Free The Redeemers by Ace Atkins Page A

over their heads. “You are a Sparks.”
    A foreign fella, who was Chinese or Mongolian or from Hawaii, walked on past them to the front door and turned on a couple neon signs and unlocked the door. Chase nodded at his Uncle Peewee and turned back to the man, fluorescents still trying to come to life. He nodded to his uncle and his uncle turned and walked away and out the door, strolling across the parking lot over to the Cracker Barrel. Chase moved up to the gun display and unwrapped his free sucker. “Excuse me, sir?” Chase said. “You speak any English?”
    •   •   •
    Q uinn borrowed Caddy’s truck, a beaten-to-shit ’72 Ford that he’d bought while at Fort Benning, to drive north on the Natchez Trace without being spotted. He brought with him a couple good cigars, La Gloria Cubana Blacks, and a couple tall coffees from the Fillin’ Station diner. The Trace took him up into the rolling hills of Tibbehah County, past the turnoff to his farm and the hamlets of Fate and Providence, and on into southern Lee County and a visitors’ center with public bathrooms and a covered area with a view of the mounds where the Chickasaw had buried their dead and made temples to their warriors. As usual, it was empty. And, as expected, the lean, bald man with the beard was waiting for him.
    “You know, they didn’t even have shovels,” the man said. “Did the whole damn thing with baskets, filled with dirt.”
    “True dedication,” Quinn said, and passed along the cigar and the coffee. “And here we are. A millennium later and still looking at ’em.”
    Ringold cut the end of the cigar with a pocketknife and borrowed Quinn’s Zippo to get it going. He leaned against a protective rail while Quinn had a seat on an old picnic table, both drinking coffee and watching frost melt off the trio of mounds. A few cars passed on the Trace. No one stopped. The cigars burned nice and warm in the cold. The smoke lifted and broke apart in the wind. Quinn rested his elbows on his knees. “How’s it coming?”
    “Son of a bitch is getting paranoid,” Ringold said. “The other day he thought the sheriff-elect was working with the Feds. I had to laugh. And this morning it was the guy who owns the lumber mill, Larry Cobb. He accused Cobb of a shakedown. Said the man was threatening him.”
    “How’s that?” Quinn asked.
    “I asked Stagg the same thing and he said it was more in Cobb’s attitude than his words. They got some kind of deal on that new bridge going across the Big Black. Stagg’s got Cobb’s company on rigged bid. The bid hasn’t come through and Cobb wants to know about his seed money.”
    “You get all this solid?”
    “Shit no,” Ringold said. “We have his office tapped. But like I said, he’s gotten squirrelly as hell. Nervous. Doesn’t know how to use a computer. Won’t use the landline. He’ll only talk to folks face-to-face. I got a lot on the man. But I want everything.”
    “How much longer?”
    “He’s real careful what he says,” Ringold said. “Talks in that Johnny Stagg code. Stuff that could be reinterpreted to a jury. We could shut down his dope business out at that ole airfield right now. But the payoffs to state officials isn’t as clear as we’d like. That’s why I was sent here.”
    “Remind me again how you fellas are making a case against a man who’s run wild for more than two decades?”
    “Same way you eat an elephant,” Ringold said, blowing some smoke into the cold wind. “One bite at a time.”
    “I never knew Larry to do much more than timber,” Quinn said. “He’s crooked as hell, but particular about his business. Since when is he into bridge building?”
    “Didn’t you hear?” Ringold said. “He started a cleanup-and-construction company after the tornado—him and Stagg. I told you about all that. All of it seems to be on the level. They did do the jobs they promised to do. Never had any competition on the jobs.”
    “Of course not,” Quinn