The Fallen

by Ace Atkins

  “Anything new with Tamika Odum and Ana Maria Mata?”

  Quinn shook his head. “Lillie spoke to Tamika’s mother,” he said. “She said the girl had been having some trouble with drugs and boys and then just ran away. We couldn’t find anything on Ana Maria. Her family moved on without her.”

  “Those girls were making some real progress,” Caddy said. “They wouldn’t have left without telling me.”

  “We’ve posted them as missing,” Quinn said. “I can’t put out an AMBER Alert because no one saw them abducted. Did you see the bills I put up around town?”

  Caddy nodded, scooting onto the edge of Quinn’s desk. Quinn offered her some coffee, but she declined, looking like she had more that she wanted to discuss than the two missing girls. Quinn reached for the thermos he’d filled up this morning and poured coffee into his mug. Steam rose from the mug as he cracked an office window and fired up the rest of his cigar.

  “I can help you straighten up this office,” Caddy said, looking around the bare room. “Make it seem more respectable.”

  “Every time I get comfortable, someone wants to vote me out.”

  “Isn’t that every public official?”

  “Or the village idiot.”

  “I don’t think this county is dumb enough to make the same mistake twice.”

  Quinn eyed her, getting the cigar tip glowing red. He set it at the edge of a large Arturo Fuente ashtray and leaned back in his wooden chair. “You want to rethink that statement?”

  “Well, they’re stuck with you for the next four years,” Caddy said. “So you might as well hang some pictures, put up a hunting calendar, and set your guns back in the rack.”

  “I moved the guns to the jail,” Quinn said. “I only keep my shotgun and my sidearm here in the office or in the truck.”

  Caddy kept on looking uneasy, not looking her brother the eye, just talking for the sake of talking, keeping him going until she got to the point. Quinn lifted the cigar again and took a puff, the room filling with smoke. She finally looked back at him through the thick haze, back from wherever she’d gone.

  “I think they’re dead.”

  “Oh, hell,” Quinn said. “You don’t know that.”

  “No,” she said. “But I sure as hell can feel it. I didn’t tell you this, but I’m pretty sure Ana Maria was selling herself at the camp. She never told me exactly, but she hinted around plenty about her boyfriends. Tamika was a sweet girl but a bad girl, you know? She got in a lot of trouble in school before she got expelled. Got off on how far she’d push things with boys. She didn’t have any shame or any pride. The attention was just something to give her self-worth. Really twisted stuff for a girl that young.”

  “I’m glad to check back at the migrant camp,” Quinn said. “But picking season is over. Not many folks still around. You know any of the Odums?”

  “No,” Caddy said. “But Boom does. He’s asking around.”

  Quinn nodded. He watched Caddy, dressed as always in bootcut Levi’s and some cowboy shirt of Jamey Dixon’s. He’d once brought up that she might want to wear something smaller to fit her and he really caught hell for it. There was something about wearing a dead man’s clothes that brought his sister some comfort.

  “Glad you and Mom talked.”

  Quinn nodded.

  “She’s done saying her piece.”

  “Damn, I hope so.”

  “You shouldn’t have gone behind her back on that land,” Caddy said. “That farm really belongs to all of us. It always has. If you were to have lost it—”

  “I wouldn’t have lost it.”

  “But you trusted Daddy.”

  Quinn nodded.

  “Same difference.”

  Quinn nodded again. Caddy stood, shoving her hands in her Levi’s, shrugging her shoulders, rubbing her hand over the back of her neck. Still looking like a kid, with the short hair and freckled nose, those boy’s clothes swallowing her up whole.

  “See you at Mom’s Sunday?” Quinn asked. He tapped the ash on his cigar as Lillie walked into the office, saying Samantha Adams spotted a white van yesterday shagging ass out by her property.

  Caddy said hello to Lillie and nodded good-bye to Quinn, headed for the door.

  “I’m not interrupting some kind of family squabble?” Lillie said. “This can wait.”

  “No squabble,” Caddy said, passing her in the narrow doorway. “We got everything worked out just fine.”

  6

  “I really appreciate you stopping by the dealership today,” Tom “Big T” Bobo said. “It may not be much to you, but it sure gives our solutions experts a big lift.”

  “You mean the sales guys?” Wilcox said, walking with Big T down the rows of endless F-150s, American flags flapping on the light poles in the dusk. The light had turned a real funky orange-black, swarms of birds flitting back and forth, confused on where they’re headed.

  “Yeah,” Big T said, tight and round as a bowling ball, in a blue Ford racing jacket. “You’re no bullshitter. That’s what these marketing guys up in Memphis told me to call them. That’s why nobody works on a commission here. I don’t sell nothing I wouldn’t sell to my own momma.”

  Wilcox nodded, knowing the man’s momma had been dead many years. He didn’t say anything, too damn tired after being up nearly twenty-four hours straight, but he’d promised Big T he’d make it. Not to mention it was good to return to his routine and everyday work as a true, authentic American hero. Big T had fired him twice already but always asked him back.

  “My daddy founded this dealership on Christian principles,” Big T said, running a hand over each of the big trucks as if christening each and every one with his stubby little fingers. “You can see ‘The Ten Commandments of Business’ we live by right by the lavatories in back. My daddy thought that up. Thinking upon what God had set in stone and how we might apply those same values as salesmen.”

  “You mean solutions experts.”

  Big T stopped and grinned, placing a thoughtful hand over his double chin. “Sure,” he said. “Sure, Rick. Of course things have changed a bit since the old days. I don’t think Daddy could ever even imagine what all we’ve built here. Biggest Ford dealership in the Mid-South, an inventory of thousands. You can walk into Big T’s and sell, trade, or buy within thirty minutes. How’s that for a military operation?”

  “Roger that.”

  “Y’all do everything with speed,” Big T said, grinning, moving again, heading toward the big glass building. “Isn’t that right? I saw a documentary about you Marine Recon boys on the Discovery Channel over Christmas out in Vail. One of the boys interviewed said the goal was to work a room like a damn scalded dog.”

  “Well,” Wilcox said, slipping his hands into his pockets, getting a little cold wandering through the maze of inventory. “Not everything, Big T.”

  “Haw, haw,” Big T said. “I hear you. I hear you. How’s your friend Miss Crissley doing? Let me say, I’m a married man, but she’s one of the best-looking little gals I’ve ever seen. Didn’t you say she was a real beauty queen?”

  “She was runner-up Miss Teen Mississippi,” Wilcox said, lighting a Marlboro Red. “But she got the crown when the winner got herself into a little trouble.”

  Big T’s eyebrows knitted together, stopping off at a big red Ford F-350 with tires about as tall as the man himself. “What happened?”

  Wilcox shrugged his shoulders. “That girl was the star in a video shot on some Ole Miss football player’s iPhone,” he said. “Got lots of attention. Don’t worry, though. She straightened up now and found God. But in the middle of all the teeth gnashing and tears, the crown went on to Crissley.”

  “Beautiful girl,” Big T said. “Just beautiful. Biggest blue eyes I ever seen. And all that blonde hair. Say, is she still interested in that cherry-red Shelby inside?”

 
“That’s a lot of dough, Big T,” Wilcox said, “to be spending on a woman.”

  “Could be a hell of an engagement gift,” Big T said. “Put that ring on the car key ring. I’ve seen it before. Big engines and leather seats sure will make her frisky.”

  “I was married,” Wilcox said.

  “Divorced?”

  “Sad thing.”

  “Kids?”

  “Little boy,” Wilcox said. “The absolute love of my life. Everything in my world is about that child. When I got home from my last tour, I promised I’d take good care of him. And I’m doing everything in my power to keep my word.”

  “Good man,” Big T said, clasping his shoulder. They moved on toward the main office and the Ford Tough Café, where customers could have all the free burnt coffee and stale popcorn they wanted. Through the glass, Wilcox saw an older woman in pajama bottoms and a camouflage jacket eating a sack of popcorn and watching Fox News. “I knew you were a family man full of American values and vigor. I can’t tell you how much we appreciate you being the spokesman for Big T Ford. My daddy sure would have liked you.”

  “And I know I would have liked him,” Wilcox said, thinking about the porky, bald-headed man in the brown suit and yellow tie in the oil painting in Big T’s office. “He looked like a real straight shooter.”

  “I can tell you something, you sure are a lot better than the spokesman he had when I was a kid,” Big T said, stopping by the big glass doors to the showroom, letting Wilcox finish up that Marlboro. “He was this B movie cowboy named Buddy McCoy, real famous in Memphis. When I was a boy, he hosted a cowboy show for kids. They’d show the Lone Ranger, Roy Rogers, and all that. He could ride, shoot. But he was about ten years past his prime, showing up drunk as a damn goat to do live shots back when the dealership was on Elvis Presley Boulevard. One time on live TV, he just closed his eyes and fell off his damn horse. I can’t recall his horse’s name. But that horse may have been more famous than him. You’re not like Buddy at all. You’re a real professional, Mr. Wilcox.”

  “Appreciate that, Big T,” Wilcox said.

  Big T looked at him, nodding, tears forming in his eyes. “Sometimes when I think what you boys have done for our country . . .”

  Wilcox watched the man cry, tossed down the cigarette, and ground it out with his boot. He patted Big T’s back to try to make him stop.

  “Proud to serve.”

  Big T wiped his eyes, winked at him, and gave him a two-finger salute. “How’d you like to take that hot little Shelby home tonight? Now, you’ll have to bring her back tomorrow. But might make a fun night for you and Miss Crissley.”

  “How fast is that car?”

  “Zero to sixty in four-point-three seconds,” Big T said. “Just the thing for a speed freak like you. Just bring her back in one piece.”

  “Oh, you can trust me,” Wilcox said, smiling wide. “I never leave a customer behind.”

  • • •

  “Welcome to Shift Change,” Boom said, driving his truck slow past the rusted trailers and small houses held together with plywood, Visqueen, and duct tape. “One of the real bright spots in Tibbehah County. House on the right with the big porch is where they run the spade and poker games. Next door is sometimes a juke house, other times they run whores. You can get moonshine, weed, crank, pills. Stolen shit. You really sure you want to go in there?”

  “You said Tamika and Ana Maria partied here?” Caddy said. “Right?”

  “That’s what I heard,” Boom said. “I don’t hang out here no more. This place ain’t good for your soul. You end up in Shift Change because you done run out of luck.”

  “Who told you they’d seen the girls?”

  “I promised not to say.”

  “And who runs all this?”

  “Goddamn Cho Cho Porter.”

  “Never heard of her,” she said. “Or him.”

  “Her,” Boom said. “Whole lotta female. That’s what folks call her, with the ‘Goddamn’ and everything. She ain’t just any Cho Cho Porter. She’s Goddamn Cho Cho. She thinks it means some real respect. Just don’t get smart with her.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Just wait,” Boom said. “And you’ll see.”

  “Why they call this place Shift Change?” Caddy said, looking out at the dozens of cars parked outside the house, black faces coming and going through a wide-open door. Rap music shaking from the back of trucks with bright chrome wheels. A yellow street sign reading SLOW. CHILDREN AT PLAY.

  “Used to be the name of the grocery down the street,” Boom said. “Burned up a long time ago. Most folks down this road are old. They can’t do shit about Cho Cho. And if they try, she’ll make their life hell.”

  “Spent most of my life in Tibbehah County,” Caddy said. “Never heard of Goddamn Cho Cho Porter or the Shift Change.”

  “How ’bout you wait here for me?” Boom said.

  “No way.”

  “Ain’t your kind of place, Caddy Colson.”

  “Me and you both know that’s not true,” Caddy said. “This place looks like the Taj Mahal compared to places I’ve been. Would you like me to tell you a little about them?”

  Boom turned off the motor, rubbing the stubble on his face in thought. His handsome profile shadowed and half lit from the dashboard. The radio playing some station out of Holly Springs, some of that stuff he liked. Chitlin Circuit soul. They sat there for a long while, just watching the comings and goings of the Shift Change. In the silence, he punched up his cigarette lighter with his steel hand. Caddy absently fingered the cross hung around her neck.

  “I know you don’t like to think about it,” Caddy said. “But it doesn’t bother me.”

  Boom didn’t answer. He lit his cigarette and popped the lighter back in the dash. The cab filled with smoke.

  “I coulda done something,” Boom said. “With Quinn gone.”

  “You think you could’ve stopped me?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “If I hadn’t been so damn fucked up myself.”

  “Nobody could’ve stopped me,” Caddy said. “Not Quinn. Not you. Now we all got through it. And that’s all there is to it.”

  Boom nodded and reached for the door handle, both of them getting out and heading toward the party house. A man on the porch eyed them, swinging off the railing and moving down the steps, a bottle in a brown wrapper in his hand. The guy was really young, just a teenager, looking stick-thin and jet-black in a big puffy coat and a flat-crowned baseball cap. “Oh, hell no. Hell no.”

  Boom looked down at the kid.

  “Ain’t you the one-armed nigger works for the police?” he said. “I seen you hanging out at the jail.”

  “No,” Boom said. “I’m the one-armed nigger works for the sheriff’s office. And I’m the one-armed nigger who fixes trucks and used to come here and party back when your momma was flat on her back. And I’d be glad to be that one-armed nigger who whipped your ass.”

  “Fuck you, man.”

  “Go on,” Boom said. “Tell Cho Cho that Boom’s here.”

  “Or what?”

  “Or I’ll pick up your young ass and see how far I can throw you,” Boom said, showing off the hook on his hand. He flexed it and made the mechanism clamp with a tight click.

  The kid moved. Boom made a motion with his chin at Caddy and shook his head, heading up the steps past the kid who’d tried to be tough. Caddy followed, brushing past the boy. Inside, folks were dancing and grinding in the dim blue light. Lots of cigarette and weed smoke, open bottles of cheap-ass vodka and jelly jars filled with homemade shine. A bright light shone from a back room, a big-ass woman nearly as wide as the doorway walking out. She had on a cheetah-print housecoat and was counting out cash with her hands.

  “Shut up, shut up, shut up,” the woman yelled. “Turn that shit off.”

  The rap stopped. Everyt
hing went silent. All eyes on Boom and Caddy.

  “Boom Kimbrough,” she said. “Goddamn you. I told you don’t you ever show your black ass ’round here again.”

  • • •

  “Couldn’t we have gone somewhere else for a change?” Crissley asked. “I don’t mean to complain, but Sammy Hagar’s Red Rocker Bar and Grill doesn’t exactly scream date night.”

  “I promised the manager I’d stop by,” Wilcox said. “Maybe sing a song or two. You know how it goes. I have a lot of people asking me for a lot of favors. It’s just part of the deal, baby.”

  “But couldn’t we just have one night together?” she said. “Without old guys who want to hear your war stories, stinky car salesmen, or your Marine buddies.”

  “First off, my Marine buddies aren’t up for debate,” Wilcox said. “That’s like you asking me to stop seeing my family.”

  “You hate your family.”

  “Second, those car salesmen aren’t all stinky,” he said. “Some of them are even a lot of fun. In fact, without knowing some stinking car salesmen, we couldn’t be driving that cherry-red Shelby tonight.”

  “It’s fun,” Crissley said. “But it’s not like we can keep it. Remember, renting something isn’t the same as buying it.”

  “We talking cars, baby?” Wilcox said. “Or your cute little Disney princess ass?”

  “See it the way you like,” Crissley said. “But I’m the one who got all dressed up to come eat at the West Memphis dog track. What is this anyway?”

  “Bacon-wrapped jalapeño poppers,” Wilcox said. “And I ordered you a Waborita, named for Sammy’s place in Baja, Cabo Wabo. You can read all about it on the back of the menu. I promise I’ll take you there someday. The manager here actually met Sammy. He said that dude is stone-cold crazy.”

  Crissley reached for the blue drink and took a sip, making a squashed-up face far more critical than the damn drink deserved. She had on a sparkly black tank top, her face airbrushed to perfection, with dark-wine lips and lots of smoky blue eye shadow. The diamond earrings her daddy had given her were as big as bottle caps and the breasts her daddy had paid for filled out that tank top into a very nice D cup. Cheers to that perverted old coot.