The Ranger - Ace Atkins [10]
“I got lots to tend to. I just learned that my uncle borrowed some money from Johnny Stagg.”
“That doesn’t sound good.”
“And put up the farm against it.”
“Forget that shit. Let’s go out to the bottomland and shoot armadillos.”
“I heard he was broke. Does that sound right?”
“When the man wasn’t here, he was hitting every casino in Tunica,” Wesley said. “Let’s leave it at that.”
Quinn nodded. “I’ll call you.”
“You see Anna Lee?” Wesley said, smiling like he had the punch line to some dirty joke.
“High school is long gone.”
“You want to see Boom?”
“Headed there next.”
Wesley shook his head and thumbed behind him. “One-stop shopping, brother. Boom got himself picked up two days back. Giving him some time to cool down a bit.”
“What’d he do?”
“What does Boom always do?”
“Tear shit up.”
4
Boom Kimbrough sat in a kid’s plastic school chair, almost crushing it with his massive size, as he looked at nothing in particular in the jailhouse yard. The small bit of property had been corralled off in chain link and concertina wire, and there really wasn’t much to look at besides bare trees and rolling brown hills down to the sluggish water of the Big Black River. He didn’t even seem to hear Quinn approach after Wesley unlocked the gate and let him inside, but when Quinn was two feet away from his shoulder, Boom just said: “What up, Quinn.”
Quinn looked down at his friend’s massive shoulders and the back of his head. His hair had grown nappy and uneven around a puckered scar at the base of his skull. Despite it being about thirty degrees, he wore only a dirty white undershirt and the bright orange pants of a prisoner. Last time Quinn had seen him, he’d been coaching linebackers for their old high school and was proud to be bringing in an extra paycheck with the National Guard. Boom had been sent to Iraq a few years back to guard convoys, and then there was something about an IED and some time at Walter Reed.
When Quinn circled him, he noticed only a left arm and another pink puckered scar across Boom’s black cheek. His eyes were sunken and tired, and his Army boots were unlaced.
“I’d shake your hand, but you got to do it with your left.”
“What’d you do?” Quinn asked.
“Knocked down parking meters with a sledgehammer.”
“With one arm?”
“How else am I gonna do it?’
That one arm was even more massive than Quinn remembered, the thick forearm and bicep twisted with big veins. Quinn figured that arm must’ve grown, taking on double duty.
“You want to get out?”
“Shit, I can’t make bail.”
“I paid it.”
“You know, this used to work the other way around,” Boom said. He looked up from the river and met Quinn’s eyes, searching for something and kind of suspicious, as Boom was known to be.
Quinn offered his left hand.
“Can you believe Wesley is sheriff?” Boom asked.
“Acting sheriff.”
“Who’s gonna run against him?” Boom asked. “Lillie?”
“Said he didn’t want it. Someone will step up.”
“God helps fools and children.”
Quinn drove north and hit 9W, following the river and then breaking away west into pastureland and the big fuming expanse of the pulp mill and past Varner’s Quick Mart, where he bought Boom a couple sausage biscuits and a Coke and asked about the break-in, and then kept on driving till they hit the county road heading to the old farm. The trees looked black and skeletal and cold far across the wide spaces of fallow land.
“How was Afghanistan?”
“The Garden of Eden,” Quinn said. “The base had a pet monkey.”
“You know, every goddamn day I wake up and think I’m still over there.”
“I have dreams in night vision green. Isn’t that sick?”
“Pretty damn sick,” Boom said. “When you headed back?”
“Maybe never,” Quinn said. “I either jump into the regular Army or become a Ranger instructor.”
“While your boys storm the castle.”
“Yep.”
“You gettin’ old, Quinn.”
“Old man at twenty-nine.”
“Does your dick still work?”
“Last time I checked.”
“Well, you got that goin’ for