The Redeemers (29 page)

“I’m not fond of it, either,” she said. “But her country-fried steak is top-notch. Especially when she uses the cubed deer meat.”

“She did,” Quinn said. “Processed it myself.”

“Of course you did,” Lillie said. “Probably made the hide into a coat. The antlers a gun rack.”

They stood outside, shoulder to shoulder, against Lillie’s green Jeep. Her passenger window was down and Quinn could hear the familiar radio patter from dispatch. Even on a full stomach, with enough money in the bank to last the rest of the year if he was careful, he still missed it. He liked the patrol, running the back roads of his county, checking on folks, keeping the world in order. Just a day off and he already felt sloppy as hell.

“She made you a plate,” Quinn said.

“Why’d you think I came over?”

“You didn’t get my message?”

Lillie shook her head. The front door opened and Jean waved to Lillie and Lillie waved back. She yelled that she had a plate for her and some coffee in a to-go cup. As she closed the front door, Lillie said everyone should have a momma like Jean Colson. Lillie reached into her Cherokee and snatched a pack of cigarettes. She tucked her hands deep in her green jacket while she smoked.

“I got you a witness who saw Kyle Hazlewood loading up the Jaws of Life.”

“At the fire station?” Lillie said.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Thought you were going to take it easy.”

“Anna Lee wanted me to check on things,” Quinn said. “Her being related to the Cobbs.”

“You’re no different than the rest, Quinn,” Lillie said, smiling. “Always working for pussy.”

“I don’t want to get in y’all’s way.”

“There’s no ‘y’all’ to it,” Lillie said. “As soon as I get a better job, I’m getting the fuck gone from Tibbehah County.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Join up with the Wild West Medicine Show,” Lillie said, blowing smoke from the side of her mouth. “Shoot cigarettes out of women’s mouths. How the hell should I know? Be a cop? About the only thing I know. Who’s the wit?”

“Miss Peaches.”

“No shit,” Lillie said. “You ever have her chicken? God damn, that’s some good stuff.”

“I told her you’d keep it confidential, if you could,” Quinn said. “She’s worried Kyle might try and mess her and her family. Her grandkids.”

“Kyle wouldn’t kick a mean dog,” Lillie said. “That’s always been a problem. He won’t speak up for himself. He lets people run flat over him. I remember one time his damn brother stole his brand-new truck and Kyle wouldn’t even file a complaint. I know Mickey Walls was the one who talked him into this mess. Kyle is just goddamn stupid enough to fall for his bullshit—like half the women in Jericho.”

“You think Hazlewood shot Kenny?”

“I don’t know who shot Kenny,” Lillie said. “But putting Kyle with the equipment sure does help. I think I can push Rusty to get a warrant.”

“How’s he doing?”

“You really want me to answer that?”

“Can’t be as green as me when I started,” Quinn said.

“You learned fast,” she said. “You had it in you. Rusty is just another fucking politician. You can’t make things change without upsetting folks. Rusty doesn’t want anyone mad at him. He wants to glad-hand, bullshit about, and be everybody’s buddy. I bet he gets a damn hard-on when he puts on his golf shirt with that embroidered star. He just wants to hold court down at the Fillin’ Station and suck on his apple pie.”

“Let me know how it goes,” Quinn said. “Miss Peaches says she’ll speak to you private.”

Lillie nodded, flicked her spent cigarette into the road, and pushed herself off the side of the Cherokee. “Did Anna Lee tell you about our talk the other night?”

“No,” Quinn said. “What did y’all talk about?”

“Nothing,” Lillie said, smiling and patting Quinn’s face. “Now go and get me my supper.”

•   •   •

R
ingold picked up Stagg down in Sugar Ditch, where the Trooper had let him out. At the Rebel, Johnny left him and made his way on into the Booby Trap, low time, a couple girls on the poles with a few hangdog truckers watching. He walked down the corridor to his office, unlocking the door and heading straight to the back room, where he brushed his teeth twice and gargled with Listerine. When he smiled in the mirror over the sink, he could see where the bastard chipped a tooth.

He hadn’t felt so much humiliation and degradation since he’d been a boy and two older kids had beaten him bloody and then pissed all over his face. Another time, his daddy made him eat a dog turd for not finishing his supper, telling him he didn’t have no respect for his family.

Stagg ran a finger inside his mouth and found that the veneer was about to slide off his old rotten tooth.
That goddamn son of a bitch.

He picked up the phone and dialed the 601 area code for Jackson. He’d get this shit straight right here and now. After he left a message there, and on two other numbers, he called Ringold on his cell. Two minutes later, the boy walking in the door. Stagg feeling some kind of comfort in the man’s protection and loyalty. The man stood ramrod straight at his desk, wearing a military green watch cap and black ski jacket.

“He threatened to kill me.”

Ringold nodded.

“Man’s a fucking sociopath.”

“Probably.”

“Girls he’s been with,” Stagg said. “Lord, my girls won’t lie with him. Cigarette burns and sore cooters.”

“What’d he say?”

“Let’s clean up Cobb’s mess and then I’ll fix it.”

“They just want you to feel small,” Ringold said. “Like you don’t matter. Just a piece of the machine.”

“Who?”

“Mr. Stagg, I met plenty of them,” Ringold said. “They use you. They use your county, your hospitality, wipe their asses with all you give them. I don’t know why you do it.”

“Well, I ain’t doing it no more.”

“They’d be nothing without you.”

“Damn right.”

“That nut job comes into this county again,” Ringold said, “you just say the word.”

Stagg fingered the busted tooth as he thought, the TVs showing feeds from the Rebel and the Trap lighting up the far wall, folks shoveling in his ham and eggs, buying up his diesel, tossing out dollar bills to see his girls’ titties. Stagg swallowed, his mouth still tasting dirty and sickly. The room was dark and shadowed.

“Don’t you kill the fucker yet,” Stagg said. “How about you just shake that Walls boy for me first? I don’t give a damn what you got to do, but help him get his mind right.”

Ringold nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“Mr. Ringold?”

“Yes, sir?”

“I appreciate you,” Stagg said. “You understand that?”

Ringold nodded and left. Stagg sat in the dark office for a long while, watching the surveillance cameras and tasting that metallic dog shit in his mouth.

26.

Q
uinn drank black coffee and bourbon and smoked cigars late that night with his father and Boom Kimbrough. There was a big fire ring behind the farmhouse, built of old stones and burning bright with busted tree branches, big fat logs, and discarded bits of barn wood. Jason was telling Boom about the time he’d jumped a car off a dock and onto a barge in the Mississippi River for
White Lightning
, thinking that he’d broken his back, unable to move his legs for a couple hours after they pulled him out.

“Was it worth it?” Boom asked.

“Nearly killing myself for a paycheck?”

Boom nodded.

“I don’t think I’ve ever felt more alive than when I was truly worried about dying.”

“Not me,” Boom said. “When I thought about dying, I thought, ‘Oh, fucking shit, here we go. I’m about to fucking die.’”

“You remember the accident?” Jason said, tapping the ash off his cigar.

“Wasn’t no accident,” Boom said. “Motherfuckers laid out a whole road of IEDs for us. Only one worked. All of ’em went off and we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

“Was it worth it?” Jason said.

“For the pay or to serve my country?”

Jason shrugged. “I guess to be a part of the war. America and all that?”

Boom drew hard on the cigar, the orange plug glowing bright in the corner of his mouth. “How about you ask me that in about twenty years, Mr. Colson? I kind of still miss my arm some.”

Quinn reached into the fire ring and pulled out a blue, white-speckled pot filled with coffee. He poured a little into his mug of bourbon. Jason had bought him a nice bottle of Eagle Rare for Christmas that he’d just opened. He added some coffee to Boom’s cup, bypassing Jason because he didn’t care for coffee this late. A mean wind shot through the forest and down into the open back field.

“You see Lillie today?” Quinn asked Boom.

He shook his head. “Why?”

“She said she and Anna Lee had a talk, kind of leaving it there,” Quinn said. “Like I was supposed to understand what she meant.”

“Shit, I know what she meant,” Boom said.

Jason Colson grinned wide. Quinn looked at his father, shaking his head. “It’s not like that.”

“Hell, anyone can see that woman is crazy about you,” Jason said.

“Boom?” Quinn said. “You want to explain it?”

Boom shook his head, tapped his ash on a fire ring stone and looked across the blaze to Quinn. “Ain’t easy to explain,” Boom said. “I see it, too.”

“Shit.”

“I know Lillie keeps a big part of her world private,” Boom said. “I can’t recall her being out with a man. But I can’t recall her being out with a woman, neither. I know she has friends in Memphis. I know she’s got her own personal world that she doesn’t want to share with anyone in Jericho. But let’s just say she’s like that.”

“So she told off Anna Lee?” Quinn said. “Because Anna Lee didn’t mention it.”

“Nope,” Boom said. “Knowing Lillie, I bet she said she’d whip her ass if she messed with your head again. Like I said, Lillie is looking out for you.”

“She’s my friend.”

“Never fuck your friends,” Jason said, toasting the men with his coffee mug. “Me and Susan Anton had a hell of a thing going. That’s when she had this show with my buddy Mel Tillis. A country variety show. Got canceled after four weeks and Susan and I ended up at a bar on Hollywood Boulevard, drunk as hell and into each other’s arms for comfort. Never was the same.”

“It’s not like that,” Quinn said.

“And it shouldn’t be,” Boom said. “But no matter what Lillie is or ain’t, she still cares about you. She wants you to be happy.”

“What do you think?” Quinn said.

“About you and Anna Lee or about Lillie?” Boom said.

Quinn drank some of the bourbon and coffee, picking up the end of a shovel and moving the hot coals into the center of the ring, then moving some branches in closer. The smoke and heat from the fire, the smell of the cigars, relaxed Quinn. He preferred not having a roof overhead. Later on, he’d probably get a sleeping bag and he and Hondo could stay out until first light.

“Don’t know about Lillie,” Boom said. “Don’t care.”

“And Anna Lee?”

Boom looked at Jason and then back into the fire. He tapped the cigar again, the ash not growing much since the last time. He then just looked at Quinn with heavy eyes and said, “Ain’t my business.”

Jason stood up and kicked some stray embers, stomping them out. He tossed his cigar into the center of the fire and touched the brim of his cowboy hat. “Morning’s coming soon enough.”

“Every day’s a gift,” Boom said.

“Damn right,” Jason said, walking down a path he’d worn to his trailer, disappearing into the darkness beyond the fire. Quinn and Boom watched him go, the thought of Jason Colson being back home still odd to both of them.

“Who the fuck is Susan Anton?” Boom said.

•   •   •

T
he names on the stockings above Rusty Wise’s fireplace read
Taylor
,
Tyler
, and
Skylar
. But Lillie already knew the kids’ names from the ads Rusty had posted during the election. He ran on the ticket of being a strong family man.
I LOVE MY WIFE AND KIDS
bumper sticker kind of shit. Truth be known, Lillie wouldn’t blame him if he didn’t give two shits for his wife. She was pretty horrible. Chunky and mean, without a polite bone in her body. When Lillie had shown up at the front door, she’d just kind of rolled her eyes and gone back to the kitchen, where she was baking a pie and sipping on chardonnay. Maybe she should have been back in the living room taking down the goddamn stockings or the dead tree that looked sad and tired in the corner. Brown needles spread across the floor.

“Little late, isn’t it?” Rusty said, drinking some coffee and watching his television show, something about World War II, in sweatpants and red socks. “I was about to turn in.”

“I got something,” Lillie said, exciting and ready to move. “More on Kyle. More on Mickey Walls.”

“Can it wait till morning?”

“No,” she said. “No, sir, it can’t. We need to rustle up a search warrant on this shit. I just saw Kenny, and the nurse told me he won’t be walking on that leg for another six months. Right now, I don’t have much patience.”

“Y’all OK?” said Rusty’s horrendous wife in the kitchen, running a knife with icing around some cake, the glass of wine in hand.

“Fine,” Rusty said. On the television, the battle for Remagen waged on with the capture of the Ludendorff Bridge. A lot of shelling, with all the action in black-and-white. A lot of talk about Adolf Hitler and something big about to happen called Operation Plunder.

“I got someone who saw Kyle Hazlewood loading up the Jaws of Life into his truck, same time as the Cobb robbery,” Lillie said.

“Who?”

“Will it get me a warrant?”

“I don’t know,” Rusty said, scratching himself. “I mean, shoot. It’s late. The judge is probably asleep. I don’t want to start ticking folks off the first day on the job.”

“Can’t be having that.”

“C’mon, Lillie,” Rusty said. “You know what I mean. What else we got? That’s just part of a theory you have of what he’s been doing. Just ’cause he was messing around with fire station property doesn’t mean he was involved in a felony.”

“Yeah,” Lillie said. “He was probably using those things to scratch his nut sack.”