The Ranger - Ace Atkins [18]
Quinn knocked again, and the man made his way to the door and cracked it, trying to keep some privacy, although the door was glass and there wasn’t much to hide.
“Heard you were lookin’ for me?” Quinn asked.
The man was slack-jawed, with a pitiful goatee on his weak chin, more salt than pepper, and he had smallish eyes that looked like pinholes. “Get in here, boy. Damn, someone’s gonna see you.”
“What’s up, Uncle Van?” Quinn asked.
“Don’t you know I got shit to do?”
“You could’ve stopped by my mother’s house.”
“Shit.”
“Or called.”
“Lillie stopped by and was asking me questions, and I told her some of what I know’d and left out a few things I didn’t. I told her I had some things to share but would rather share them with my own people. You understand?”
Uncle Van was the youngest of the Colson brothers; Quinn’s dad, Jason, was the oldest, and the middle brother was Jerry, a good man who made a decent living working as a long-haul truck driver. But it was Jason Colson that everyone knew. He’d made a name for himself in Hollywood as a stuntman and drank all his money away back in Jericho. He’d been gone since Quinn turned twelve, no one hearing where he’d disappeared to or what he was doing. Not so much as a birthday card.
Van was the last one left in Tibbehah County, wandering his way through professions as diverse as coyote trapper to tree surgeon to housepainter. He kept scratching and readjusting himself on the couch, reaching for the remote and killing the television, the channel tuned to an infomercial about a religious enema called the Almighty Cleanse.
“That man on TV says everyone has backed-up shit,” Van said. “That’s the trouble. He says everything from headaches to cancer to personal relationships can be fixed. You believe that?”
Quinn shook his head.
Uncle Van shrugged and massaged his chest, reaching for his pack of Vantage cigarettes and some matches. “If I had the eighty dollars, I’d at least try it. Wouldn’t that be something if you could just shit out your problems? Damn, I’d be on the toilet for a week.”
“Van,” Lillie said, not sitting or taking off her leather jacket. She just stood there with her arms across her chest, looking down at his uncle. “Tell Quinn what you were telling me, about seeing Hamp last week.”
“I saw him Friday.”
“Day before he died,” Quinn said.
“I’d seen him a few times before that.”
“You said Quinn might want to know,” Lillie said.
“I don’t want to be involved with this shit.”
“You’re already involved with this shit,” Lillie said, moving in a bit, blocking the television as Van was trying to turn it back on to learn more about the Almighty Cleanse system. “Tell Quinn.”
“I seen your other uncle a couple times out at the Rebel Truck Stop,” Van said, putting down the remote, leaning into the thick cushions of the beaten couch. “Okay?”
“So what?” Quinn asked.
“Do you mind?” Van said, turning to Lillie, who still stood over him. Lillie looked to Quinn and shrugged and made her way out of the trailer, the door slamming shut behind her.
“I’m not pleased to admit this, but I do on occasion like to head down there for some companionship. When I have the money.”
Quinn waited.
“I talk to the girls, watch ’em dance a little. There was one I used to bring flowers from the Piggly Wiggly. But she wasn’t worth it. When the money ran out, so did the companionship. You can get the full treatment out with one of them lot lizards. You know what I mean?”
Quinn kept waiting, not saying a word, seated across from Van in a rickety metal chair, the room smelling of stale cigarettes and Lysol. An open Styrofoam box sat on a barstool, a half-eaten portion of barbecue and baked beans.
“Both times I seen him, he was with the same girl,” Van said, finishing the cigarette and burning into a new one, perched there like a redneck Buddha. “She and Hamp were doing some serious talking in his personal vehicle. Just made me think of all the times he looked at me like