The Broken Places by Ace Atkins Page B

in the Navy. We used to go out and look for sunken treasure.”
    “In Panama City?” Esau said.
    “Good a place as any.”
    Esau looked to Bones and shook his head, sadly.
    “Becky got a couple tanks filled for me in Memphis and some gear and flares,” Esau said. “You can dive with me.”
    “Where?”
    “Down in a pond, to look for a big-ass car.”
    “Sure,” Dickie said. “Ain’t like I got anything better to do.”
    “Who told you to go see Becky?” Bones asked, still working on the last bit of steak and eggs. He dotted the last egg with some Tabasco and took a bite.
    “I knew all about Becky after Esau talking so much about her,” he said. “I seen her once or twice when she come for a poke in the trailer. All the men loved looking at her in those hooch clothes. Exactly what is that tattoo she got on the back of her neck?”
    “It says NONE OF YOUR FUCKING BUSINESS ,” Esau said. “I didn’t tell you to go see her, and I sure as hell didn’t tell you where she lived.”
    “I knew she worked at the Dollar General over at Coldwater.”
    “Son of a bitch,” Esau said. He cracked the seal on the Scotch.
    With a mouthful of food, Bones said, “Don’t matter none now. All we got to worry about is hauling that car out of the pond. We ain’t got no equipment and no big winch. We could try using two 4×4s, but I still don’t think that’ll work. We gonna need some tractors.”
    “First we got to make sure that we ain’t wasting our time,” Esau said. He poured out three heavy measures of Glenfiddich into some lowball glasses. He shoved the glasses before the two men. He sat back and waited.
    “I told you I can dive,” Dickie said. “Hell yes. I knew I could help y’all out. But I only got one question.”
    “What’s that, Dickie?” Bones asked.
    “What’s my cut?” he said. He smiled, showing off the top and bottom rows of some real bad teeth.
    “I’ll tell you right now,” Esau said, holding the Scotch up to the light, watching the brown stuff roll around in the thick glass. “We ain’t partners in this. You think we partners at any point and your ass is gone. You are hired help only.”
    “Like I said,” Dickie said, sniffing the booze and making a face. “How fucking much?”
    “Five grand.”
    He scratched his face, a jailhouse spider tattoo high on his Adam’s apple. “See here, I don’t know if that’s a fair price, or y’all jacking my dick.”
    “Five grand is more than you got right now,” Bones said. “Or you want to apply for a job scraping shit stains outta toilets at the Walmart?”
    “Y’all are funny,” Dickie said. “OK. I’ll take the five grand. When do I get it?”
    “You don’t get dick till we get what we come for, and to get what we come for, tonight we got to dive that pond.”
    “At fucking night.”
    Esau nodded. “We got flares,” he said. “Be the same as day, only we won’t have the farmer and everyone else in this shithole coming back, craning their neck, and trying to get into our business.”
    “Gonna storm tonight,” Dickie said.
    “What’s it matter underwater?” Bones said.
    Dickie nodded. Bones held up his glass, and Esau did the same. The two men drank down the twenty-year-old Scotch. Dickie got only a half-swallow before he turned his head and spit the liquor all over the floor. “Damn, don’t y’all got some Jäger around here? This stuff tastes like ass.”
    Becky strolled into the kitchen, holding up a pair of silver earrings that resembled Indian dream catchers with feathers. In her other hand, she had a matching silver necklace with crimson stones. “Can you believe someone just left this here? It was sitting right out on the dresser. I figured I could wear it till we leave. Does it match my bikini top?”
    Esau kept on staring at Dickie where he’d spit whiskey all over the wood floor. He turned back to Becky in her red top and Daisy Dukes and said, “Sure thing, baby. Grab what you want. Keep it if you