocked him back down.
“You Johnny Stagg?” Esau said.
The old hillbilly nodded. His room filled with all kind of photos and certificates and six flat-screen monitors, about the size of what he used to keep at his bunk at Parchman, tuned to different spots in the truck stop and the girls dancing on poles.
“You got something that belongs to us,” Bones said.
“I got men coming in here in about thirty seconds,” Stagg said. “Y’all better talk fast or shoot faster.”
Stagg had yet to drop his feet off the desk, wearing oxblood loafers buffed to a high shine and fancy socks that didn’t suit a hillbilly at all. His eyes flicked over the television monitors and then back to Esau and Bones and Jamey Dixon bleeding on his carpet.
“Leonard, get Reverend Dixon a towel,” Stagg said. “He’s making a real mess in here.”
Stagg had a slight facial tic, not speaking, waiting all cool, feet still, hands still. The man didn’t look a bit concerned that he was holding court with a couple armed escaped convicts.
“This man made a trade to you with something wasn’t his,” Esau said. “Just when did you pull up that armored truck?”
Stagg smiled in a curious way.
“You mind me asking you first how you did it?” Stagg said. “Y’all managed to sink that son of a bitch before anyone in this county saw a thing. That old road is pretty highly traveled. I have to commend you on your incredible stealth.”
“My buddy T-boned the son of a bitch with a diesel fitted with a steel grille guard,” Esau said. “Didn’t mean to knock it into the pond. It just kind of worked out that way.”
Stagg smiled and nodded, just sort of amused to be in their company.
“So why don’t you just open up your safe and hand over what you got,” Esau said. “It needs to be close, but we won’t count you to the penny.”
“Appreciate that, boys,” Stagg said.
His eyes roamed over the monitor, smile growing bigger, looking just like a Halloween jack-o’-lantern. Bones glanced over to the monitor and back to Stagg. “Those your boys with the shotguns?”
Esau saw the bright images from a security camera of two men in dark rain jackets holding pump shotguns heading toward the front door.
“No, sir,” Stagg said, grinning a set of teeth as big and flat as a row of tombstones. “I guess y’all geniuses didn’t notice you were being followed by a couple U.S. Marshals. See what it spells on their jackets right there? Did I mention these TVs are high-def? You can count the freckles inside a woman’s thigh.”
Esau looked to Bones. The men were coming through the door now. Another monitor showed them inside the club, yelling something. That pounding bass you could hear through the walls suddenly stopped. Now there was only the rain on the windows. Johnny Stagg recrossed his feet at the ankles and grinned at them.
He lifted up his hands in surrender and said, “Y’all boys got me now. What was it you came for again?”
Lillie Virgil lived in a little white house by the old train depot just north of Jericho. Caddy had always loved Lillie’s little house, the white clapboards covered with pink climbing roses and yellow jessamine and blood-red canna lilies that grew to huge heights in the hot summers. She had a nice wide screened porch on the side of the house and a potting shed she’d pulled together from barn wood and scrap tin. There was a composter and a big stack of antique bricks she figured Lillie was using to expand a little backyard gazebo, and white Christmas lights strewn overhead, clicking in the strong wind and rain. Caddy knocked on Lillie’s side door, her hand firmly holding Jason’s, and waited. Her car was still running. It had been two hours since she’d seen Quinn, and she still couldn’t find Jamey.
Lillie came to the back door, drying her hands. Inside the kitchen, Caddy spotted Lillie’s adopted daughter Rose sitting in a high chair, face covered in baby food. Lillie was still wearing her sheriff’s office uniform.
“Sorry, Lillie,” Caddy said. “But I could really use a favor right about now.”
“Come on,” Lillie said. “Feeding Rose some supper. Y’all want something to eat? I was heating up some peas and making some cornbread.”
“I need you to watch Jason,” Caddy said, almost in a blurt.
“Y’all come on in.”
“I can’t.”
She had pulled Jason up under her jacket, but his face and hair had gotten very wet. Lillie nodded for him to come on in, her small kitchen with a propane stove smelling warm and inviting. She had one of those antique Hoosier cabinets and a big wooden sideboard, old-fashioned advertisements hung on the wall. “I’ll be back in an hour or two,” Caddy said.
“Where’s Jean?”
“I’d rather we keep this between us.”
“You mean don’t tell Quinn,” Lillie said.
“Please.”
Lillie asked her again to please come inside, and Caddy again refused. She did not want Jason to be with her when she found Jamey. And she did not want Jason with her if she had to run into Quinn. She wanted to handle this thing on her own, and the faster she found Jamey, the sooner this could all be over. She did not want Jamey to feel like he was alone in this. She didn’t want Quinn to know any more than was necessary.
“Is Jamey coming by the office to talk to Quinn?” Lillie said.
Caddy shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said. “I can’t find him.”
“You know what we found today out by the Hardins’ pond?”
Caddy nodded. “I just need a little time, Lillie,” she said. “A couple hours.”
Lillie did not like the situation at all, rag held loose in her hand and baby starting to cry, but she nodded anyway. “If I don’t hear from you, you know I’ll have to call Quinn.”
“I promise, I’ll be back,” Caddy said. “You have such a beautiful home.”
“Please come on out of the rain,” Lillie said. “Let’s talk.”
Jason had already sat down at Lillie’s kitchen table. He took off his yellow raincoat and hung it neatly on the back of th
e chair, where he watched little Rose with a lot of interest. Rose watched him back.
“Thank you,” Caddy said. “I owe you, Lillie.”
“Please don’t get me in trouble.”
Caddy nodded. “I won’t.”
“Do you know what you’re doing?”
Caddy smiled for the first time since the morning service. “Believe it or not, I actually think I do.”
• • •
“Where’s your back door?” Esau said.
“Figured you’d be asking about it,” Stagg said.
“Get your fucking feet off the desk and get your ass up,” Esau said. “You’re coming with us.”
Johnny Stagg shook his head like a man who’d never followed orders in his life. He just folded his hands in his lap and pointed to video screens. “Only one way in and out of the Booby Trap,” he said. “We made it that way to keep boys from jumpin’ out on their tabs.”
Bones wandered up beside Esau and pointed to Stagg’s picture frames. “You really get your picture made with Charley Pride? You see that, man? Charley Pride. Where’d you get that taken?”
“Choctaw Casino in next county down,” Stagg said, grinning wide. He stood, Esau leveling the .357 at his belly but Stagg seeming to care less. He turned and pointed to the photo like he was giving a grand tour. “He did a beautiful version of ‘The Day the World Stood Still.’”
“Charley Fucking Pride,” Bones said.
There was more yelling from the big room, and somewhere a girl screamed. Esau reached across the big desk and grabbed Johnny Stagg’s bony arm and pulled him clean on over. “Now, march, motherfucker. We’re all getting out of here alive and together. And then you’re going to be getting us our money.”
“Ain’t but one way,” Stagg said.
They headed back out in the hall. Bones had the shotgun he’d taken off Dixon’s woman trained on Dixon and on the fat police chief. They let the three men lead the way out of the back rooms, twisting the corners and coming to the big metal door that was set aside of the bar. On the other side, they could hear a hell of a commotion.
“You really a cop or just a real ugly stripper?” Bones said.
