by Ace Atkins
“A come-to-Jesus?” Donnie asked. “If you’re gonna get me killed or in prison, I’d like to know what team I’m playing for.”
He leaned in and put his hand on her knee, smelling the sweetness of her soap and the shampoo in her black hair, and said as softly as he could, “I’m walking inside to get me a Whopper and fries with a chocolate milk shake. When I come out, tell me your deal in all this. You want something?”
Donnie kissed her cheek. She raised her eyes at him and nodded. He smiled back and snatched the keys from the ignition.
“Just in case you ain’t in the talkin’ mood,” Donnie said. He grinned and walked inside.
When he came back, Luz’s eyes were closed, using a jeans jacket for a pillow. She turned, waking, as she watched him unwrap that Whopper and squeeze out some ketchup for the fries. He hadn’t said a word and started to eat as Luz said, “Have you ever heard of a place called Cherán?”
Donnie’s mouth was full. He shook his head and listened.
“WHAT WAS SHE TRYING TO DO?” Lillie asked. “What happened to that child?”
“It’s not like you think,” Mara said.
Quinn moved from the wall and sat down at the table, not looking at Lillie, knowing he’d only find a dirty look. He bowed his head and looked down at his hands, not speaking, trying to let some silence work on the girl.
“I don’t want him here,” Mara said. “He hates me. I can see it on him.”
“He’s the sheriff,” Lillie said. “He doesn’t hate you.”
“Well, I don’t like him.”
“I can leave,” Quinn said.
“What you say to me goes to him,” Lillie said. “You want to tell me what’s going on with you? Did your momma send you another message? Is that what’s wrong?”
Mara dropped her head into her hands. Quinn figured it was some act of contemplation.
“What will you do to my momma?”
“We won’t do anything,” Lillie said. “It’s up to the courts.”
“Will they kill her?”
“Nope,” Lillie said. “She’ll go to jail. The way she kept those children and those animals was a sickness. You don’t take anger out on a toddler, Mara.”
“I told you she had the thyroid. She couldn’t go nowhere without people laughing at her.”
“Doesn’t excuse what she did,” Quinn said. “She killed that little girl.”
“That’s a lie,” Mara said as her face grew red, grinding her hands into her temples. “That’s a damn lie.”
“How do you figure?” Lillie asked in a calm, easy voice. “What happened?”
“Please don’t kill her,” Mara said. “I heard y’all shot six men. If she’d been there, you would have shot her, too.”
“Does she carry a gun?” Quinn asked.
“Quinn,” Lillie said.
Quinn stood up and turned for the door. He was tired of the cramped room, tired of Lillie getting on his ass, and of whatever Mara was planning. He said, “I’m tired of this shit.”
“I killed that baby,” Mara said. “Jesus, Lord help me. Jesus, Lord help me.”
Quinn stopped and turned.
“I don’t believe you,” Lillie said. “Did your mother threaten you again? This won’t help her. It just makes things harder for you.”
“I killed Gabriela.”
“No, you didn’t,” Lillie said. “Your mother has a sickness.”
“We tried to sauce her,” Mara said, wiping her face. “She was crying and crying. I poured Tabasco down her throat. Screaming. I never thought no kid could sound like that. I shook her real good. But she wouldn’t be quiet. I couldn’t stand it. Holy Lord. You don’t know how it makes you crazy. Quit hunting my momma. Leave her alone. I killed that baby. I threw her. She hit a table. I didn’t mean it. I didn’t mean it.”
Lillie dropped her head. Quinn watched Mara cry for a long moment.
“You sure this is what you want?” Lillie asked. “Is this your confession?”
Quinn tilted his head and scratched his neck. He looked to Lillie. Lillie let out a long breath and looked up at the ceiling. Mara stared at them both and nodded.
“Deputy Virgil, you want to call up her attorney and get the D.A. down here from Oxford?”
Quinn walked out of the room, and Lillie followed. He closed the door. Mara was crying as she did the first night they found her.
“Jesus Christ,” Lillie said. “You believe it?”
“I hate to say it,” Quinn said, “but I sure do.”
DONNIE SWALLOWED. “Thought you said you were from Saragosa, Texas?”
“My mother and father were from Mexico,” Luz said. “Nuevo Laredo. They moved to Texas before I was born, and as I’ve told you, my father was a narco in El Paso. My mother and I lived away from him so we’d be safe. When I would visit my father, there was a woman who cared for me. She was from Cherán. She became my second mother.”
“OK,” Donnie said. “Sure you don’t at least want some fries?”
“I am not a narco,” she said. “I am not like my father.”
“Sure, baby.”
“You speak more than you listen.”
“You know, my daddy always says the same thing,” Donnie said.
“They killed her and her husband,” Luz said. “The narcos who work for Tony shot them and burned their bodies. They were found by the spring in Cherán to send a message to all the informers and people fighting them there. The entire town had been destroyed. All of it had been so beautiful, up in the mountains with thick forests. The narcos came and stole the land, logged everything.”
“Was it their land got logged?” Donnie asked.
“My friends had tried to protect what was left,” Luz said, shaking her head. “The townspeople stood guard in the woods, checking every truck that would try to enter or leave. The loggers worked for the narcos. Los Zetas. They killed my friends. You see? I have done things in the last two years that make me hate myself and grow sick of everything I touch.”
“What the hell are you thinking?” Donnie said. “We’re all gonna get killed. For what? Some fucking trees?”
“I do this out of respect for my friends, for everything they tried to accomplish. That boy with me is their son. Luis and Javier had family in Cherán. Vincente, too, which is why Alejandro killed him. If we can get these guns to the village… You see? This is something. This is something for us.”
“And y’all had planned on double-crossing these bastards the whole time?” Donnie shook his head. He drank some milk shake. “Just how long till Tony the Tiger shits a golden turd and comes looking for Alejandro? And his guns?”
“Soon.”
“Terrific.” Donnie wadded up the burger wrapper and tossed it into the bag. “You know, this is some shit to spring on a man without something to drink. How about I find a liquor store, and we head back to that motel?”
“And then what?” Luz said. “They will know Alejandro is dead. They will come for us. They know who got him the guns and believe you told the police. They will blame all of us.”
“Son of a bitch.” Donnie grinned and pulled out into traffic. “Wait until I tell my daddy what I’ve gotten myself into. He’ll never believe it.”
42
BOTH MEN WORE NAVY SUITS, REDDISH TIES, AND SCUFFED-UP DRESS shoes. Dinah took a lot of care to address Quinn as Sheriff Colson and the men as Special Agents Willis and Caruthers. Willis was black and Caruthers was white. They both smiled in a good-natured way as Quinn shook their hands and asked them to take a seat. They didn’t want coffee. Yes, it was their first time in Tibbehah County. No, they weren’t from Mississippi but liked being assigned to the Oxford office. Dinah seemed pleased with the way things were going, waved to Lillie when she passed by the open door, and took a seat with the other agents. They’d all driven down from Oxford that morning.
“I guess y’all want to know all about Donnie Varner,” Quinn said.
Willis was light-skinned and a little thick in
the neck. He grinned at Quinn and nodded. “Yeah, I guess we would.”
Caruthers nodded, too. He was short and bulky and wore a crew cut. He had asked for a paper cup to spit some Skoal while they talked. Quinn figured him for Army at one time, but probably long ago. Both men were in their late forties.
“I don’t know how he got those guns,” Quinn said. “He’s always been pretty smart and resourceful. You make the right friends, and things like that can be done. I guess y’all know that.”
“You know how he fell in with the Mexicans?” Caruthers asked.
“I was talking with Agent Brand about that the other day.” Quinn smiled to Dinah, hoping she’d appreciate his professionalism. “We were buddies a long time back. I hadn’t seen him for years until he got home this last time. That’s when I saw him with this woman Laura Zuniga, the one who goes by Luz.”
Dinah nodded, knees together, hands in her lap. She looked uneasy, restless. Quinn wished he could have told her to relax, that he had no intention of leaning over and kissing her in front of her people.
“Forty-six of those M4s we recovered were traced back to his Guard unit,” Willis said. “Got any idea where he got the rest?”
“We didn’t exactly have a heart-to-heart when I asked him about his girlfriend. He pretended like he didn’t know her that well. Or know what she was hooked into.”
“DEA arrested Ramón Torres in Houston a few years back,” Caruthers said. A light blond beard was showing up on his jaw, his skin reddened and wind-chapped. He took a break to spit, feeling comfortable away from a federal office. “And he was connected to a case last year with teenage girls being turned out in a motel in south Memphis. Some of them were twelve, thirteen. Class-act stuff. We think he sold a lot of babies, kept some for himself and his wife or whatever she was. We figure he met her moving children and teenage girls up to Memphis. Made more money trafficking in people than crystal meth.”
“I don’t think anybody can make heads or tails of that relationship,” Quinn said.
“Business partners,” Dinah said. “She had a very active online life, trading dolls and collectibles. I heard from some people in town she was involved in beauty pageants.”
“Only contest she could’ve won was for livestock,” Quinn said.
“Lillie told me about Mara confessing,” Dinah said. “You think she’s taking a hit for her mother? I don’t see her acting out on a child like that. She’s pretty meek.”
“Bets are off in that house,” Quinn said. “I can’t imagine what it would do to a girl that age, having a mother like that.”
“And a stepfather like Ramón,” Willis said. “You know he’s hooked into some cartel folks. Men on the coast by way of Houston and El Paso, MS-13, Los Zetas. Some real nice people.”
Quinn nodded, trying to see just where the Feds wanted to take it, making sure it was an easy transition muscling him out of the way. He just listened, waiting for them to get the hell on with it.
“These folks make those meth peddlers you ran up against last year look like church deacons,” Willis said.
“Well, one of them was a pastor,” Quinn said, smiling.
“That the one they hung from the cross?” Caruthers asked. “I read about it in the Commercial Appeal.”
Quinn nodded.
“OK,” Caruthers said, leaning back into his seat, smoothing down his tie as he spit. “We believe Donnie Varner entered the picture through Ramón Torres. Torres may have sought him out at the gun range, hoping to make a few straw buys with Janet and then moving on down the line. When they found out Mr. Varner had access to more military-grade weapons, they must’ve thought they hit the damn jackpot.”
“And now what?” Quinn asked.
Dinah looked to Willis, and he noted a subtle nod.
“We have an informant that says Varner has one more shipment moving in the morning,” Dinah said. “Looks like an eighteen-wheeler loaded down with a couple hundred assault weapons is headed for Tibbehah County in the next twenty-four hours.”
Quinn leaned back and blew out a long breath. “Terrific.”
NEARLY TWENTY MINUTES BEFORE, Ramón Torres had showed up at Donnie Varner’s gun range and asked to speak to Alejandro. Donnie hadn’t seen Ramón since before he’d sent him up Highway 78 to the carnival, and, truth be told, the little Mexican had looked much better. He was skinny and smaller now, with stick-thin arms and a teenager’s mustache. Ramón sported a pair of rubber farm boots and one of those jackets you get from Marlboro after smoking a thousand packs of cigarettes.
“Alejandro ain’t here,” Donnie said. “Aren’t you supposed to be on the run? I seen your picture at the post office.”
“I have a message for him,” Ramón said. He didn’t have much of an accent, just a weird way of screwing up a couple words. Message sounding a lot fancier coming out of his mouth.
“You got a cell?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll have him give you a ring.”
“I’ll wait,” Ramón said. “What about Luz?”
“She ain’t here, neither.”
“Go get her.”
“I don’t like the way you’re saying that, partner,” Donnie said. “Guess you didn’t see my name out there on the property sign.”
Ramón just looked at him, a black-eyed little banty rooster. Donnie wasn’t sure, but he could bet on a semi-auto under that cheap-ass coat.
“I will wait.”
“Go ahead,” Donnie said, motioning to an empty strip of land. “Take a seat on that stump over there. I’ll be back sometime tomorrow.”
“You tell Alejandro to call Tony,” Ramón said. “Do you understand?”
“How’s the wife, Ramón?” Donnie said. “Those pictures I seen of her in the paper sure put on a few pounds. I know she’s looked better.”
“She’s a fattened pig.”
“No arguments there, brother.”
“When I came to you,” Ramón said, those dead eyes fixed on Donnie, “I was told you were a man I could trust. A man good to his word.”
“And?”
“You brought those lawmen to where you traded the guns,” Ramón said. “I could have been arrested. You’ve made some men I work with very unhappy.”
“Sorry to piss down your leg, but I didn’t do jack shit,” Donnie said. “That’s the cost of living, doing business up in here in north Mississippi. Sometimes the law gets wind of business. They ain’t all on the take like the taco brigade down in Chihuahua.”
Ramón stared at him. In the silence, Donnie fired up a smoke.
He blew out a long stream and said, “Well, it’s been good seeing you, Ramón. Best to the little woman.”
Ramón turned and walked back to a white Nissan pickup, kicking up loose gravel as he hit the road.
Donnie pulled out his cell and punched up Luz’s number.
“Let’s get this thing done,” Donnie said. “Just saw Ramón Torres. Better put in a word with Mother Mary. Some bad motherfuckers are truckin’ this way.”
QUINN WALKED THE AGENTS out to the parking lot, Dinah hanging back, waiting while Caruthers and Willis made cell phone calls by their vehicle. She stopped a few feet outside the sheriff’s office door and peered up at Quinn, smiling at him a whole lot more than she did in the thirty minutes she’d sat in his office.
“How’d I do?” Quinn said, giving a lazy salute to Willis.
“Just fine.”
“You want to tell me about this source of y’all’s?”
“Might be easier to introduce you,” she said.
“OK,” Quinn said. “That mean you’re staying in town?”
“They’re staying, too,” Dinah said, motioning to the other agents and squinting in the harsh sun. “Got a recommendation for a good motel?”
“Sure,” Quinn said. “I always stay at the Traveler’s Rest. Just make sure they request the room without the blood on the floor.”
“I’ll let them know.”
“You want to
ride with me?” Quinn said, walking toward the new truck.
“I do like the new ride,” Dinah said.
“We hit some back roads, and I’ll even let you turn on the siren.”
“I WANT TO GO WITH YOU,” Donnie said.
“You’re crazy.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Do you know what you’re in for?” Luz asked. “Once we get to Cherán, we won’t leave for a long while.”
“I love Mexican food.”
“Listen to me, this is a poor place,” Luz said. “This isn’t going down to the beach and drinking a six-pack of Tecate.”
“Don’t they sell beer?”
“It’s dry,” Luz said. “They made alcohol illegal so the loggers working for the narcos wouldn’t stay.”
“Well, shit,” Donnie said. “Maybe I can bootleg some in.”
“These men have killed nearly fifty villagers this year and promise only more violence and killing until the people stop fighting back.”
Donnie slid up on the tailgate of Luz’s truck and passed the cigarette into her waiting fingers. They looked down into the empty ravine, stripped of trees and littered with busted car parts and rusted refrigerators and the like. Donnie thought about things as they smoked, starting a new one, passing it on, thinking some more.
“When I thought I was dead,” Donnie said. “I’ll explain the whole thing to you sometime later. I wasn’t quite awake and not quite out, but I had some crazy, crazy dreams about angels and Jesus and my dead momma, who still looked the same as she had when I was a kid. Somewhere mixed up in all of it, I remember standing in the middle of some land that looked like the other side of the fucking moon. I was alone and cold and guess it was night or outer space or whatever. But everyone was gone. The whole show was done. I felt like all the air had been sucked from me and I woke up gasping, goddamn promising myself that I would never die here in Jericho.”
“But you would die in Mexico.”
“I’m headed out with you, Luz,” Donnie said. “I don’t give a good goddamn what happens. I am pretty sorry at saying good-bye.”
