Dirt Merchant

by T. Blake Braddy

  “It’s a lead,” I said.

  “It’s a whole lot of trouble,” Deuce responded. “You think drug dealers are psychopaths, just wait until you see the monsters who deal in people. They’re the stuff you can’t scrape off a bottom of a septic tank, and they smell twice as bad.

  The news played it straight. Two bodies found decapitated on a side street in the projects. Real grim business. The kind of murders that stand out, even in a city that’s sometimes plagued with gang violence.

  A pretend-concerned reporter rattled off the details as if she had been given a script by the criminals themselves. It read like a warning to anyone daring to cross them. Whole thing became real when the pictures of the victims flashed up on-screen.

  Recent mugshots. Pair of men with eyes that revealed their lives had been wasted. Bad education. Terrible home lives. An indulgence in drugs. Didn’t matter. Whatever about the scales had tipped and fucked them was set right now. Back to even. Back to zero.

  A few of the details bothered me. You had to get beyond the adjectives to see what was really going on. Reg helped with this.

  First of all, they weren’t just decapitated. That was sort of the pièce de résistance, but it wasn’t the starkest detail of the whole butchering. The tongues bothered me, due to the obvious message they conveyed. A caveat to anyone foolish enough to step into their business. We were the indirect recipient of that missive, and the font was precisely as blocky and readable as I think they imagined it would be.

  “Some tricks I know down the way said they wasn’t killed where they was found,” he said.

  “They weren’t just fucked up, they were real fucked up. Girl hanging out that way said the gurney sheet was soaked through, and it ain’t rained between when they went missing.”

  Crack crack. Lightning flash behind the eyes. Two bodies sawed up, hacked to pieces. Disemboweled. No precision, even though they used electrical instruments. Complete, though. Arms, legs, elbows, and toes, all the pieces lined up in a specific order. Innards placed delicately on the ground between the legs. Any identifying markers — fingers, teeth, tattooed skin — packed in gallon-sized Ziploc bags labeled in Sharpie: Evidence.

  Real sadistic fucks, these guys.

  Or really intentional. Lots of gangs in this area. Lots of people trying to kick in on their business. You’ve got to be protective of territory.

  Territory is territory, and pride is pride.

  “The kill location?”

  “The kill location.”

  “That place needs to be shut down.”

  “I’ve already got one of my homeboys working on that. He’s picking up a burner as we speak, electing to exercise his rights as a concerned citizen. Even going to keep it anonymous, so nobody happens to connect any dots.”

  Deuce and Reg fist bumped. “Smart man,” Deuce said.

  “It gets better,” he replied. “I’ve been working the leads the dead crackheads gave us, and they’re leading up to a dude owns a titty joint flush with money being steam-cleaned for the more industrious gangs around town. We meet with him, that puts us one step closer.”

  “Rol,” Deuce said, his voice quiet, “you okay with heading this up? You and Reg?”

  “Sure,” I said. “Everything all right?”

  “Yeah, yeah,” he replied. “I just need to handle some of my own…business.”

  I let that one go. Far be it from me to keep Deuce from handling personal things. I just wondered what in the hell that could actually be. What business did he have beyond solving his brother’s murder?

  I got into character by bellying up to one end of the bar, where a tattooed Asian woman slid around a pole by the crook of her knee. Eyes looking down at us, unemotional. Looking at us. Looking through us. An actor reading lines by heart.

  I was buzzed, not quite blotto, but the minutiae of the conversation was lost on me. I kept listening for how I fit, but in the end I was bereft. My arm just mechanically kept drawing bottles of beer up to my lips. When they perished, their younger, fresher siblings were placed in front of me, and I downed those as well.

  At some point, I checked the clock. Reg was supposed to show an hour earlier.

  My phone was blank. No calls. No texts. Nothing.

  That worried me. Reg sometimes smelled like booze, and though I was nobody to judge, if it interfered with his ability to act in his role as heavy hand, he was a liability.

  A guy came down and extended his elbows on the bar. “Boss said he’d see you now.”

  Good, I thought. Time to get this off the ground.

  I just hoped I didn’t need another pair of hands to deal with this.

  A Hispanic dude in the cheapest-but-flashiest suit I’d ever seen led me down a blacklit hallway behind the stage. Half-naked strippers of all persuasions and denominations lounged indifferently on couches and chairs in a nearby room, the smell of weed as pungent as the hip-hop music was loud.

  This place was more labyrinthine than the outside implied, like an office warehouse with rooms lining the hallway. Most of the doors were closed, but a few weren’t. Inside one, a nude woman bounced on a guy’s lap in either genuine ecstasy or the best acting I’d ever seen.

  “That’s a special dude,” said the Hispanic bouncer.

  “I believe it.”

  The rest of the place was not as inherently interesting. Two women doing blow in a bathroom doorway was as exciting as it got.

  The backest of backrooms was sparsely decorated. Felt less like an office than a death room. It smelled mildly of blood, though I couldn’t be sure if it was just purely a psychosomatic reaction on my part. Still, I spat on the floor to rid myself of the taste.

  A voice called from the other side of the room.

  “Don’t you know that’s a sign of disrespect?” it said.

  “Blood don’t come up easy,” I said, “and I’m thinking maybe you leave that smell for the effect it has on people.”

  A smile. A flicked lighter, and a flame igniting a cigarette. “You want one?”

  “If I’m having anything,” I said, “it’s the single barrel you’ve got on that half-assed desk right there.”

  “You know scotch?”

  “I know it gets you drunk,” I replied.

  The figure moved into the light, flanked on both sides by guys I assumed did security for the titty bar. Big dudes, pistols tucked into shoulder holsters. Wearing sunglasses inside. That sort of thing. Unmoving, like golems waiting for an order.

  I leaned against the nearest wall, took in the scenery. The big behind the desk was not so big after all. Trans dude in a pinstripe suit, smoking that cigarette as if it were a day-long process. Soft features, hardened by wrinkles and wisps of hair in probably newish places. Angular, still pretty, though changed by years of premeditated stylizing.

  He ashed the cigarette in a tray on the desk and poured us two fingers each of the scotch, leaving the henchmen to fend for themselves.

  On the host’s request, we clinked glasses. I downed my drink and popped the glass back on the table. He sipped his, poured me a second. I kicked that one, too.

  “Thirsty boy,” he said.

  “I’ve been sweating this case. Has that effect on me.”

  “And what case is that?” he said. “TV says you’re no longer a cop.”

  “I’m not, but favors make for good business, and I take them seriously.”

  “Victor,” he said, extending his hand. “I don’t believe I was as formal as I should have been. Business I work in doesn’t hold much by way of formality.”

  I shook it but kept my silence.

  “And you’re Rolson, I know,” Victor said. “You’ve made quite the splash on the television news. I’m sure the president appreciates the break from political attacks for a few days, in the wake of this tragedy.”

  The last word came out as if bracketed by air quotes, and though I tensed up, I didn’t give him the satisfaction of an angry response. “It’ll cool down,” I said.

&
nbsp; “Not if they don’t find the perp,” he said. “Kangaroo courts in this part of the world don’t need the suspect. They just need a suspect.”

  “I’m innocent.”

  “Do you know where the real gunman is?”

  A pause. A smile from Victor.

  “That’s what I thought. If he’s anywhere to be found, you might actually survive this. But don’t expect to ride off into the sunset for helping your old buddy. That kind of mess never quite clears the conscience the way you think.”

  “And how did you come to be a middle party for thugs and strippers?”

  “Used to be one myself.”

  “Gang member, or stripper?”

  “Way I ended up, it doesn’t matter.” He stubbed out the current cigarette and lit another. “You sure you don’t want? I see the way you’ve been watching my lips. Former smoker?”

  “I’m a quitter,” I said.

  “I doubt that,” Victor responded, and took a long, slow drag. “Anyway, I did some dirt early on. Dealing, mostly, in high school. Got expelled from three high schools before I started dancing. Then, based on some circumstances beyond my control, ended up doing specialty shows. Fed a drug habit by peddling blow to my dancer friends. Couple of bad deals ended up putting me in the mix. Had to take drastic action to keep myself on the warm side of the ground. Some people got popped. I moved up. Now, here I am.”

  The resulting smile could have crumpled sheet metal.

  “Now,” he said, “I suppose you want me to give you some consequential information about the local vice trades, am I wrong?”

  I nodded.

  “Okay, then. I’ll give you one for free. The next one, it will cost you.”

  “Shoot,” I said.

  Victor smiled. “Don’t be so quick to ask for that. Anyway, there’s a druggie skank you’ll need to get in contact with. She won’t want to speak, but I’m sure you can be…persuasive.”

  “If I have to be.”

  “She’s got a record. She’s got a whole host of homies around her at all times. Thinks she’s a creative — the next Scorsese, maybe — but she’s just a hoodrat with some people willing to fuck on camera. She knows how to get in touch with people don’t want to be seen.”

  “And I’ll bet us roughing her up serves your purpose as much as it does ours.”

  “Now you’re starting to get the idea, white boy.”

  12

  “That’s Renia,” Javvy said. “She’s one bad bitch, man. She did a stint in Tutwiler.”

  “That’s a rough place,” Reg said. “The guards fuck the inmates, I heard. Used to, at least.”

  “It’s not a good place to serve time,” Deuce added.

  Javvy said, “Rumor is that she had to stay on the HIV ward for, you know, obvious reasons. She’s a lesbian, but she was married once. Dude, he — well, he was a Hispanic criminal tried to take over a black neighborhood. They found him rolled up in a rug, his brains leaking out one end.”

  “Christ,” I said.

  “She consolidated two groups in the wake of it. Some Hispanic, some black. She’s black, but she can pass. Speaks a little bit of Spanish, and she don’t take shit from anybody.”

  “But she’s not the top of the food chain.”

  Reginald interrupted. “There is no single food chain. More like a food web, know what I’m saying?”

  Javvy added, “If it was that easy, there’d be no Whac-A-Mole going on. She’s high up, but she deals guns and other shit, too. She’s got Mexican connections, but there’s certain streets she don’t cross.”

  “Not unless she wants her ass chopped up and grilled,” Reg said.

  Renia was big-ish, tight-faced but not ugly. She was covered in tats and accompanied by a few heavies carrying pieces, but she herself didn’t appear to be holding.

  “Heavily armed,” I said.

  “Protective, I guess you could say. She ain’t an impossible hit, but she’s not a crackhead, either. She’s got connections with people Taj used to roll with.”

  “But she didn’t roll with Taj?” Deuce asked.

  Reg shook his head. Javvy chewed mindlesly at one finger. Damned thing was bleeding, but he didn’t seem to mind.

  Reg said, “She keeps a tight circle. She’s like a way station for all the crime the flows to the higher eddies of Jacksonville. We need to watch out.”

  “And you’re keeping your mouth shut?”

  Javvy nodded. Chewing his finger and nodding. “Yeah. Yup. Yeah. I’ve got you, man. If I’m lying, I’m dying.”

  Deuce said, “Don’t say that too often. The way things are going, we’ll all be tiptoeing through graveyards.”

  “What?”

  “Never mind,” he responded. “Just keep your wits about you. Don’t hop into cars with people you don’t trust.”

  He nodded, patted himself until he found his pipe. Security blanket for the addicted.

  I asked, “What does she do with this tight circle of hers?”

  Javvy shrugged. “Used to run dope. Got started in prison. She’d hide balloons of coke, condoms of H in her snatch, and deliver it to the chieftains running their little fiefdoms inside the walls of that hellhole. Eventually, she moved up. Put a few notches on her belt. Word is, she strangled two bitches with bedsheets for threatening her. Should’ve shivved her outright, because they left themselves wide open.”

  Deuce scratched his chin. Cracked his knuckles. “Doesn’t sound like she runs the drug trade anymore. Any word on her current business dealings?”

  Reg said, “Looking at giving her a job?”

  Reg was joking, but Deuce didn’t pay him any attention. He watched her duck into an Impala. “I don’t want to walk into an ambush is all,” he said. “She deals in powder, in pills, we can handle that. She lives among a stockpile of AR-15s, we have a problem.”

  “Trust me,” Reg assured. “She’s a hoodrat with an independent business sense. She’s got a record, but I doubt we’ll be walking into the end of Reservoir Dogs, know what I mean?”

  Deuce didn’t seem pleased, but he let it go.

  “Fine,” he said. “She’s the next target. She better have some info, little cuz.”

  Reg smiled that winning smile of his. “Come on, man. Trust me. Didn’t I tell you when it came to this, you could trust me?”

  I didn’t pay much attention to high school English, but I did remember something being said regarding people who protest too much being a bad thing. That’s the impression I got from Reg.

  We kept a low profile and made sure Renia didn’t see us tailing her. She came and went, made a few strange excursions. Some with bulky, tatted up Gs. Some with stringy-haired women.

  Electronics stores. Halloween shops. Smut palaces.

  Kept odd hours, but we didn’t mind that so much. Gave us something to do. Meanwhile, Deuce hummed beside me like a power line.

  It was during our stakeouts I came to understand Deuce’s mental situation. I caught brief flashes of what he was experiencing, but it was like flipping through a comic book. Bright colors. Still images. The mere echo, the hint, of movement, though most of it felt like it was in my head. Guess it was, in the simplest description. I got nothing meaningful from it, but the overall sentiment presaged a kind of darkness.

  Finally, we decided to make a move. She drove out of town, her whole car full of equipment, and we followed. She and some other stoner-looking guys helped haul it into the house where she’d stopped. Later, a caravan of who I assumed to be actors showed up. Lithe men and women, skinny and young, but hiding in their eyes a jaundiced, cynical view of the world.

  “We wait until sundown,” Deuce said. “Then, we kick in the door.”

  The day edged along, but eventually the sun went down. Thank God for November sunsets. We masked up and hunched over as we approached the front door.

  The house was an upgrade on the abandoned wreck from our first “interrogation.” It was a two story number that seemed like it might have some history. More tha
n could be said for the places we had visited until now.

  “You ready?” Deuce asked.

  A nod of the head from both me and Reginald.

  Unlocked door, thrust open. In we went. Guns panning from side to side.

  The work of filming must have already been completed, because everyone was sitting on a couch in the main living room, stoned out of their minds.

  The “actors” didn’t concern me. It was the two dudes rising out of their chairs, hands going elsewhere, that got my blood racing.

  This was happening. It was never easy, but this felt dangerous in a way previous scenarios hadn’t.

  We each screamed a similar command: Put your fucking hands up. Something like that. We rushed in and pressed gun barrels to flesh. Eyes watching toward one person, in particular.

  The boss.

  She was thick but not overweight. Button-down flannel shirt. Shades on top of her head. Earrings galore.

  “The fuck y’all want?”

  Not even bothering to put up her hands.

  “Any guns,” Reg said, “drop them on the table with the drugs. One at a time. You first.”

  Pointing the the leader. The HBIC. She smiled, even if Reg’s gun barrel pressed her face out of shape. She took out a nickel-plated Desert Eagle. An absolute hand cannon.

  “On the table.”

  I glanced down, saw an elaborate coffee table filled with drug paraphernalia. Pipes. Scales. Baggies. Weed. Other baggies. Mostly white. Some brown. Heroin, maybe.

  “Rolson, check upstairs,” Deuce said. I hoofed it, listening to the shouts behind me without taking in the words themselves. The tone and timbre got the point across.

  Second floor. There were four doors. First one was open, a bathroom with an ashtray full of joints next to the sink. Slipped open the shower curtain. Nothing.

  Back out in the hallway.

  Checked the rest of the doors. Each of the next two rooms was empty. They had been used recently, because it still smelled like dirty sex in there. But there was no one waiting for me with a shotgun, so i was all right with it.