The Big Ugly by Jake Hinkson Page A

why I got people throwing stacks of hundred dollar bills at me in order to find you?"
    Alexis thought about that as she ran her fingers through the cat's black pelt.
    Jack, leaning against the door again, said, "You know, Alexis, all you told me was you wanted to get out of town and lay low. Said it was for Kaylee. And I didn't ask nothing about it. I cashed in a favor Darnell owed me, and I paid you back what I owed you. But the people out here looking for you … Junius Kluge? Junius motherfucking Kluge?"
    Alexis stopped rubbing the damn cat and dropped her hands in her lap. She sucked in her lips.
    I said, "You realize I'm here out of the kindness of my heart, Alexis? I don't have a whole lot of kindness in there in the first place. But here I am. And here's Jack. Why don't you tell us what's going on?"
    She wouldn't look at either of us. She kept sucking on her lips, and she rubbed her palm against her smooth little chin.
    "Kaylee," she said.
    The little girl didn't acknowledge her.
    "Kaylee," Alexis said, a little louder.
    Without looking up, the girl said, "Yes, momma?"
    "Why don't you go outside and let me talk to my friends.
    The girl didn't budge.
    "You can take the movie with you."
    The girl pushed herself up and padded across the room without taking her eyes off the iPad. She went out the door and closed it behind her.
    "That little computer is a lifesaver," Alexis said. "Darnell gave it to her the first day we were here, and she hasn't been bored at all."
    Jack glanced at me and lifted her eyebrows.
    "Alexis," I said. "What's going on?"
    "I know some stuff," she said.
    Jack and I waited.
    Alexis rubbed the cat behind its ears. Its loud purr was the only sound in the room.
    "I don't know how much to tell you," she said. "I don't know how much you want to know."
    "I need to know what the hell's going on," I said. "I need to know what I'm in the middle of. It's not idle curiosity."
    Alexis didn't look up, but she started to talk. It was like she was telling it to the cat. "I got mixed up in some shit. Through … well, it started with Mule. He introduced me to Evan. And then Evan introduced me to some guys who worked for Junius Kluge. They were bringing stuff in from South America. Evan said the connection got made back in the eighties during the whole Iran-Contra thing. I don't know much about that. I wasn't even alive back then. But some of those people were involved in the airport in Mena. You know about that?"
    Everyone in Arkansas had heard the rumors that during the eighties the CIA had used an airbase in the little town of Mena to smuggle drugs up from Nicaragua. Supposedly, the Iran-Contra hearings had shut down the operation and others like it. "Yeah," I said.
    "Well, I guess after the whole Iran-Contra thing blew up, there were still some folks left here in the state who had connections down there in South America." She shrugged. "I don't understand it all. When Evan first told me about it, I thought 'South America' meant Mississippi."
    "Just tell us what you do know," I said.
    "Well, Junius Kluge was one of those local people. He'd helped the CIA bring the stuff into Arkansas back in the day, and since he still had his connections he started bringing stuff in on his own. They couldn't use Mena, of course, so they started taking it to Stock's Settlement, a little town up in the Ozarks.
    "I was a runner. I would drive up there in the middle of the night every Wednesday. My job was to take a cut of the stuff to a state trooper named Obermeyer."
    "What was the stuff?"
    "Cocaine. I think they flew in other stuff, but I only ever handled coke."
    "Why'd you have to take it to this state trooper?"
    "Well, I don't know … but I do know that Obermeyer is on the detail that protects the governor."
    "You're telling me you were the governor's coke connection?"
    "No, I'm telling you I gave some coke to Obermeyer. That's all I know for sure. I did that for a year or more, but then I got pulled over in that speed trap in