“Are you out of gas or what?”
“Yep. Happens once or twice a month. My gauge has been reading a quarter full for three years. I try to keep plenty in it, but sometimes I forget.”
I give her a smile. “No sweat. There’s a station a mile east of here.”
“I was about to walk to it.”
Looking at the horizon, I figure there’s about thirty minutes of light left before full dark. Some drivers have already switched on their headlights. “Jump in. We’ll take care of this.”
She manages a tired smile. “Hang on, I’ve got a gas can in back. The last guy who helped me out threw it in there and told me to keep it.”
She opens the hatch of the Explorer, and I transfer the sun-faded plastic can to the back of my Flex. Then she climbs in beside me and we merge into the eastbound traffic.
“Where were you headed?” I ask.
She flips her hand like a sorority girl taking a spin in a Porsche. “Nowhere, really.”
Nowhere? “Just riding, huh?”
“Pretty much.” She takes out a pack of Virginia Slims, then cracks her window and lights up. “Denny said he’s been filming some stuff for you.”
“Yeah. He’s great with that drone. We may post some of it to our website.”
My iPhone pings with the contact information of Buck’s colleague at LSU. I’ll send it to Ben when I can add an explanation.
Dixie holds out her left hand and examines her bright pink fingernails, which are peeling badly. “You gonna pay Denny anything?”
“Sure, of course.”
“Good. ’Cause that boy needs some real work.”
We reach the service station without further conversation, and I pay to fill the five-gallon can. After I pull back onto the highway, Dixie starts to light up again, but I shake my head and use my thumb to point behind us.
“What?” she asks.
“Gas fumes.”
She looks blankly at me for a couple of seconds, then gets it. “Ohh.” Frowning, she slips the cigarette back into the pack.
We reach her Explorer in less than a minute, and she opens the gas cap for me to start pouring from the can. While the biting smell rises from the opening, I catch Dixie’s eye. “What are you really doing out here? You headed to Jackson or something?”
She sighs with irritation, looks away. “What do you think I’m doing? Making a drug deal or something?”
“I don’t know, Dixie. I’m just wondering.”
“Well, it ain’t your damn business, is it? But if you have to know, I’m on my way to work. And I’m running late.” Her tone is accusatory, like it’s my fault she ran out of gas.
“Where you working now?”
Color rises into her cheeks. “The Show ’n’ Tail. What of it?”
My mouth falls open before I can cover my reaction. The Show ’n’ Tail is a titty bar on the county line, where drug-addicted girls fresh out of high school dance for truckers and meth heads. Word is the lap dances are bottomless for the right price, and most of the girls turn tricks in the trailers behind the cinder-block club. Several citizens’ groups have tried to get it closed, but so far they’ve failed. I’ve heard speculation that a powerful silent partner keeps it open.
“Dixie, you’re right, it’s not my business. But we went to school together for twelve years. Tell me you’re not stripping out in that shithole.”
She runs her tongue around inside her cheek, then bursts into laughter. “I’m forty-six years old, Marshall! You think they’d pay me to take my clothes off?” She pops a stripper move, throwing her chest forward to emphasize the sagging mammaries under her halter. “Young stuff only out there, bub. I work behind the bar.”
This is better than what I feared, which was Dixie making a drug run while her son sits home by himself. Still, a sickening sense of futility settles into my bones. This woman is Denny’s mother. She graduated with me, and the best job she can get is working in a joint where every girl on the premises is in desperate straits?
“Listen,” I say without thinking. “Today’s Thursday. I want you to go home and get some sleep. Tomorrow, get up and come down to the newspaper. I’m hiring you for the advertising department.”
She knits her brow, watching me with something like suspicion. “I heard the bank shut down your paper today. Foreclosed on y’all.”
I stand in silent shock for a few seconds. Jesus. I’m like a person who speaks of a relative in the present tense, having forgotten that they died earlier in the day.
“You’re right,” I tell her. “But that’s just temporary. I’ll have it back up and running in a week. And I’ll hire you now for then. I don’t want you working at the damn Show ’n’ Tail.”
“You don’t, huh?”
“No.”
She nods as though considering my offer. I see shame in her face, but also anger. “Well,” she says. “Who died and made you Jesus?”
Her words shock me so deeply that I simply wait for what follows.
“You think you’re saving me or something?” she asks. “I don’t need saving, okay? And you ain’t in any position to save me anyway. You need to save your own damn self.”
“What do you mean?”
Her laugh has a raucous, almost mocking undertone. “I read the paper. I hear people talk. You’ve crossed that Poker Club, haven’t you? Tried to get ’em in trouble over Buck Ferris. You even got my Denny caught up in that shit.”
The implication that I’ve somehow led her son astray brings blood into my cheeks. “I’m sorry. I thought you wanted me to spend time with him.”
Dixie starts to say something, then looks at the ground as though she’s changed her mind. “Why are you so fired up to get those Poker Club guys, Marshall?”
“Because they killed my friend.”
“Who, Buck? Do you know that for sure? Can you prove it?”
The gas can is empty. I pull the nozzle from the tank, screw the cap back on, then replace the can in her Explorer. By the time I’ve closed the rear hatch door, she’s lit up another Virginia Slim.
“I’ll prove it,” I tell her.
“You will, huh?” She looks skeptical. “In case you haven’t noticed, this isn’t the town we grew up in anymore. People get killed all the time. It’s been what, five black boys since January? And more coming, I’m sure. Man, a month before you moved back, some guys locked a girl from the club in her car trunk and set it on fire. Drug debt. You get me? Didn’t you pass those big signs when you came this way? You see there’s a Super Target coming? Bonefish Grill? At least the Poker Club’s doing something to help this town. I’m only working the Show ’n’ Tail until T.J. Maxx opens. Joey Peters is gonna be manager, and he told me he’d hire me two weeks before the grand opening. But you want to hire me at your nonexistent newspaper. Well, aren’t you special?”
“Dixie—”
“I don’t need your damn help! Neither does Denny. Your high school Boy Scout bullshit won’t help Denny in this world we got now.” She shakes her head with bitter frustration. “But anyway . . . thanks for getting my gas.”