The Forsaken (31 page)

“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.

W
hy 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.”