Read Online The Redeemers by Ace Atkins - Free Book Online Page B

Supervisor for District 1, walk through the door. Stagg waved at Bishop and Bishop waved back, coming in with his wife and two daughters, taking a booth toward the front door. Christmas lights and fake holly hung over the glass. The waitress walking right on up and bringing them some ice waters.
    “Sorry, I had something in my ear,” Stagg said. “You were saying how I’m not a part of some business around here?”
    “Smile all you want, but it ain’t your money,” Cobb said. “It’s a hell of an investment for me and Debbi. We had to make some hard decisions, family matters, to come up with that kind of cash. We even had to cut back on our tithes at First Baptist.”
    “Bullshit.”
    “Excuse me?”
    “I said, you’re full of shit, Larry Cobb,” Stagg said. “You know what it costs to do business with the State of Mississippi and you became a rich man because of it. Go and give the hardworkin’ redneck shuck to one of your truckers you ain’t paying right.”
    Cobb gave him a hard look, which wasn’t much since the man had pig eyes and no chin. Stagg took a drink of water, the ice melting but still clicking in the glass. He shrugged it off, and Cobb’s hard look turned to a grin, trying to be a hard-on just for the hell of it. Now that he saw Stagg couldn’t get a guarantee on that dirty money any faster, he would switch over to the old, portly, hardworkin’ man and go right back to chawing on the breakfast. Sure enough, Cobb just shook his head and picked up a piece of burnt bacon. “Just makes me nervous,” Cobb said. “You know how that goes?”
    “Eat up, Larry,” Stagg said. “You been eating up in this county trough a long time. This is the first time I ever heard any complaint about your seat at the table.”
    Cobb swallowed and nodded. “During that storm and cleanup, me and you shared and shared alike,” he said. “Made rich men even richer. That durn storm was the best thing that ever happened to either of us.”
    Stagg turned a fork around a circle on the Formica table, looking up to Larry Cobb. “You want me to get you a microphone so you can broadcast our business to everyone in north Mississippi?”
    “No,” Cobb said, cutting into his eggs, busting the yolk. “But don’t you ever make me out to be some kind of charity case. Me and you shared plenty over these years. We all got a little dirt on us.”
    “Go on. Go on. Spell it on out.”
    “Hell, I don’t know,” Cobb said, yellow running down his white-bearded chin, snorting in some air. “Just pass me some of them jelly packs. Will you, Stagg?”
    Stagg eyed the bloated piece of shit on the left side of him and chose the right side of the big red booth to make his departure. He got out, made sure the Ole Miss sweater-vest was flat over his chinos, and stood above Cobb. Cobb didn’t look up, hunkered over the wheel and sopping up everything on his plate. At the swinging door to the kitchen, Ringold leaned against the cash register, sipping on coffee. He met Stagg’s eye and nodded.
    Stagg nodded back, hit the front door, and walked around to his office.
    •   •   •
    W ell,” Peewee Sparks said. “Fuck a duck.”
    “How much?” Chase asked, browsing through the Gold Mine pawnshop off Interstate 65, somewhere south of Birmingham. The Gold Mine hadn’t opened up yet, the barred door locked behind them, lights off overhead but shining bright in the glass cases, with their jewelry, pistols, rare coins, DVD players, and shit made during the Civil War.
    “We can walk out of here with three grand,” Peewee said. “But I could burn though that in fifteen minutes at Temptations on Bourbon Street. That’s just an introduction to those women doing serious business. Not to mention your cut is a damn third.”
    “How about this other deal you’re talking about?” Chase said. “The one in Mississippi?”
    “Don’t know enough about it,” Peewee said. “Could be something. Could be jack shit. People always