by Ace Atkins
“What now?” Maggie said.
“Fun’s just starting,” Boom said. “We got those bastards on the run.”
* * *
* * *
If you had to spend twenty years of your life in jail, FCI Beaumont in Texas wasn’t a bad place to do it. It wasn’t exactly Bible camp, but they did have competitive flag football and volleyball leagues, a good gym with stair-climbers and rowing machines, and a decent shop for leather crafts. That’s pretty much a lot of what Donnie Varner had been doing since being sentenced seven years ago for stealing a few M4s from his National Guard unit and selling them to the Cartel. Or so the Feds had claimed. It was a little more complicated than that.
Ten days after the election in Mississippi, Donnie had been working on a hand-tooled belt for his father when one of the guards told him he had a visitor. It was strange, almost unheard of, to have a visitor after five, but he wasn’t exactly looking forward to another night watching the goddamn Golden Girls with the boys in his unit. Two of them saying they were so damn horny they’d take on Blanche and that big gal Dorothy at the same time.
He left the belt, nearly done with etching in the SEMPER FI, LAND, SEA AND AIR and this tough-ass-looking bulldog holding a gun. His old dad, Luther, a Marine sniper during Vietnam, would sure as hell love it. He hoped to get it done and in the mail by Christmas. Maybe that’d make Luther feel a little bit better about having a two-bit convict for a son.
The guard led him down an endless corridor, his orange canvas shoes thwacking on the shiny buffed floors, fluorescent lights buzzing overhead. The guard unlocked a metal door and waited for Donnie to enter.
A man about his age in a black T-shirt was sitting at the table. He had a shaved head and a long brown beard, sleeve tattoos down both arms, and a real serious expression, looking like both a convict and the law at the same time.
“Whatever it is,” Donnie said, “I didn’t do it. I’ve been minding my own damn business, making fucking wallets and watch straps. Besides, it’s time for my turkey dinner. Been waiting since June for that shit.”
“Mr. Varner . . .”
“Oh, hell,” Donnie said. “Here we fucking go. As soon as somebody calls me Mr. Varner, I know my ass is in trouble. I know I’m charismatic as hell, but y’all can’t keep me in here forever.”
The man didn’t smile or identify himself. The steel door behind them closed. The tattooed man told him to take a seat. “Your buddy Quinn Colson has been shot.”
“Yeah?” Donnie said, sitting up straight and leaning into the table. “Is he alive?”
The man nodded. “My name’s Holliday,” he said. “I am the federal agent in charge of north Mississippi. Quinn Colson is my friend.”
“So what?”
“I know the folks who tried to kill him.”
“And?”
“I’ve got an idea of how to get ’em.”
“Wish I could help,” Donnie said. “But I’m a little busy being rehabilitated. I’m not in that life no more. I deal in leather. I could make you one hell of a belt to go with those fancy boots.”
“How’d you feel about getting right back in it?” the man said. “Helping us. Helping Quinn. And, in the process, shaving some years off that sentence?”
Donnie leaned back in the hard prison chair, front legs lifting off the floor, as he scratched at his cheek. “Hmm,” he said, shrugging a bit. “What exactly is it that you have in mind?”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ace Atkins is the author of twenty-three books, including eight Quinn Colson novels, the first two of which, The Ranger and The Lost Ones, were nominated for the Edgar Award for Best Novel (he has a third Edgar nomination for his short story "Last Fair Deal Gone Down"). He is the author of seven New York Times-bestselling novels in the continuation of Robert B. Parker's Spenser series. Before turning to fiction, he was a correspondent for the St. Petersburg Times and a crime reporter for the Tampa Tribune, and he played defensive end for Auburn University football.
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