The Innocents

by Ace Atkins

  “Excuse me?”

  “You’re fresh, is all,” she said. “Truckers will know it. Play it. Tell ’em you’re nervous. They’ll tip out the damn ass for that.”

  The woman had long blonde hair, probably extensions, and bright blue eyes. Her white skin had been stained the color of mahogany and her teeth bleached the highest white. She had on lacy white panties, white bra over her double D’s, and long white stockings. A white ribbon wrapped the sagging skin of her throat. Milly looked down at the cover of The Christmas Promise—a clean-looking guy in a shirt and tie and suspenders standing before a church. A dove had been photoshopped in behind him, flying high.

  “Where you from?” the woman asked.

  “Here.”

  “Here?” the woman said. “Damn. That’s a new one on me.”

  Milly was in her street clothes—T-shirt, jeans, and Keds. She’d brought a sexy little red bra-and-panty set she’d bought at the Victoria’s Secret in Tupelo. Only person to ever see her in it was Joshua and Joshua had been so thrilled about it he’d said she’d wear it on their wedding night. Which didn’t make a lot of sense to her since they’d been doing it all that summer. Like she could go back to being a virgin. Joshua was smooth, slow, and gentle. If he found out where she was working, it would damn near kill him.

  “I just need to make a little money.”

  “Yeah?” the woman said. “I told that to myself about twenty years ago.”

  “Is it hard?”

  “Sometimes,” the woman said. “You just have to set personal boundaries. Make rules for yourself and don’t break them. Like, can a man touch your titties? The law says no touching above or below the waist. But if you got a man you feel OK about, think he’s a good tipper, then it doesn’t matter much to me. Other thing is that men are always trying to kiss you. You can touch my titties all you want, but don’t you kiss me on the mouth. I don’t know where that nasty trucker mouth has been.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Don’t worry too much about your time on the pole,” she said. “You ain’t up there for no art project. Just shake it and twirl. It’s just a chance for the men to see what you got to offer. Trust me, honey, they’re gonna like you good. You don’t need to sell it. Just show it. You could bounce a half-dollar off that little ass.”

  “I used to be a cheerleader,” Milly said, smiling but not really feeling it.

  A black girl not much older than Milly walked into the locker room buck-ass naked and smoking a long, thin cigarette. “Y’all can have it,” she said. “Crazy out there tonight. Man tried to stick a beer bottle up my ass. Like I’m into that shit.”

  “We got a first-timer here tonight, Damika,” the woman said. “Trying to pass down a little knowledge.”

  “You tell her about the sell?”

  Milly looked at the black girl and stood up, taking off her T-shirt and jeans, folding them carefully and packing them in the locker with a pack of cigarettes, a pint of Jim Beam, and a small overnight bag filled with makeup. She dropped the romance novel on the floor with a thud.

  “It’s all about the sell, baby,” Damika said. “That’s where you make your money. Ain’t about nickels and dimes tossed to you on the stage. You got to get their fat, sweaty, nasty asses into the VIP Room. Or whatever Miss Fannie call it.”

  “Champagne Room,” the woman said.

  “Yeah, well, what the fuck,” Damika said. “Be cool about it. But don’t waste time on no deadbeat. You see a man ain’t interested or don’t want to pay, you move right on down the line.”

  “And be yourself,” the woman said. “Don’t be superficial. Men are dumb as shit. They can’t tell if you’re into them or not. You act like it and they believe it. Show directness. Confidence. Look ’em in the eye when you grind their lap.”

  “And don’t be asking them if they like this?” Damika said. “Or would like that? You’re not asking them. You tell them. Don’t say, ‘Would you like to kick back with me in the Champagne Room?’ Flirt with them, get them all horny, and just say, ‘Let’s go’ or ‘It’s time.’”

  “And after their first lap dance, drag your fingernails across the back of their neck, lean into their ear, and whisper you don’t want to stop,” the woman said.

  “Oh, hell,” Damika said, giggling. “Oh, hell.”

  “I just need money.”

  “We all need money,” the woman said. “You think this shit does it for me? Just don’t think you can start it and drop it. Money is too good.”

  Milly changed out of her threadbare panties and washed-out bra into the red silk satin. She pulled out a compact and mirror from her bag and started in on her eyes. She’d add some lashes, draw them up big and bold. It made her look older and fierce. She could use all the confidence she could get even if it was painted on.

  “Just whatever you do, don’t forget to tip out,” the black girl said. “You cheat the house and that eye in the sky will know.”

  “She have cameras?”

  The older woman looked at her, fluffing up her hair in a mirror, then looked over her shoulder. “Fannie doesn’t need cameras,” she said. “Sees it all.”

  “You pick a stage name yet?” Damika said.

  “No.”

  “Don’t ever tell anyone your real name,” the woman said. “Don’t ever let anyone know the real you.”

  “Mmm-hmm,” Damika said.

  “How about a song?”

  “‘Wrecking Ball,’” Milly Jones said. “Miley Cyrus.”

  • • •

  It was nearly seven, but Quinn found Boom Kimbrough still at the County Barn, working on one of the patrol cars, the one that had been Ike McCaslin’s before his long-awaited retirement. He had the hood up, bent at the waist, reaching deep into the guts of the old Crown Vic, turning something with a ratchet attached on his prosthetic arm. The arm having been a casualty of his time in Iraq with the Guard.

  Lillie Virgil sat on a discarded car backseat now used as a sofa. She was drinking some of Boom’s burnt coffee in a paper cup. She smiled and gave Quinn a silent salute with two fingers.

  “You payin’ overtime, Lil?” Quinn asked.

  Boom didn’t budge, grunting, working on tightening something up. “It’s my pleasure to stay late,” Boom said. “Sheriff lets me work on some real classics.”

  “Classic pieces of shit,” Lillie said.

  “Supervisors won’t get y’all new vehicles yet?” Quinn said.

  “What do you think?” Lillie said. “They blow what they don’t skim on kickbacks on conferences in Biloxi or Tunica. If we didn’t have Boom, we’d be riding around Tibbehah on bicycles.”

  Boom pulled himself from under the hood. He reached for a rag, wiping the grease from the ratchet and turning it free of the artificial arm. A tall and substantial black man, he grinned at Quinn and shook his head. “Damn good to see you, Quinn.”

  Quinn wrapped his right arm around Boom’s hulking body and patted his back. He handed him a box of Cubans he bought in duty-free on the way back home. Boom said he couldn’t tell a Cuban from a Puerto Rican, but he sure loved the way those sticks smelled. Quinn reached into his back pocket and pulled out a handmade silk scarf that he offered to Lillie.

  “Ha,” Lillie said. “You can take a hint.”

  “Bought it in a bazaar in Herat,” Quinn said. “It’s your favorite color?”

  “Nope,” Lillie said, taking the scarf from his hand and wrapping it around her neck. “But it’ll do.”

  “’Bout time you stopped by,” Boom said.

  “Had to deal with a few things.”

  Lillie grinned but didn’t comment, left leg crossed over the right, kicking her foot up and down, as she sat on the old backseat. She was examining the end of the scarf, probably making sure Quinn didn’t buy it at the local Walmart.

  “You get those th
ings straight?” Boom asked.

  “Nope.”

  Boom nodded. He used a pocketknife to slit open the cedar box, smelling the twenty-four neatly aligned cigars. He grinned and widened his eyes. “Go ahead,” Quinn said.

  “I can wait.”

  “Wait for what?”

  “Special occasion.”

  “Seems like one right now.” Quinn cut a cigar for Boom and offered another to Lillie. Lillie declined but said she just might take a puff off Quinn’s.

  “Since you made good and actually remembered me,” she said.

  “I always think of you, Lil.”

  “Bull-fucking-shit,” Lillie said.

  The inside of the County Barn was pin neat, with its clean concrete floors, aligned tools on pegboards, and four large Husky toolboxes on wheels. Quinn noted Boom had gotten a new Playboy lingerie calendar since the last time he’d stopped by. A woman looked coyly over her shoulder, a blue sweater slipping down over her shapely back. Just the kind of woman who’d be hanging out in a Jericho, Mississippi, garage.

  Quinn clicked open the old stainless Zippo he’d had for years. Busted and dented, the lighter had made it through four tours of Vietnam before being handed over to Quinn for thirteen in Iraq and Afghanistan. He lit Boom’s cigar and then his own, filling the space with the rich tobacco smell. All the movements and sounds in the garage amplified with a deep echo.

  “Heard about that thing at your farm,” Boom said, puffing on the cigar, the end starting to glow bright orange. “D. J. Norwood is one crazy son of a bitch. Almost as bad as his entire worthless family.”

  “I think Lillie might’ve knocked some sense into him.”

  “She’d have to hit him pretty damn hard.”

  “No idea what y’all are talking about,” Lillie said, reaching for Quinn’s cigar and taking a puff. “I practiced restraint with that shitbag. If I hadn’t, they’d have found his head in Eupora.”

  “Shit,” Boom said. “Let’s get the hell out of here and go get a beer.”

  Quinn nodded, looking to Lillie, a little surprised Boom was drinking again. The last time Quinn and Lillie caught him drinking, he’d nearly leveled an entire juke joint down in Sugar Ditch.

  “Don’t worry,” Boom said. “One beer. All a sheriff can be seen drinking. And all I can handle.”

  “Fine by me,” Quinn said. “Southern Star?”

  “Like we got somewhere else to go?” Lillie said.

  “Always the Booby Trap,” Quinn said, smiling.

  “Ain’t no more,” Boom said. “Hadn’t you heard? Woman bought it has gone high-class. It’s called Vienna’s or some shit.”

  “Fannie Hathcock spells class with a capital K,” Lillie said. “That’s one evil bitch, if you ask me.”

  “Come on,” Boom said. “We’ll get you up to speed on all this shit. I’ll shut down and meet y’all in town.”

  Lillie stood, still in green uniform, red scarf wrapping her neck. Some chatter heated up her police radio before she walked out the open mouth of the barn and into the lot. Quinn followed into the fading gold light, Lillie now talking on her cell phone, and then turning to him. “Sorry,” she said. “But I have to go.”

  Quinn looked to her and waited.

  “Some moron is robbing the Gas & Go up in Blackjack,” Lillie said. “We got Reggie Caruthers and Kenny headed up there now. I better head on.”

  “I’ll catch Boom later,” Quinn said. “Been a long while since we rode together.”

  “Sure,” Lillie said. “What could go wrong?”

  6

  Quinn had never met Sammi Khouraki but knew and liked his father, a tough old Syrian who used to work at Luther Varner’s Quick Mart. His dad was a surly little guy who chain-smoked and kept the local sports book before taking over a string of convenience stores. The old man had a thick accent, but Sammi talked like someone who’d grown up in Mississippi, country twang by way of the folks in Sugar Ditch. He wore a flat-brimmed baseball cap and a blue Memphis Grizzlies T-shirt. His face was a mess, bloodied lip and swollen-shut right eye. To hear Sammi tell it, he’d just been careless and walked into a wall.

  “Pretty fucking mean wall,” Lillie said.

  They all stood outside the Gas & Go, sun finally going down in Tibbehah County. Dust from the county road had kicked up, leaving a soft yellow haze in the fading gold light. Quinn leaned against Lillie’s Cherokee as she interviewed Sammi, Reggie and Kenny already back on patrol. No money taken. A victim who wouldn’t press charges or even admit anything happened.

  “How about the security tapes?” Lillie asked.

  “Busted,” Sammi said.

  “That a fact . . .” Lillie said.

  “It is.” Sammi nodded. “We need to get that camera fixed.”

  “You wouldn’t have happened to have a run-in with any of the North Side Boys?” Lillie said.

  Sammi, fat lip and swollen eye, shook his head. “Never heard of ’em.”

  Quinn hadn’t said a word since they’d found Sammi outside, sitting next to the gas pumps with a bloody towel on his face. It was good to see Lillie again and always a pleasure to watch her work.

  “Never heard of the North Side Boys?” Lillie said. “Now, that does amaze me, Sammi. There isn’t shit to do up in Blackjack but join a gang or watch the Illinois Central pass. I seen plenty of those boys hanging out at your store, doing a little business outside.”

  “Nope.” Sammi said.

  “Nito Reece?” Lillie said. “Everyone around here knows Nito. He’s a real mean motherfucker.”

  “You sure don’t talk like a sheriff,” Sammi said.

  “Really?” Lillie said. “A good sheriff should talk in a way to elicit an answer to a question. So far, you haven’t told me jack shit about who messed up your face. If I were you, I’d relay a little information so it didn’t happen again. You don’t want to get in thick with any of the North Side Boys. Especially Nito Reece.”

  Sammi looked to Quinn and nodded. Quinn nodded back. Sammi knew him but didn’t know his name. Could recognize he was somebody from Jericho, maybe even remembered him as the sheriff. Sammi looked away.

  “We get a call that a young black male is in your store waving around a gun,” Lillie said. “But you didn’t see it because you were too busy walking into walls.”

  “Yeah,” Sammi said. “That’s right.”

  “Sammi,” Lillie said. “Son of a bitch. Don’t lay down for these boys. I had one of them in last night. Once you make excuses for them, they’ll eat your ass up.”

  Sammi looked over Lillie’s shoulder, again to Quinn, and said, “Don’t I know you?”

  Quinn nodded. “Maybe,” he said. “I knew your dad. Back when he worked for Mr. Varner at the Quick Mart. How’s he doing?”

  “He owns three gas stations now,” Sammi said. “And a tobacco super-outlet and cell phone store over in Tupelo. He doesn’t like Tibbehah County. He says people cheated him here.”

  “He’s right,” Quinn said.

  Sammi looked confused. Easy to look confused with a big flat-brimmed ball cap and lots of blood on your face.

  “Johnny Stagg used to put the squeeze on him,” Quinn said. “He made him pay protection for his store until I became sheriff.”

  Sammi looked doubtful, wiping the blood from his lip. “Which one of you is in charge?” Sammi said. “Because I’m confused who I’m supposed to be talking to.”

  “Come again?” Lillie said.

  “Which one of you is the sheriff?”

  “She’s the sheriff,” Quinn said. “I’m just the impartial observer.”

  “But you were the sheriff.”

  “Yep.”

  “I heard you were just like all the rest,” Sammi said. “Isn’t that why you didn’t get reelected?”

  “No, sir,” Quinn said. “Not at all.�
�

  “I heard you shot some men,” Sammi said. “And that you got state people to cover it up.”

  Quinn grinned, just a bit, and shook his head. He looked to Lillie and her face had turned a bright shade of red. She took a long, deep breath and Quinn lightly touched her arm. Wasn’t worth it. “We want to help you,” Lillie said.

  “I don’t want help.”

  “Don’t take their shit,” Lillie said.

  “I walked into a wall.”

  “Keep on doing that and it’s gonna tumble down on your thick fucking head, kid.”

  Sammi stood up from the gas pump island, looked at the blood soaked through the rag, and tossed it in the trash. He shook his head and walked back into the Gas & Go.

  “Still miss being the law?” she said.

  “Hearts and minds, Lillie.”

  “And sometimes a swift kick to the nuts doesn’t hurt.”

  • • •

  Ma’am, it sure is good to finally meet you,” said the young man across from Fannie. “I’ve heard a lot of good things about you from some important folks.”

  “Is that a fact?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” the boy said. He was probably in his late twenties but looked nineteen. Unkempt shaggy hair, wrinkled khakis, blue button-down with an Ole Miss tie. “You have a top name in the hospitality industry. We just wanted to make sure you had gotten our messages of welcome.”

  Fannie nodded. She reached for her pack of cigarettes and pulled out a skinny brown cigarillo. She lit it with her Dunhill lighter and waved away the smoke that clouded the space between her and Junior.

  “We just never heard back, is all,” said the boy. “And some folks thought I might just stop by and say hello. You know, see if there was anything at all you needed.”

  “What’s your name?” Fannie said.

  “Bentley Vandeven.”

  “Of course it is,” Fannie said, leaning back in her office chair. The office had been scraped clean of every inch of Johnny Stagg, painted a smooth beige, nothing hung on the walls. New light fixtures and a glass-topped desk. “And you came all the way to Jericho just to say hello?”