Fortunes fool chance mcc.., p.11
Fortune's Fool : Chance McCabe Book One, page 11
Willard’s demeanor changed once the door closed. The joviality was gone. He was all business now. “Word of advice?”
“Sure,” said Taylor.
“If you want to last here, don’t go around kicking hornets’ nests.”
“Meaning what exactly?”
“The Wiggins boys work for Johnny Bill. You know who that is?”
“I’ve seen him.”
Willard shook his head and laughed without mirth. “If you know who he is, then it’s a short leap to figuring out what he is.”
“And what is he?”
Willard laughed. “This is not a hard job, son. You write a few parking tickets, you man the speed traps, and you pick up drunks on the weekend. There’s just two rules... you don’t cross Doyle, and you damned sure don’t cross Johnny Bill.”
“And who am I crossing by asking about the Wiggins?”
Willard took another slow sip of coffee, but didn’t answer the question. “I think that’s enough said on that.”
“The Wiggins have any family besides the sister?” Taylor asked.
Willard hung his head. “Are you a dog with a bone?”
“Nothing more about the boys. I just want to know about the family.”
Willard sighed and sat heavily at his desk. “Parents are dead. Mother died of cancer. Daddy got himself killed hunting while drunk. One of the boys actually shot him. I think they got some cousins in another county, but no other family around here.”
“Their sister?”
“Why are you interested in her?”
“Just curious.”
“Don’t be. You heard where that got the cat...”
“She work for Johnny Bill, too?”
“Best that name stay off your lips.”
Taylor noted that. “I understand she’s been picked up a couple of times for solicitation.”
“Not in this county, she ain’t. Who have you been talking to?”
Taylor shook his head. “Just picked up a thing or two here and there.”
Willard narrowed his eyes, took another sip of coffee. “The girl was a troublemaker when she was younger. But she seems to have settled down.”
“How so?”
“Staying busy, I suppose. Waiting tables at the Possum ten or twelve hours a day.”
“How exactly was she a troublemaker?”
Willard took a moment to decide if he wanted to answer the question. “She’s a whore, for one thing. Had a miscegenation problem.”
“She dated black men?”
“Don’t take offense, son. Don’t ask the damned question if you’re not going to like the answer.”
“Her brothers didn’t appreciate that, I’m guessing?”
“Didn’t I make myself clear about the brothers?”
“She’s never been picked up for anything here?”
“Didn’t say that. I just said she hadn’t been picked up for whoring.”
“What was she arrested for?”
“Drunk and disorderly, if I’m remembering right. Been a few years, though.”
“Where would the booking sheet be?” Taylor asked.
“If there is one, it’d be upstairs in one of the filing cabinets. What are you on about?”
Taylor didn’t answer. “Do you know the year?”
Willard shrugged and looked at his watch. “I got work to do and your shift’s about to start.”
Taylor stood. He got the message.
“Parking tickets, speed traps, drunk tank. It’s an easy job. Don’t complicate it.” Willard drained his coffee. “You can leave the door open on your way out.”
Taylor stole a glance at the Sheriff’s door as he left Willard’s office. The door was still closed. The common area was unmanned. He turned and made his way up the stairs. There was an evidence room on the second level, a floor-to-ceiling chain-link fence with a locked gate to which only the sheriff had a key. A long row of filing cabinets for old records dating back to the days just after the Civil War lined a far wall and in the back were overflow cells that were only ever occupied on the rare occasions they had both male and female detainees or when there were too many rowdy peckerwoods to fit in the drunk tank.
Halfway up the stairs, Taylor heard voices coming from above. No one should have been up there. At the top of the stairs, he could see shadows on the floor. Someone was in an overflow cell, even though the drunk tank was empty.
At the top of the stairs, he turned and looked. Virgil Tompkins was standing in the opened door of a cell, his back to Taylor. He had the jarhead haircut, flat top and shaved sides that was popular in law enforcement circles. His pants and tighty whities were around his ankles, while his duty rig — with holstered sidearm, nightstick, pepper spray, and handcuffs — was on the floor just outside the cell door. On her knees in front of him was a woman. Virgil’s hands were buried in her thick, dark hair, ramming her head into his crotch to match the pumping of his bare ass.
The woman somehow noticed Taylor’s presence. She placed her hands on Virgil’s thighs and tried to push away. Virgil responded by yanking on her hair, forcing her head even closer.
“I think she wants up,” said Taylor.
Virgil turned and saw him. “What the fuck?”
He released the woman’s head and stepped back, reaching down for his pants. The woman got to her feet and leaned against the bars, straightening her rumpled skirt and pulling her tube top up to cover her small breasts. She wore entirely too much makeup; a clear effort to disguise how rampant opioid abuse had ravaged her face. She looked both frightened and relieved to see Taylor.
“Get the fuck out of here,” Virgil said. “Mind your own goddamn business.”
Taylor looked at the woman and pointed to the wall next to the cell. “You stand right over there and do not move.”
Virgil had secured his trousers and was reaching for his duty rig. Taylor closed the distance between them with a quick step and pushed the rig out of Virgil’s reach with his foot.
“Get out of my way!” said Virgil, moving to pick up the rig.
Taylor threw a hard body shot into Virgil’s gut. The force of the blow knocked the wind out of him, leaving him doubled over and gasping. Taylor shoved him hard and Virgil stumbled backward into the cell, landing on the cot bolted to the wall. Taylor closed the cell door, and seeing that a ring of keys was dangling from the lock, locked it, and removed the key.
He picked up Tomkins’ duty rig and looked again at the woman. “Are you hurt?”
She shook her head.
“I picked her up for soliciting!” said Virgil, still struggling to catch his breath. “She came on to me!”
“Shut up,” said Taylor.
“Let me out of here, you fucking nigger! I’ll kill you, motherfucker!”
Taylor heard someone on the stairs and turned to see Junior Willard standing at the top, mouth agape, eyes the size of ping-pong balls.
“Jesus Fucking Christ!” said the Senior Deputy.
twenty-two
Ray barely spoke on the entire drive up from Barksdale. Jesse listened to the radio and let Ray have his silence. The beating Ray had put on him outside of the cage was fresh in Jesse’s mind and he could tell Ray was still steaming about the motherfucker in the Possum that had stabbed him with the fork.
“Want me to come in with you?” Jesse asked, dropping the Dodge Ram into park. Ray gave him a look, eyes narrowed, mouth turned down in a snarl.
Jesse knew what that meant. He’d asked a stupid question. Jesse looked at the house. It was every inch the shithole he had expected it to be. A ramshackle one story with a roof that needed replacing ten years ago and a front door that somebody thought they could fix by painting it. There was a window-mounted air conditioner hanging precariously from a cracked window next to the front door. The unit vibrated noisily, water dripping from the vented housing. There was no porch, no sidewalk, just a dirt path cut through the weeds leading to the front door.
Parked in front of the house was a ‘90s-era Buick station wagon with no hubcaps and a driver’s side door someone had primed but never repainted. Next to it was a black Mustang. Jesse didn’t know a lot about cars — he didn’t know a lot about anything — but he could recognize a ‘68 Shelby when he saw one.
They got out and walked to the house. Jesse paused to admire the Mustang. The station wagon may have gone to shit, but somebody was clearly giving the Mustang plenty of TLC. Jesse shook his head and gave a little whistle.
“Shut the fuck up,” said Ray, pushing past him.
Jesse nodded. At the front door, he paused and looked at his brother.
“Do I knock or just go in?” Jesse asked.
Ray shoved him aside and tried the knob. It wasn’t locked. Jesse followed him in. A haze of smoke hung in the air. Skunkweed musk and notes of diesel assaulted their noses.
Just inside the front door was a wall-mounted ring holder with a contour line drawing of Jesus, a halo above his head, burned into the wood. Keys dangled at Jesus’ neck. Loud hip-hop blared from speakers somewhere in the middle of the house. The sounds of hooting and cheering occasionally rising above the droning of the music.
They walked down a hallway, the walls smudged by years of hands and fingers dragging across them. The hallway terminated into what might’ve once been a living room. A sixty-inch flat screen was on a stand atop a chest of drawers. Beer cans and pizza boxes littered the stained carpet. There were three men and a woman in the living room. Two of the men sat on a threadbare sofa, sharing a joint about the size of a twinkie. Both white and in their mid-twenties. One heavyset and wearing a sleeveless shirt that accentuated his pale skin and lack of muscle tone. The other was short with wiry hair and tattoos climbing from inside his t-shirt and up his neck like kudzu on a telephone pole.
The third man was a skinny white dude with bad skin and a patchy growth of whiskers. He sat in an old lazy boy across from the other two, legs spread wide, his pants and underwear around his ankles. The woman sitting on his lap, reverse cowgirl, was completely naked. She was black with a short afro and heavy hoop earrings. Dark-skinned, with pendulous breasts swaying as she vigorously rode the third man’s cock. The sofa riders cheered the other two on. The short, tattooed one held a phone in his hand. Jesse could see a stopwatch app running.
“Oh, shit!” said the heavyset, sleeveless one, dropping the joint on the floor and rising from the sofa when he saw Jesse and Ray.
Ray grabbed the man’s head with one meaty hand, fingers wrapping around Heavyset’s face, and slamming the back of the man’s head into the wall with such force the drywall cracked and spider-webbed like a broken windshield. Ray didn’t let go. He slammed the man’s head into the wall again and again. When he released the head, Heavyset’s limp body slumped to the floor, leaving a smear of blood and gray matter on the wall.
The woman jumped up, screaming. Reflexively, her hands went to cover her crotch and her breasts. Before either of the other men could stand, Jesse pulled his Glock 9mm from the back of his pants.
Lazy Boy reached down to pull up his underwear, but Ray gave him a look that stopped him cold.
“Turn that fucking jungle shit off,” said Ray.
No one moved.
Ray looked at the woman. “You,” he said. “Turn that goddamn shit off.”
The woman walked to the boombox on a coffee table that had been pushed against a far wall to allow more room for the afternoon festivities. She pressed the power button, and the room went silent except for the thrum of the air conditioner. The woman stood there, shaking in fear. She had given up on covering herself.
Jesse looked at Lazy Boy, pointing the 9mm at him. “Keep your fucking hands on the chair and don’t move them.”
He did as he was told.
“You have something that doesn’t belong to you,” Ray said.
“We were going to bring it down to you today,” said Tattoo Neck from the sofa. “Swear to god. We were on our way down today. Just having a little fun first, you know.”
“Am I talking to you?” asked Ray without taking his eyes from Lazy Boy.
Tattoo Neck said nothing else.
“We really were coming down today,” said Lazy Boy. “We were. I swear to god, we were.”
“That’s what he just said,” said Ray. “I don’t believe you either.”
“W-We’ve got it,” said Lazy Boy. “It’s under the TV. Top drawer,”
Jesse went to the TV. He brushed past the woman, giving her a wink. He tucked his 9mm into his waistband and opened the top drawer. He took out something about the size of a carton of eggs, wrapped in black plastic.
“A fucking garbage bag?” said Jesse. “Seriously?” He unwrapped the bag and peeked inside.
“Count it,” said Ray.
Jesse flipped through the stack of bills inside the bag.
“It’s a little short,” said Lazy Boy. “But we were gonna get the rest.”
“You had enough to hire this bitch to ride your dicks,” said Ray. “But not enough to pay what you owe.”
Jesse wrapped the plastic back around the sack, tucked it under his arm, and took his 9mm out again.
“I told you,” said Lazy Boy. “We were gonna get it and we were gonna bring it down today. We weren’t ripping you off. We wouldn’t do that.”
Ray looked at Tattoo Neck. “What was the bet?”
“What?” he answered, voice trembling.
“What was the bet?” Ray repeated.
Tattoo Neck remembered he was holding a phone and looked at the screen. “Oh, uh... we bet on how long it would take for him to... uh, you know...”
“How long it would take for him to cum?” asked Jesse.
Tattoo Neck nodded.
“What did you have?” asked Ray.
“W-What?”
“If you say ‘what’ one more goddamn time,” said Ray.
“I-I bet he couldn’t go f-five minutes,” said Tattoo Neck.
Ray pointed to the man he’d slammed into the wall. “Fatboy had over?”
Tattoo Neck nodded again.
“What was on the clock?” asked Ray.
Tattoo Neck looked at his phone. The stopwatch app was still running. “I didn’t stop it.”
Ray glared at him. “What was it when we came in?”
“A-About three minutes, I think. M-Maybe a little more.”
“Set it for two minutes,” said Ray. “Let’s see who wins.” He looked at Jesse and tilted his head towards Tattoo Neck. Jesse aimed his gun at the short man’s head.
Ray looked at the woman. “You’ve got two minutes to make him cum.”
“What?” said Lazy Boy, looking down at his completely flaccid cock. “What do you mean?”
“A bet’s a bet,” said Jesse.
“Wait!” said Lazy Boy. “You can’t —“
“Two minutes,” said Ray. “Start the clock.”
Tattoo Neck’s trembling finger pushed the button on the screen, and the clock began ticking down. 1:59. 1:58.
Jesse waggled his gun. “Time’s wasting, bitch.”
The woman went to Lazy Boy and grabbed his cock, began tugging on it, trying to work it hard.
1:43. 1:42. 1:41.
It wasn’t working.
“I can’t,” said Lazy Boy. “P-Please. D-Don’t do this.”
1:25. 1:24. 1:23.
“Hand ain’t doing it,” Jesse said to the woman. “Use your mouth.”
The woman knelt in front of Lazy Boy and took him in her mouth. Her head bobbed up and down.
0:54. 0:53. 0:52.
“I can’t. I-I can’t,” mumbled Lazy Boy.
Jesse laughed, pointing his gun at Lazy Boy. “Better try harder.”
0:38. 0:37. 0:36.
The woman grabbed Lazy Boy’s limp shaft, worked him furiously with both her hand and her lips.
0:13. 0:12. 0:11.
Jesse began counting down. “Ten, nine, eight, seven —“
“I can’t.” Lazy Boy had tears in his eyes. “I can’t... I can’t.”
The phone buzzed. The digits showed 0:00.
“Time’s up,” said Jesse.
The woman raised her head, dropped Lazy Boy’s cock.
“I don’t see no cum,” said Jesse.
Ray looked at Tattoo Neck and tilted his head to Heavyset’s body, slumped against the wall. “He won. You lost.”
Jesse turned and shot Tattoo Neck in the head. A splatter of red hit the wall behind him, and he fell back into the sofa, his head hanging to the side, dark blood dripping from the hole just over his ear.
The woman screamed, and Jesse turned the gun on her and shot her in the chest.
“Boom!” he said. “Right in the titty!”
The woman fell to the floor, her blood pooling and soaking into the carpet. Her eyes and mouth were both open, but she was still and unmoving.
Ray walked over to Lazy Boy. He lifted his size fourteen boot and pressed the bottom onto the man’s crotch. He leaned into it, putting all of his weight on Lazy Boy's balls. The man with the patchy whiskers cried out in agony.
Ray pressed harder. “Am I ever going to have to come up here to this shithole again?”
Lazy Boy shook his head.
“Am — I — ever — going to have to come up here again?”
“No,” said Lazy Boy, his voice straining. “No, sir. No, sir. No.”
Ray twisted his boot, crushing Lazy Boy’s testicles underneath it. Lazy Boy screamed, tears flowing down his face.
Ray lifted his foot and stepped back. He motioned for Jesse to follow. Jesse put the Glock back in his waistband, then reached down and picked up the giant joint from the floor. He took a few quick hits, inhaling deeply, holding the smoke in his lungs before exhaling. He flicked the joint at Lazy Boy.
At the front door, Ray paused and looked at the keyring holder. He lifted the set of keys from beneath Jesus’ head. Outside, Ray unlocked the Shelby’s driver-side door and climbed in. “Drive back by yourself,” he said.
“Are you sure?” Jesse asked.
Ray slammed the door without answering.
The engine of the Shelby revved, and Ray peeled out, slinging gravel behind him.
twenty-three
