The Broken Places (24 page)

“Quinn,” Jean said, cigarette between lips and fanning out a match.

“You really think there is a more true word to describe those convicts?”

“Suppose not.”

Quinn stood up, noted the time at 0010, and poured himself a cup of coffee. The front door opened, and his hand shifted for a moment to his hip. Boom walked into the kitchen holding his dad’s old J. C. Higgins shotgun and sat down at the table. He laid the gun crossways over the red-and-white tablecloth Quinn’s mom had owned forever.

“You boys,” Jean said, spewing smoke and shaking her head.

“Boom is going to stay with you while I go look for Caddy,” Quinn said.

“Why?” Jean said. “Those convicts don’t have any reason for coming over here. They don’t have any quarrel with you or Caddy, do they?”

Quinn took a sip of coffee and looked to Boom. “It’s not those convicts I’m worried about.”

“Jamey wouldn’t want to harm me or Jason,” Jean said.

“I’m not taking any bets on what that man will do,” Quinn said. “I don’t know much about him. But what I do know, I don’t like. Boom, there’s plenty coffee.”

“Well,” Jean said. “Are you at least hungry?”

Boom smiled. “Yes, ma’am. If it’s not too much trouble.”

“I have some pecan pie and some peach cobbler.”

“Peach cobbler would be nice,” Boom said. Quinn reached for his keys, and Jean got up for the cobbler, smoke trailing her.

“You want some ice cream on top?” she asked.

“Yes, ma’am,” Boom said.

“Then please remove your shotgun from the table, darlin’,” Jean said. “How many times do I have to tell you boys?”

Boom grinned, and Quinn went back to his truck. The moonlight, filtered through fast-moving clouds, cast everything in a weird landscape. Quinn placed the 12-gauge in the passenger seat, cranked the engine, and traveled back the way he’d come.

•   •   •

Esau and Bones
took Johnny Stagg into the big room and had him take a seat at a stuffed leather chair by the cold stone fireplace. Esau walked to the bar and fashioned a drink, already cleaning the eye as best he could with a hot rag. The skin around his eye and his eye itself didn’t look human anymore, more like molded wax without much feeling, only a dull throb. Esau threw back some of the senator’s fine Scotch and asked Johnny Stagg if he’d care to join him.

“I don’t drink, sir.”

“A man who runs the biggest hot pillow joint in north Mississippi has gone and gotten uppity on me,” Esau said, smelling and tasting that rich smoke and peat in the crystal glass.

Bones took a seat on a leather couch under all those stuffed ducks, golden show rifle pointed right at Stagg. “You pour me whatever you drinking, Esau.”

Esau reached for another crystal glass and filled it half full. He handed it to Bones and stepped back, thinking on how things had gone down. His ears a bit dulled by all that music and gunshots and girls screaming. Stagg hadn’t bled much from the punch in the face. But the side of his face had swollen a bit and a small trail of blood fell from one of his nostrils. Stagg kept on wiping it away with a handkerchief he kept in his pocket.

There was a big grandfather clock toward the kitchen, and the clicking and whirring of it filled the room. Stagg looked to Esau and Bones and wiped his nose again. His eyes lifted when he watched Becky wander into the room, wearing tight jeans and a tighter camo T-shirt. She made little noises when she saw Esau’s face.

She didn’t even seem to take notice of Stagg sitting there until the old man crossed his legs and spoke to the back of her. “Evening, Miss Becky.”

She turned from where she’d been crying about Esau’s eye. Esau put down his Scotch.

“What in the fuck?” Esau said.

“Uh-oh,” Bones said.

“Been a while, Miss Becky,” Stagg said, wagging his foot a bit from where he’d crossed it. “You look as pretty as ever.”

Becky’s face flushed with blood, and she turned back to Esau with her mouth hanging open.

“Go on,” Esau said, reaching for the glass. “What the hell?”

“Well,” she said. “I did what you said, Esau. Just like you said.”

“You never said shit about Johnny Fucking Stagg.”

Stagg wiped away more blood and studied the red spots on the bleached cotton. He smiled big as you please, and Esau wanted very much to lift his .357 and shoot him off that couch. He hadn’t been there two minutes and was already acting like he owned the fucking place. Talking about how the senator was his friend and telling Esau and Bones how they were going to be handling things. How the fuck did he know how things were gonna be handled, when Esau himself was trying to figure it all out?

“Esau?” Becky said. “Baby? Jamey reached out to me and had me go talk to Mr. Stagg. You said Jamey was helping y’all. You were the one who said Jamey knew what he was doing to get y’all released.”

“Did you fuck this ole coot?” Esau said.

Stagg grinned, blood trailing down onto his lip till he dabbed at it.

“Hell no,” she said. “I met with Jamey at Parchman. I met with Mr. Stagg in Jericho. How were y’all supposed to explain all this from the inside? You said you couldn’t do your business without the guards knowing how many times you wiped your ass.”

“Y’all have something back there I could drink?” Stagg said, just kind of piping up from his throne. He didn’t seem at all concerned that Esau thought he’d popped a Viagra and screwed his lady. “Maybe a Coca-Cola or Dr Pepper?”

“How about I put a hole right in your head?” Esau said.

“I’d just as soon have a Dr Pepper first,” Stagg said and grinned.

“Leave us alone, Becky,” Esau said.

Bones’s dead eyes hadn’t moved, his hunting rifle trained on Stagg. He just watched and breathed, loose and cool, only wondering about what kind of shit would happen next.

“I said leave us alone,” Esau said. “We’ll talk this shit over later.”

“I didn’t,” Becky said.

“Get the fuck upstairs.”

Becky bit her lip and turned and ran shoeless through the room and up the stairs to the master bedroom, where they’d been screwing since she’d arrived. She slammed the door good and hard. Stagg’s face had frozen into a grinning big-toothed mask.

“Women,” Stagg said.
“Mmm. Mmm.”

“Did you fuck her?” Bones asked.

“No, sir,” Stagg said. “And I find that kind of question completely without honor.”

“Now, I’m asking you,” Esau said. “Did you fuck my woman?”

Stagg leaned back in his seat, foot tapping up and down as if listening to a real good song on the radio. He stared up at the twenty-foot ceilings and the railings boxing the great room. He sucked on a tooth with thought. “I think you need to concern yourself a little bit more about where you stand in all this,” Stagg said. “Y’all been cut out of the show. I need one of you to get up and make some phone calls. Decide exactly what kind of situation you have. Y’all think you’re in the armpit of Mississippi, but you need to know who’s running things.”

“Ain’t no man running things that’s got two guns on him,” Bones said. “Did you miss the part where we just killed two Marshals? We’d shoot you and dump you on some county road for the buzzards.”

“OK,” Stagg said. “If you don’t care who I am or what I do, I understand. But y’all need to think on your time limits. I don’t have your money. And if I did still have it, it was money I earned.”

“How do you figure?” Esau said, eyes flashing up at the balcony, wondering how long Becky would lock herself up and sulk.

“What did Jamey Dixon tell you?” Stagg said, grinning just like a two-bit preacher licking his lips as the collection plate was being passed around.

“He said he told you about that armored truck, y’all pulled it out and got the money, and that you pulled some strings in Jackson,” Esau said. He poured some more booze. Bones shifted the rifle in his hands, getting a steady bead on Stagg just in case the son of a bitch turned to smoke and flew from the room.

“And you think that’s where he washed his hands of the situation?” Stagg said.

“Yes,” Esau said.

“Get me a Dr Pepper and you boys listen up for the whole story.”

Esau looked to Bones, and Bones shrugged. Esau reached for a glass and a warm can of Dr Pepper.

“Can I trouble you for some ice?” Stagg said.

Esau reached into a little icemaker and filled the crystal glass and then topped it off with a can of fizzing Dr Pepper. When he handed it to Stagg, he looked Stagg dead in the eye. “What you say better make a load of fucking sense or you’ll be drinking soda pop out your asshole.”

Stagg drained the glass, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down as he swallowed. He again took the handkerchief and dabbed his nose and then wiped his mouth. Esau loomed over him from about two feet away, hand on his .357. Bones tilted his head as they waited for Mr. Johnny Stagg to start making some fucking sense.

“So, did you fuck her?” Esau said.

“Let’s get beyond that shit,” Stagg said. “OK, boys. What this all boils down to is my word against ole Reverend Dixon. Dixon says he gave over that truck no questions asked. I say that’s a truck full of bullshit. I did what I did for a percentage. I didn’t know a thing about that truck until you boys told me. Dixon got that truck out when he was released. That was our deal. That’s what your woman in there made sure of. She may not have screwed me, Mr. Davis, but she sure cornholed you good.”

Esau threw his crystal glass hard against the fireplace. Pieces flew everywhere. He breathed hard through his nose, his one good eye getting a bit blurry. The other eye had closed up shop.

“I got me three hundred thousand,” Stagg said. “From what I’m hearing now, there was a lot more money left over. That’s between y’all and Dixon. I know you both been away a while and don’t understand my position in this state. But the former governor and the present governor are on my speed dial. Every lawman in north Mississippi is looking for me. You let me go, and I’ll make sure y’all have some time.”

“Why the fuck would you do that?” Esau said.

“Give y’all a chance to do business with Dixon,” Stagg said. “I think what he did to you both is a disgrace. What he did to me, lying about what he had, was just downright dishonest.”

“Honor among thieves?” Bones said, laughing.

“Call it what you like,” Stagg said. “But you let me go and you got a better chance to live. How did you both think you could get me to pull out that kind of money? Just get my ATM card and head on over to the machine at the Dixie Gas? Y’all decide on some kind of hostage deal and a SWAT team will be picking you off like gnats.”

“Nope,” Esau said.

“No way,” Bones said.

“First thing I’d do is march on upstairs and apologize to Miss Becky,” Stagg said. “Second thing I’d do is let us all figure out an escape plan for y’all. I’m not pleased with my dealings with Reverend Dixon. How long till he has a moment where he wants to witness to the whole state and bring me down?”

Esau looked to Bones. He took his hand from his gun. He shook his head.

“Y’all finish your deal with Dixon and I’ll get y’all an airplane out of state,” Stagg said.

“You mean if we kill him?” Bones said.

Stagg shrugged and smiled. An offer on the table.

“Maybe you’re just lyin’ to us so you can crawl on your belly on out of here?” Esau said.

“Son, if I wanted you fellas to get caught, I’d just keep talking,” he said. “I liked what I saw back at the Rebel. You men know how to take care of business, and I respect that. Y’all need Dixon’s money, and I need Dixon gone. This is what football coaches call a win-win situation.”

“And you provide us with a plane?” Esau said.

“You got to prove to me that Dixon is dead,” Stagg said, smile settling. “But without my help, I don’t see either of y’all getting out of Jericho alive.”

“Y’all got an airport round here?”

“Son,” Stagg said. “I got one made personal just for me.”

“You can help him,” Caddy said, hands shaking and trying to control herself. “Right?”

Luke Stevens was on a knee, in a plaid robe and slippers, standing outside the open door to her car, checking out Jamey’s leg. The open-door bell dinged as dogs barked from the backyard of the Stevenses’ restored Victorian a few blocks off the Square. Caddy was relieved as hell it had been Luke who’d come to the door and not Anna Lee. Anna Lee had never been one of Caddy’s biggest supporters and was the last woman she’d call if she was in a shitstorm.

“I can’t do anything right here,” Luke said. “You drive, and I’ll follow y’all to the hospital.”

“The hospital?” Caddy said.

“What did you think?” Luke said. “You want me to operate on him on my dining room table? He’s lost a lot of blood and is in shock. He’s a mess, Caddy. He may lose that leg.”

“It’s just a small hole,” Caddy said. “He was just walking on it.”

“Caddy,” Luke said. “Listen to me. We don’t have time for an ambulance. Get in the car and drive.”

“He can’t,” Caddy said.

Luke, tall and reedy in his gold glasses, leaned in, grabbed her shoulders, and said, “Why’d you come to me?”

“Luke,” she said. “Please help me. Please. People are trying to kill him.” She looked into the car, hugging herself from the wind. Jamey’s face was a bright white, and his eyes had started to sag. The white strips from his shirt were a dark red, and his breathing was low and raspy. She felt her own breath catch in her throat and wiped her eyes. “If people know that Jamey Dixon is at our hospital, those sonsabitches will march right in and finish what they started.”