Текст книги "The Forsaken"

Автор книги: Ace Atkins

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Текущая страница: 20 (всего у книги 22 страниц)

They came for Johnny Stagg two nights later, fifteen minutes after he’d left the Rebel and was driving home in his maroon Cadillac El Dorado listening to Conway Twitty on a local station. Ringold was following him in his black Suburban, as he had for the last several weeks, making sure Stagg’s house was empty and safe and often sitting on the house through the night so Stagg could get some sleep. But he hadn’t gotten but a mile down County Road 382 when four pickup trucks came up on them fast, getting between Ringold’s vehicle and the ElDo and boxing him in good. Stagg nearly mashed the brake flat when that jacked-up truck with the Mexican flag and a gold eagle on the tailgate crossed in front. The back glass slid open and a gun slid out, taking aim right for Stagg’s windshield.

Stagg decided to just slow it down, drop the accelerator, keep the pace, and see where they were wanting to take him and how the hell Ringold would get him out of this bullshit and earn his pay.

There wasn’t much on 382, as most of the land Stagg had logged out. For five hundred acres, the earth shone scarred and barren in the moonlight. Nobody living out on this busted-up land. Stagg had taken out all the trees until he got his ranch house set up on a hill and surrounded by twenty acres of scrub pine, which was plenty for him and the wife he used to have before she left him for a queer hairdresser from Madison.

He dropped down to thirty and then twenty miles per hour, and then the trucks in front, behind, and beside him slowed down. In his rearview, he could see another truck with three fellas in the bed aiming automatic weapons at Ringold’s SUV.

Ringold was good. But ain’t nobody that good. Goddamn Mexicans.

The El Dorado’s engine hummed as Stagg reached under his seat for a shiny .45 with a turquoise grip to aim between the eyes of the first sack of shit who popped up in the window. He’d slipped it to his left side, right beside the driver’s door, using his other hand to let down the window and some cold air in.

The entire road and some cedar fence posts and barbed wire glowed white hot and red from the head– and taillights. Maybe forty feet ahead of him, two deer turned to stare, glassy-eyed, from the roadside and then crossed over fast, jumping over the barbed wire fence, tails twitching as they bounced over the barren hills.

Four men approached the open window.

The man in the middle was the tatted-up, bald-headed biker who called himself Animal. Stagg thought about raising that .45 fast and hard in the dark and aiming right for where he’d inked that dreamcatcher on his throat. But that’d leave three, Mr. Ringold being out of the picture, and Stagg could never fire quick enough to stop them from taking his old ass out.

Stagg breathed in a long sigh as they came up on his window, a few more Mexicans on the passenger side, staring at him, reminding him of a safari ride where you could get real close to the beasts.

Animal reached into the Cadillac, across Stagg, and turned off the key. “Get out.”

“I’d rather sit right here,” Stagg said, holding that gun, “if it’s all the same.”

“Nope,” Animal said, in that broken, messed-up voice. He punched the unlock button on the door, popped the handle, and pulled Stagg out by the front of his Ole Miss sweater-vest, balling it up good and tight in his hand, and throwing him hard down into a dug gulley filled with old leaves, branches, fast-food wrappers, and busted beer cans.

“We got your attention?” Animal said.

Stagg was flat on his back, the wind knocked out good and hard from his lungs, getting his breath back as he lifted up on his elbows, ass still on the ground. He nodded. Wasn’t no use fighting.

Animal aimed a pistol at Stagg down in the ditch. All the truck engines still chugging around them on the barren road. Bright lights showing the faces of brown-skinned Mexes and filthy white men in leather jackets and jean vests. Money sure does make for some strange bedfuckers.

“We got a couple options for you,” Animal said, “and only one of them keeps your old ass above ground and breathing.”

•   •   •

Quinn had gotten the call as he was reaching for his jacket and cap and leaving the sheriff’s office for the night. He had an unlit cigar in his teeth and a laptop computer in a green protective shell under his arm. There were some reports he needed to finish, but he was headed over to Ophelia’s for supper first. She’d bought some T-bones, sweet potatoes, and cold beer. She would make a salad and Quinn could cook the steaks and bake the potatoes on the grill. It had sounded fine with him and even better with Hondo, who had a sixth sense about such things.

“You wanted to talk?” Chains LeDoux had asked.

Quinn had been looking for the man since they fished Hank Stillwell out of the dumpster. The clubhouse had been empty, as well as the trailer he’d registered as his new address with the Department of Corrections. No one had seen a Born Loser in Tibbehah, and Quinn had heard from an informant that they had planned on a week-long ride along the Gulf Coast.

“Where?” Quinn had said, walking to his truck, Hondo trotting beside him.

They’d agreed to meet right up the road at the Jericho town square. Quinn wouldn’t need backup, and if Chains tried to make a move, there’d be dozens of witnesses.

Quinn drove to the Square, parked at the curb, and walked up to the big white gazebo that sat in the center by the veterans’ monument. A new brick path had been laid since the storm, names of donors etched on each brick, and small rosebushes had been planted for the spring, deep in rich mulch and covered with pine straw. The night was full-on and teenagers circled the Square, as they had since kids started driving cars, keeping that feeling of the Jericho Square not being a town center but a carousel with lots of honking horns and yelling. Kids jumped from truck to truck, car to car, Quinn knowing he could stop any one of them and probably find a couple beers, maybe a joint.

But he didn’t have time or any inclination to roust some high school kids, knowing what he’d been like at the same age.

He turned as he heard the growling of the motorcycle pipes. Chains LeDoux, wearing sunglasses but no helmet, rounded the Square one full time before parking on the opposite side of Quinn’s truck. He dismounted the Harley, took off his glasses, and walked with a slight limp up into the gazebo where Quinn had taken a seat. Small Christmas lights winked and sparkled over the latticework.

Chains walked up the few steps and sat down across from Quinn. He wore leather chaps over jeans and had unzipped his leather jacket, showing a printed black T-shirt that read An American Legend.

Quinn did not stand or offer his hand. Chains leaned forward, elbows across the leather on his thighs. He seemed more interested in goings-on around him than speaking what was on his mind. After a good thirty seconds, he reached into his jacket and fished out a pack of Marlboro Reds. He popped one in his mouth and with monkey-like quickness turned the box toward Quinn, offering him one.

Quinn shook his head. He fished the old cigar out of his front pocket, lit it with his Zippo, and clicked it closed. They were both seated, both smoking, both watching the parade of cars moving around the Square. Kids liked their country music loud.

“Looks the same,” Chains said, “except that corner behind me. That twister fucked things up good.”

Quinn nodded.

“Kids are the same.”

“Yep.”

“I didn’t think you’d come by yourself,” LeDoux said. “I rode around a bit to make sure. Unless you got some law people in those buildings.”

“I told you I’d come alone,” Quinn said. “You said you wanted to talk.”

LeDoux plucked the cigarette from his mouth, his ratty hair pulled back in a ponytail, gray eyes appraising Quinn, trying to judge whether this guy was bullshitting him but then seeing something in his face that made the man smile.

“You look exactly like your old man,” LeDoux said, “except for the haircut. The haircut makes me know you’re a square, the law.”

Quinn didn’t say a word.

“You know your daddy was a full-patched member.”

“Hell of an achievement.”

“That don’t mean something to you?” LeDoux said.

“Not in the least,” Quinn said. “He’s embarrassed himself in a multitude of ways.”

“People like you,” Chains said, “don’t have it in you like all us. I bet you fucking loved the military telling you when to jump, run, eat, and shit. Some folks need that, can’t think on their own.”

“I think just fine.”

“Reason I called you is for you to know we want a good relationship with the law here,” LeDoux said. “We had a good thing going with your uncle. He knew we weren’t the boogeymen like you see in those drive-in movies, raping and killing folks. He knew we were a club, not a gang. We respected the law and the law respected us.”

“He respected y’all because you handed him off part of the money y’all made dealing dope,” Quinn said. “I don’t work that way.”

LeDoux didn’t deny it. He just shrugged and smoked his cigarette. One of the truck drivers honked his horn and flicked his lights at some girls in a little Toyota. The girls slowed and they parked at an angle beside Quinn’s truck. The boys got out to talk, leaning in the car, flirting.

“I like this town,” LeDoux said.

“Sure.”

“It’s a good town,” LeDoux said. “I thought about Jericho and coming back for twenty years.”

“And here you are.”

“Goddamn right,” LeDoux said. “But I don’t want no trouble.”

Quinn smoked his cigar and ashed the glowing tip. He leaned forward in the same manner as Chains LeDoux. He stared at the reedy, busted-up convict with the graying hair and the crow’s-feet and asked, “Whose idea was it to go out and find the man who killed Lori Stillwell?”

Chains stubbed out his cigarette. He stood. “Don’t know nothing about it.”

“Of course.”

“I’m a free man, sheriff,” Chains said. “I just want to ride, drink beer, maybe fish a little. Good fishing here out on Choctaw. Lots of crappie. My boys want the same. You hassle us and I got me a slick Jew lawyer up in Memphis who makes three hundred dollars an hour. You probably seen him on TV talking about personal freedoms.”

“I guess we’ll be meeting him soon enough.”

“I never killed anyone,” he said, “’cept in ’Nam.”

Quinn didn’t say anything, trying to figure out how to nail this guy clean and right.

“How about you?” LeDoux said. “Your hands clean?”

•   •   •

“Put your hands on your head,” Animal said, “and get your ass out of the ditch.”

Stagg tried to use just his legs to climb out but couldn’t get a toehold in the dirt and fell back down. He tried at another angle and slipped again and again.

“Shit, crawl on out with your hands,” Animal said, now holding Stagg’s gun that had dropped in the car. “Go ahead.”

Stagg found an old root and used his bad knee to push himself up on the paved road. Another biker reached for the back of his sweater-vest and pulled him on into the road, covered in red mud and bleeding from his knees and hands. His clothes were ruined. He’d lost a fine loafer down in that ditch.

“I want you to understand one thing,” Animal said. The boy was jacked so goddamn high, his eyes nearly popped out of his head. Stagg turned down the road and saw the Mexes, three of them, surround Ringold, his man’s hands held high over his head as they kept automatic weapons trained on him.

Stagg nodded and licked a busted lip.

“You keep cooking chicken-fried steak and serving up pussy pie,” Animal said. “But you’re out of everything else. You don’t touch Memphis. And we get a cut of all the cooch palaces you’re running. That keeps you alive and keeps you well. Nobody gets greedy.”

Stagg felt one of his goddamn veneers come loose. He spit blood to the ground, but even in just one shoe tried to muster up some dignity. He wasn’t cowering before nobody on his own road. “Y’all can play all you want,” he said, “but you’ve started something y’all can never handle in Memphis. You think them Mexes got your back? No, sir. It’s a tough city. Maybe the toughest in America. You can’t beat it.”

Animal shot a hand at Stagg’s shoulder and pushed him back several feet. He nodded to a younger biker, muscled up, with a long, drooping mustache. Animal gripped Stagg’s arm, the way a man handles a woman, and pushed him forward to the truck that had cut him off. A Mexican flag painted on the tailgate and a sticker of the Virgin Mary on the bumper.

The bed of it was one of those hatch jobs, sealed on the top, and a flat-faced Mex with black eyes turned the key, lifted the hatch, and opened the tailgate. Animal forced Stagg forward with a rough hand in the shoulder. “Go on,” he said. “Go on. Check out your Memphis.”

Stagg looked inside to see a human head sitting atop a plastic sheet. It was grayed and bloody, eyes glazed over but seemingly alive.

No swagger, no cockiness left. But there was no doubt he was staring right at Craig Houston.

•   •   •

“When’s the last time you saw Hank Stillwell?” Quinn said.

“He’s not part of the club.”

“He’s not part of any club,” Quinn said. “Someone shot him twice in the back of the head with a .22.”

“Shame.”

“He rode with you for a long time,” Quinn said. “Figured you’d want to connect to some of your boys when you got out.”

LeDoux blew some smoke out of his nose. He looked hard at Quinn. “Go ahead and try and tie me to that killing. Stillwell was nothing. He is nothing.”

“You must’ve hated him pretty bad.”

LeDoux rubbed his beard, thinking on it. He shrugged. “You ride with a man, you become a brother. If you don’t have that, you ain’t nothing but a fucking animal.”

“I understand,” Quinn said. “I’ve seen The Wild Bunch a hundred times.”

LeDoux rubbed his beard. His face twitched into a sort of smile. “What’d your daddy tell you about me?”

“Nothing,” Quinn said. “He never said your name.”

“Fear will do that to a man.”

“What’s that mean?”

Chains shook his head, kept on rubbing his beard. A Tibbehah County patrol car circled the Square, Art Watts on duty. Art knew where Quinn had headed and was checking to make sure all was right, an AR-15 on his passenger seat.

“Did your daddy tell you I once tried to kill him?” LeDoux asked.

Quinn shook his head. His tried to puff on his cigar but it had gone out. He flicked open the Zippo and lit it again, a cold wind ruffling the flame.

“Thought he was the fucking snitch,” LeDoux said. “I just fucking knew it. The Feds were knowing things coming from inside our own goddamn clubhouse. If it wasn’t for Big Doug, your daddy would have had a hole in his chest as big as a dinner plate.”

Quinn got the cigar going again. “So what?”

“I was wrong,” LeDoux said. “Took me twenty years too long to learn it.”

“Good for you.”

“I want you to tell Jason that I fucked up,” LeDoux said. “I turned on my own brother.”

“Tell him yourself.”

“Goddamn snitch was right there,” LeDoux said. “Standing right by me when I had a gun on your daddy ready to blow his ass off this planet.”

Quinn blew smoke into the space that separated them.

“The son of a bitch made your daddy leave Mississippi with his tail between his legs to protect your family. Isn’t that funny as hell?”

“When was that?”

“Strange days, back then,” LeDoux said. “My head fucked-up on eleven different herbs and spices, knowing the Feds had us close and Johnny Stagg was stoking the flame.”

“Then you found out it was Stillwell?”

“I never said that,” LeDoux said, grinning. “I don’t know nothing about that.”‘

“My father’s affairs then are none of my concern or yours.”

“He’d come back from out west wanted to ride again,” LeDoux said. “Hung out at the clubhouse, racing bikes and doing crazy shit.”

“I’ll nail you for Stillwell,” Quinn said. “And that man you lynched.”

LeDoux stood, cupped a new cigarette in hand, and fired it up. “Nice to see the law hadn’t changed much either,” he said. “Your uncle took money from us and now you take it from Stagg.”

Quinn walked up fast and hard on LeDoux. He got within an inch of his face, smelling the body odor and smoke. Quinn stared at LeDoux, breathing slow and easy, waiting for the man to react, make just the slightest of moves. LeDoux stared at him with empty gray eyes, turned, and walked down the brick walkway to his bike, kick-starting the engine and zooming out.

The cigar and cigarette smoke intertwined and blew away from the gazebo.

Back in his truck, Quinn recalled an ancient fight between his mom and dad, the crying, yelling, and the pleading at the kitchen table. Jason Colson had left in the middle of the night, Quinn and Caddy’s faces pressed against the window as his brown GMC truck bounded out of their driveway, knowing he was gone for good.

He’d wanted them to go somewhere; Quinn couldn’t recall where.

And Jean saying she’d never leave Jericho.

Why didn’t you tell me?” Quinn said.

“Tell you what?” Jason Colson said. “That a motorcycle gang wanted to crucify me to a barn door? Pretty heavy stuff for a twelve-year-old.”

“Maybe,” Quinn said. “But might’ve made things easier on us if we’d known there was a reason.”

“Talk to your mother about that,” Jason said, long gray hair combed straight back, neat and pushed behind his ears. “She had a say in all this. She was married to this shit town more than she was married to me.”

They’d called Jason back to Jericho for more questioning about the lynching. He’d shown up with his attorney, but Quinn had asked his father for some time first, both of them heading into the interview room by the jail. The attorney hadn’t been pleased, but Jason had pulled him aside, whispered in his ear, and sent him off with Lillie. The legal complexities of a son charging his dad with murder weren’t lost on the attorney. The man said he hoped all charges would be dropped immediately.

“What I don’t understand is why you went back,” Quinn said. “You watched those people hang a man and then decimate his body. Then you decide it’s OK to go drink beer, shoot pool, and ride the highways with them?”

“I came back to see Doug,” Jason said. “He was sick. The cancer had him the first time. I had gotten him some drugs down in Mexico. Same ones Steve McQueen had tried.”

“LeDoux said you came back for the Born Losers.”

“LeDoux is fucked in the head,” Jason said. “He’s a diseased individual.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Whatever you think of me is fine,” Jason said. “But I wasn’t a part of what happened, or Big Doug, or even Hank Stillwell. There were some of us that stood down when they threw that rope up into that big tree and looped it around that man’s neck.”

“But y’all rode anyway,” Quinn said, “leaving him to die.”

“I can’t talk about this,” Jason said. “I’m just telling you I wasn’t a part of it. You can believe me or not, that’s your own business.”

“Did you see the killing?”

Jason grinned and shook his head. “No, sir,” he said. “You’re not getting me into this. I’ve made a new life and I’m living it.”

“You should put that bullshit on a bumper sticker,” Quinn said. “I bet you could sell the hell out of it.”

“Talk to your mother,” Jason said. “I’ve tried to make contact over the years. I tried to find out if she was all right after the storm. You know I rode over to Tibbehah and helped out with the cleanup? Nobody even knew who I was. I saw Caddy handing out ice, almost went to say something. But—”

“Maybe you could have jumped your bike over the wreckage,” Quinn said. “It would have been a triumphant return.”

“I can’t make what I did right.”

“But you can do what’s right with this,” Quinn said. “You don’t shut down LeDoux and the killing is just gonna keep going. He took out Hank Stillwell and put Johnny Stagg in the hospital. Stagg’s so busted-up, he can’t get out of bed. Won’t say a word. He told me and the hospital staff he fell off his tractor.”

“I don’t care about any of it but y’all.”

“We can get LeDoux on murder,” Quinn said. “Probably some federal charges in there, too. Civil rights violations.”

Jason dipped his head into his hands and stared down at the table. He groaned. And ran a hand over his neck to work out the kinks and soreness. “Better bring my lawyer back in here,” Jason said. “This wasn’t what I thought you wanted to discuss.”

“What’d you think? I wanted to know about your time on Stroker Ace?”

“That’s rough, Quinn.”

There was some commotion outside the old wooden door with the frosted window on the top half. Both men talking in the open room, standing, half the room lit by fluorescents and the other half in darkness. Quinn heard Lillie’s voice and then a hard knocking on the door. Then Lillie again, then Mary Alice, and the door rattled open and in walked Jean Colson. Her face was without color and she was breathing hard, standing there, looking from Jason to Quinn.

“Hey, Jean,” Jason said. “Good to see you.”

“I’m sorry,” Mary Alice said. “I’m really sorry, Sheriff.”

“Quinn?” Jean said. “I need a moment with this man.”

Jason’s lawyer was standing right there with Mary Alice and Lillie, dressed for some official business in suit and tie, shaking his head over how his morning had been shot to hell. He opened his mouth to make a comment, but Jason held up a hand.

No one said anything for a moment.

“OK,” Jason said. “What’s on your mind, Jean?”

Jean swallowed, turned her look to Quinn. Quinn picked up his cold coffee mug and walked for the door, brushing through Lillie and Mary Alice and returning to his own office. Somehow during this day time had flipped on its head and he was ten years old again.

Lillie wasn’t slow to follow.

“Wouldn’t you love to be a fly on that wall?”

“I was for a long time.”

“I bet she’s got a lot to say.”

“She does.”

“First your son charges you with murder,” Lillie said, “and then your ex-wife gives you a talking-down-to.”

“She’s above that,” Quinn said. “She’s in there doing our jobs for us. She’ll get him to confess to whatever it was he did or saw.”

“Bullshit.”

“You didn’t have the misfortune to witness the balance of power in the Colson house.” Quinn absently sipped his coffee, ice-cold and bitter. He made a face and put down the mug. “Would you like to make a wager?”

“On sweet Miss Jean bringing him down?”

“Yep.”

Lillie shook her head. “No, sir,” she said, “I would not.”

•   •   •

“Could you bring me a Coca-Cola and one of them bendable straws?” Johnny Stagg said to a nurse as he lay flat on his back. “Sure would appreciate it.”

Ringold had just walked into the room. One of his eyes was still swollen nearly shut, and they’d busted a couple fingers, but it hadn’t taken long for him to bust free. “How you feeling, Mr. Stagg?”

“Doctor says he might have to wire my jaw shut.”

“Can you chew at all?” Ringold said.

“Been drinking my meals out of a straw,” Stagg said. “Everything they’re feeding me tastes like dog shit warmed over.”

“Could’ve been worse,” Ringold said.

“Yes, sir,” Stagg said. “I’d rather not study on it too long. Those boys were artistes with a tire iron.”

“I know I got two, maybe three of them.”

“They sure did skedaddle when you got hold of that weapon,” Stagg said. “How’d you get it free from that Mex?”

Ringold shrugged. “Didn’t have much choice.”

“You sprayed the hell out of those bastards,” Stagg said. “Wish you’d gotten the big bald fella with the tattooed face. He was the worst with the iron, personally broke my leg and four ribs. Son of a bitch, it hurts to talk. It hurts to breathe. When I go to the commode, it feels like I’m giving birth, pissing blood and all. They would’ve killed us both, left us in that ditch with what was left of Craig Houston.”

“You sure that was Houston you saw?”

“I got a pretty clear memory of it,” Stagg said. “Probably will my whole life. They gonna turn Jericho into Juárez while the law’s got its thumb up its ass, dealing with family issues and not taking this thing head-on.”

“But you won’t talk to Colson.”

“This thing’s gone past him now,” Stagg said, using the remote to raise himself up a few inches. Even handling of the remote making it feel like his sides might split. “Son of a bitch, son. Son of a bitch.”

“You could ID the ones who did it.”

“LeDoux called it,” Stagg said. “I want his ass in prison or taken out.”

“Might could handle both.”

“You ever get a beating like that?” Stagg said. “I was pretty sure I was going to die. Four grown men coming at me with that iron. They were enjoying it. I could smell that tequila on them, them grinning from ear to ear, thinking ole Johnny Stagg is a redneck piñata.”

“I have.”

“Can I ask you something, Mr. Ringold?”

“Yes, sir.”

“That really your name?”

“No.”

“Why’d you choose it?”

“Good as anything else.”

“And them tattoos,” Stagg said. “You got every inch of your arms covered?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Why?”

“It tells a story,” Ringold said. “People I’ve known. Men I didn’t who I killed.”

“I don’t like where we’re at, right now,” Stagg said. “I’m no military man, but our position has been greatly weakened by those pieces of shit out on Choctaw Lake.”

“What do we do?”

“LeDoux will undo himself,” Stagg said. “He killed old Hank Stillwell. He tried to kill me. And I figure he’s got Colson on that list somewhere, too, if he don’t want to play ball like Hamp Beckett used to.”

“Yes, sir.”

“What was that quote you were telling me the other day?” Stagg said. “When we were talking philosophy while they were cleaning the floors at the Booby Trap?”

“Make your enemy mad so they act impetuously.”

“And what’s that last word mean?” Stagg said as the nurse came in with a can of Coke, top popped, and curved straw held to his mouth. He sucked in a little cold Coke.

“Reckless.”

“He’s gonna do something dumb and fuck himself?”

The nurse bit her lip, offered the straw again, and Stagg sucked for a good while. She took the can back and set it on the rolling cart.

“Pretty much,” Ringold said.

“And we just wait till he does?”

“Yes, sir,” Ringold said.

“They think they got us,” Stagg said. “But ain’t nobody mounting my head on a wall. Or yours. Bring me that phone on the table over there. Yep, that one. I got some calls to make.”