The Fallen

by Ace Atkins

  “And none of y’all gives a shit about the money?”

  “Did I tell you I was in AA before Rick found me?” Cord said. “Me. Sitting with a bunch of fucking losers, drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes. Eating cake and cookies, getting slow and fat. I was working security at a fucking shopping mall, busting black kids for stealing hundred-dollar sneakers. I wanted to fucking eat my gun.”

  “And this all works?”

  “Running and gunning?” Cord said. “Sirens on our ass, ditching the cars, looking for new routes? Thinking and adapting with my brothers? Damn straight.”

  “You don’t get bored?

  “What do you mean?”

  “Y’all boys are good at what you do,” she said. “Maybe too good. Deputy Dawg and his crew here can’t even find that van you used. Or know y’all headed out from the property up north.”

  “True.”

  “Wouldn’t it be nice to face some resistance?”

  “Without going to jail?” Cord said. “You get into some kind of shoot-out with cops and it’s goddamn Butch and Sundance time. I’d rather not die in a Bon Jovi blaze of glory.”

  “I have something much better in mind for you,” Fannie said, lifting herself up, draping her red hair down onto Cord’s face, and pressing her lips and tits against him.

  “What are you thinking?”

  “I’d need to know that y’all boys would be up for the challenge.”

  “You know it.”

  “It’s a test,” she said. “A damn test of all tests.”

  • • •

  “Your mom said you’d eat half a pie,” Ophelia Bundren said.

  She and Quinn sat on his mother’s back deck, the house still filled with laughter and more and more Elvis. The music had gone from serious and big seventies Elvis back to the sound tracks. Pretty much the way it always worked. The more boxed wine Jean Colson drank, the sillier Elvis’s songs got. They were on to “Bossa Nova Baby” from Fun in Acapulco. If she drank way too much, it would all devolve into “Kissin’ Cousins.” “Kissin’ Cousins” usually marked a turning point. Sometime after the second playing, Jean usually passed out cold.

  “My mother is prone to exaggeration,” Quinn said.

  “Boom ate half a pie.”

  “Stick around and he’ll eat the whole damn thing,” Quinn said. “He outweighs me by a hundred pounds.”

  The deck had been rebuilt after the big storm, restained the same deep red, and still facing a small rolling hill where Quinn used to play war. Quinn and Caddy’s fort still up there somewhere, hidden in the pine trees. Jason’s toys now mixed with his mother’s and uncle’s. Only last week, Jean found two buried G.I. Joes, missing since 1986.

  Quinn took a last bite of pie and set down the plate and fork. Ophelia pulled her legs to her chest, chin resting on her knees. An odd, dark-headed girl with big dark eyes, she spoke in slow, serious ways. Even when she was trying to make a joke. Morticians didn’t make a lot of jokes. She still had on her professional clothes, coming straight from work, a black pantsuit with black silk top, a name tag reading OPHELIA BUNDREN, SERVICE FACILITATOR.

  “I shouldn’t have come,” she said.

  “Of course you should.”

  “I wanted to talk to you face-to-face,” she said. “No rumors. Not having to hear it from these gossip-obsessed folks in town.”

  Quinn looked at her. He took a deep breath.

  “I’m seeing someone.”

  He nodded. He let out a long breath.

  “Nice man,” she said. “Lives in Tupelo. He sells medical equipment. Steady. Solid.”

  “No midnight patrols.”

  “Or gunfights,” she said. “Or all those ups and downs.”

  “We’ve had a few.”

  “More than a few,” Ophelia said. “I just don’t think we’re what each other needs.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “Push and pull,” she said. “I push you away because you can’t be around whenever I want you. And then I pull you back because nothing can change. You push me away because you don’t like the tension but pull me back when you’re feeling lonely. It was convenience. Something to do while you got straight with what happened to you and Anna Lee.”

  “It’s complicated.”

  “Everything is.”

  Quinn smiled at her. She reached out her hand and squeezed it tight.

  “Is he good to you?” Quinn said.

  “Very,” she said. “And he’s never been married. Has a nice family. Good folks.”

  “But I bet they don’t have Elvis fried-chicken parties.”

  “Nope,” she said. “I’ll definitely miss that.”

  “Ophelia,” Quinn said. “I forgive you for throwing that steak knife into my wall.”

  Ophelia smiled at him. “Who said I was aiming at the wall?”

  10

  “I call bullshit,” Wilcox said not five minutes after walking into Earnestine and Hazel’s bar, watching Opie and Cord finish up their game of pool. Cord was solid-built, dependable, and tough as hell, but not worth a shit with a cue.

  “No, man,” Opie said. “It’s true. This place is one of the most haunted spots in America.”

  “It looks about as haunted as my butthole,” Wilcox said, lighting up a cigarette. He was still in his gym clothes, a little sweaty after finishing up a cross-fit routine with Crissley. Crissley lived a few blocks over in Memphis on South Main Street in a brewery converted to loft apartments. She’d gone home to shower. He’d gone for a smoke and a couple of beers.

  “It’s true,” Opie said. “You see that jukebox over there? Sometimes it has a mind of its own.”

  “Does it moan?” Wilcox said. “Or does it float?”

  “It chooses the right song for the right moment.” Opie motioned over to the bartender, back turned, flipping burgers and onions on the grill. “Go ask him. He said one time a woman walked in right after she’d signed her divorce papers and that song came on, ‘D-I-V-O-R-C-E,’ by Tammy Wynette. Like out of nowhere. No one slipped in a quarter, no one punched up that number.”

  The bar was all dim lights and scuffed floors within a stand-alone two-story brick building across the street from the train station. A red-and-green neon sign shone in a little oval window fronting Main.

  “Another time, a guy came in and ‘That Smell’ started up,” Opie said. “You know, Skynyrd?”

  “Of course I know that song,” Wilcox said. “That’s like asking me if I know fucking ‘Happy Birthday.’”

  “Well,” Opie said. “He’d just stepped out of a cab where a guy had just barfed. You just can’t make that shit up. You know, ‘that smell’ because the barf stunk so bad?”

  “If it plays ‘Back in Black,’ I’ll believe it,” Wilcox said, blowing out some smoke. “I got on a pair of black underwear at this very moment.”

  Cord leaned on his pool cue like it was a staff, grinning just a bit, not saying a thing but amused a bit by the shit talk between the two. Sometimes between real friends that was about as good as it got. If you can’t fuck with a guy, then he’s not really your buddy.

  “I did two hundred push-ups and sit-ups,” Wilcox said. “And you should’ve see Crissley. Christ on a stick. She puts a fifty-pound barbell between her legs for a pelvic thrust. I mean, I’ve been in some real hot spots before, but I believe that woman just might kill me.”

  “Wishful thinking,” Cord said.

  “He speaks,” Wilcox said. “Are you going to try and knock a ball in? Or are you going to let Opie beat your ass?”

  “Could you do any better?”

  “Probably not,” Wilcox said, drinking down half of his Pabst Blue Ribbon. The other boys drinking Pabst, too, as that shit was the house beer. Wilcox had been born and bred in Memphis, lived in east Memphis, and went to Christian Brothers,
but sometimes the hipsters around here were too much. Cord and Opie bunking somewhere down in south Memphis at a crap hole apartment off Winchester Road. “So where’s the fire? I just got invited to take a long, intimate shower with my woman, but instead I’m jawing with you two dicks.”

  “We need to talk,” Cord said.

  “We’re talking.”

  “About a job.”

  Wilcox looked around the bar, no one except some turquoise-haired chick making time with the bartender. The jukebox now playing a song called “Portland, Oregon” that held no special significance but probably meant a damn assload to that phantom in the machine.

  “We’ve got a job,” Wilcox said. “Tomorrow morning. Or have y’all forgot?”

  “Sure,” Cord said. “But what about after that? We talked about some places in north Alabama. But nothing’s set.”

  Wilcox finished his beer, belched, and tipped the end toward Cord. “Initiative,” he said. “I like your thinking. Where’s this bank?”

  “It’s not a bank.” Cord cut his eyes over at Opie.

  Opie grinned. “Tell him, Cord,” he said. “Better than any bank. Maybe enough to wrap up this whole damn mission.”

  “That would have to be a shit ton of money,” Wilcox said. “Because this latest deployment won’t be over for a while. Are you guys homesick? What is it, Ope? You missin’ those saggy old broads doing tequila shots off your pecker?”

  Cord walked off to the bar while he and Opie continued the unfinished game, Wilcox damn near catching up with Cord’s shitty play. Cord returned with three cold PBRs and an ashtray for Wilcox. Wilcox set the ashtray on a barstool and waited to hear what kind of crazy shit these two had concocted. Wilcox had to remember he was the leader of this unit, one time overhearing these guys wanting to open up a goddamn Popsicle stand in New Orleans.

  “Two bad motherfuckers with a drug house down on EP Boulevard,” Cord said.

  “OK.”

  “They control pretty much all the action around Memphis.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “Won’t be like what we’ve been doing,” Cord said. “These guys won’t lay down. They shoot back. Got guards, dogs, all kind of bad shit waiting for us.”

  “Man,” Wilcox said, drinking a little beer, mulling it over. “Don’t sweet-talk me about it.”

  “Could be upwards of a dozen guys,” he said. “They expect to be hit every minute. But the take would be a hell of a lot more than some cash drawers in Bumfuck, Mississippi.”

  “I like it,” Wilcox said.

  “It won’t all be ours,” Cord said. “But a good bit will.”

  “What do you say, Ope?” Wilcox asked.

  Opie shrugged, thought about it for a second, and nodded. The jukebox went silent, then popped a forty-five on the platter, reloading with a solid snick. The horns started to blare the first bit of “Ring of Fire.”

  Wilcox laughed and nearly spilled his beer. “Well, well,” he said. “I’ll be goddamned.”

  • • •

  “You got my vote,” Maggie said. “Call the sheriff’s office and get taken to the Sonic.”

  “I got voted out of office once,” Quinn said. “It can’t happen again.”

  “You do this for everyone?”

  “You bet,” Quinn said.

  They sat on top of a metal table, drinking milk shakes and watching the cars come and go on each side of the drive-in. Quinn had gotten a big ice cream cone for Maggie’s son, Brandon, a funny little blond kid who took a lot of interest riding in the Big Green Machine. Completely against protocol, he hit the light bar and the sirens as they headed into town. It was pretty easy to make friends with a kid when you wore a badge and drove a big truck.

  “Brandon, you know Jason Colson?”

  He shook his head.

  “That’s my nephew,” Quinn said. “He’s in third grade.”

  “The third graders are mean,” he said. “They chase us around the playground. One of them threw a rock at me and I didn’t even do nothing. Thanks for the ice cream.”

  Brandon ran off toward the plastic playground and began to climb to the top of the slide, turning back at the top to give a thumbs-up to his mom. Big night in Jericho. Not much else to do but hit the Sonic, cruise the Square, and maybe run the back roads with a six-pack, like Quinn and Boom had done all those years ago. Maggie had on her blue nurse scrubs, black Chucks, no socks, her hair twisted up on top of her head. Silver bracelets jingled on her wrists.

  “You ever think you’d come back?” Maggie said.

  Quinn lifted his eyes. “Nope.”

  “Why did you?”

  “Unexpected circumstances,” he said. “My uncle died. There was business to tend to.”

  “I heard,” she said, looking happy and relaxed in the neon light, kicking her feet back and forth, sipping on a milk shake. “I’m sorry. I remember him coming into the Fillin’ Station when I was a kid. He was a big man, larger than life. He sort of reminded me of John Wayne, with that hat and the rancher coat.”

  “He left me the coat,” Quinn said. “And his farm.”

  “That must be nice,” Maggie said. “I’ve started a little garden in the back of the house. My grannie had let the flower beds and garden go when she got sick. But I’ve been tilling them up over the winter, getting them ready for spring. I compost everything. Coffee grounds, eggshells.”

  “I don’t do much farming,” Quinn said. “I have cattle. And two horses my dad left at my place. It’s too much work. I don’t even ride.”

  “Why don’t you tell him to take ’em back?” she said.

  “I would,” Quinn said, “if I could find him. Why don’t y’all come out sometime? I have a little pond. Brandon could fish.”

  Maggie had a lot of freckles across her cheeks and nose and forehead. One of those girls who’d get a nice reddish golden glow in the summertime, but not until after they caught hell in the sun. “My ex won’t take him fishing,” she said. “He picks him up, takes him to Memphis, walks around the zoo, and then buys him a big stuffed animal. He puts in a few hours and acts like he’s a goddamn hero.”

  “Supposed to be pretty next week,” he said. “Y’all come on out.”

  Maggie colored a bit. “You barely know us.”

  “You think so?” Quinn said, smiling. “I’ve known you for years.”

  Maggie smiled back and glanced away with those really nice light green eyes. They didn’t speak for a while, sitting with their shoulders not quite touching, watching her towheaded boy raise hell on the slide with a couple of other boys. The kid looked for a second like he might try to leap from the top stairs, and Maggie stood to stop him. But Brandon just turned around and laughed and went down the slide.

  “Shit,” Maggie said. “He really likes to screw with me. Too damn much like his father.”

  “Who watches him while you’re at the hospital?”

  “My neighbor,” she said. “Nice old lady. She was a friend of my grandmother. It’s good for now. I really don’t have any other options. I don’t have family here, just meeting some friends. Night shift is hell.”

  Quinn nodded and didn’t ask any more. He clasped his hands in front of him, swallowed, and said, “You want me to do anything about your ex?”

  “No,” she said. “But thank you. Probably just some kids messing around. Nothing was broken. Even the TV is OK.”

  Maggie’s reddish brown hair fell a bit from her bun and she reached up and rewrapped it. He watched her lean, muscular arms and nice shoulders, the funky black and blue nail polish on each hand.

  “You were always here for the summer,” he said. “Like clockwork. And then you were just gone. I don’t think I’ve seen you since I was sixteen.”

  She nodded. “That thing with the Taylor boy scared the crap out of my parents,” she said. “My dad d
idn’t want me up here anymore. And my grandmother knew I’d been friends with him. She never said, but I think she agreed.”

  “Nobody seems to know what really happened.”

  Maggie shook her head. “Nope,” she said. “He just went into the woods one day with his rifle and his daddy found his body a few days later.”

  Quinn nodded. It had been the biggest thing in Tibbehah County since the time he’d been lost a few years before. The boy’s death had been ruled a suicide, but his family and friends never believed it.

  “I guess I don’t have to tell you,” Maggie said, nudging her knee into his, trying to lighten the mood, “‘A Country Boy Can Survive.’ Guess that couldn’t have been easy.”

  “It was a lot more than just surviving.”

  Maggie tilted her head to watch Quinn. He didn’t say anything, just looked into her eyes and studied her mouth, feeling good to be sitting next to this girl who’d just walked right out of his memory. And now they were drinking milk shakes and talking about things he hadn’t thought about for years.

  “I thought you were seeing one of the Bundrens who runs the funeral home?”

  “I was.”

  “But not now?”

  Quinn shook his head. “Since I got home, not much has worked out,” he said. “Sometimes I think I do better alone.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Maggie said, tapping the brim of Quinn’s cap down into his eyes. “Me, too. I’ve made too many mistakes. It’s good just to be by yourself and make sense of things.”

  “That’s a solid plan,” Quinn said. “Don’t you think?”

  • • •

  Caddy hopped up into Boom’s truck and slammed the door.

  “You sure you don’t mind doing this?”

  “Hell no,” Boom said.

  “Quinn said he’d handle it.”

  “Quinn can talk to Blue,” Boom said. “But he can’t reason with him. At least not legally. Your brother gets real touchy about that kind of shit.”

  Caddy took a deep breath and set her hands on her knees as Boom knocked the truck in gear and rolled away from The River. Maybe she could pray on it more, or wait for Quinn or Lillie to come up with something, but sometimes you had to take action. She knew what Boom was going to have to do and she had prayed on it. For if any be a hearer of the Word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass.