The Ranger - Ace Atkins [109]
The only good thing about riding the desk was that most your weekends were free. And he’d found Columbus, Georgia, to be a pleasant old town. They had a big wide boulevard along the Chattahoochee, with brick storefronts that reminded him of movies from the thirties and forties.
He often met other older Rangers at bars there, leaving the topless joints and roughneck spots on Victory Drive for the younger men. They’d drink beer and raise a little hell.
Sometime in early March, Quinn got a phone call at his apartment on base, and he drove through the gates at Fort Benning into the downtown. He dressed in civilian clothes, starched khakis and a pressed blue button-down. His hair had been barbered the day before, and he had even pulled out a pair of brown cowboy boots his mother had sent him for Christmas, the card coming from her and Jason.
Jason back with her now.
Quinn walked into Ruth Ann’s, a favorite diner of the men at Benning. Ruth Ann’s had been there for decades on Veterans Parkway, about the only place in town that could serve a breakfast as good as Jean Colson’s.
Lillie Virgil got up from the booth and hugged Quinn tight. She’d worn her curly hair down, with snug blue jeans and a loose white tunic with all kind of designs.
“No gun belt today?” Quinn asked, taking a seat across from her.
She shook her head. “That drive’s nothing. When are you coming home?”
“Summer,” he said. “I promised to see Jason on his birthday. I bought him a Ranger T-shirt from the PX and some toys. Would you bring them back for him?”
“Lots been going on since you left,” she said, smiling. The bright afternoon brought out Lillie’s natural glow, little makeup and plenty of freckles. She had little gold hairs on her arm and wore silver bands on her wrist.
“You ever get tired of wearing that uniform?” he asked.
“Do you?”
“I’m not wearing one.”
“Haircut gives you away.”
Quinn smiled. “Can you stay the night?”
Lillie looked at him. She smiled a bit and shook her head. “You know I’ve been running for sheriff?” she asked.
A waitress came over, and they ordered a couple of burgers and Cokes, extra fries and some onion rings. When the old woman walked away, Quinn said he’d been keeping up with all the Jericho news from his mother. “She likes to talk.”
“You know there’s never been a woman sheriff in Mississippi?”
“No kidding?”
“Don’t shit me, Quinn,” she said. “You can imagine the rumors going around the Square.”
“That won’t matter.”
“How do you figure?” Lillie said.
“Because that county would be lucky to have someone with your experience,” Quinn said, looking up only a moment to thank the old woman for the Cokes over ice. “You helped bust up forty years of corruption about to be carried on by Wesley.”
“I’m going to lose,” she said. “It’s already done.”
“Against who? Leonard?”
“Johnny Stagg.”
Quinn took a sip of Coke and leaned back into the diner’s booth, stretching out his arm on the backrest. On the wall next to him hung a picture of a boxer from sometime in the Depression named Lamar Murphy, the Red Irish Kid. He had intense eyes and a good stance. Quinn figured on him being a good scrapper.
“He let go of the farm and land,” Quinn said. “I kept the parcel. He can’t have it.”
“You okay with him being sheriff?”
“What kind of experience does he have?”
“It’s an elected position,” she said. “Most sheriffs in Mississippi never started out in law enforcement.”
“You’ve got a college degree,” Quinn said. “You were a cop in Memphis and how many years down in Tibbehah? You know everyone.”
“Stagg has money.”
“God, I’m sorry, Lillie. I really am. You want to get piss-drunk tonight?”
“Maybe,” she said, meeting his eyes. “If you’ll consider why I drove five hours to see you.”
“I should have called you,” he said. “God knows, I wanted to.”
“Be quiet for a second,” she said, grabbing his hands across the table. “You should run. You can beat Stagg so damn easily.”
“I got ten years till retirement.”
“You think Tibbehah County can stand ten more years of Johnny Stagg in charge?