The Ranger - Ace Atkins [58]
Men were in the room now. She could smell them. She could smell and feel better than she ever had before, and she wished at this moment that she wasn’t feeling a goddamn thing. They craned their necks and looked at her bare legs, the women trying to push those grinning bastards out.
“She don’t look right,” Gowrie said.
A hand reached for her, and she turned and grabbed it and bit down with all she had, tasting fur and blood and bone. The man yelled and backed away. And she rolled over to her back, scooting far against the wall, feeling the cold tin against her back and telling the man to get the hell away from her. “Don’t you cut me. I ain’t no fish. Goddamn you, don’t you.”
He held his arm where she’d bit him and dropped to a knee by her bed, reaching for the hair that had gone wild over her eyes. His glasses caught light all funny in the weak glow of the lamp. He held his hand over her forehead and told her to just hold on, the pain letting go, like the busting wasn’t gonna happen at all. Everything gone still as a lump in her.
I can’t feel nothing. I can’t feel nothing.
His hand held hers. He was nice-looking, with green eyes and brown hair, reminding her of that fine doctor on Days of Our Lives.
“Call 911.”
“Shit, no,” Gowrie said. “Brought you here, didn’t we?”
“She can’t have this baby here in this filthy room.”
“She called a doctor. I don’t need the law.”
That’s when the pain came on so strong that her spine bucked from the bed, and she dug her nails into his arms and said, “Goddamn you, Jody. Goddamn. You killed me.”
The doctor just said, “Hold on.”
20
Wesley Ruth met Quinn at the Tibbehah County line, his sheriff’s truck pointing north on a muddy shoulder and chugging exhaust in the cold night. Quinn pulled opposite him, headed toward Jericho, and Wesley let down his window, Styrofoam spit cup in hand, and said, “You sure like waking me up at night. Is this going to become something regular?”
“Anna Lee’s worried.”
“You think maybe she just wanted a reason to call?” Wesley said. “I’d really prefer not getting in the dead center of this shit.”
“You mind riding out there and checking up on him?”
“Say, where’d you get that ole junker?” Wesley asked. “Where’s your truck?”
“I borrowed it.”
“We got an old car just like that in impound last week.”
“No kidding.”
Wesley eyed him for a long moment and spit some snuff out in the coffee cup. He nodded and said, “Fine, I’ll ride out there. But I think Anna Lee is twisting your pecker.”
“You talk to Lillie tonight about the fire?”
“Yes, sir.”
“That’s a hell of a revelation.”
Wesley nodded at him and played with the bill of his baseball cap, spitting again. “Quinn, you know anything about Keith Shackelford?”
“I know he was Fourth Infantry.”
“You know he’s a meth head and a professional fuckup?”
“Said he was clean.”
“He’s a freak show,” Wesley said. “His life has been spiraling down the shitter since he got out of the Army. I thought he was dead, and I really don’t appreciate you all dumping his ass back on my doorstep.”
“Doesn’t it bother you that the arson investigation of that fire was fixed?”
“Keith Shackelford makes his living as a federal snitch,” Wesley said. “He works both sides. He got in with some blacks up in Memphis and sold them out to the DEA, and then he come down here and tried to do the same thing to Gowrie’s bunch.”
“Whose side are you on?”
“You pay him?”
Quinn didn’t say anything.
“He’ll tell you what you want to hear, conspiracies and lies about your uncle,” Wesley said, rubbing his temples from fatigue. “But sometimes people are such fuckups they leave grease on the cookstove, and sometimes old men get so damn depressed they stick a gun in their mouth.”
“Keith Shackelford was cooking meth for Gowrie.”
“I don’t doubt it,” Wesley said. “But I wouldn’t believe any stories that turd tells me without checking them out.”
“Will you check it out?”
“Goddamn, Colson. I said I would.”
“You mind if I ride with you to check on Luke?”
“Let me stick my boot in that anthill, partner.”
“I can play nice.”
“I love