The Fallen

by Ace Atkins

  “You know the man I told Ray about?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “And can you help me with him?”

  Mr. White didn’t say anything, only hearing his ragged breath over the phone line. Fannie looked out from the office and saw Mingo lingering at the railing overlooking the bar. His back was turned to her, waiting for her to finish up on the phone, standing there and pretending not to listen. He was a thin, wiry boy, as patient and helpful as they got.

  “That old boy who’s got your panties in a twist is a tough bird,” he said. “He’s not cut from the same cloth as Johnny Stagg. He actually believes his own bullshit like it’s gospel. He wants you gone. And to be honest, there’s not a hell of a lot we can do about it.”

  “If liquor sales stop—”

  “Oh, I know it.”

  “And you can’t help?”

  “I’d rather not discuss family matters on the phone,” Mr. White said. “I’ll get our lawyers involved, and there’ll be a lot of paper pushed back and forth, but that rotten old man’s got some real power.”

  “Y’all are afraid of some backwater county supervisor?” Fannie asked.

  “It’s not who he is,” Mr. White said. “It’s who he knows.”

  “Son of a bitch.”

  Mr. White didn’t say anything, just kept on with that ragged breathing, coughing a little bit, waiting for Fannie to square the idea in her mind. Mingo glanced back over his shoulder, long Indian-black hair covering part of his face, turning back to rest his arms on the rails and look down into the empty bar.

  “I’ll handle it myself,” Fannie said.

  “If you get shut down, I’ll see that you’re up and running on down the highway right quick. But this fella, don’t mess with him. He’s got some real juice.”

  “With who?”

  She heard Mr. White swallow. “Don’t you worry your pretty little head about it.”

  “Hold on, hold on,” Fannie said, looking up. Mingo still standing there, not moving. She placed a hand over the cell and called to Mingo: “You want to take a seat where it’s more comfortable? If not, close the fucking door.”

  “Someone’s here to see you, Miss Fannie.”

  “They can wait.”

  “It’s a sheriff’s deputy,” Mingo said. “He’s got a piece of paper that says the girls have to put on their panties or they can shut us down.”

  • • •

  “I only wish I could see Fannie’s face when she finds out,” Lillie said. “I bet she about choked on those nasty little cigarillos of hers.”

  “Oh, we’ll see her,” Quinn said. “I’m waiting for a phone call any minute.”

  Lillie nodded, both of them standing outside the sheriff’s office, Lillie leaning against her Jeep. “Would you do me a big favor?”

  “Anything, Lil.”

  “Let me take the call,” Lillie said. “I have some unfinished business with that woman.”

  “Fine by me,” Quinn said. “I don’t think this is going to stop anytime soon.”

  “So let me get this straight,” Lillie said. “You can either serve liquor when the girls wear a G-string or have them buck-ass naked with a dry bar.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Skinner’s call?”

  “Nope,” Quinn said. “It’s an old law I didn’t even know existed. He’s going to discuss details on Monday night. I don’t think there’s anyone on that board who’ll go against that man or want to be on the side of liquor and naked women.”

  “What do you think?”

  “I don’t make the laws,” Quinn said. “Only enforce them. I’d just as soon have Fannie Hathcock out of here. I thought we’d wrapped up all this crap when Stagg got busted.”

  Lillie crossed her arms over her chest. It was a cool, dry morning, bright and cold, wind whipping loose strands of hair across Lillie’s eyes. She had her ball cap on, standing tall, while she and Quinn ate some sausage biscuits Mary Alice had cooked up for the morning crew.

  “Heard you took that Powers woman for a milk shake at the Sonic the other night,” she said. “That’s mighty fine community service, Sheriff. Wouldn’t have anything to do with the fact that she’s hot as hell. Or so I’m told by Reggie and Kenny.”

  “I knew her a long time back,” Quinn said. “When she used to stay the summers with her grandmother. She used to run with me and Boom and Caddy. And sometimes Donnie Varner. We were just catching up, is all.”

  “Sure thing, Sheriff.”

  “She’s a friend,” Quinn said. “Someone broke into her home. We got some ice cream.”

  Lillie smiled bigger than shit, knowing she’d got to Quinn. Every damn time they talked women, it put him and Lillie on a rough road. Sometimes Lillie acting like he was contagious and keeping him at arm’s length, sometimes standing flat-footed in front of him and planting a kiss. You never quite knew, or understood, what you were getting with Lillie Virgil. She loved you or she wanted to shoot you.

  “Isn’t she married?”

  “Separated.”

  “So she’s married.”

  “About to be divorced.”

  Lillie nodded. “Uh-huh.”

  “It was her ex that busted into her house,” Quinn said. “I know it. Broke her television, knocked over her bookshelves, and scattered her clothes around. Not one thing was stolen, not even a pretty nice twelve-gauge, a flat-screen TV, and some stereo equipment.”

  “What does the wife say?”

  “She’s not his wife.”

  “She still is on paper,” Lillie said. “Like you said, you don’t make the laws.”

  “She doesn’t believe it,” Quinn said. “Said it was probably some kids. Doesn’t want me to investigate or press charges.”

  “You learn all this at the Sonic?”

  “Just catching up on old times,” he said. “I hadn’t seen her since we were kids. Her parents quit letting her come after what happened to the Taylor boy. I never knew what happened to her and always wondered.”

  “Spoiler alert,” Lillie said. “She went through puberty, got knocked up, and married some shithead with sociopathic tendencies. It’s a song played so much the grooves have worn out.”

  “Damn, you’re cynical, Lil,” Quinn said.

  “But truthful,” Lillie said. “It’s truth that makes most folks nervous about me.”

  “I thought it was the big goddamn gun.”

  Lillie grinned, looking over her shoulder at her fine Winchester .306 in the Jeep’s rack. “That goes without saying,” she said. “You sure you don’t mind me calling on Miss Hathcock?”

  “Help yourself.”

  Lillie squinted at Quinn in the harsh morning light and hugged herself tight in the wind. “Watch yourself out there, Sheriff.”

  “I don’t think these robbers will be back.”

  Lillie laughed. “That’s the least of your concerns, big guy,” she said. “Watch your ass, but protect your heart.”

  • • •

  Lillie was within a half mile of Vienna’s Place when Mary Alice reached her and told her that Fannie had called up, raising hell. “How mad is she?”

  “She called me everything but a white woman,” Mary Alice said.

  “Damn,” Lillie said. “It’s just about to be a beautiful day in Tibbehah County.”

  “You need some assistance?”

  “And let someone else steal some of the joy?” Lillie said. “No, thank you. This is a private conversation.”

  It was early for a strip club, only two cars parked outside the big white corrugated-tin building. One of the cars was Fannie Hathcock’s, a black Mercedes S550 with tinted windows and shiny chrome wheels. The woman rented a nice house in Jericho but spent a fair amount of time up in Cordova, according to Lillie’s friends with the Memphis police. She had so
me kind of business up there, too, but no one was really sure what it was all about.

  Lillie parked and walked into Vienna’s, the place oddly bright and airy, front and back doors propped open to clean out the smell of smoke, sweat, and nasty-ass perfume. The houselights had been switched on, beaming down onto the wide, barn-like expanse of the club and up into the crossbeams, where Fannie kept that office perch to look down on her girls and bartenders and count every last dime.

  “I didn’t call for you,” Fannie said. “Get the sheriff over here. I don’t deal with hired help.”

  Fannie was seated on a black leather sofa behind one of the circular stages. She was smoking, a cup of coffee on a little black table in front of her. Everything looked worn and scuffed, under the hard light. The woman had her back turned to Lillie, her face in shadow.

  “Sheriff Colson is out,” she said. “Heard you had some trouble reading.”

  “Can’t enforce something that’s not a law,” Fannie said. “It’s business as usual until I hear different.”

  “It is a law. Board of supervisors tells us this is a county ordinance that’s been on the books since the fifties,” Lillie said. “Getting your girls to cover up their coots or you close down the bar seems reasonable to me.”

  Fannie, sitting there in a black skirt with white silk top, artfully smoked her cigarillo as if she was a woman of some kind of means. She still hadn’t looked at Lillie. “What’s gonna happen?” Fannie said. “Some good ole boy can handle his liquor until he sees some wild snatch and then all hell will break loose?”

  “I don’t make the laws,” Lillie said, quoting Quinn. “Just enforce them. You can take it up with the board next week. You know how agreeable they can be.”

  “Skinner.”

  Lillie didn’t answer, just stood there in the middle of Vienna’s, hands on hips, waiting to get an earful from Fannie Hathcock but only getting the smooth, polite version from the woman. She seemed calm, almost resigned to the fact her bread and butter was about to be split down the middle.

  “You got to wonder what makes a red-blooded Southern man so afraid of a naked woman,” Fannie said. “Got to be something with his momma. Sick fucks are always mistreated by their mommas. There’s something seriously wrong with that son of a bitch.”

  “Skinner says he wants to see Jericho like he did when he was a boy.”

  “That’s bullshit and you know it, doll,” Fannie said. “This godforsaken county has been running wild since the white man ran out the Indians. Moonshining, whores, good ole boy reach-around deals. Don’t fall for Skinner’s so-called morality. I heard when that fucker was younger, he’d have stuck his pecker in a light socket. Just because his equipment ain’t functioning doesn’t mean he’s got to throw on the houselights.”

  “You’ll have time to speak at the meeting,” Lillie said. “Starts at six.”

  “Are you sipping some of that Kool-Aid, Lillie?” Fannie said. “And here I was thinking you weren’t like the rest of the shit-kickers around here.”

  “Shit-kickers come in all shapes and sizes,” Lillie said.

  Fannie finally turned her head toward her, squashing out the cigarillo in an ashtray. A little wind blew through the club as that boy Mingo came down from the upstairs office. He spotted Lillie and nodded but didn’t speak, waiting for his handler Fannie to tell him whatever it is she wanted at the moment.

  “I got the call,” Lillie said. “But I was coming to see you anyway.”

  Fannie turned, full body, toward Lillie. Mingo stayed at the edge of the staircase, hand on the railing.

  “I’m looking for two girls,” Fannie said. “Mexican girl named Ana Maria and a black girl named Tamika Odum.”

  “I got a lot of girls, Miss Virgil.”

  “These girls are special,” Lillie said. “They’re only fifteen.”

  “I don’t hire children,” Fannie said. “You got to be eighteen to work that pole. That’s a federal law. Figured you know that.”

  “These girls wouldn’t be onstage,” Lillie said. “This would be some off-the-books stuff.”

  “If it ain’t here or over at the truck stop,” Fannie said, “it’s none of my concern.”

  “I’m hearing different,” Lillie said.

  Fannie stood and walked up close to Lillie. Lillie smelling that Chanel perfume and seeing those expensive silk clothes and makeup job up close. Every little bit of that woman was as flawless as some high-dollar show dog. “How can you stand it?” Fannie said.

  Lillie didn’t answer. Fannie’s eyes flickered over her lace-up boots and dusty jeans. Lillie stood her ground, not knowing whether to smile without a care or bust the woman right in her jaw.

  “This town doesn’t appreciate what you do,” Fannie said. “They took the word of a goddamn sicko pedophile instead of you. How in the world can you stand it?”

  Lillie, hands still on her hips, stepped nearly toe-to-toe with Fannie, standing there in front of the big-breasted redhead like a couple of fighters at a weigh-in.

  “Maybe it’s because I know who I am,” Lillie said. “And I do my job with a clean mind.”

  Fannie puffed out her lips, almost purring at her. “Hmm,” she said. “I don’t know those girls or even ever heard of them. If someone is telling you I hire out kids, they’re bald-faced lying to you.”

  “I hope so, Fannie.”

  “Where did you hear it?”

  Lillie stared at Fannie, feeling her mouth twitch a bit. She smiled at the woman but didn’t say a word about what she’d heard about Blue and those girls.

  “Are you ever going to admit that you and I aren’t that different?” Fannie asked.

  “Not with my boots in the fucking fire.”

  “You are a pistol,” Fannie said, sort of smiling now. She turned to Mingo, who’d stayed quiet and still in the shadows as the two women spoke. “Well, shit. Mingo, go ahead and make a run to Tupelo for a big ole box of panties. All sizes and shapes, colors and trim. Looks like we’re going to have to housetrain the fucking help.”

  15

  “This is a beautiful place,” Maggie said, sitting on the front porch of Quinn’s farmhouse. Her Chuck Taylors had been kicked off, bare feet up on the railing.

  “It wasn’t at first,” Quinn said. “It was a mess. My uncle had left the house in pretty sorry shape. Boom had to help me clear it out. It was packed with nothing but junk.”

  “You salvage anything?”

  “Few pieces of furniture,” Quinn said. “Few guns, a coat. And records. My uncle kept a pretty nice record collection. George Jones, Charley Pride. Lots of Loretta Lynn albums. He had a real thing for Loretta Lynn. I think he was truly in love with her.”

  “What’d you do with the rest?”

  “Boom and I made a big fire,” Quinn said. “And we burned it all. That was right after the funeral. And I had no intention of staying. I’m glad I burned it. It needed burning.”

  “Do you miss the Army?”

  Quinn nodded. It was a warm late-winter day, strangely warm weather, with the trees starting to bud and the daffodils in full bloom down the brick walkway to his front door. Hondo had just trotted up from the pasture, covered in mud and cow shit, looking happy and pleased with himself. He lapped up the water from the bowl Quinn had set down. Quinn and Maggie drinking Coors and sitting in a couple of rockers.

  “My husband was military, too,” Maggie said. “I thought he’d be career. But after his last tour, he was worn out. Said he was ready for other challenges.”

  “Roger that,” Quinn said. “Tibbehah County was maybe more of a challenge than being in the Rangers. At least with the bad guys over there, you knew where you stood. No one promised to be your friend.”

  “I’ve heard things about the goings-on about town,” Maggie said, tilting the beer to her lips, toes wiggling in the sunshine. “No wonder my gran
dmother didn’t want me to come back to Jericho. When I was a kid, I thought everything was so damn sweet and wholesome. The town square, that soda fountain downtown. People seemed nicer here, moved at a slower pace. Men tipped their hats at you when you walked past. It was like going back in time.”

  “Some of those nice fellas on the Square might’ve been part of the Klan,” Quinn said. “Or the John Birch Society. I guess I always knew things were rotten around here since I was a kid. Nothing surprises me.”

  “But it can’t be all bad?”

  Quinn shrugged. “Nope,” Quinn said. “I wouldn’t be here otherwise. There are a lot of good people, my sister being one of them. I have to say, she’s always been a damn headache for me. But I really admire what she’s doing now. She’s all action. Helps out a ton of people who really need it.”

  “I see some real tough stuff at the hospital,” Maggie said. “Lots of illness and disease. People that are broke, malnourished, and just plain worn out. God bless her.”

  “Not to mention, she’s a good mother,” Quinn said. “My nephew has turned out to be a great kid.”

  “Sorry Brandon couldn’t come,” Maggie said. “He really wanted to fish. But it’s his time with his dad all weekend, starting tonight. I hope you didn’t think I was too forward by showing up alone.”

  “I happen to like forward women.”

  Maggie smiled, kept rocking, and quickly drank some more beer. It was twilight, and you could hear the cows deep in the pasture lowing and the frogs in the nearby creek. Hondo had drained the water bowl and settled between them with a sigh. Quinn reached down and scratched his head.

  “You like catfish?” he asked.

  “Of course.”

  “I made some slaw and set out some fillets to fry,” Quinn said. “I have a refrigerator loaded down with Coors. And plenty of whiskey, if you’d like some.”

  “Whiskey and catfish,” Maggie said, smiling, looking out into the depths of the pasture and farther out into the rolling hills growing up into the Big Woods. “I may never leave.”

  “You like Loretta Lynn?”