The Innocents Read online

  “You think I really give a shit, Pastor?”

  Pastor Traylor licked his old dry lips and shook his head. “And coming from you,” he said, “after the places you been, they won’t be heard any more than a dry summer wind.”

  Milly watched the old man use two hands to get back on his busted-up old knees and stand, clutching his old Bible under a frail arm. A fat woman in a pink jumpsuit came to the door and called out, wondering if everything was OK. “Can I bring y’all some cookies and punch?”

  The fat woman grinned brightly as Milly brushed past her, halfway down the aisle, and then turned back. The preacher watched and waited. The fat woman kept on grinning.

  Milly lifted her middle finger to Pastor Zeke Traylor and slammed the church doors behind her. Somewhere inside the sanctuary, the fat woman gasped.

  • • •

  I think we just broke that chair,” Quinn said, searching for his blue jeans and cowboy boots.

  “Good,” Anna Lee said. “It belonged to Luke’s grandmother. I always hated those damn things.”

  “You don’t feel guilty?”

  “About what?” she said. “Serving a purpose other than just collecting dust in this big old drafty house.”

  “I thought you loved this old house.”

  Anna Lee walked into the foyer, where Quinn was getting back into his clothes. She still had on a short black T-shirt but had lost pretty much the rest of it in the rush. They didn’t have long until her mother would be bringing her daughter Shelby home for the night. Anna Lee shook her head, finding one of Quinn’s stray boots and tossing it over to him. “Not anymore,” she said. “It’s so damn big and empty. I hate the sounds it makes when I walk.”

  Quinn watched her as she got her cutoffs. “Lillie offered me a temporary job,” Quinn said. “Says I can get on the payroll until I make a decision on heading back overseas.”

  “Take it,” she said. “And then look for something else. With your Army training, people will be lining up to hire you.”

  “You think?”

  “I do,” Anna Lee said. “I know some folks in Memphis and Oxford you should meet.”

  “No thanks.”

  “You’d rather go back to the other side of this earth and have people shoot at you?”

  “I guess it wouldn’t be bad to make a little extra,” he said. “Especially if you hate living so much in this big old drafty house so much.”

  “After being sheriff,” she said, “how would that feel?”

  “Like a paycheck,” Quinn said.

  “You don’t mind working for Lillie?”

  “Why?” he said. “She’s more suited for the job than me. Always has been.”

  “Lillie has a temper,” Anna Lee said. “She blows up quick. That’s what scares folks. There is being direct. And then there is Lillie Virgil’s way.”

  “I’m well aware,” Quinn said. “She say something to you?”

  “I saw her the other day at the Piggly Wiggly,” Anna Lee said. “She told me to either quit fucking with your head and get married or go ahead and let you go free.”

  “We need to talk.”

  “Can you do something for me?”

  “Whatever you want,” Quinn said.

  “I want you to be part of my life,” she said. “My world. I want you to know my friends. Drive up to Oxford with me this fall before you leave. I want to show you off.”

  Anna Lee disappeared for a moment and rejoined Quinn, fully dressed, on the front porch of the Victorian, which sat up on a low rolling hill looking down on Jericho. It was late evening and that big orange sun going down lit up the storefront windows, the water tower casting a long shadow through the green town Square.

  “OK,” Anna Lee said. “Talk. But just promise me you won’t say anything you don’t mean or that you really don’t want to do. I’ve made too many mistakes in this life already. I don’t think either of us wants to go down a wrong road.”

  • • •

  I don’t know who called you,” Fannie Hathcock said, “but I promise you, Miss Virgil, that we’re conducting business as we always do. We adhere to all county ordinances.”

  “Sheriff Virgil,” Lillie said. “And there aren’t any Tibbehah County ordinances on nude dancing. We just have the unspoken rule that y’all do business in this fucking barn, but don’t let it spill out into the parking lot. But now I’m hearing things might’ve changed and your girls are dishing it out in the open.”

  Fannie Hathcock tipped a long brown cigarette, checking out Lillie from head to toe. Lillie didn’t care for the appraisal or being called up to Fannie’s office instead of Fannie coming down to meet Lillie at the bar, where she’d been invited. She also didn’t like not being addressed as “Sheriff”—she got enough of that bullshit in town. Lillie looked over at Deputy Reggie Caruthers, who’d rode along with her, and nodded at him.

  “Nice place,” he said.

  “You’re welcome anytime, deputy,” Fannie said. “But as far as the law, I don’t know anything about my girls ‘dishing it out.’”

  “Come on,” Lillie said. “Y’all show the goods up on the great lit stage and then blow it or throw it out in the cabs. I don’t mind you arguing about the finer points of the law, but let’s not spew bullshit on what kind of business this is.”

  “Did you have these kind of arguments with Mr. Stagg?”

  “Johnny T. Stagg?” Lillie said. “Bet your ass, Miss Hathcock. He was an A-1 shitbag.”

  Lillie could tell the Hathcock woman wasn’t used to being addressed so directly. She looked like a true madam of means, in a red silk top, black flared trousers, and patent leather slingbacks. Her makeup job looked expert and expensive, seeming to Lillie like something out of a high-fashion magazine. The woman was well into her forties but well preserved, with possibly a little work on the face and definitely a lot on her titties.

  “Why’d you tear down the Booby Trap sign?” Lillie said. “Nothing like truth in advertising.”

  “I thought it sounded rough and vulgar.”

  “Why’d you call it Vienna’s?” Lillie said. “’Cause of the sausages?”

  “My grandmother,” Fannie said, exhaling a little smoke. “She was a fine old Southern lady.”

  “You mind me asking you a direct question, Miss Hathcock?” Lillie said.

  “No, ma’am,” she said. “Go ahead and shoot, Sheriff.”

  “Just how did you get this place free of Johnny Stagg?” Lillie said. “I always figured we’d have to drag him out of here feetfirst.”

  Fannie let out a little smoke from the corner of her mouth. She tilted her head in thought and said, “I don’t think Mr. Stagg had many financial options, from where he was sitting. And I was looking to get out from where I was.”

  “Indian land?”

  “I managed a few things for the Nation.”

  “Bless your heart,” Lillie said.

  Reggie Caruthers looked to his boss and swallowed hard. He looked like he’d very much like to get the hell out of there. Downstairs, girls were working the pole at the lunchtime shift, sweaty, naked bodies hopped up on barstools, and big boobies flopping wild. Reggie was a good man, but all the sweaty summer flesh was a bit too much for him to handle.

  “Appreciate you dropping by.”

  “Keep your business inside this barn,” Lillie said. “I don’t want to be riding your ass every day.”

  “We operate a nice clean joint with nice clean girls.”

  “I really don’t give a shit how you view things,” Lillie said. “I just don’t want a bunch of whores advertising on my streets. You got me?”

  “Damn, you are a straight shooter, aren’t you?”

  “Good night, Miss Hathcock,” Lillie said. “Don’t make me come out here again.”

  10

  Y’all close th
at door and come on in,” Coach Bud Mills said. “Come on. Come on. I ain’t gonna bite.”

  Ordeen waited for Nito to walk on ahead and then closed The Cage door shut behind them. The Cage was where the coach kept all the football equipment, helmets, shoulder pads, and shit, and the managers did the wash. Coach always had a mess of young boys running around picking up dirty jerseys and pants, turning it around for the next day. The back room always smelled like sweat and piss, funky as hell.

  “You boys doing all right?” Coach asked Ordeen.

  Ordeen nodded. Coach had a brand-new helmet he was tinkering with, adding on a short face mask and the growling Wildcats sticker on the sides. Tomorrow night’s home jerseys sat in a big pile on a center table, washed and folded and ready for the locker room. Socks, compression shorts, elbow pads. The Wildcats’ colors of yellow and black, same as Southern Miss.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Don’t you worry about that bond,” Coach said. “That’s on me. We’ll get this crap taken care of. The sheriff is fighting me some. But the DA will drop all that shit. He’s a supporter.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “How about you, Nito?” Coach said. “You gonna speak or you just gonna let Ordeen here hold your flaming pile of dog shit?”

  “What?” Nito said, snapping his head around.

  “I said, I know who owned that peashooter and I know who’s running drugs in this county,” he said. “Since all those arrests, looks like you’ve turned into a real businessman.”

  Nito looked at Coach and rubbed his goatee. “Naw, man,” he said. “You ain’t hearing right.”

  “I ain’t your man,” Coach said, poking Nito straight and hard in the breastbone with a long finger. “I may not be your coach no more. But you sure as shit call me Coach. You understand, son? You want to get smart and me, you, and Ordeen can talk about fairness and the way the world works. No man needs to be holding on to your fuckup, Nito Reece.”

  “Yes, sir,” Nito said, smirking some. “Coach, sir.”

  Coach nodded his old grayed head, belly sagging over his tight black shorts. He had on old-school white socks rolled up to his fat knees and a pair of Nikes so out-of-date, they looked older than Ordeen’s momma. He hadn’t shaved that morning and white stubble grew on his saggy cheeks. “OK,” Coach said. “I did for you two knuckleheads. So what are y’all gonna do for me?”

  “What you mean?” Ordeen said.

  “I already got something for you, Ordeen,” he said. “Don’t you worry about that. I want you to meet me at six a.m. this Saturday. We’ll have a lot of work to do on the field after the game. I’ll feed you breakfast and lunch. And I’ll want you to do the same for me again in two weeks. And a week after that. You got me?”

  “Yes, Coach.”

  Nito crossed his arms over his chest, standing sure-footed in wide-legged jeans shorts and a V-neck white Walmart tee. Overhead caged lights glinted off his gold teeth. He was smiling big as shit, waiting for what crazy-ass stuff Coach was going to be asking of him. Nito wouldn’t have any of it. He still blamed the coach for kicking him off the team just for posting some crazy shit up on YouTube. It was just for fun, about smoking a blunt and waving around that pistol. All a big joke.

  “Ordeen?” Coach said. “How ’bout you give me a minute with Mr. Nito Reece? Me and him got to have a little heart-to-heart.”

  • • •

  Milly and Damika hit center stage at Vienna’s to Damika’s anthem, “Bottom of the Map” by Young Jeezy. Damika explaining to Milly that the song was spot-on when you worked that pole down in Jericho, Mississippi. Milly did a handstand and then slid right into bending over, her tight little ass facing three men who’d just walked into the bar. Damika was shaking that rump like nobody’s business, bouncing that big ole black girl booty like Milly could never imagine. Milly had on a Rebel Truck Stop tee, pulled up tight and tied high, with red bikini bottoms, while Damika was buck-ass nekkid. Girl just didn’t care.

  It was the first time she noticed the scrolled tattoos on the girl’s rib cage. It looked to be the drawn cartoon heads of two babies. I’m on fire, kid’s outta control. Competition wants me to stop, drop, and roll.

  Milly shimmied up close to the pole and jumped up as high as she could go, grabbing hold and then flipping her heels up over her head and clamping tight with her legs, letting her hands and arms go and slowly twirling down to earth. A couple bucks flew up onstage. A fat man in overalls and a trucker’s hat whistled and hooted. She jumped up again, grabbed the pole tight with only one hand this time, and twirled and twirled, feeling the greased metal beneath her fingers. And something she hadn’t felt in a long time: her own damn strength. She could spin herself around and around, holding right with that one arm. She inverted herself, locking on with both hands, kicking her legs out to the side and looking up, spotting Fannie on the catwalk staring down as she worked, the music pumping from the speakers, the other truckers coming up to the island and showering that lit stage with money.

  Milly moved a bit, stroked the pole up and down, and collected the money. When the new song hit, she shimmied all the way up, scissoring her legs straight out, inverting, and then grabbing hold with the crook of her legs, sprawling her chest and arms out, stretched all the hell out, staring up at the bright lights of the club. Power and strength never felt so good.

  When the song was over, she got down to her knees for all the loose cash and tried sharing it with Damika. Damika took a handful but told her that the cash belonged to her. “I ain’t never seen no white girl spin like that.”

  “I knew I could do this,” she said. “It’s just gymnastics. The pole just running sideways. I really like it.”

  “Don’t get fucked-up when you do it,” Damika said. “You spin too much and you puke on the customers. That way, ain’t no one gets paid.”

  After five, Vienna’s really filled up. A crew of frat boys had come over from Ole Miss in a busted-ass church van and some cowboys from Kosciusko had gathered at the old bar. The cowboys from Kosciusko wore work boots and Carhartt pants caked with mud. But they carried big fat pockets full of money and knew how to tip. One of them, back in the Champagne Room, whispered to Milly that they’d just dropped off fifty head of cattle at the meat processing plant in Tupelo. The man was drunk and wanted to know if anyone ever told her she looked just like Britney Spears’s little sister, Jamie Lynn?

  “I used to get that,” she said.

  Not two hours into her shift and she’d pulled in nearly a thousand dollars. Milly Jones had never seen that much money in her life, keeping wads of it in her two garters and the rest in the little pink purse. For the second time that night, she flattened out about two hundred dollars on the old bar, the bartender bringing her bottled water, while she caught her breath. When she got called back to the stage, she looked up high on the catwalk and saw Miss Fannie staring down and watching.

  The song kicked on and she got back to work. If she got a little more, maybe she could get gone for good.

  • • •

  She’s gone,” Wash Jones said. “Left here two nights ago and ain’t seen her since.”

  “Did y’all have a falling-out?” Lillie asked.

  “Of a sort.”

  “You mind if I ask you to expand upon that, Mr. Jones?”

  “Well,” Wash said. “That’s a bit of a personal nature. I don’t think we need to get into all that mess.”

  “You’re the one who called me and wanted to meet because you were so worried about your daughter,” Lillie said. “You told dispatch that you were concerned some physical harm might come to her soon if she can’t be found.”

  “Oh, well,” Wash said. “Damn.”

  Lillie stood outside the ranch house in Blackjack, where Wash had waited in pajama pants and no shirt next to his brand-new blue Chevy Silverado. He knew she was coming and hadn’t seen fit to put on proper
clothes. His belly was so big, he looked like he might explode any minute. Man couldn’t put on pants but wore a .44 Magnum belt around his waist.

  “I think she done lost her mind,” Wash said.

  “Come again?”

  “Milly,” he said. “She’s on the drugs. I seen pills in her things. And she’s been dancing at the Booby Trap, showing off her cooch, spinning on that pole.”

  “OK,” Lillie said. “But do you think she’s missing?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said. “I sure do. Hell, I can’t find her.”

  “And you think it’s because she’s been living a risky lifestyle?”

  “Damn straight,” he said. “Just last year, she started dating a black boy. I guess it’s true what they say.”

  “What’s that.”

  “Well,” he said. “You know. About dating them blacks and not wanting to go back.”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t,” Lillie said, even though she did. She just took a moment to look at the fat man in the pajama bottoms scratching his nuts in the gravel driveway. Worried, but not that worried. Wash Jones just seemed pissed-off and wanting to make some trouble. Lillie followed along, took some notes. She’d write up a report later. Maybe send out a patrol to Vienna’s.

  “Why do you think your daughter is missing?” Lillie said.

  “Listen, Miss Virgil,” Wash Jones said. “I knew Sheriff Beckett real good. I got a lot of years draining the shit tanks of our so-called respectable citizens. I think I’m afforded some goddamn respect when my wild hare daughter done took off.”

  “All I’m asking,” Lillie said, taking a deep breath and thinking on control, “is why do you think something’s gone wrong? I can’t imagine why a young lady would want to leave the care of such a fine man as yourself.”

  “You trying to get smart with me?”

  “How about you show me both your hands,” Lillie said. “That’s right. Quit scratching your goddamn nuts and look me in the eye and tell me why you’re worried. Give me something to go on.”