The Fallen Read online

  “Goddamn it,” Cord said. “We’ve been over this. Why risk the Feds tying us to this shit show?”

  “It’s our calling card,” Wilcox said. “We’ll Make the Mid-South Great Again!”

  “You’re a crazy motherfucker,” Cord said. “You know that?”

  Opie leaned up between the seats and smiled. “He knows it,” Opie said. “Everybody knows it. You just catching on, Cord?”

  “Do you really want someone else to get the credit?” Wilcox asked. “Christ on a stick.”

  “What pisses me off is that you two have all the fun,” Opie said. “I just walk in and say, you know, the line—”

  “I want you to say,” Wilcox said, “‘Get down, you disgusting fat pigs, or I will shoot you in the pussy.’”

  “We’ve already done the pussy thing,” Opie said. “I’d rather do something new. That guy says stupid shit every fucking day.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like ‘I’m not a crook,’” Opie said, big freckled face beaming as Wilcox turned to see if he was serious.

  “That was Nixon, you retard,” Wilcox said. “Our CEO in Chief would never say he’s not a crook. He’d look at the camera, lick his lips, and say I just ass-raped you and what are you going to do about it, losers?”

  “How am I supposed to know Nixon?” Opie said. “Shit, man. I wasn’t even born yet.”

  “Say it quick and mean,” Wilcox said. “You hit it hard and fast when you walk in that door and those folks will go stone-cold fetal on you.”

  “Yes, sir,” Opie said. “But next time, we go to a different president. Maybe Teddy Roosevelt or Ronald Reagan? These masks are starting to smell like ass.”

  “Sure thing, Ope,” Wilcox said. “Just do your job and knock on that connect door when they’re in cold storage.”

  “Just save a few for me,” Opie said.

  Cord looked up in the mirror with some concern in his eyes, turning in front of the Wing Machine, Opie pulling down the mask and jumping from the car, slamming the door and walking with speed and purpose into the shop. Wilcox just caught the beautiful sight of five or six folks with their hands raised behind the plate-glass window. Yes, yes, yes. Wilcox’s heart was a damn jackhammer in his chest.

  “Attaboy,” Wilcox said.

  “Still don’t like it,” Cord said. “One of us should be with him. He’s still just a fucking kid.”

  “So was Dennis the Menace,” Wilcox said. “But he sure could fuck stuff up.”

  • • •

  “People are going to start to talk,” Maggie said.

  “Let ’em talk,” Quinn said. “Never bothered me.”

  “We were spotted together at church,” she said. “Everyone saw us. A few old ladies looked at me weird between the hymns.”

  “That’s because they are weird,” Quinn said. “And they didn’t know you. A new woman in town is big excitement at Calvary Methodist. If we’d sat down together, then there would a lot of gossip.”

  Quinn had brought out three Coleman camp chairs to his pond. He’d gotten out Jason’s cane pole, a pole his nephew graduated from a long time ago, and placed it in Brandon’s hands. The kid watched the bobber, a live cricket on the hook. The rhythm of life, Quinn starting out the same way with his Uncle Hamp until he got a .22 for his sixth birthday. He still preferred fishing to hunting. Maggie unpacked a folding chair, watching Brandon keep on checking his hook, patience something that would come much later. Quinn set up beside her, placing a bucket full of ice, beer, and water between them.

  “We did sit together,” Maggie said.

  “I sat with my mother and nephew,” Quinn said. “You just happened to find a seat next to us. I didn’t invite you.”

  “Jason’s a sweet boy,” Maggie said. “He passed the hymnal to me when he saw me sharing with you on ‘Blessed Assurance.’ Does he know who I am?”

  “Nope.”

  “And your mother?”

  “She knows,” Quinn said.

  “How’s that?”

  “As soon as you sat down, she cut her eyes over at me,” Quinn said. “She saw something pass between us. She knew. After the service, I walked her and Jason to their car and she said, ‘She’s darling, Quinn. How about you bring her over to dinner sometime?’”

  “And what did you say?”

  “I told her I’d never seen you before in my life, but you had a cute little ass.”

  Maggie laughed and leaned back into the chair, tugging a ball cap down over her eyes. Quinn reached for a Coors in the ice bucket and tossed her a can. She caught it in midair without even looking.

  “Wow.”

  “Shit,” Maggie Powers said. “You don’t know the half of it. I’m full of surprises.”

  • • •

  “I told you, man,” the fat black dude called Johnny Snacks said, orange Cheetos dust on his mustache. “We fucking closed. You gonna have to rub your own motherfucking ride today.”

  “I’ve rubbed my ride too many times,” Wilcox said, turning from him, pulling on the mask, and leveling the AR-15 at his fat ass. “But it just doesn’t give me the same satisfaction.”

  “Oh, fuck,” the thin, ugly dude called Armani said. He tried to reach inside his coat but saw Cord had already leveled a rifle out the driver’s window. He pulled down the mask and stepped out toward the two men, Wilcox following.

  Johnny Snacks’s stomach hung loose over his dark blue jeans and he wore an XXXL T-shirt reading GRIT & GRIND. Wilcox snatched the Glock off his fat ass. Armani looked sharp with the black suit, gold tie, and gold-plated Glock hidden beneath his threads. Cord admired it for a moment before tucking it into his hoodie pocket.

  “Fuck me,” Johnny Snacks said.

  “Yes, sir,” Wilcox said, marching his big butt to the back door of the count room. “Fuck me. Fuck you. Fuck everything. Fuck that shit.”

  Wilcox whistled a bit, “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf,” as they moved. Cord looked up at the camera at the roofline and shot out the lens without missing a step. Cord, as always, showing off.

  When they hit the door, Wilcox heard a quick double pop of a pistol. Cord turned quick to Wilcox, Wilcox nodding Move! Move. Fucking move! Keep to the plan. He pressed the barrel into Johnny Snacks’s ear and said, “Knock, knock.”

  Snacks swallowed and knocked. The door flying open, a tall black man with a shaved head and wearing a canary yellow suit looking out at them. “Goddamn,” he said. “Wing Machine being robbed.”

  Wilcox pushed Johnny Snacks into the room so hard that the fat man tumbled to the concrete floor. “Nope,” he said, aiming the gun at one of the Twins. “You boys are being robbed. Hands up or I’ll shoot you and your zoot suit twin in the fucking head. Now.”

  The black dude and his identical twin brother, that man wearing the same fucking suit only in bright purple, nodded and raised their hands. But, damn, if they didn’t look mighty pissed about it. Cord covered the room, Wilcox looking over at the bank of flat-screen TVs mounted on the cinder-block wall. “Goddamn it,” Wilcox said, not seeing Opie, only black folks scattering.

  Cord nodded at Wilcox, letting him know he had control of the room. Wilcox tried the door to the Wing Machine, but it was locked. He stepped back and kicked it wide open, seeing two bodies down on the ground and a lot of blood, and someone’s spilled Coke.

  He checked the corners, searching for Opie, as more shooting came from the count room. He heard Cord yell “Fuck” and start unloading his weapon.

  • • •

  “Can you stay for an early dinner? I have to go on patrol in a little while.”

  “We didn’t catch anything,” Maggie said. “Besides two limbs and a stump.”

  “I need to get that stump out of there,” Quinn said. “Jason lost half his tackle box on that damn thing.”

  They took the worn
deer path from the pond through the woods back to the farmhouse. Maggie had gone home after church and changed into frayed jeans and a black Reigning Sound band T-shirt. She’d worn a ball cap and a pair of flip-flops, Quinn offering her a pair of rubber boots that Anna Lee Stevens had left at his house last summer. They were a little too small, but she made them work.

  “You never did ask me about last weekend,” she said. “When I had to leave so quick and get Brandon in Memphis.”

  “I figured you’d tell me if you want me to know.”

  Quinn carried the folding chairs and Maggie carried the bucket, now empty except for a couple of crushed beer cans and empty water bottles. She was smiling and pink-faced from the sun, and kept on knocking the bucket against Quinn’s leg as they walked.

  “He’s shacked up with some woman in a loft downtown,” she said. “He told me he was living out in Cordova, which was lie number one. Then he came out with Brandon, standing there telling me that he hoped I was happy waking everybody up on such a lovely night. He said Brandon had the time of his life at the zoo and watching his daddy play his shitty country music down on Beale Street.”

  “What’s shitty about country music?” Quinn said.

  “You ever heard of Florida-Georgia Line?” Maggie asked. “Or Jason Aldean?”

  “Nope,” Quinn said. “My record collection stops in the early eighties. But I do like some of the new stuff. Jason Isbell, Jamey Johnson, Chris Stapleton. There’s also a woman named Margo Price who understands the beauty of outlaw country.”

  “I knew you were a Waylon man.”

  “If you got to tell people how country you are,” Quinn said, “then you ain’t country.”

  “I know,” Maggie said. “I’m got so goddamn sick of hearing Rick singing songs about his dog, his pickup truck, and how much he loved his goddamn mother. First off, his mother is a real queen bitch. Second, he doesn’t even like dogs.”

  “Hate the guy already.”

  “And he’s a Marine.”

  “Damn.”

  They watched Brandon ramble on down the hill, through the deep woods in tall rubber boots, with Hondo trotting alongside. Quinn and Maggie remained in the depths of the woods while Brandon headed on into the house with Hondo. The light was nice in the woods, flickering and mottled, through the sprawling bare branches, purplish pink flowers showing on the redbuds. You could smell spring coming up from the heated earth and in the little bits of green on the rocks and new grass.

  “Your old girlfriend had small feet,” Maggie said. “These boots are starting to hurt like hell.”

  “You don’t like shoes,” Quinn said. “You don’t like bro county, and you can catch a can of Coors out of midair.”

  Maggie dropped the bucket and wrapped her arms around Quinn’s neck, lifting up her legs and hanging there. “I only ask one thing from you.”

  “Whatever you want.”

  “Don’t let me talk about that stupid shit anymore,” she said. “He’s been headed down the toilet since he got discharged and I’d like to do my best to keep clean of it all.”

  “He can’t be all that bad.”

  “Wanna bet?”

  Maggie kissed him hard on his mouth, dropping her feet to the forest floor and leaning in, arms holding him tight. “My mother told me all the best ones were taken.”

  “Your momma was wrong.”

  “I’m just finding that out,” she said. “Now cook me some dinner, Ranger. We don’t have much time.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  • • •

  Wilcox shot them. He shot both those zoot suit motherfuckers right in the chest. He’d been watching them for more than ten days and still didn’t know Shortbox from K-Bo, but whether they came from Orange Mound or Kandahar, they dropped the same. Opie came in behind him, locking up the rest of the Wing Machine in the freezer, and shot those boys again. Bang-bang-bang. They were just as dead as the others. As were Johnny Snacks and Armani, wide-eyed and open-mouthed and bloody as hell, down where Cord had shot them against the wall.

  “Son of a bitch,” Opie said. “More of ’em. That cook I shot is dead, too.”

  Cord was down, bleeding like a bastard from the stomach. Wilcox pulling up Cord’s hoodie to see the wound. He ripped off the Trump mask so Cord could fucking breathe.

  “Kill the cameras,” Wilcox said. “Fuck up that hard drive.”

  “Sir,” Opie said.

  Wilcox pressed a wadded-up T-shirt into Cord’s abdomen, looking for something he could use as a tourniquet and seeing some duct tape. He called out to Opie and Opie brought him the roll, Wilcox wrapping Cord as tight as possible while allowing him to breathe. The breath was raspy, a bullet or two probably having ripped through a lung.

  Opie shot up the hard drive and computer monitors, knocking them off the wall and sending them crashing to the ground. There was blood all over, on the walls and on the floor, all running toward a drain cut in the center of the floor. Cord looked up at Wilcox from the ground and mouthed something, like a guy with dying breath wanting to send his love back to his family. But as Wilcox pressed an ear close to Cord’s mouth he heard “Get the money, fucknuts. The money.”

  On a long table by a far wall—lined with a bunch of posters for rap shows around Memphis—Al Kapone, Rick Ross, Ying Yang Twins / Brought to You by Double Trouble Productions!!!—lay stack upon stack of money, neatly bundled and shrink-wrapped after being run through the counter. The Twins so damn business-like and organized that they had the bricks of cash stacked at least three feet high.

  “Holy crap,” Opie said. “Holy crap.”

  “I got the money,” Wilcox said. “You back up the truck.”

  Opie ran out to the Yukon as Wilcox lay Cord down on his back. Cord stared up into the lights, breath ragged, cussing while Wilcox tossed stacks into their big black bags. It wasn’t like the banks. All that money filled the bags after a few armloads. He grabbed a couple of champagne boxes, put them on the floor, and loaded up the rest of the money bricks. Opie was back now, standing in the doorway with his weapon as Wilcox dragged Cord into the SUV and snatched up the boxes and bags.

  Opie hit the gas of the Yukon as soon as Wilcox had slammed the door, fishtailing fast away from the Wing Machine and heading east on EP Boulevard, toward Raines and up around Airways, where they’d hit the interstate.

  “Where the hell can we go now?” Opie said.

  “Drive south.”

  “Then what?”

  “How the hell do I know?” Wilcox said. “I’m making this shit up as I go along.”

  20

  “Something’s wrong,” Quinn said.

  “A woman brings you a barbecue plate from Dixieland and you’ve got complaints,” Lillie said. “George even added in some extra sauce and double coleslaw instead of all those beans. I know how much you don’t give a shit for baked beans.”

  Quinn opened up the Styrofoam lid and looked at the beautiful half-chicken plate she’d delivered along with a cold bottle of Coke. He’d eaten a couple of hours ago with Maggie and Brandon but always appreciated Dixieland’s barbecue. Still, Lillie was prone to tolerance but seldom generosity. “You want the week off?”

  “Nope.”

  “Someone rear-end the Big Green Machine?”

  “Nope.”

  Quinn opened the Coke and leaned back in his office chair, waiting for Lillie to get on with it. She wore a coy little smile, sitting on the edge of his desk, turning down the radio and waiting a moment to deliver whatever bad news had brought her in after seven o’clock, already fully dark outside.

  “You know, you should have more of an open-door policy with your baby sister,” Lillie said. “That way, the Colson family wouldn’t stick my ass right in the middle of the Shitstorm of the Week.”

  Quinn closed the lid of the barbecue chicken and folded his arms across his c
hest. He realized he still had his hat on and took it off and tossed it down on the desk.

  “You know those two teenage girls that went missing?”

  “Of course I do,” Quinn said. “I’ve got a statewide alert on them. I interviewed the one girl’s mother. She was a mess, strung out as hell. Didn’t know what happened to her baby and didn’t care.”

  “Caddy’s been looking,” Lillie said. “Roped Boom into their search. A couple weeks ago, they kind of got sideways with Blue Daniels.”

  Quinn stood up. Lillie motioned for him to sit back down. He didn’t. He kept on standing, waiting for her to get to the meat of the situation. He already could feel his temples throbbing.

  “I may have arrested them the other night.”

  “You ‘may have’?” Quinn said. “Either you did or you didn’t.”

  “They weren’t charged,” Lillie said. “Caddy claims that ole Blue walked in front of Boom’s truck and she struck him. Blue says that Caddy was trying to kill him.”

  “Which is it?”

  “Complicated situation, Sheriff,” Lillie said. “You need a napkin and a fork? I thought George had packed some supplies for you.”

  “I already ate dinner. Plus, I just lost my appetite,” Quinn said.

  Mary Alice opened the door with a big smile on her face and eased out fast after seeing Lillie’s and Quinn’s expressions. Lillie smiling even bigger at Quinn.

  “What’s Blue Daniels have to do with those girls?”

  “Well,” Lillie said, “that’s the interesting part. It seems Boom’s truck knocked some goddamn sense into the man. Before he started getting pissed off and said he wanted to beat the crap out of your sister, he admitted to pimping those two little girls.”

  “And what brought Boom and Caddy to Blue?”

  Lillie looked uneasy. Lillie never looked uneasy. “Would you believe Cho Cho Porter?”

  “Blue Daniels and Goddamn Cho Cho Porter,” Quinn said. “Man, this gets better and better. No wonder you brought me Dixieland.”

  “You’d probably already know this,” Lillie said, “if you hadn’t been spending all your time with that hot little piece of tail. You gonna drop by and see her on another call later?”