Ace Atkins - Wicked City

I moved over to the main desk, and deputies Jack Black and little Quinnie Kelley – in his Coke-bottle glasses and awkward new suit – checked out a couple of 12-gauges and then loaded their pistols. I refilled the cup of coffee I’d started at five a.m., right after my jog and some heavy-bag work. The police radio clicked and chattered at the front of the office.

“Drinking a pot of coffee ain’t gonna make this much easier,” Jack Black said.

“Thanks, Jack,” I said. “I was kind of hoping it would.”

Quinnie looked down at the ground and hoisted the pistol up on his right hip. I smiled, biting my lip. He still reminded me of a kid at Christmastime trying out a new toy.

Books on detective work and Alabama state law cluttered my desk, with empty coffee mugs, two full ashtrays, and a stack of green 45 records marked MR. X that I’d been logging into evidence. A Chamber of Commerce calendar for September 1954 hung on the wall, along with a certificate for me being the regional owner of the year for the Texaco Oil Corporation. Beside the certificate hung an autographed photo of Joe Louis.

I was much more proud of the Joe Louis picture.

“Well, hell,” I said, “let’s go.”

I unhinged a long wooden bar and felt for a Winchester 12, feeling more ceremonial than useful, and closed the latch and slipped the padlock back on with a click.

I’d worn a new gray suit that morning – tailored at Chancellor’s Men’s Shop on Broadway – a pressed white shirt and striped tie. I’d even shined my Florsheim wingtips, and they clacked on the concrete floors with a steady confidence that I didn’t feel as we made our way out back to an unmarked Chevy sedan and all climbed inside.

Quinnie and Jack were dressed in a similar way. We’d burned the old sheriff’s office uniforms, dropping them right on top of the slots and card tables.

I closed the doors and waited till everyone climbed inside. I looked down at the wide, shiny console and the dangling car keys. Jack Black reached for them and said: “Why don’t I drive, Sheriff?”

WE FOUND REUBEN AT HIS FARMHOUSE, ASLEEP IN THE driver’s seat of his old Buick with the radio and headlights on. He didn’t notice us until I tapped on the side window and he smiled, his eyes still closed, and smacked his lips, turning his head. I tapped again, and he opened his eyes and looked back and just stared at me, before yawning and mouthing, “’Mornin’.”

I tapped on the glass, and he made a big show of stretching and dialing down the radio and rolling down the window. “Was I speedin’, Officer?”

“You missed your court date.”

“I was held up by unforeseeable circumstances.”

“You were drunk.”

He shook his head. “Last night? That ain’t drunk.”

“You have charges against you for running a gambling establishment with no liquor license.”

Quinnie and Jack waited by the patrol car, Jack smoking a cigar and Quinnie standing with feet wide apart, his eyes narrowed, watching me and the car.

“How ’bout you come with us?”

He turned around in his seat and saw my deputies and started to laugh. He laughed so hard he started a short, hacking cough. “You made Quinnie Kelley a deputy? Lamar, you ought to be ashamed of yourself.”

“He’s a good man.”

“For a munchkin. Only place he should be a deputy is in Oz.”

“Open the door.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake.”

Reuben let out a breath, jimmied the handle, and used the big weight of the Buick’s door to try to stand. His hair had gone dry without oil, and he wavered on his skinny legs. On the dashboard, I saw a pair of purple women’s panties.

He saw me notice the panties and smiled.

“The car sure is spacious. Just like a living room.”

Jack met me between the cars, and he didn’t say much but turned Reuben and fit a pair of cuffs on him. I heard the thwap of the front screen door and saw Billy standing there watching us, and I saw Reuben look up at his boy and then back to me.

He just shook his head.

“You sure have changed, Red Irish.”

I’d fought under the name the Red Irish Kid. He hadn’t called me that in years.

“I miss you down at the filling station,” Reuben said. “Can you talk to your father-in-law about keeping the cooler a little colder? I bought a Coca-Cola the other day and it was as warm as piss.”

“Sure thing. I’ll see what I can do.”

“You know, bein’ appointed sheriff ain’t like being elected.”

“I don’t have your vote?” I asked.

“You really think the people want that?” Reuben said. “How are they supposed to work? Feed their kids? We just going to be a bunch of slaves on those mills over there. You know what that’s like. Don’t y’all see that?”

“I never knew you were such a moralist.”

“You didn’t need to come here and do this in front of my boy.”

“It’s my job,” I said.

He looked at me and then back at Billy on the porch before Jack led him to the back of the car. “Well, open up the door, Quinnie,” Reuben said. “You goddamn little munchkin.”

THE PHONE ALWAYS RANG ABOUT DINNERTIME, AND THE calls came as expected as Joyce’s pot roast with potatoes and carrots on a Wednesday night. I was halfway into my plate, a half-eaten white roll in my hand, complimenting the dinner, when the ringing started. I took a breath and pushed back my plate, even though Joyce had asked me to just unplug the damn thing from the wall. But I said I’d be right back and reached for the phone, the one with the listed number, not the personal one that we had installed in our bedroom, and answered with a pleasant hello.

Quit now and we won’t kill you. Remember what happened to Hugh Britton? That’s child’s play.

“Well, hello,” I said. “What’s up, doc?”

You idiot. I said I’m gonna have your blood.

“I heard you. Everything going well with you?”

You goddamn moron. You turn in that fake badge of yours and step back.

“I sure appreciate your concern, mister. Do you know where I live?”

You’re goddamn right.

I repeated the address.

“Come on by anytime, I’m not big on phone visits. We can talk, chat a bit, catch up on life. I’d love to meet in person.”

You’re one dead, crazy sonofabitch. You just a fillin’ station grease monkey.

“Bye-bye, now. Have a good evening.”

I walked back to the dinette table and started back into the roast.

Joyce flashed her eyes up at me and I smiled back at her and winked. She looked down.

Anne clattered on about her day at school and wondered when I’d be taking her out to the barn again to feed the horses.

“Maybe tomorrow,” I said.

“Can we go to a movie on Saturday?”

“Sure.”

Thomas sat next to me, working his fork awkwardly with his little fist and taking bites in the same motions and timing as I would. When Anne noticed what he was doing, she started to giggle, and Thomas grew embarrassed, looking down at his food, before looking back up and sticking out his tongue.

The phone rang again, this time in the bedroom, and Joyce stood and told me to sit down and finish my dinner. When she left the room, I poured out a cup of coffee from the silver pot.

By the time I sat back down, she was back. “It was Quinnie. He’s headed on over.”

I looked up.

“Some kind of trouble out at a place called King’s Row. You know it?”

I shook my head. “Good thing about this work is you see places you never knew existed.”

Joyce raised her eyebrows and went back to the kitchen to start the suds in the big sink.

QUINNIE DROVE THE NEW CHEVY WITH THE WINDOWS down, and we could smell burning leaves and trash fires coming off the hills, the first fallen leaves scattered like jigsaw pieces in the blowing wakes of cars passing them on the road to Seale. He drove close to the wheel and, despite the huge glasses he wore, squinted into the night. The headlights cut like blades into the black, wide-open country.