by Ace Atkins
“Not an officer,” Quinn said. “I’m the sheriff.”
“Howdy, Sheriff,” the man said, laughing. His voice was guttural and rough. His body odor and breath swarmed over even Quinn’s cigar. The biker sniffed at the smoke and smiled. “We got some kind of problem?”
“We got a problem, Deputy Virgil?” Quinn said.
“You got a license to operate a beer joint?”
“Ain’t no beer joint,” the man said. “Just having some fucking fun with my brothers.”
“And who are your brothers?” Lillie said.
The man grinned and turned his back to them, thrusting his thumbs at a patch on his back that read BORN LOSERS.
“Y’all have some ethnic diversity here.”
“Just some folks down from Memphis,” the man said. “They brought the tequila. We breaking some kind of law?”
“You have a permit for that weapon?” Lillie said.
Quinn hadn’t noticed the bulge under the coat, but as the man turned to stare, the checkered grip was plain to see. The man grinned some more, reached into his wallet, and presented a folded-up piece of paper that gave him the right to carry a concealed weapon. His name was Chester Anthony DiFranco.
“You want to pat me down?” he said to Lillie.
“You want to shower first?”
The man laughed. “Come on,” he said. “Fuck. We done here?”
“Is this your place?” Quinn said.
“Bought and paid for,” Chester said. “You need to see that paperwork, too?”
Quinn nodded. “We’ll be back,” he said. “Just wanted to make sure you know we’re around, Chester.”
“My name is Animal,” he said. “Call me Animal.”
“I’ll check the property records,” Quinn said. “And I’ll pay another visit if you’re trespassing.”
“Man,” Animal said. “Trespassing? We’re just moving in. This is our welcome-home party. Come on. Get that stick out of your ass and join us for some tequila and Mexican pussy. You look like you might like some of that, too, girl.”
Quinn blew a long stream of smoke in Animal’s face. He reached for his door handle. Lillie put a hand on his knee.
“Patience,” she whispered. She turned to Animal. “Listen, you ugly motherfucker. It may be tough for you to look me in the eye with yours headed in two different directions. But if you want to keep out of jail around here, you will address me as ‘Ma’am’ or ‘Chief Deputy Virgil.’ Do you understand me?”
The man pursed his lips and smiled. His eyes did head in different directions. “Yes, ma’am,” he said, splitting his index and middle fingers and flicking his tongue between them.
He staggered away. The corridas kept playing from the parked trucks, exhaust fumes from the dually pipes chugging into the brittle night air.
“This won’t end well,” Quinn said.
“Who are these guys?” Lillie said.
“My uncle used to tell me stories about the Born Losers,” Quinn said. “But you know what? He lied to me.”
“How?”
“He said he’d run the sonsabitches out of town.”
There was an ash on Luther Varner’s cigarette that must’ve grown about two inches long before he broke it in the tray, looked to Quinn, and said, “Of course we had problems with those bikers. Everybody knew the trouble they made, things they did out at that clubhouse.”
“What about the lynching?” Quinn said. He was seated at a small table at the VFW with Mr. Jim and Varner, getting to speak in private after Friday’s pancake breakfast. Quinn had been the keynote speaker that morning, after Mr. Jim had led the vets, young and old, in the Pledge of Allegiance. Luther had cooked most of the pancakes and provided the bacon.
“Sure,” Mr. Jim said. “We knew about what happened to that fella. He killed a couple girls and they took him out and hung his ass. One of the girl’s fathers was part of the gang. Most people didn’t have much trouble with it.”
Mr. Jim had the clearest blue eyes he’d ever seen and a giant bulbous nose. After he spoke, he hacked a nasty cough into a handkerchief. The cough had grown worse and worse over some weeks, Mr. Jim saying he just had a cold and to quit bothering him about it.
“One of the girls lived,” Quinn said.
“Oh, that’s right,” Mr. Jim said. “It’s been a while. You forget things.”
“But nothing ever happened to those bikers,” Luther said. “I don’t know what your uncle did about it, if anything. I think it was a pretty hot issue. Divided folks.”
“Black and white?” Quinn said.
“Nope,” Varner said. “Old Testament and New.”
“Where did y’all line up?” Quinn asked.
Luther thumped his pack of cigarettes, drew out a long fresh one, and lit it quick with his Zippo. “Whatever we thought at the time was wrong,” Luther said. “You’re saying the man they got was innocent? I wasn’t out there with them, uncoiling the rope. I didn’t even know what happened till a few years later. That’s why we have society, laws, and courts, so bullshit like this doesn’t happen.”
“Still can happen,” Quinn said.
“Guess it does,” Mr. Jim said. “But at least a man has a fighting chance to tell his side of things whether they listen or not.”
Luther smoked down half the cigarette, squinting through the smoke, only two other folks left in the old VFW. The hall was a cinder-block building with gray linoleum floors and a lot of plaques, photos, flags, and anything military or about America. Somewhere there was a framed article from the Tibbehah Monitor more than ten years ago about Quinn earning his Ranger tab.
“You know much about this gang?” Quinn asked. “The Born Losers?”
“They were some bad motherfuckers,” Luther said. “Nobody messed with them. They pretty much kept to themselves. Wasn’t like in no movies, where they were chasing the panties off virgins or breaking church windows. All you had to do was look at their head dude and know he meant business. They called him Chains, and the boy had that look in his eye. Haunted? Crazy? Long hair and a beard, animal-wild.”
“What about the men who followed him?”
“Some of them were pretty nice fellas.”
“Like who?” Quinn asked.
There was a glance, a very brief one, between Luther and Mr. Jim. Mr. Jim opened his mouth and then closed it. He seemed to think for a second and then said, “J.T. either rode with them or fixed their bikes. They spent a lot of time at his garage. But this was a long, long time ago. By the time you were in diapers, most of them had moved on.”
“Hank Stillwell,” Varner said. “It was Stillwell’s daughter they killed. You talk to him?”
Quinn nodded.
“Why are people talking about all this now?” Mr. Jim said.
“They’re coming back.”
“Who?” Varner said.
“The Born Losers,” Quinn said.
“Bullshit,” Varner said.
“Nope,” Quinn said. “Lillie and I had a meet and greet with them at their old clubhouse out on Choctaw. Met some cross-eyed fella with a throat tattoo. Real personable. We’re talking the next generation of shitbirds.”
“Seems like all the turds out of Memphis get shook out in Tibbehah,” Mr. Jim said. “Can’t they go somewheres else?”
The only two other folks in the VFW hall huddled by the front door, deep in conversation. One of the men turned, eyed Quinn, and then leaned back into his buddy. He was a tubby and dumb man named Clay Sneed who’d become a real estate broker—SNEED FOR YOUR HOME NEEDS—after one year at Ole Miss and some time loading trucks in the Guard. He was a couple years older than Quinn. And Quinn recalled something about him being a Peeping Tom at the dress shop who got off with a warning from his uncle.
Quinn sensed something and would have left it alone, except Sneed didn�
�t have the sense to quit turning around. Quinn heard something from the table about the short speech Quinn had just given about ethics, loyalty, and hard work. Sneed said in a whisper that “must take a lot of hard work for kickbacks and a free truck.”
Luther Varner and Mr. Jim couldn’t hear jack shit. Quinn’s hearing was excellent.
He excused himself and walked over to the table where tubby Clay Sneed was snickering. “Glad you enjoyed my talk,” Quinn said. “But just how much do you think I make with those kickbacks?”
Sneed’s face flamed a bright red. “What the hell you talking about?”
“You just said I take payoffs and got myself a free truck.”
“No I didn’t,” Sneed said. “You’re hearing things.”
“I was offered a sixty-thousand-dollar Dodge Ram by the county supervisors that I turned down,” Quinn said. “That big green Ford parked outside didn’t cost a quarter of that. It was customized by Boom Kimbrough.”
“This was a private conversation,” Sneed said. The other man, a kid in his early twenties, just kept his eyes down on his half-eaten pancakes. “I didn’t mean nothing.”
“People like you never do,” Quinn said. “Can’t fault a pig for grunting.”
“What the hell’s that mean?”
“Think on it,” Quinn said. “It’ll come to you in a couple hours.”
Quinn walked back to the table with the two old men, his two most trusted friends in Tibbehah besides Boom and Lillie. He reached for a coffeepot in the center of the table and refilled a thick ceramic mug with an Operation Desert Shield logo someone had added to the collection. He leaned back into his seat and crossed his boots at the ankle.
“What was that all about?” Mr. Jim said.
“Bullshit.”
“That boy need an ass-whippin’?” Luther Varner said.
“For a long time,” Quinn said.
Varner stubbed out his cigarette and started to stand. Quinn grinned at the old Marine and told him to have another cup of coffee. “He’s not worth it.”
“What are you going to do about that lynching?” Mr. Jim said.
“It’s been heavily implied that I better find out just what happened,” Quinn said. “The DA in Oxford sees himself as the next attorney general. And this case would put his name in a lot of papers and on TV.”
“Do people ever do something just for the right of it?” Mr. Jim asked. He started to cough again, the hacking getting worse. Before Mr. Jim tucked his handkerchief back into his pocket, Quinn saw it had been spotted with blood.
Varner did, too, and he and Quinn exchanged glances.
“Did they ever?” Varner said. “I spent my whole life in Jericho and seen and heard about stuff that would’ve made Norman Rockwell shit his drawers.”
“Doing what’s right isn’t gonna work now,” Quinn said, spinning the mug in his hands. “I can only take on one thing at a time, even if it means some people keep clean.”
“You’re sounding more and more like your Uncle Hamp,” Mr. Jim said, smiling big. “He was a realistic man. Before things got real bad, he’d say he had to think tactically on things. Not with anger.”
“Yes, sir,” Quinn said. “I understand that. But I don’t want to be my Uncle Hamp.”
Mr. Jim started to cough some more and excused himself from the table. Luther watched him go, finished the cigarette, and stubbed it into the already overloaded tray. “Been smoking and drinking since I was twelve years old and still feel like I could fight and fuck my way around God’s Green Earth. My drill sergeant at Parris Island said heaven didn’t want a Marine and hell was afraid we’d take over. Maybe that’s why we stick around so long.”
“How bad?” Quinn said.
“Bad.”
“He tell you much?”
“No, sir,” Luther said. “Dying is pretty private to a man.”
• • •
When Quinn returned to the sheriff’s office, he found his door ajar and Mary Alice inside, talking to Johnny Stagg and his boy Ringold. She’d served them hot coffee and cold biscuits. Quinn wouldn’t have given Stagg the honor of licking his toilet bowl clean. Mary Alice scooted out of the office when she saw Quinn, raising her eyebrows in a look of What else could I do? and left the door wide open as she clacked back down the hall.
Quinn took a seat on top of his desk. He didn’t say a word.
“I get the feeling she don’t like me too much,” Stagg said. “Mary Alice told me three times to come back later. I said I’d rather wait.”
Quinn nodded.
“You think I could eat one of them biscuits? Or maybe she made ’em with rat poison . . .”
“I guess if you take a bite, we’ll find out.”
Ringold sat in the chair closest to the window. He’d nodded at Quinn when he’d walked in but remained seated, wearing a black ball cap with narrow sunglasses resting on the visor. He wore a tight-fitting jacket and dark jeans with field boots.
“What do you want, Johnny?” Quinn said. “I gave an inspirational speech this morning and now I’m running late on things. Miss Davis drove her car into a ditch again and some teenagers just stole a box of Slim Jims and prophylactics from the Pig.”
“Sorry I missed the speech,” Stagg said, “but I’m sure I’ve heard it in one form or another.”
“I heard you made deacon at First Baptist,” Quinn said. “Congrats, Johnny.”
“I didn’t ask for it,” Stagg said. “They liked what I was doing for this town. Some people appreciate all I’ve done after the storm.”
“Amen.”
“I ain’t got time to sit around and square off over smart-ass remarks, son,” Stagg said. “We got some real trouble headed this way and I don’t think you got a complete grasp of the situation.”
“Born Losers are back.”
“That’s part of it,” Stagg said. “Their head man, Chains LeDoux, is also getting out of prison in twelve days. If y’all don’t find some reason he needs to be held, he’ll be riding back into Jericho bigger than shit. Don’t you see they’re preparing a hero’s welcome out at that sorry ole shack on Choctaw?”
“Lillie and I saw them last night,” Quinn said.
“You arrest them?”
“On what charges?”
“Be creative,” Stagg said. “Make some up.”
Quinn shook his head. The cold biscuits sat on a pink Fiesta plate, half covered with aluminum foil. Two mugs of coffee sat on the other side of Quinn’s desk, full, grown cold as they’d waited for Quinn to return.
Quinn scratched at his neck. He wasn’t caring for the familiarity of Stagg just stopping into the SO, something that he’d only done a handful of times before. And he sure as shit had never made himself comfortable in Quinn’s office. Quinn had made it clear from the first election that he in no way worked for the Board of Supervisors. He sure as hell ran no favors for Stagg.
“How’s that old case coming?” Stagg said.
Quinn looked over at Ringold. “You don’t say much.”
Ringold hadn’t moved an inch, shrugging in an offhand manner. The beard on his face was growing out longer than the receding black hairs on his head. He had clear blue eyes and slow, practiced movements. “Sure is a cold day,” Ringold said. “Lots of ice on those roads.”
Quinn grinned and just shook his head.
“I don’t want that man back in Tibbehah,” Stagg said. “If you got some kind of personal reasons for not following up on this disgusting act, you need to let me know. Maybe need to get some state people involved.”
“Why would this be personal, Johnny?”
Stagg gave that good old preacher grin and leaned forward in his seat. His hair slicked up tall on his head like a rockabilly star from the fifties, down to the ducktail he kept in back. He nodded and rubbed his chin. “What are you hearing abou
t that lynching?”
“I can’t discuss a case with you,” Quinn said. “You know that.”
“I’m coming in here to help your ass out,” Stagg said. “I know that DA in Oxford got you and Lillie by the gosh-dang short hairs. What I’m hearing is that you make them look good and they could reevaluate the whole case against y’all.”
“Umm-hmm.”
“This LeDoux ain’t someone you fuck with,” Stagg said. “He aims to burn this whole town to the ground.”
“Little dramatic, aren’t you, Johnny?” Quinn said. “You’re making it sound like High Plains Drifter.”
“Paint the town red?”
Quinn laughed. Ringold hadn’t budged. He was still and frozen, flat and hard blue eyes looking to the photos Quinn kept of his time in the deep shit of Benning, the bare mountains of Afghanistan, and the framed flag given to him by a Colonel George Reynolds that had flown at Camp Spann. Ringold had surely been a lot of those places, if not all of them, not commenting or asking about it, maybe knowing his work with Stagg was dirty, soulless, and without a shred of honor. To bring up the connection would be to start on it all. Of course Quinn knew plenty of guys who had come out of the shit in Iraq or Afghanistan feeling like Uncle Sam was just as dirty as Johnny Stagg. Maybe it was better not to talk about it.
“There are living people who saw what that animal and his crew done,” Stagg said.
“And I’ll talk to them.”
“There ain’t much time.”
“You starting to sweat a little, Johnny?” Quinn said. “Sounds like this man Chains ain’t coming back to burn Jericho. He’s coming back to burn you.”
Stagg nodded. He looked over at Ringold and then back at Quinn. “He’ll surely try,” Stagg said. “But you really want that trash and filth coming back to our town? We’ve made a lot of progress since we nearly got swept away by the hand of God. These people are gonna piss on everything we’re trying to build here.”
“Spoken like a true church deacon.”
“I told them.”
“Told who?”
“I told people you’d never touch those Born Losers when they came back,” he said. “And it won’t bother you a lick to see Chains LeDoux flogging his pecker out on the town square. You’ll get in with them thicker than thieves.”
