by Ace Atkins
“Love her.”
“Damn,” Quinn said. “If you’re not in luck, Maggie Powers.”
• • •
Caddy drove out to Choctaw Lake and sat in her truck for a long time, watching the sun go down over the water. There was a little playground, a camping area, bathrooms, and a boat ramp. Jean used to take her and Quinn out here as kids. Quinn now took Jason fishing on the lake during the summer in his jon boat. Sitting there, she wished she had a cold beer but hated the thought, knowing that Jean was right, excuses and lying to yourself will only lead to blackouts and long backslides that were a family tradition. The gold light shone hard on the choppy waters, wind blowing through the cracks in the old truck.
Another truck, a nice red one, pulled up beside her and a boy got out. He closed the door and came around the back of Caddy’s, crawling into the passenger side.
“Thanks for meeting me,” Caddy said.
Mingo nodded, pushing his long black hair behind his ears and letting out a long breath. “I didn’t even know this county had a lake,” he said. “I guess I only go to the truck stop and Vienna’s and then back home.”
“This county has a little bit of everything,” Caddy said. “There are so many little back roads and little corners I sometimes discover. Funny how you can live in a place your whole damn life and not know it.”
“That’s like the Rez,” he said. “Of course, the Rez isn’t like when I was a kid. The casino gave us a lot of money but took more away. Most of what’s happened makes me sick.”
“That’s where you and the Hathcock woman met?”
Mingo nodded. “She took me in when I was young,” Mingo said. “I ran errands for her. Helped clean up the trailers she had down there.”
“Running girls.”
“Mostly in Airstreams,” he said. “We had a couple double-wides. Lots of business. She and the chief were big friends until they weren’t.”
“Why y’all had to leave?”
He nodded, hands fumbling around in his lap, playing with a set of car keys. Caddy kept on looking out on the water, sometimes thinking this was one of the prettiest spots she’d ever seen. The cypress coming up on the edge of the water, the big crooked oaks and wild pines glowing with the final light of the sun. She didn’t know why she didn’t come out here more often, to get a break from packing food boxes, washing towels and sheets, and running down lost children.
“Does your boss know you’ve joined the church?” Caddy said.
He shook his head. “Who’s playing this Sunday?”
“Mr. J.T. and the boys plan on ‘Jesus, Don’t Give Up On Me’ and ‘I’ll Fly Away.’ And we have a group coming up from Ackerman,” Caddy said. “A family group that I hear puts on a hell of a show, lots of old-time stuff that gives you goose bumps.”
“I’ll be there.”
“Have you heard anything?”
“No,” Mingo said. “But Lillie Virgil came by this morning, asking about those girls. She said she knew about Miss Fannie running them, but Miss Fannie lied and said she’d never even heard their names. Mainly, they talked about some folks wanting to shut down Vienna’s. Fannie sent me to Victoria’s Secret in Tupelo to buy three hundred dollars in women’s panties. The folks there didn’t know what to make of me. I think they thought I was some kind of pervert or a serial killer.”
“So the girls are gone?”
“Yes.”
“When did you see them last?”
“Miss Caddy,” Mingo said. “I’m not real proud of who I am and what I do. But I do owe Miss Fannie a lot. She’s been real good to me.”
“These girls were fifteen.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “I understand that.”
“And they may be in bigger trouble than you can ever imagine.”
“I couldn’t afford to eat when I was a boy,” Mingo said. “My mother was a meth head. She took our government check and spent it on crank and booze. I was supposed to have a little sister, but she died when my mother was still pregnant. Sometimes I slept on my uncle’s sofa. Sometimes I slept in a car. Miss Fannie may be a lot of things, but she’s been good to me.”
Caddy nodded, reaching up, touching the steering wheel, feeling those worn, familiar grooves from the previous owner and probably the owner before that, the truck broken in just right. She didn’t say anything for a while, letting Mingo sort all this out on his own.
“Sometimes I can’t sleep,” Mingo said, “thinking of what I’ve seen pass through that place.”
Caddy turned to him and smiled, trying to reassure him, watching him playing with those keys in his hand, flipping them around his worn knuckles. His black eyes were filled with a lot of pain. “You don’t have to keep it to yourself,” she said. “He’ll take it.”
“It’s a lot.”
“Nothing is too much for Him.”
“You ever seen a bunch of scared-looking girls staring at you from inside a tractor-trailer?”
Caddy shook her head. The light was nearly gone over the trees on the other side of the lake. The gold waves had now turned silver and the air blowing through the windows had grown cool. “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”
“Damn, I’m tired,” he said. “I’m just so damn tired.”
“Lay it down,” she said. “You know what to do.”
“Does it really work?” Mingo said, sad eyes turned on Caddy.
She nodded. “Damn straight.”
• • •
“Zoo’s about to close,” Opie said.
“They can wait,” Wilcox said. “This is the only time worth a crap to see the big cats. They sleep all damn day and get up at dusk. Look at that jaguar. He’s just starting to stretch and pace like crazy. You know he wants back in the wild to hunt, but instead he’s waiting for some son of a bitch to toss him a rump roast.”
“They don’t know how to hunt any more than a house cat does,” Opie said. “Born in captivity. But that jaguar sure is pretty. Black as midnight.”
“Can you hear them start to make noise?” Wilcox asked, leaning onto the post, looking through the mesh fence at the jaguar. Folks already moving toward the Memphis Zoo exit after the second warning over the loudspeakers. “It’s in their blood. They’re flippin’ hunters. They can’t stop hunting and killing any more than they can’t stop screwing. It’s who they are.”
“Hey, Sarge,” Opie said. “You want some peanuts? They’re making me sick. I had a barbecue sandwich on top of that ice cream. I feel like I’m going to puke.”
“Suck it up, buttercup,” Wilcox said, pushing away from the jaguar and moving up the path to the snow leopards, who were jumping around a few logs tossed into their concrete world. He took the peanuts and cracked one, tossing the shell on the ground. “Now, these guys are pretty. Almost as pretty as me. Natural trackers. They love that rocky terrain, blending in as they hunt. You know I saw one when we were at FOB Golestan?”
“Bullshit.”
“Seriously, man,” Wilcox said. “I got up one morning to take a piss and smoke a cigarette right by the fence line. I saw that big cat and it saw me. Our eyes kind of met, like we were kindred spirits.”
“Maybe it just wanted to eat your pecker like a hot dog.”
“Maybe,” Wilcox said. “But there was a show of respect. The thing growled and ran off back into the mountains. Hopping from rock to rock. I’ll never forget it.”
“I saw a lot of mangy-ass dogs,” Opie said. “Fucking goats. And too many flies. Those damn things in my ears and my mouth. Yuck. Come on, let’s go, or we’ll miss the lions. And the gift shop.”
Wilcox walked with Opie, heading down the path, passing more leopards, cougars, and a big pack of tigers snoozing by a waterfall. It was nice to be away from Crissley for a while, not having to listen to her yammer on about pageant
s, her damn faggoty daddy, and shopping. She and Wilcox spent half their days at shopping malls, when he wasn’t out robbing banks or killing beers with the boys. You could land a fucking Osprey in her closet.
“So you’re good with Cord’s plan?” Wilcox asked.
“Yes, sir,” Opie said. “That’s our speed.”
“It’s different than banks,” Wilcox said. “Way different. Folks will get shot. You can damn well bet on it.”
“God, I hope so,” Opie said. “I’m getting tired of telling old ladies to get down on their faces. The only real challenge about hitting those banks is the speed. You did see the clock on that job down in Potts Camp?”
Wilcox nodded, smelling that big-cat scat in the wind. All those animals marking their places in their little fake habitat. “These are bad hombres,” Wilcox said. “Doing bad things. Might even make us heroes again.”
“We shut down the Wing Machine first,” Opie said. “One inside, two to neutralize the fuck nuts around back.”
“That’s the plan.”
Wilcox cracked another peanut, watching tigers wake up, stretch, and take a little stroll at the little compound all dressed up to look like a jungle in India, with rock carvings of dudes with a lot of arms. “The speed ain’t enough,” he said. “You got to know that violence cuts both ways.”
“Better than sex,” Opie said.
“Then you’re doing it wrong,” Wilcox said. “Or just using your hand.”
“I had a nice country girl the other night,” Opie said. “Even if she was a whore, she told me she would have screwed me for free.”
“She’s lying.”
“I know,” Opie said. “But it still sounded good.”
“We make a dry run Sunday. Just like the day of the hit,” Wilcox said. “You need to follow that boy Shortbox, see how long it takes on the pickups. Cord and I can check out what the shooters outside look like. Getting into the count room is second tier. We got to take out those boys outside.”
“How long?”
Wilcox shook his head. Opie kept on watching the tigers, saying he really liked the white one and telling Wilcox all about seeing a couple of white tiger cubs when he was a kid. “They were with the damn circus,” Opie said. “Maybe it’s the same one? You know? Why not?”
An announcement came over the loudspeaker letting everyone know the zoo was now officially closed and to please head for the gates. They walked away from the tigers, out of Cat Country, and rounded the corner at the lion exhibit.
Wilcox whistled for his son to get going, the kid up on his tiptoes, studying the male with the big mane standing tall on a big rock.
“C’mon, Brandon,” Wilcox said. “Damn. Sometimes I think that kid is just trying to piss me off.”
16
Fannie Hathcock drove over to Maxwell Field Air Force Base and went through security at the federal prison. It was minimum security, most of the inmates convicted of white-collar crimes, spending their days exercising, tending to the beautiful landscape, and sometimes working as caddies to the officers at the airfield. Fannie met Johnny Stagg in the common room, a place for friends and families to sit around and drink coffee. No glass between them, just little orange tables set up like a high school cafeteria. She brought Stagg a box of Church’s fried chicken and a big sack of his favorite peppermint candy from the Rebel Truck Stop.
“Today must be my lucky day,” Stagg said. “To what do I owe this honor?”
“Eat your chicken, Johnny,” Fannie said. “And let’s cut though the bullshit. I got some serious-ass problems down in Tibbehah. Some fucker named Skinner is trying to run me out of town.”
“Wondered how long that would take,” Stagg said. “He’d all but retired when I took over the Rebel. Never gave me much trouble, but I heard he was back in the game, running the supervisors now, acting like his shit don’t stink and that he’d found Jesus. Me and you might have had some problems in the past. But I can assure you, I’m no friend of that man and highly doubt he’s changed his ways.”
“What’s in it for him?” Fannie said.
Stagg grinned, smiling across the table at her, and said, “What’s in it for me?”
“What do you want, Johnny?”
Stagg tilted his head, his trademark Jerry Lee Lewis pompadour cut down into short businessman style. His face was red and bumpy, looking irritated from a close shave where he’d missed a few gray hairs. Stagg’s craggy face looked like a dirt farmer from a Walker Evans photo. “How about you start with acting like you like me?”
“I do like you, Johnny,” Fannie smiled, sweetly. She reached across the table and touched his bony hand, cold as a dead man’s.
“Of course you do,” Stagg said. “You and Buster White must’ve wept a biblical flood when the Feds swooped down on me and shut down everything I’d built. How long did it take y’all to get over your grief and snatch up my property?”
“Old news,” Fannie said. “I got current bullshit to deal with. Talk to me about Skinner. And I’ll help you out any way I can. How long is your sentence?”
“My lawyer’s working on the matter,” Stagg said. “I’ve been prisoner of the month two times in a row. I graduated from clipping hedge rows to riding the lawn mower. Funny how you grow accustomed to a different value system. I’m big man on campus now, riding a Toro with a fifty-inch deck. Behind the fence, it’s better than driving a cherry-red Cadillac.”
Fannie nodded, letting go of the cold hand, wanting to wipe hers on her pant leg. A man she’d recognized as the former lieutenant governor of Alabama sat in the back corner of the room, meeting with his woman and two young kids. The woman was crying. She’d seen him a half-dozen times at the casino in Biloxi. She recalled he had a real thing for blackjack and redheads, the man spotting her but refusing to meet her eye.
“What’s ole Skinner asking for?” Stagg asked.
“Nothing.”
“Nothing, huh?” Stagg said. “Well, that’s something new. Don’t you have a few items down at the Booby Trap to meet with his needs?”
“Booby Trap is dead, Stagg,” Fannie said. “I sunk four hundred grand into a new building. It’s called Vienna’s Place now. Finest girls in the state of Mississippi. You need to keep current on the times.”
“Oh, I’ve heard,” he said. “But it’ll always be the Booby Trap to me. You should have kept the name. It’s what city folks call branding. Every trucker south of the Mason–Dixon line knew where to find the best pussy and chicken-fried steak in north Mississippi. A new name might confuse matters.”
“The name wasn’t up for debate,” she said. “All my places are called Vienna’s. Named after my dear, departed grandmother.”
“Is that so?” Stagg said, grinning, face splitting into a jack-o’-lantern smile. “Well, she must be damn proud of you for erecting a pussy palace in her memory.”
“She’s been dead for twenty years,” she said. “But you bet your ass she would. She ran two whorehouses down in Gulfport. That woman entertained more troops than goddamn Bob Hope.”
Stagg smiled. “Bless her heart.”
“Skinner,” Fannie said, spotting a muscular black guard by the back door and lowering her voice. “What’s his game?”
“You hadn’t figured it out?” Stagg said. Fannie wanting to knock that smug smile off his craggy face. “Damn, Fannie. Come on. How long you been up in the piney woods?”
“He says he wants to return to old Southern values.”
Stagg started to laugh, nearly choking on a peppermint, catching it and cracking it with his back teeth. “Lord, Lord,” he said. “It’s funny how you can be forgotten. You’re only the second person from Jericho who’s come to see me in the last year. The last man was a fella named Jason Colson, famous Hollywood stuntman back in the day. Doubled for Burt Reynolds and Lee Majors. We had a little shared history.”
�
�Any kin to the sheriff?”
“Would you believe it’s his daddy?” Stagg said. “But cut from very different cloth. Jason Colson is what I’d call a reasonable man.”
“And his son?”
“He’s more like his late uncle,” Stagg said. “Has what I call a John Wayne complex. If I’d been in charge a bit longer, I might’ve made him see the ways of the world. Just like I did his uncle.”
“You and his daddy good friends?”
Stagg shook his head, reaching for a piece of chicken, seeming to debate between a thigh and a leg. He took a bite of the thigh and opened up a little container of baked beans. “He came to me for help, too,” Stagg said. “And if he’d been able to follow through instead of shagging ass, things might’ve turned out different for all of us.”
“How so?”
Stagg swallowed and spooned into the beans, taking a big bite and closing his eyes. “Mmm-mmm,” he said. “Sure do love that Church’s. Well, his daddy was going to front me some land down the street from the Rebel. If he’d laid hands on that piece, you’d never even known the name Skinner.”
Fannie waited while Johnny Stagg finished with the chicken, gnawing it down to the fucking bone.
“Why do you think Buster White and those Syndicate boys sent you to Tibbehah?”
“No one sent me,” Fannie said. “I saw an opportunity to get off the Rez.”
“Bullshit,” he said. “I know, same as you, that Tibbehah is a hell of a little poker chip, a fateful little county that sits just about perfect in north Mississippi. Close enough to Memphis, far enough from Tupelo, riding right on the highway headed down to Mobile and up to Nashville. Skinner isn’t your fucking problem, Fannie. He’s no more in charge than you are. He’s making sure your ass is gone and everything I built is churned down deep under the earth.”
“He wants the Rebel?”
“They want it all,” Stagg said. “There’s grand designs on Jericho. Ever heard anyone talk about the Tibbehah Miracle?”
“Never heard those words put together.”
“How about the name Vardaman?” Stagg said, raising gray eyebrows, breaking into a full-out smile, his veneers looking two inches long in the fluorescent light. “I know you know him. If that ole boy gets what he wants, you and I are fucked five ways from Sunday. He’ll be skipping his sorry ass right into the governor’s mansion.”
