by Ace Atkins
“Your old man hung out with lots of folks,” Van said. “You got to understand, he was a famous man when he came back to Jericho. Back in the seventies was prime time. He was making all these damn movies with Burt Reynolds and would show up wearing jackets from the latest films. Those real cool silky jackets. He had this one that Burt had given him, one made special by GM for the Trans Am. It had the big flaming bird on it, and I just thought it was the coolest thing ever. You know what your daddy did when I said I admired it?”
“Gave it to you.”
“Hanging right there in my closet.”
“Around the same time he met my mom, something real bad happened in Jericho,” Quinn said. “You recall a man being lynched?”
Uncle Van stuffed his face in what seemed like an act of keeping his mouth shut. He chewed for a while and then shook his head. “I can’t recall.”
“You can’t recall if my dad was around? Or the lynching?”
“Neither.”
“Everybody else remembers it.”
“Nephew,” Van said, patting Quinn on the arm, “I did a lot of drugs back then. My memory is kind of spotty.”
“Is it possible that my father was riding a lot with the Born Losers?”
“I guess.”
“You need to more than guess.”
“What’s all this about?” Van said, taking the rest of the burger and shoving it into his mouth, licking his fingers. “You don’t want to know this kind of shit about your dad. This was a hell of a long time ago and these were some really bad hombres. These the kind of folks you just didn’t mention. You see them riding your way and, man, you better keep your eyes to the ground.”
“They killed an innocent man.”
“Your daddy wasn’t a part of that.”
“How do you know if you can’t recall?”
“Leave it, Quinn,” Van said. “Shit. Sit down with me and we’ll watch some fights. They got the MMA on tonight. Those sonsabitches are bad news. You ever think about doing any of that stuff? I know you got all that jujitsu training and Ranger stuff. Lots of them fighters are ex-military.”
“I kind of got my hands full.”
Outside a small, insignificant window, the snow was coming down in wet clumps. In the center of Van’s trailer, a small space heater blew hard in front of a forty-inch television. Quinn nodded to Van, leaving most of his beer on the counter.
“I wish I could be of more help.”
Quinn put his hand on his uncle’s shoulder and said, “When you decide to do the right thing, give me a call.”
“My mind ain’t so good these days, Quinn,” Van said. “Don’t be so hard on me. All I’m equipped to do is ride a fake little train in figure eights.”
“You know where he is?”
“Who?”
Quinn didn’t answer.
“No,” Van said. “I guess I’m like you, I wrote Jason Colson off a while back. He started to turn on himself and there was nothing any of us could do.”
“He’s alive.”
Van nodded. “Leave it,” he said. “That man ain’t done nothing but break all our hearts for a long, long time.”
Lillie Virgil had been watching the Rebel Truck Stop since she’d officially gone off work at six. She paid the babysitter to stay late, exchanged her sheriff’s office Jeep with her old Toyota Corolla, and found a decent observation point between the diner and the Booby Trap. Quinn would tell her to get home, spend time with Rose, and that he was moving things ahead. But Quinn could be so goddamn straight-ahead that explaining police work to a Ranger was like trying to teach a pit bull to tap dance. She’d been there about two and a half hours, watching the dinnertime crowd thin out and the stripper crowd start filing in. She’d seen Johnny Stagg twice. Once, he’d gone around the restaurant to glad-hand a bit, and, another time, he was crossing the parking lot, whistling, making his way to the Booby Trap.
Lillie had always heard Stagg kept a secret office at the Trap, away from prying eyes, and she didn’t doubt it.
She’d about decided this wasn’t worth it, at ten dollars an hour for the sitter, when she saw Hank Stillwell get out of that 1970 Plymouth Road Runner, a lovely off-green with a spoiler, and light a cigarette. He leaned against the closed driver’s door awhile as if trying to make a decision. He finally shook his head, disgusted with himself, and walked toward the Booby Trap.
This could be interesting or disgusting. Depended on if this was a meet with Stagg or a late-night chicken choke.
Lillie called home. She’d give it another hour.
She’d wait it out.
• • •
“I’d prefer you not just showing up like this,” Stagg said, eyes widening, looking over his desk at Hank Stillwell, before taking a seat in that big old executive chair. “You should’ve called.”
“I called you eight times this evening, Mr. Stagg,” Stillwell said. “Some woman kept on saying you were busy.”
“I was.”
“Because of the news?”
“I seen it,” Stagg said. “I know he’s getting out. Ain’t no surprise to any of us. Story in the Daily Journal about who LeDoux is and what he’d done.”
“I did what I could,” Stillwell said. “I don’t think Diane Tull wants this out in the open. She’s a real private person. If she’d told everything and pushed the sheriff’s office, maybe then.”
Stagg nodded. He opened his hand toward a chair in front of his desk.
Hank Stillwell took a seat, all jittery and nervous, leg pumping up and down like a piston. Stagg just watched the beaten man, a man he’d known when he’d been cocky as hell, with all that leather and denim, long red hair and long red beard. Man used to look like a Viking. Now he looked about as tough as some blue-haired old lady.
“I could do with some more money,” Stillwell said.
“That’s why you come?” Stagg said. “More? For doing what?”
“I appreciated what you give me,” Stillwell said, “but I’ve run out of food. And the bank says they gonna take my trailer. If I could just get another thousand till the end of the month, I can make it back. I got a job interview coming up at the Home Depot up in Tupelo. Gardening Department. Plants and stuff.”
Stagg nodded.
“If I were you,” Stagg said, “I’d shag ass out of town.”
Stillwell looked like he might be a little drunk, although he wasn’t slurring his words a bit. The man’s coat reminded Stagg of what quail hunters used to wear when he was growing up. This one looked just about as old, plaid and washed out of any color. Stillwell’s leg kept on jumping. Maybe he was on some kind of prescription pills.
“So what if he comes to town?” Stagg said, feeling his face twitch a bit. “What the hell could he do?”
“Blow both our brains out.”
Stagg felt his cheek twitch a bit. He swallowed, leaning back into his big chair. “He doesn’t want to go back to getting his dance card punched every night,” Stagg said. “He’s crazy as hell, but I know the truth about LeDoux. LeDoux is a damn businessman. He’s already trying to shore up a pipeline between here and El Paso. The other night, he had a fiesta for the cartel boys left in Memphis. They had whores and skag and one hell of a time. A goddamn revival. That’s what’s on his mind.”
“He thinks I’m the man who put him in prison,” Stillwell said. “I’m pretty sure he wants that squared.”
“Did you?” Stagg said, grinning. This was part of the Stillwell story that he’d never heard. Stagg liked it when the story picked up, adding another layer, getting interesting.
“I took some money from the Feds once,” Stillwell said. “Long time ago. They fucked me in the ass and walked away like I was on fire. I ain’t proud of it.”
Stagg shook his head as if Stillwell was the sorriest piece of shit he’d ever seen. It was one thing to
stoke the fire with LeDoux now. But to throw in with the law back when you rode with the man? That was an altogether different matter.
“Always heard they had someone on the inside,” Stagg said. “LeDoux pissed off a dear and personal friend of mine up in Memphis. He was the one who sicced the big dogs on them bikers. But I guess they couldn’t have done it without you, Mr. Stillwell. Congratulations. No wonder you’re leaving skid marks in that chair.”
Stagg laughed. Stillwell was shaking all over as if he’d caught a chill. “You got something to drink?”
“We got thirty-one flavors like anyplace else.”
“I need some whiskey,” Stillwell said. “I need it bad. I had a hard time just keeping my car heading straight.”
Stagg craned his head at the bank of television monitors and the black-and-white images of the convenience store, diner, and restaurant. He saw the classic Plymouth parked sideways under a tall lamp. “Fine automobile,” Stagg said. “Yes, sir.”
Stillwell’s teeth chattered and he clutched that old mackinaw coat across his body. His eyes were almost colorless, broken blood vessels across his cheeks. Johnny Stagg didn’t think he’d seen a more sorry son of a bitch in his entire life. Almost felt some pity for him. Almost.
Stagg let out his breath, picked up the telephone, and told Jelly—a girl who’d gone from top-of-the-pole to fat-in-the-ass and now worked behind the bar—to bring them a bottle of Jack. “What color is that car of yours?”
“Metallic green.”
“Original color?”
Stillwell nodded, still shaking. “Bought it brand-new.”
“Well, I’ll be . . .”
• • •
Sometimes Lillie listened to crazy-ass talk radio coming out of Tupelo just for the fun of it. To hear the right-wing nut jobs, a person would think they needed to stock up on water, canned food, weapons, and seal the walls up around them. It seemed to the brain trust operating out of Elvis’s hometown that a new Civil War was brewing between those in the White House and regular hardworking families who didn’t want to give “urban people”—a new racist code word—free money while American morals were being flushed down the toilets by Hollywood gays. Right after the host advised a caller that the government shouldn’t reward people for being unemployed, there was a station break, with a commercial for the network. They desperately needed donations to keep American morals and Christian thoughts alive and well.
Lillie had heard enough. She turned the radio to Classic Country 101 and one of her favorite George Jones songs. God rest the possum.
It was about nine o’clock when she saw Hank Stillwell lumbering on out of the Booby Trap, tilting side to side. He looked as drunk as a goat, wandering in the snow. Maybe he’d gotten some companionship inside for forty dollars a song or a hundred to finish things off.
Men . . .
Lillie craned her head from where her Toyota sat in the shadows and watched as Stillwell started to extract the keys from his pocket. She couldn’t let him drive, but she wasn’t ready to leave.
She had to stop him and reached for her door handle just as Johnny Stagg emerged from the front door, striding across the lot and through the snow, bigger than shit. Lillie stopped. And waited.
• • •
Stagg reached Stillwell and grabbed the drunk man by the arm. He’d never in his life seen a man drink down a half bottle of Jack like it were nothing but milk. He held the man upright and told him that he sure had him. OK, he’d hold that note on the Road Runner. He’d even give him until the first of March. Just as a good friend would do.
“But if you can’t come up with the thousand,” Stagg said, “I can’t pull no more favors.”
“Yes, sir,” Stillwell said.
Stagg handed him an envelope and Stillwell reached into his pocket for his keys. Stagg sought out the one for the car and handed the rest back. Hell, he wasn’t about to take the man’s trailer, too. Just then, Jelly’s fat behind wriggled out into the parking lot with the dumb girl wearing a nothing of a dress and holding a transparent umbrella over her head to stop the snow.
“Jesus, don’t you have no coat?” Stagg asked.
The girl shook her head. She looked to Stagg with those same dumb eyes she had when he told her she was gonna bend the goddamn pole. And so he’d put her to work at the bar, selling tank tops and tearing tickets.
Stagg put his hands inside the warm coat he’d bought at Hinton & Hinton in Oxford, treated canvas lined with Indian blanket. “Go ahead, Hank,” Stagg said. “The girl is cold.”
He stripped off the threadbare mackinaw and handed it to Jelly.
Stagg was getting tired of doing business out in the open, looking around the lot and seeing nothing but the great silent trucks with red parking lights glowing in the dark. He patted Stillwell on the back. “Make sure this man gets home and don’t get run over,” he said to Jelly.
“Everything’s gonna be just fine,” Stagg said, turning back to the Trap. “I got Mr. Chains a nice welcome-home gift. Keep him nice and warm.”
• • •
There was talk, and then the keys in Stagg’s pocket, and then the fat girl walking away with Stillwell. That old man might be hard up, but that little pudgy piece of trash wasn’t worth the wax on that ’70 Plymouth. Lillie watched as the girl helped Stillwell, who was stumbling-wild drunk, into her little Chevy.
Stagg had disappeared quick, back into the Booby Trap.
And Lillie just sat there, thinking on Stillwell and Stagg. Stagg and Stillwell.
She checked the time, knew she needed to get home. But this was a hell of a good time to catch a man. Drunk and pissed-off.
Lillie waited until the girl circled the Chevy around and headed out to Cotton Road. Lillie pulled out behind them, following all the way over the Big Black River, all swirling and indeed black, and through and around the Square.
This was something. Just sit back and let the sonsabitches show you the way.
She reached for her cell to call Quinn. There was a lesson somewhere in this for him.
You don’t believe I love you?” Jason Colson said. “How about I climb to the top of the water tower and write it out in spray paint for all of Jericho to see?”
“How old are you?” Jean said.
“I can climb a tree better than a monkey.”
“And what if you break your neck, with all those people wandering the Square watching?” she said. “And then people will say, ‘There goes Jean Ann Beckett. She killed a man for love.’”
“I could climb that old water tower drunk and blind,” Jason said. “You know how I got my start doing stunts?”
“I do.”
“Well, it’s true,” Jason said. “Trimming trees. Taking on jobs that no one wanted to do. I never been afraid of heights, small spaces, or going faster than a speeding bullet. When I was a kid, my brother Jerry and me used to hop freight trains and ride ’em down to Meridian, find another, and ride it back. I liked to ride up on top of the cars. I liked the wind and bugs in my teeth.”
“If you’re trying to prove you love me, you haven’t succeeded,” Jean said. “But if you’re trying to tell me to watch out, you’re crazy, then you’re doing just fine.”
“God damn,” Jason said. “Look at you.”
Jean had on ragged cutoff jeans and a bikini top made from a red bandanna. She’d worn a T-shirt on the ride and tall cowboy boots, to play it safe, Jason taking her to his secret side of Choctaw Lake, in a little place away from the boaters and fishermen. This was a private place he’d been coming since he was a boy, nice and cool, covered in trees. He’d spread out a blanket and they’d eaten some cold fried chicken, beans, and slaw he’d bought in town. Jean lay back, head in his lap, and he stroked his fingers on her belly and rib cage, little goose bumps raising on her pale, freckled skin.
“My brother said if you made a
ny passes at me, to let him know.”
“Is that a charge in Jericho?”
“He’s a lot older,” Jean said. “He’s very old-fashioned.”
“Just a nice little picnic, darlin’,” Jason said. “Nothing wrong with that.”
Jason slid Jean’s head from his lap and lay by her side, leaning into her and kissing her hard on the mouth. He held the kiss a long time. There was a nice cool breeze coming off the lake. On the portable radio they brought, they could hear music coming over state lines. A little station in Alabama playing an old Bob Dylan song.
Jason leaned onto his elbow and smiled down at this redheaded woman who’d come into his life. He moved his hand down around her belly and tried to move it into her cutoffs, Jean catching his hand by his wrist and bringing it north. Jason smiled.
“If you married me, there wouldn’t be any sin.”
“You ready for all that?” Jean said. “Mr. Hollywood. Let’s not lie to each other. It’s the Fourth of July, maybe our last couple days together. This is just a summer fling. Don’t lie to either one of us.”
“God damn it,” Jason said. “I got a can of red spray paint. I will crawl up that old water tower and spell it out.”
“And my brother will arrest your drunk ass.”
Jason smiled, sliding his bare feet against Jean’s, toes touching, leaning in for another kiss, smelling the sweetness of her hair. He came back up for air and touched her belly. “You like this song?”
“Sure,” Jean said. “But Bob Dylan is no Elvis.”
“‘The Mighty Quinn,’” Jason said. “I heard he wrote this song on account of Anthony Quinn being such a badass. Always liked the way it sounded tough. A man of no fear.”
“And what are we doing tonight?”
“You want to ride out to the clubhouse with me?” Jason said. “We don’t have to stay or nothing.”
Jean looked at him with those green eyes, above that small freckled nose. He saw something there he didn’t like, something akin to fear, and that’s not the way he wanted these days to end.
