The Cold Spot

trimmed and sticking out in tufts. A perpetual sour stink wafted off him, part body odor and part sour mash whiskey bleeding from his very pores. He smiled so broadly you could see every empty space and gold tooth in his head, and he repeatedly drew out a red bandana to wipe down his sunburned, freckled crown.

“I put the first set of car keys in the hands of a lot of runners,” Joe-Boo told him, “but I ain’t never seen anyone drive like you.”

“You’ve never seen me drive, Joe-Boo,” Chase said.

“Yeah, I have, when you thought no one lookin’. Out there on the gravel tracks by the river, down near the sweetwater. You go it alone at night, boy, why’s that? You could be earnin’ money doing the same thing during the day.”

“I’m on the narrow, Joe-Boo.”

“You ain’t always been though, now have you, boy?”

Grabbing hold of his daughter’s wrist, Joe-Boo pulled her down beside him and turned her so Chase could take a good look at her ass.

“This here is my youngest, Iris.”

“H’lo,” Iris said.

Joe-Boo drew her unkempt black hair from her face and she smiled delicately while he did it.

“Don’t take but a glance before any man begins to fancy her,” Joe-Boo said.

Chase lost his appetite and tossed the uneaten remainder of his lunch back in his brown bag. He said in a steady voice, “Listen, you’re really starting to creep me out, all right? I appreciate the offer but let’s just settle on no. You bring your cars in and I’ll fix them up the way I’ve been doing. For the rest of it, find another man.”

“I need a driver like you, and I aim to get what I need.”

The girl might seem like an empty-headed backwoods honey, but she was smart enough to say, “Daddy, let’s get on home. He done said no as nice as he can.”

“It’s him sayin’ yes that I’m after.”

“He ain’t gonna.”

“Hush, baby doll.”

With his foot, Joe-Boo shoved the cardboard suitcase with the money in it closer to Chase. He was no longer smiling. He’d dropped the neighborly shit and was turning up the heat in his glare. His eyes were milky and bloodshot. Rumor was that Joe-Boo carried a switchblade pigsticker and liked to hurl it into tree trunks from about twenty yards off. He had fifteen men working under him in the back hills, and it had taken a lot for him to walk up bearing cash, showing some respect.

It was an overture not usually made, and Chase really didn’t want to get on the moonshine king’s bad side, but it seemed that was how it was going to play out.

“You pull that pigsticker and I’m going to have to shove it up your ass, Joe-Boo,” Chase said, shifting his weight on the log, waiting for Brinks to reach into his back pocket. “I’m married. You were at my wedding. You’ve known Lila her whole life. All of you people have known each other your whole lives. Let me tell you something for all our sakes.” He leaned in a bit. “She usually drives by the garage about this time every day and comes to sit with me down here at the creek. So let me ask…what do you think will happen if she shows up in the next minute or two and spots your cash and your baby girl with her tits practically out, sitting this close to me?”

Joe-Boo Brinks pulled a face, a little pie-eyed now, angry, but the worry leaking into his features ounce by ounce, until he and his daughter finally got the hell out of there.

Chase still liked a little action. That was why he hauled ass down by the gravel tracks. When he felt the urge for a score coming over him he’d scope out a car with a good engine and a solid frame, steal it and tune it up, go for a joyride, and then bring it back in much better condition.

Lila started getting reports from people who picked up on the extra mileage and noticed how fine their engines ran now. Their tires rotated, their plugs changed, timing chains fixed, new air filters and hoses put in.

She would say to him, “You been wheeling around town again? You know what it’s going to look like if I have to arrest my own husband?”

“No one’s going to press charges because their carburetors were cleaned.”

“You never know, and I don’t want to have to stick the cuffs back on you.”

“You’d have to catch me first.”

“That a challenge or a threat?”

“I don’t know.” He’d take her in his arms and nuzzle her neck. “Which one turns you on more?”

“Both about the same, I’d guess.”

He liked to keep up with the boxing to stay fit. He set up a heavy bag, speed bag, and some wrestling mats in the garage. Lila stocked most of her guns out there in a couple of wide lockers that she kept locked. While he worked the bag, skipped rope, or shadowboxed, she’d oil her weapons over on the workbench, pull them apart, and snap them back together. His old burglary tools were wrapped up in a gym bag stashed in the crawl space.

She asked him, “You ever handle a pistol besides mine that night?”

“Not many,” he told her. “But I know guns. A couple of guys I used to run with were purveyors. Suppliers, not hitters. They taught me a lot.”

“You want to learn about shooting?”

“I think I know all I need to.”

“You might be surprised. You’re in Mississippi now, sweetness.”

“People bleed here if you shoot them in the leg just like they do anywhere else. I’m almost sure I’ve seen a practical demonstration of that someplace.”

“I reckon I recall seeing something along those lines myself.”

She didn’t push any further although he knew that his hatred for firearms ran counter to everything she knew. Her father had taught her how to shoot when she was three-goddamn three. But between his mother’s murder and having seen Jonah tapping Walcroft, he had an aversion that almost bordered on phobia.

He was a driver. No driver he’d ever heard about carried a gun, at least not on the job. A wheelman sat in the car, kept his nerve, and waited for his crew even as the alarms went off and the sirens whipped closer.

After he’d finished his workout he stood there pouring sweat, watching her while she finished cleaning her.38. He reached around her and picked up the bottle of gun oil and said, “This have any other uses?”

“Hell, we got us some cherry, cinnamon, and scented oils for just those kind of improper thoughts and unsavorish doings.”

“I don’t remember the cinnamon.”

“No? It was a wedding present from Judge Kelton.”

He frowned and licked his teeth, the taste already in his mouth, and said, “If you don’t ever want my mood to sink, please don’t tell me things like that.”

“Just give me a minute to put my sidearm away and we’ll work on that sinking mood, see if we can’t elevate it some.”

“I have complete faith,” he said, and it turned out not to be misplaced.

Another time, she stood in the center of the mats and said, “You want I should show you some moves?”

“I’ve got the moves, thank you anyway.”

“Ain’t talking about those, which are adequate at best.”

“Hey, now-”

“I’m talking about these.”

She got behind him, reached forward and wrapped her right arm around his neck, thrust his chin aside with the back of her hand, and flipped him backward over her hip. He rose five feet into the air and came down flat on his back. It stunned him and his head swam. She got on top of him, turned him over, cuffed him, and pinned him so he couldn’t breathe. With his vision starting to go black at the edges, maybe five or ten seconds from passing out, she finally climbed off.

He lay there groaning for a while until he got his breath back. He realized, with a swelling sadness, that