The Ranger - Ace Atkins [54]
But that nervous little pig-faced boy knew how to run interference, and it had been maybe eight times that one of those jail-hard creeps—not Gowrie himself but that skinny guy Jessup who sucked Gowrie’s asshole for free or that big fat pig everyone called Tim, or Hogzilla—smiled at her like she was walking around naked. She guessed they figured since Charley had been with her, they sure had a chance.
“Don’t you need some vitamins or s-something?” Ditto asked, kind of stuttering, trying to figure how to pull out some kind of conversation. “I can run down to the Dollar Store for you. I saw they was selling a dang pint bottle of chewables for five dollars.”
“I’m fine.”
“My sister got herself pregnant, and she was always taking vitamins her doctor give her,” Ditto said, smiling and then looking a bit confused. “You got a doctor?”
She shook her head.
“How long you got?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe a couple weeks. That baby’s been in me since March. I feel like I’m about to bust.”
“I’ll take you to a doctor.”
“I don’t need no doctor.”
“It ain’t gonna just pop out like no calf,” Ditto said. “A calf lands on its feet.”
“I know how a calf lands.”
“I knew you were a farm girl.”
“Some guy gave me this,” Lena said, reaching into her old coat pocket for a business card. “If something happens to me, would you call him? In case I go batshit crazy, with all that pain I hear about.”
He nodded.
“Ditto?”
“Yep.”
“What in the world are y’all doing here?” Lena asked, taking a seat on the stoop of the old trailer. The shame of it was that the shithole felt as much like home as anywhere she’d ever been. She’d never lived in the same place longer than six months.
“Training,” Ditto said.
“For what?”
“Gowrie says a war’s coming,” Ditto said. “I don’t know about that, but he pays us regular to run errands for him, drill and all that. He’s got a zip line put on top of that hill over yonder where we slide down and shoot guns.”
“What’s that prove?”
“It’s all about getting ready.”
“For the war.”
“I guess,” Ditto said. “Oh, hell. I don’t know. I didn’t drink all the Kool-Aid.”
“I’m glad,” Lena said, leaning into him, thinking that she liked the smell of his cigarette around her. He didn’t move, like he might spook her away, stock-still, and not able to speak.
“I’ve been wishing that Charley Booth would leave you alone,” Ditto said. “He isn’t right in the head. You understand that about him, don’t you?”
“What’d you mean?” Lena asked, feeling something funny and sharp and getting to her feet, reaching for the railing. A sharp pain, and the splat of something big and wet across the wooden planks.
“You just piss yourself?” Ditto asked.
“This baby’s comin’.”
The highway into south Memphis was pretty much industrial, with gas stations and trucking companies, cheap roadside motels, and some Mexican markets and Tejano bars. Quinn knew the city pretty well, Memphis being the city of choice for North Mississippi kids who wanted to cut loose but needed something bigger than Tupelo. There were signs to Graceland and signs to the airport, the sky overhead dotted with blinking lights. Not far from Winchester Road, the El Camino slowed and got into the turn lane. Quinn tried not to make a show of slowing himself but thought that if he’d been spotted it was too late anyway, so he just fell in line with the turning car.
“He’s headed to the airport.”
“I doubt Daddy Gowrie has ever been on an airplane,”