The Lost Ones (15 page)

Donnie winced and drank his beer. Lillie took a step forward, smiling sweetly.

“Dwana, why don’t you give your pussy a rest tonight,” Lillie said. “Or you out to break some kinda record?”

Dwana stepped forward to meet her toe-to-toe. Lillie stood her ground and looked down at Dwana, who was quite a bit shorter. Donnie pulled her in and whispered something soothing in her ear, something that made sense to Dwana’s honor, and she turned away with a flash of her highlighted hair.

“And here I thought you mighta mellowed since high school, Lillie,” Donnie said.

“Girl deserves it,” Lillie said. “That’s what she gets for being born the preacher’s daughter.”

Quinn looked up and showed the bartender two fingers, letting Donnie know this was social. He was drinking beer and didn’t come wearing his star or gun. “Heard you opened the gun range back up.”

“Got to make money somehow,” Donnie said. “Lost my job driving when the Guard called me back. Don’t care to sell Cheetos and Marlboros the rest of my life.”

“How’s that going for you?” Lillie asked.

“All right, I guess,” Donnie said. “Sellin’ pistols, deer rifles, and all. You know I got permits. It’s legal.”

The bartender set down a couple Budweisers. The jukebox in the corner started up, playing that old David Allan Coe song, “You Never Even Called Me by My Name.”

“I heard this song maybe a million times and still love it,” Donnie said, drinking, reminiscing about good times. “Y’all remember how tore up we used to get out on the Trace at those field parties? Alma Jane would put those kegs down in the creek, and me and Colson here would be there till they’d emptied out.”

Quinn smiled.

“Probably should be careful drinking a beer in public now that you’re a servant of the people and all,” Donnie said. “Won’t sit right with some.”

“I’m not changing who I am.”

“How long you known Quinn, Donnie?” Lillie asked.

“My whole life.”

“And what the hell did you expect?” she asked.

Donnie smiled and turned back into the bar, obviously a few beers and shots ahead. He was a little glassy-eyed and smirky and pretty much the way Quinn had hoped to find him. Quinn drank his beer, and David Allan Coe sang, most of the bar joining in to sing the part about “the perfect country-western song” at an ear-pounding volume. Nobody could talk till the jukebox settled into a downer from Dolly Parton about growing up poor and shoeless.

“All that groundwork for nothin’,” Donnie said, looking at Dwana, who’d settled in with her pink drink at a table with two guys not too far out of high school. “Dang it, Lillie. I’d already bought her two goddamn drinks. Those beach drinks ain’t cheap, either.”

“Well, think of how much I saved you on penicillin.”

“God damn, you rough, girl,” Donnie said, lighting up a smoke. “You are rough.”

Lillie shrugged.

“What happened to that good-looking girl I saw you with the other night?” Quinn asked.

Donnie narrowed his eyes, doing his best to look confused, tilting his head in thought a bit. “That little brown-eyed honey?”

“You got that many girls, Donnie?” Lillie asked, saddling up to a spot that opened up next to him. Quinn took the other side, the three of them facing their reflection in the bar mirror. The bar growing smoky as hell and thick with perspiration and bullshit.

“Oh, hell,” Donnie said. “That wadn’t nothing. Just making some time.”

“She from around here?” Quinn asked.

“Nah, just some little Mex,” Donnie said. “Hey, y’all want another beer? I’m buying.”

“She speak English?” Lillie said.

“’Course.”

“Thought that might be some kind of advantage not to understand you,” Lillie said.

“What you driving at?” Donnie said, grinning and stubbing out his smoke. “That I can’t pull some tail unless they don’t know what I’m saying?”

“That’s about the size of it.”

“Rough,” Donnie said. “Just rough.”

“So she’s not your girlfriend or anything?” Quinn asked.

“Nah, man,” Donnie said.

“Reason I’m asking,” Quinn said, “is that she looks like someone connected to a fella I’m looking for. You heard about Ramón Torres?”

Donnie shook his head.

“Ramón and Janet and all those kids,” Lillie said, turning on her barstool. “Don’t you read the goddamn paper, Varner?”

Donnie nodded. “Fat Janet? I didn’t know that Mex she was married to. What they’d do, kill that child?”

“They skipped town,” Quinn said.

“Your girl live here?” Lillie asked.

Donnie shook his head. He asked the bartender for another shot. “How about some tequila for my old high school buds? They got this thing they made up here the other night called a Bloody Maria. It’s like a Bloody Mary, but it’s with tequila, and a raw egg. So much hot sauce, it’ll set your asshole on fire.”

Lillie winced. “I’m good with beer.”

“Beer,” Quinn said.

The bartender cracked open a couple Buds and started into Donnie’s Bloody Maria.

“What else you know about the girl?” Quinn asked.

“Just met her the other night.”

“Where?” Quinn asked.

“I don’t want her to get in trouble or nothing,” Donnie said. “You guys ain’t with border patrol last time I checked.”

“Just trying to find the Torres couple,” Quinn said. “Where’d y’all meet?”

“She come into the VFW Hall with a couple gals from the nail salon,” Donnie said. “I bought her a corn dog. That ain’t a crime.”

Donnie laughed, leaned forward, and took a sip of his drink. Lillie looked over to Quinn and nodded for him to keep driving at him, push him a little. There was nothing like a drunk at the bar to open up all his problems to his world. When Quinn had needed to investigate a fight, a theft, or some bullshit with his Joes, he’d usually catch them at the bar, after hours and off base, and they’d get to the heart of it.

“You get that girl’s number the other night?”

Donnie shook his head.

“She work at the nail salon, Donnie?” Lillie asked.

“Y’all seem to know more about her than I do,” Donnie said. “Shit. I was just trying to get sweet with her. But she wadn’t having none of it.”

“Where’d you drop her off?”

“Nowheres,” Donnie said. “She got mad after I touched her dang knee. Walked home from the Sonic. Thought I was trying to get into her pants.”

“Were you?” Lillie asked.

“Sure,” Donnie said.

“You are a real romantic,” Lillie said.

“But you’ll ask around,” Quinn said.

“Sure, sure. Y’all gonna drink some tequila with me or not?” Donnie said.

Quinn shook his head. Lillie didn’t bother to answer.

Donnie wandered off, right to the dance floor where Dwana was slow-dancing with another woman. He wrapped his arms around both of them, one hand full with the Bloody Maria and the other with a lit cigarette. Quinn figured he was having quite a time.

“You gonna check the nail salon?” Quinn asked as they walked out.

“Why? Son of a bitch is lying his ass off.”

18

SUNDAY MORNING CAME EARLIER THAN DONNIE WOULD’VE LIKED, HARD
sunlight through the window of his Airstream and a loud knock on the door by ole Luther himself. His daddy only knocked, figuring Donnie mighta had a girl, but once he knew it was clear, he turned on the television and made a pot of coffee in the percolator. Donnie showered and shaved while Luther watched the news out of Tupelo, the old man suited and carrying a rebound leather Bible that he’d owned as long as Donnie had known him. Donnie didn’t feel much like religion today. He downed a couple Motrin and a cup of coffee, following the old man out to his old Chevy pickup, kicking the son of a bitch in gear and heading into Jericho and the Calvary Methodist.

The church was built out of pine and cypress right before the turn of the century—the last one—looking a bit like a one-room schoolhouse where they’d fitted in twenty pews, ten to each side, instead of little desks. Once inside, there was some handshaking and waves, hellos from distant cousins and friends. A smile from the friendly preacher, Reverend Rebecca White, who once told an ornery elder that sometimes you couldn’t set a man’s mind right with a brand-new gun.

Donnie and Luther sat side by side, Donnie’s morning sweats coming on along with a strong hatred for tequila and most things Mexican as Reverend White led them through “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God” and “Blessed Assurance” and then right into the Call to Worship and the Lord’s Prayer. The service was straightforward and old-fashioned, with hymns from the 1800s and a sermon that landed right on time and didn’t require shouting to drive its points home. His grandfather and his great-grandfather had both been members here. His mother’s folks, too.

Up front, Donnie took notice of Quinn Colson, and Quinn had his arm around that half-black kid of Caddy’s. The sister and his crazy mother sitting right by Quinn in the pew. A few times, Quinn would turn that high-and-tight buzzed head around and study the church, eyes wandering over Donnie. Donnie thought for a minute that old Quinn may have conspired with Reverend White for her sermon about “Being Your Brother’s Keeper” and how Cain didn’t think his actions were anyone’s business till God scattered his ass to the wind.

“Everything you do affects another human being,” Reverend White said. “Let me say it again. Everything you do affects another person. Your actions can’t be hidden from God. He knows your every thought. Good and bad. Cain said he wasn’t his brother’s keeper. But the Lord saw the blood spill from the soil.”

Quinn Colson cocked his head and scratched his ear.
Son of a bitch.

“Are you your brother’s keeper?” Reverend White asked. “How do your life and your actions serve Christ? Every one of your actions sends a ripple through hundreds or maybe thousands of people. Do you present yourself with honesty and integrity, thinking of others? Or do you walk a selfish road, looking out for your own business, locked up tight in your own thoughts and deeds?”

Donnie studied the church bulletin, learning from the prayer concerns who was sick, down on their luck, or dead. He looked up again and found Quinn was back watching the preacher and taking care of his own business instead of messing with Donnie. The little boy had fallen asleep over Quinn’s shoulder, his momma, Caddy, leaning back and watching her brother holding the child with a soft smile on her face. Donnie felt embarrassed every time he saw her, searching for words to say, because when you’d been with a woman, it was damn hard to smile and shake hands. Hell, she probably didn’t even remember it, after five years.

Donnie’d been home before he left for Iraq, and Caddy was home for the holidays, and they’d met up at that shit beer joint off 45, near Stagg’s place. She’d been with a pretty rough fella, a roofer from Calhoun County, and there had been a drunken exchange over a dart game. The roofer left her. Caddy had been on pills and drunk, and things kind of picked up momentum quick. Donnie had stayed, and they’d talked. First time they’d talked since school. And it didn’t take long till they got sloppy over cold Coors and started kissing at the bar and then ended up at the trailer, where she sure as hell made him hurt. Donnie had been with a lot of women, but no one with that kind of rage in them. She bit and clawed and screamed till she passed out.

He seemed to recall she had a small tattoo on her right shoulder of a sunflower.

“Do you offer the Lord your bounty or the scraps of what you have left?” Reverend White asked.

Donnie had found Caddy sitting on the hood of his truck the next morning, smoking a cigarette and watching the sun rise. As he walked up to the truck, she didn’t even hear him, too intent on crying and praying. He wasn’t dumb enough to think it was on account of him; there was only so much self-hatred a Varner man could inflict. Her knees were cradled to her chest, cigarette loose in a hand from crossed arms. She turned to him and wiped her face. “What?” she said.

Donnie shook his head.

“Want to talk about it?” he asked.

Caddy tossed the cigarette and slid from the truck. She shook her head and met him toe-to-toe. “You got somewhere to be?” she asked. She stayed two days before she slipped out, and he hadn’t seen her since.

Why did Donnie always end up with the head cases and women with problems? Surely there was just one girl he could meet who could cook him supper and knock boots with him and not make him crazy or get him killed.

Reverend White told everyone to please stand for the final hymn, and Donnie found the page for “Onward, Christian Soldiers.” He didn’t give a damn where the carnival had set down today, knowing he’d find Luz, not wanting to wait till they exchanged the guns for cash. He was tired of sitting on them, waiting for a phone call, while he kept that tractor trailer at Stagg’s.

Quinn Colson turned back and eyed Donnie. He gave a nod, the kid asleep on his shoulder.

Donnie pretended like he hadn’t seen him and kept on singing.

DONNIE FOUND
her that afternoon in Tupelo, running the Ferris wheel and drinking a Mountain Dew. She was none too glad to see him and stood with her hand on her left hip and eyes lowered.

“We shouldn’t be seen together,” Luz said.

“But we look real good.”

Her shirt was snap-button gingham and she wore tight dark jeans with a pair of cockroach-killer boots. The hard angle of her naked hip was visible when the wind kicked up the hem of the shirt.

“Can’t hurt nothing,” Donnie said. “Can you take a break?”

She shook her head. The teenage kid he’d seen unload the magazine on the M4 was loading folks from the wheel while Luz took the tickets. Sign said it took a whole five dollars just to ride. He handed her a ten, but she wouldn’t take it. The little Mex kid smiled to himself, his teeth so white they looked bleached against his dark skin.

“How about me and you just take a couple spins around?” Donnie said. “When it sets back down, I’ll head back to Jericho.”