He’s going to break,” Mickey Walls said to Peewee Sparks. Both of them having a serious man-to-man conversation in the back of Peewee’s ROLL TIDE conversion van, parked at a McDonald’s on U.S. Highway 82, right outside Columbus, Mississippi. “Doesn’t even want to lawyer up first.”
“They don’t know nothing.”
“Kyle thinks the sheriff knows that me and him been planning something,” Mickey said. “They know he took that contraption from the firehouse yesterday to break into the safe. He’s been sitting in the sheriff’s office for the last two hours.”
“So what if you and him been talking,” Peewee said. “How the hell they gonna know what was said unless the dumb son of a bitch told them?”
“I don’t know what he said.”
“Even if they know y’all talked, what’s it matter?” Peewee said. “Aren’t y’all buddies and shit? I mean, god damn. That ain’t nothing. What I want to know is, where is the fucking money?”
“Put up and buried deep.”
“Good,” Peewee said. “Good.”
“What I need to know is, where are those books?” Mickey said. “If I don’t have enough troubles with Kyle and my goddamn crazy-ass ex-wife, I got some bad dudes wanting to skin my ass alive. I don’t have time for that shit.”
“No kidding,” Peewee said, talking to Mickey from the captain’s chair, swiveling to and fro as they spoke. The man up in the high seat, in charge, and kind of bemused by the situation Mickey found himself in. Thank the Lord he didn’t involve his dumb-ass nephew into this. But he sure as hell brought him along. He told the kid to go on in the McDonald’s and get himself a double cheeseburger and fries and that they’d be done in a minute. “What’s wrong with your ex?”
“I kind of left her down at the beach without any money and without a vehicle,” Mickey said. “She was drunk and thought we were about to get into some romantic sex and all. And then I left after y’all couldn’t get the safe out of the house. She finally answered my call after I’d called her about fifteen thousand times. She told me I might as well go fuck myself because that was the only action I’d be getting for a long while.”
“She good-looking?” Peewee said, grinning. Licking his lips. He wore an old navy hoodie sweatshirt, a T-shirt with Bear Bryant’s face popping out from the center, the hatted head prominent on Peewee’s big expanding belly.
“Where are the fucking books, man?” Mickey said. “I don’t need any shit. I was straight with y’all and want y’all to be straight with me.”
“Is she good-looking?”
“What the fuck does that have to do with anything?”
“Just trying to get a visual,” Peewee said. “Get her in my mind while you tell the story. What’s wrong with that?”
Mickey swallowed, trying to slow down the blood pounding in his head right now. He was getting a fucking migraine right behind his left eye. He ground the heel of his hand into the socket and said, “She’s blonde.”
“Big tits?”
“Yep.”
“Double D’s?”
“C cup,” Mickey said. “How many women you know with double D’s?”
“What else?”
“She’s tan.”
“Tan all over?”
“Yes,” Mickey said. “Even her ass crack is tan. Brown as a nut. Now, where the hell are those fucking books so we can separate? I ain’t gonna lie to you. Things are not looking good. I want both of y’all to lay low and get off the grid. Comprende? Me and you ain’t never talked.”
“Me and the boy’s headed down to New Orleans for the Sugar Bowl,” Peewee said, zipping up the hoodie, covering a good bit of the Bear’s face but leaving the famous hat exposed. “So don’t you worry a bit about us. We long gone, bud.”
The interior of the van was the same houndstooth pattern as the Bear’s hat, the exterior painted a Crimson Tide red, with the faces of Alabama football greats airbrushed on the side. These boys were card-carrying morons. But they were Mickey’s morons and he hoped to hell they had more sand than Kyle Hazlewood. Kyle had turned into a true, authentic disappointment.
“All right,” Peewee said. “We’re here. Let’s talk about what this shit is worth to you.”
“What’s it worth?” Mickey said, raising his voice a good bit. “Your boy stole it from us.”
“How’s that?” Peewee said. “Who took what? What belongs to which one of us? Ain’t none of this real clear in my head, Mr. Walls.”
“How much?”
“Well,” Peewee said. “I guess it boils down to that fact. You know, I was doing some thinking.”
“Of course you were,” Mickey said.
Just then, the sliding door to the van ripped open, giving Mickey’s heart a start. But it was only Chase Clanton hopping up into the van with a big bottle wrapped in brown paper. “To hell with a cheeseburger,” he said. “There’s a liquor store next door. Didn’t check my ID or nothin’. Come on, boys. Time to celebrate. I got us some Rebel Yell.”
• • •
Y’all hungry?” Luther Varner said, working behind the register at his convenience store. “I made extra sausage biscuits for today. Peaches fried some chicken. I can get her to make some up fresh, too. Where you been? Hunting?”
“Just riding,” Quinn said. “Killing time before supper tonight.”
Quinn and Boom had just walked in from the cold, in their heavy jackets and boots, after waiting until dark for Mickey Walls to show at his house and then driving over to the carpet-and-flooring shop when he didn’t. After he’d gotten the call from Varner, they’d left the shop and headed up north on 9. The glass case at the Quick Mart was filled with tamales, chicken, greens, green beans, hush puppies, and fries. Tonight, his mom was making those collards, black-eyed peas, and cornbread. He couldn’t disappoint her.
Tall and lean, old, gray crew-cutted Luther Varner leaned over the counter, packs and packs of cigarettes, custom knives, and ammunition stacked behind him. The tattooed skull jarhead popped from his veiny forearm, a long cigarette between his fingers. “Y’all been looking for Kyle Hazlewood and Mickey Walls?”
Quinn nodded. Boom sidled up to him, his hand filled with some beef jerky and carrying a Mountain Dew in the crook of his arm. He set it down for Varner to ring up. Varner, still leaning over the counter, nodded his head to the back door, toward the kitchen where Miss Peaches cooked. If you lived in the north part of the county, Varner’s was the last stop for supplies. A modern general store with an ICEE machine and two fancy coffeemakers that could make up the worst shit in north Mississippi.
“Can I ask what y’all are doing?” Varner said.
“Thinking of refinishing the heart pine at the house,” Quinn said, smiling.
“Bullshit,” Varner said. “Those two shitbirds are mixed up with this Cobb business.”
“Haven’t you heard,” Quinn said. “I’m no longer sheriff.”
“Yeah, I heard something like that,” Varner said. “But I’ll bet a hunnard dollars you still got a gun on your hip.”
Quinn smiled.
“That shit don’t go away,” he said. “Never does.”
“I’m asking around for a friend.”
“Sure,” Varner said, plugging the long cigarette in his mouth. “That’s good. Because Peaches won’t talk to no one else. Sure as shit not to some fat turd insurance adjuster.”
The old black woman was still frying chicken in back of the store. She lifted up some brown chicken parts from the fryer and dumped them into an aluminum tray lined with paper towels. A big stainless steel bowl of coleslaw sat on a nearby table, a wooden spoon stuck in the center where she’d been stirring. Peaches was a big woman, with thick arms and chest, a plump face and gold glasses. As usual when she worked in the Quick Stop kitchen, she wore a red apron and a plastic cap over her hair.
After she put down the chicken, she walked over to Quinn and gave him a hug. “How your momma and them?”
“Good,” Quinn said. “Everyone’s fine. How about Bobby?”
“Just got him a job at FedEx,” she said. “Gonna be driving a truck over in Batesville. But he’ll get home twice a week. Got Mondays off. You want something to eat?”
“My mom’s making supper.”
“You saying your momma a better cook than me?” she said. “Don’t you mess with me, Quinn Colson. I remember when you, Boom, and Bobby was in kindergarten. Playing grab ass out by the lake. Shootin’ BB guns and raising hell.”
“You really want me to be full at Miss Jean’s house?”
Peaches smiled and picked up the tin of chicken, shaking it around on the paper towels to drain off the grease. “Luther tells me you been looking for Kyle Hazlewood?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“What’s that boy into?”
“Not sure yet.”
“Is this gonna get me into any trouble?” she said. “’Cause I don’t need no headaches right now. If it comes down to it, I’ll swear on it. But I watch my grandbabies after school. And if someone was to—”
“Miss Peaches, I’m not sheriff anymore,” he said. “Just trying to make sense of something.”
She nodded and grabbed a paper plate. She added a fried breast and some coleslaw, a handful of hot French fries. Boom had followed him into the back and Peaches didn’t say a word to him as she made the same plate, only with more piled high, and handed it to him. “Y’all growing boys,” she said. “Don’t you dare tell Jean.”
Boom took the plate to a little table by the fryers and started to eat.
“You talking about last night?” she said.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I seen Kyle outside the fire station in the middle of the night,” she said. “He was loading up something into his truck. I didn’t stop, but I waved at him. He just stared at me as I passed. Like he was mad as hell about something.”
“You sure it was him?” Quinn said.
Peaches just stared long and hard at him. “I don’t know what that boy was doing, but I knew it didn’t look right.”
“About what time was this, ma’am?”
• • •
Chase Clanton tilted back the bottle of Rebel Yell and took him a good, long swallow. Wiping his mouth with his shirtsleeve, he passed it back to Mickey Walls. The man drank most of the whiskey, relaxing in the back of the party van like they was old buds. Uncle Peewee swiveled to and fro in his captain’s chair, trying to make plans, hatch ideas, on how this new deal was going to work out. “I ain’t trying to rob you, Mr. Walls,” Peewee said. “I’m just trying to fill my belly, make things right.”
“Shit,” Mickey said. “Just like every other son of a bitch in the world. ‘Make things right.’ You know what? I don’t even give a good goddamn for the money. You know why I wanted to hit Cobb’s house?”
“’Cause he got a million dollars?” Chase said. “And watches, guns, and shit?”
“Shhh,” Peewee said. “Let him talk.”
“The man rebuked my goddamn honor,” Mickey said. “Here. Pass me back that bottle, kid. Shit. That’s some rough stuff.”
“You don’t like it,” Chase said, “then don’t drink it.”
Chase had been the one to buy the bottle and offer to share it. The man acting like it was his. Chase still didn’t understand why he and Uncle Peewee had to drive all the way down to Columbus for them to meet. If the man wanted them books that goddamn bad, maybe he should’ve driven his ass over to Gordo. He wasn’t real wild about Peewee taking the wheel after downing a half bottle.
“I’ll give you another ten thousand,” Mickey said. “How’s that sound?”
“Fifty sounds better,” Peewee said, not skipping a beat.
Mickey tilted back the whiskey and passed it on to Uncle Peewee. Peewee chugging that bottle, Adam’s apple bobbing up and down, like he was drinking a pitcher of sweet tea. Whew.
“OK,” Mickey said. “What the hell. Like I said, it ain’t about the money. I’m just trying to fix that son of a bitch for what he’s done.”
“What’d he do?” Peewee said, Chase not giving a good goddamn. He found a good spot to lay down in the van between the center seats and stared up at the roof. Uncle Peewee had pasted a bunch of Playboy centerfolds up there and then covered ’em up with an inch of shellac. The shellac had started to yellow and age, but you still could get a nice look at all those women with big hair and titties. One hell of a view.
“Y’all ever heard of reclaimed wood?”
No one said anything.
“Well, I got the idea a few years ago to start tearing down ole barns in the county that no one used anymore and selling the planks to rich folks up in Memphis,” Mickey said. “Me and my buddy Lee would strip the wood and then Larry would run it through at the mill. We got to be partners in the deal and were doing pretty good until me and Tonya started getting into it.”
“Who the hell’s Tonya?” Chase asked.
“My ex-wife.”
“The one he was screwing last night,” Peewee said. “He said she got big ole brown titties. I’d love to cover her ass in some butter spray. Haw, haw.”
Chase kept on looking up at all those California women he’d never meet, getting a little tickled about things being said, and started to laugh. “Big ole brown titties,” he said. “What, is she Mexican?”
“Hell, no, she ain’t Mexican,” Mickey said. “I’m just saying me and Cobb had ourselves a partnership until he didn’t like me no more.”
“Why’d he sue you?” Peewee said.
“He accused me of cheating him and then got some goddamn CPA to root around in my asshole until he could make it so,” Mickey said. “He was a liar. The damn accountant was a liar. It was a fucking witch hunt. Cobb didn’t have no right to half the profits. He was only milling the timber. I was reclaiming the goddamn wood. I was transporting up to Memphis. I ran all the sales out of Walls Flooring. Half the installs I did myself.”
Peewee handed Mickey the bottle, knowing the man sure could use some whiskey. Uncle Peewee was wise like that. A damn born leader, not unlike Gene Stallings. Mickey took a big old swallow and then passed it on to Chase. Chase raised it up and drank, Rebel Yell screaming down his throat and into his belly. “Whew,” he said.
“You really think your boy is gonna crack?” Peewee said.
Mickey didn’t say anything, staring straight ahead into the dark parking lot of the Mickey D’s. Chase handed the old man the bottle to take another hit. Old Mickey Walls sure did look like shit warmed over, bad things that had happened, or might still happen, turning over in his mind.
“We can’t have the law after our ass,” Peewee said. “You can have them damn books. But I think we need to reconfigure our fucking situation.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, right now ain’t nobody ever heard of Peewee Sparks in Jericho, Mississippi, and I plan to keep it that way.”
“I ain’t saying shit,” Mickey said.
“I trust you and know you are a man of honor.” Peewee swiveled around a bit in the captain’s chair, scratching his chin. “But I would prefer to keep our secret among the folks in this here van.”
“Shit.” Mickey snorted, glass-eyed. “And just how the hell do you aim on doing that?”