The Innocents (18 page)

Coach reached for the sweet tea, took a long pull, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He’d been on the coaching field all afternoon and he could still feel the sun on his skin, the white bristles along his jaw. He looked across the faces of folks he’d known the twenty-odd years he’d been in Tibbehah County and smiled. These were his people. They’d go to hell and back to support him and the team.

“Before we get down to a second helping of this wonderful catfish, I do want us to pray a moment for little Milly Jones. She cheered for our team. A hell of an athlete. I never saw a girl who could fly so high. She was a true angel among us. I knew her brother, a sweet young man who didn’t possess the talent but had a heart bigger than most. I can’t imagine what that family is going through right now. But when something like that happens in Jericho, it hurts us all and just tears the guts out of this place.”

Coach Mills removed his ball cap, wiped his dry eyes, and spoke for a solid two minutes about the little blonde angel they’d been lucky enough to know.

B
oom Kimbrough walked straight into the sheriff’s office meeting room, pointed to Lillie with his prosthetic hand, and said, “Y’all got some serious shit going on up in Blackjack.”

Quinn and Lillie had emptied out the receipts from Vienna’s the night Milly Jones died onto the table. They’d gone through nearly one entire trash bag by the time Boom arrived, coffee mugs and a full ashtray in the center of the conference table. They’d written a possible time line on a grease board, lined up phone calls she’d made that week, and noted all the witnesses yet to be interviewed. Lillie stood up, hands on her hips. “Yeah?”

“I got Sammi Khouraki’s ass out in my truck,” Boom said. “He’s been busted-up bad but doesn’t want to go to the hospital. I was towing a county truck back to the barn when I saw a bunch of folks stopped
to help at the gas station. He wouldn’t tell me what happened, but a man told me he’d seen the Born Losers scooting around the store waving an American flag. One of them had a sign that said
NO JIHAD IN JERICHO
.”

“Catchy,” Lillie said.

“I’m taking him to the hospital,” Boom said. “I don’t give a shit what he wants. Y’all come on with me and talk some sense to him?”

Quinn walked outside into the hot early evening with Lillie and Boom. Boom opened the door to his big-ass tow truck and Quinn leaned into the passenger side. Sammi looked rough. He was bare-chested, with one eye completely shut. The skin over his stomach and arms was bright red and bloody. Deep red welts covered both of his wrists.

“How you been, Sam?” Quinn said.

“Better.”

“Don’t suppose you want to tell us what happened?” Lillie said.

“Would you believe I tripped and fell while stocking the candy aisle?”

Sammi grinned a bit. It looked like he’d lost a tooth on his wild ride with the Losers. He wheezed as he spoke, sounding like he might have some busted ribs.

“We’ll talk more at the hospital,” Quinn said. “Boom?”

Boom nodded and scooted into the truck and behind the wheel. Sammi kept on saying he just wanted to go home and that he didn’t need to see a doctor, the whole time gritting his teeth and wincing. “I got shit to do,” he said. “This is nothing.”

“Who’s minding the store?” Lillie asked.

“Miss Williams,” Sammi said. “She’s got the night shift. I was shutting down.”

“Go on, Boom,” Lillie said. “Or we can call you an ambulance.”

“No,” Sammi said. “I just want to get cleaned up and get a ride home. I’m getting the hell out of here.”

“Where?”

“The goddamn state of Mississippi,” Sammi said. “What the hell do you think? Y’all can have it.”

“How about you tell us what happened so we can round up those turds,” Lillie said. “Stand up, Sammi. Don’t let those fuckers run you off.”

“I’m fine,” he said, reaching for the door handle, fumbling to find it. “I’m fine. I don’t want any more trouble. Shit. I got enough problems as is.”

“Why’d they come for you?” Quinn said, standing by the open driver’s-side door, looking over Boom to talk. “First Nito and now the Losers? You’re making friends real fast up there.”

Sammi focused his good eye on Quinn, holding on to the dash with his hands as if the truck was still in motion. “They say I killed Milly,” he said. “They think I’m some kind of terrorist and I killed in the name of Islam.”

Quinn turned to Lillie, Lillie shaking her head. “I’d like to go on record as saying that’s the dumbest shit I’ve ever heard in my life.”

“They’re riding all around the store now,” Sammi said. “They told me if I came back, they’d kill me. That one—Lyle, Wrong Way, or whoever the hell he is—said he was liberating everything my family owns.”

“That’s your store,” Lillie said. “Your family’s owned it for years.”

“How about you tell ’em that?” Sammi said, laughing and then scrunching his face in pain.

“Fine by me,” Lillie said. “Ready to roll, Ranger?”

Quinn caught her eye and nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

They walked together across the asphalt, sun just going down late in the day, to Quinn’s Ford F-250. He hit the sirens and the lights, feeling good to be driving that Big Green Machine so fast again.

•   •   •

W
hat the fuck?” Nito said, rolling past the Gas & Go, spotting the freak show going on at sundown.

“I hate those dudes,” Ordeen said. “You ever smell ’em? Smell like farts and gasoline.”

“What they doing up here?”

“Putting on a goddamn show,” Ordeen said. “You see them cameras?”

“Where?”

“Right across the road, drive on past,” Ordeen said. “Damn, man. I don’t want to be on no TV.”

A mess of those bikers were zipping up and down Blackjack Road, making circles around the convenience store, spinning out, pumping their fists, flags tied to the back of their bikes. Some of the flags were American, but there were a couple of those rebel flags, too. Ordeen wasn’t too cool with stopping off for a cold six-pack with those boys waving the Stars and Bars. What the fuck were they up to?

A couple of big-tittied mommas in tight T-shirts and short-shorts were holding signs, raising them up high over their heads, with their wide hips cocked. Two of the girls had on bikini tops. Ordeen couldn’t see the words on the signs till they were right up on them.
JUSTICE FOR MILLY
.

“Oh, shit,” Nito said.

“Someone blaming Sammi,” Ordeen said. “That’s plain messed-up.”

Nito drove his new ride low and slow, sinking down in the driver’s seat, while he passed those girls and bearded dudes leaning against their bright chrome bikes. Ordeen looked straight ahead, seeing the long black ribbon of blacktop leading back to Jericho. The long damn heat of the day was wearing off, wind drying the sweat off his face.

“Folks sayin’ this the last place they saw that girl alive.”

“Probably ’cause she gettin’ gas,” Ordeen said. “Milly ain’t never had enough money for a full tank. She was here damn-near every day. Damn, this is messed-up.”

“Maybe.”

“What you talking
maybe
for?” Ordeen said. “You got something wrong in your head for Sammi? First you bust his lip and now you believe he’s a killer. That boy ain’t no killer.”

“He ain’t made like you and me.”

“How we made?”

“We straight-up dirty South,” Nito said. “I don’t mess with people who eat camels and shit.”

“You known Sammi long as you known me,” Ordeen said. “He ain’t even ever seen no camel except at the Memphis Zoo. C’mon, man. What’s getting to you?”

“That girl,” Nito said. “That girl change everything. Fucked my mind up. Making everybody crazy as hell. Everybody pointing fingers at each other.”

“Why you call her ‘that girl’ like you don’t know Milly Jones?” Ordeen said. “Man, you been acting strange since y’all dropped me the other night. What’d y’all get into?”

“She gave it up,” Nito said. “And then she died. It’s just messing with my head, is all.”

“Coach asked me to come see him last night,” Ordeen said. “He
know you ain’t acting right. He says you gonna get us both sent to prison, you don’t straighten up.”

Nito didn’t react, just rode south on that blacktop, windows down, a warm summer breeze washing through the car. He kept two of his right-hand fingers on the wheel, reaching over the visor to find the rest of that blunt he stuck up there. With his left hand, he cracked on a Bic and fired the roach up.

“He thinks you crazy as a shithouse rat,” Ordeen said. “Told me that I needed to stay away from you.”

“Come on, Ordeen,” Nito said, a plume of smoke coming from his mouth. “Coach really say that?”

“Yeah,” Ordeen said. “I told him you weren’t like that. I said you and me been best friends most our lives.”

“Fucking Coach,” Nito said. “Ole Coach. That’s one tricky ole man.”

“What you mean?”

“He playing with your mind, Ordeen,” Nito said. “Can’t you see that? Games. Man love to play them games.”

“Why he want to split us, then?”

“Guess he got his reasons,” Nito said. “Shit, man. How about you just ask his old ass? You his boy now. Y’all loving on each other. He ain’t got no more use for me.”

A big-ass green truck with flashing lights passed them, headed toward Blackjack. Two patrol cars sped close behind.

“Oh, shit,” Ordeen said.

“Johnny Law.”

Nito slowed and turned into a short gravel drive by a trailer and then started to back up.

“What the hell you doing?” Ordeen said.

“Goin’ back,” he said. “Don’t you want to see the show? This shit’s just getting fun.”

“Yeah?” Ordeen said. “OK. But how about you put out that blunt before I get my ass put back in jail?”

•   •   •

L
illie Virgil opened the truck door before Quinn even stopped. As he braked, she hopped out onto the asphalt and walked past the gas pumps, hefting her twelve-gauge tactical Winchester in both hands. Quinn reached for a nearly identical gun in the rack behind him and followed her toward the entrance of the Gas & Go. A few bikers zipped past her along the county road, cutting back after they were blocked by Reggie Caruthers in front of his cruiser. He hit the buzzer, light bar flashing, as Art and Dave blocked off the north end of the road, boxing in the bikers.

“Ladies,” Lillie said to the women gathered at the roadside.

“We got a right to be here just like anybody else,” said a blonde with enormous breasts, T-shirt tied up high under the pair. “If y’all would do your job, we wouldn’t have to be out here.”

“What’s your job, sweetie?” Lillie said. “Besides grinding men’s peckers down at Fannie’s place.”

“You don’t know where I work,” the woman said, blowing a bubble that popped quick. “Or a damn thing about me.”

“Maybe next time don’t pick the shirt that says ‘Vienna’s,’” Lillie said. “It looks a little stretched-out.”

Quinn shook his head, watching four bikers circling back to the Gas & Go, racking in a round to the twelve-gauge, feeling for his Beretta at his hip, thinking that within a few more meters he could knock them
both off their bikes and send them scattering. He had on sunglasses, and his hat was pulled down low in his eyes. He steadied his breathing, holding the Winchester, watching the entire road from north to south, seeing them all caught, spotting only one way out—a back road that would lead them to an old cemetery—but knowing if they headed that way, they’d be even worse off. They’d have to leave their bikes and run. He knew they’d never leave their bikes. Boys like that loved their bikes more than their mommas.

“How much is Fannie paying y’all?” Quinn asked.

“She’s not paying us,” the girl said, chomping on some gum. “That dead girl was one of us.”

“What was her name?” Lillie said.

“I know her name,” the girl said.

“Say it.”

“Like I said, I got a right to stand here and get folks’ attention,” she said. “This is a protest.”

“Can’t argue with stupid,” Lillie said. “Oh, good. Here comes the brains.”

More scooters rode up, the sun going down, huge and orange, to the west, setting over a big open field filled with weeds and rusted-out appliances. One of the riders was a stout-bodied guy with a shaved head and a goatee. The other biker looked young and a little scared and had some tattoo work on his face and a T-shirt that said
FUCK SHIT UP
. The bald guy wore a big shit-eating grin on his face, lifting the sunglasses from his eyes on top of his sweating bald head.

“Shut off that fucking bike and get off with your hands held high,” Lillie said, moving toward him fast and with a hell of a lot of force.

“Oh, shit,” the man said. “What the hell? Shit.”

“Now,” Quinn said, moving right by Lille’s side.

“For assault and attempted murder,” Lillie said, lifting her shotgun, barrel pointed straight at the bald guy. Quinn kept his shotgun straight at the other man, even uglier than the first. The one with the shaved head gunned the motor of the Harley, cocking a hand to his ear. “What’d you say? Can’t hear you, sir.”

Quinn walked over to the bald guy, Lillie now watching the other, and reached for his ear, twisting it and pulling him from the seat of the bike to his feet. The bike teetered, nearly crashing to the ground, the man having to straddle it hard to keep his balance while he raised his hands. Quinn turned the key and shut it down and pulled the kid off the bike. More bikes growled on up as they forced the two bikers down on the ground, Lillie cuffing them while Quinn pulled two more off their scooters. The other deputies left the roadblocks and raced up in their patrol cars, slamming on the brakes and cornering the Born Losers in the Gas & Go lot.

Two more were left. Quinn recognized one as Wrong Way from the Golden Cherry. He parked his bike, set down his kickstand, and walked on over with a big smile on his face. “What’s the problem, Officer?”

“Hands high,” Quinn said. “On the ground.”

“For what?” he said.

“Now, shithead,” Quinn said. “On the ground.”

“Not for you,” he said. “Not for anybody. I respect few and take shit from none.”

Quinn walked toward him fast and with great tactical precision. The man just grinned some more and shook his head as if he’d been victim of some crazy wrongdoing. He scratched at his beard. He wore twin braids on the side of his head, his face sunburned and wrinkled,
giving him a craggy, leather look. Quinn watched his hands set on the handlebars.

“What we have here is a failure to communicate,” Lyle said. Some of his boys snickered.

“How about I blast your ass off that scooter?” Lillie said. “Would that help?”

“Damn, woman,” he said. “You sure are a pistol. We’re all just trying to help. Guess a man’s personal rights don’t mean dick when you got the cooze as the sheriff.”

“I think ole Wrong Way would like to pick buckshot out of his asshole for the next year,” Quinn said.

Lyle shrugged, still smiling, dropping to his knees, hands held high. “Damn, when you put it that way . . .”

Art and Dave forced the four others off their bikes, none of them saying a word now as Lyle lay facedown on the hot asphalt. The girls screamed at the deputies, calling them a bunch of dickless turds. Art and Dave didn’t seem to take offense as they forced the men’s hands behind their backs and cuffed them. Six down on the ground. Lyle still laughing and yelling. “A real fucking failure to communicate,” he said. “What’s the world coming to when a goddamn Arab can set a white girl on fire?”