“Hell of a way for it to go down.”
“Some girls had it worse. They get turned out when they’re eleven, twelve years old.”
“Anybody like that around here?”
“What you think?”
“Maybe you pass along some names. Get them out in some heat, get them a little afraid. Things can change, can get better.”
She let her gaze drift over my shoulder, and the spell she had over me broke.
“They’re shit bags, Tyra,” I said. “They got razor blades for brains and cysts for hearts. They use people for money and turn them into commodities. You can’t think you’re upholding some kind of a code by staying silent.”
“I think of somebody to roll over on, I’ll give you a call. You talk to Rich D yet?”
“He’s a human dead end,” I said. “He gave me nothing and lots of it.”
“I’d start there,” she responded. “If it comes off like he’s hiding something, that’s because he is.”
“Don’t let everything be a riddle.”
She dragged on her cigarette. She made even the most inconsequential actions seductive. “Reputation is something you get by doing nothing and lose by doing little more than that. Give me good cause.”
“Revenge.”
“This town is full of it,” she said. Smoke drifted between her lips as she spoke. Her eyes never left mine. Bright blue contacts. A stark and yet not unappealing contrast to her complexion. “I don’t need any more vengeance in my life. Lost a brother and two uncles that way. They were ‘bout that life and ended up being found in a dim alleyway.”
“Taj. That not matter to you?”
Somehow, inconceivably, her stare became more intense.
“He left me. Now, I’m stuck in this shithole of a town. I’m not angry. I’m not bitter. I’m resigned. I know what the future is for me. Laid out like train tracks in the flatlands.”
“You’re still young.”
“How much longer can I bounce around the clubs? I tried the college thing — didn’t work out. What opportunities exist for dropouts?”
“I only went through high school,” I said.
“And here you are, looking for people to gun down.”
“Just trying to to find the truth.”
Her smile turned my guts to liquid. “And what, tell me, will happen when you stumble onto the truth?”
I shrugged.
“You think it’s going to end well?”
“Does anything?”
“If it comes out to be something you can’t handle, then what?”
I shrugged again. “Same thing happens to anyone walks into a bad situation without the right tool. I’ll get what’s coming to me.”
“Then what? Just blast your way through?”
“Listen,” I said, leaning forward, downing the last of my beer, “I get it. You want me on this whole guilt trip regarding death and killing and — and whatever. I’m not here for that. I know it’s fucked up. Probably going to end with some people grave-bound, but that’s the way it is.”
“So, then, you just want a snitch? Some thot to tell you everything she knows?”
I tried a smile on. “No?”
She stubbed out the smoke. “All right, then. Let’s get to it.”
I waved my empty at the barkeep, who nodded and went to grab one from the cooler underneath. “We know he was involved with the gangs. The Black Whatevers. No news there.”
“Yeah. Taj ran with the Reapers. He wasn’t blooded in, but he would do their bidding.”
“I couldn’t even get that out of Victor.”
She pssshed. “No surprise. You’re playing with smoke that’s got no fire.”
“So give me some fire.”
“The wolves.”
“The what?”
“Wolves.”
The beer arrived, and the other one went away.
“The swamp people? The ones dealing foreigners to the highest bidder?”
“What about them?”
“How are they connected?”
She lit another cigarette, impatiently puffed it twice. “People disappear all the time, white boy. There is a market for people just like there’s a market for guns, for drugs — for fucking.”
Not shocked. Not disgusted. Just truthful.
“And Taj, what, he was a driver?”
“Something like that,” she said.
“Were you dating him at this time?”
She moved her head from side to side. “Off and one. Me and Taj, we wasn’t always committed to the same relationship goals.”
“He fucked around.”
She smiled. Puffed on her cig.
“You fucked around?”
“That’s so small town of you,” she said. “Taj and me, we were what you might call consistently inconsistent.”
“Did you get him killed?”
She jerked. “Kind of shit is that?”
“A question. Honest one, if we’re talking about that young man’s life.”
“You say that like he was still in high school. Taj knew what he was doing.”
“And what he was doing was...”
“Whatever a certain someone wanted him to do. Not me. I fucked him, but I never fucked him over.”
“Who was this certain someone?”
“Uh-unh. Them people’s got ears everywhere. I can’t tell you no names. That’s what you got to go out and find.”
“Tell me something else,” I said.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Then what reason would you have to see me again?”
Underneath the table, her knee touched mine. I slid just out of her reach and smiled.
“I think something will bring us back together. I’m not lucky enough to completely avoid the company of women like you.”
“Well, be careful,” she said. “What it is you’re looking for, you might not want to see it, once it’s uncovered. Bye, now.”
She slid out of the booth, as graceful and free as you want, and the next moment she had disappeared into a group of barflies hanging onto their drinks for dear life. I knew the feeling.
I ordered another round of what we were each having, drank both of them, and then stumbled out to the car.
Someone was waiting for me in the parking lot.
I was too drunk to fight, but I figured whoever wouldn’t be discouraged by that.
My stomach rumbled twice and settled, but if I got jostled, there was a good chance I’d spew all over the place.
“You Rolson?” said the hooded figure leaning against my car.
“Yeah,” I answered in an irascible tone.
Due to the litany of recent near-death experiences I had experienced, my hand moved automatically toward the pistol in my belt. I probably couldn’t have hit the car the guy leaned against with the first shot, but a six-shot clip gave me some leeway.
“I’m not looking for a fight,” the guy said. He was tall, dark-skinned, and thin.
“You wouldn’t have to look far,” I replied, and hiccuped once.
“Listen, I was friends with Taj. What happened to him was messed up.”
“What took you so long to come out of the woodwork?”
He balked at that, shook his head. “It ain’t like that,” he said.
“What’s it like, then?”
“What you heard? What reason people been giving you for his death?”
I sniffed, spat on the ground. “People say a lot of things. Money. Drugs. Gang stuff. Sounds like one hell of a buck-passing job.”
The guy, who had his hands in the hoodie’s pockets, stretched out his hands, as if to say, I got nothing to say on that topic. “All I know is, it’s interconnected. I don’t know what that rat-fuck Reginald has been telling you, but Taj got into moving people around because he got behind on some payments to brothers in the Reapers. He went to Dufour because that fucker spends money all over town.”
“So what?”
“Taj ain’t never been t
he best decision maker. He fell behind on Othello Dufour, too, and OD sold him down the river to Hector Dominguez. That basically signed his death warrant.”
“But you don’t know who did him in?”
He shrugged. “I know what I know, homie.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah.”
I spat again. Everything around me was spinning. “And who the fuck’re you?”
“I’m a Reaper. I was more like Taj’s brother than Deuce ever was.”
“And yet you did nothing to save him.”
“Way things run around here, nobody could save Taj.”
With that, he slipped back into the impermeable darkness, and I fell asleep in the car’s backseat. I left the door open in case I needed to puke.
When I came to, I was in the middle of a phone call. To whom, I couldn’t immediately tell. I just knew I was holding the phone to my ear.
I pulled the device away from my face and checked the number through squinting eyes.
It was Allison’s number, and we had been on the phone for three minutes.
“Hello?” I said groggily into the phone.
No answer.
“Hey, Allison. Hey. You there?”
Again, nothing.
Shit. I was leaving a three-minute voicemail.
“Hey,” I said, “I know things are real fucked-up right now, but I’m-a come for you. I’m going to make things right. Deuce — he saved my life. I owe him this. But I swear, as soon as this is done, I’m coming for you. I hope this makes it to you, and I hope you understand. I can’t — I can’t come to Savannah just yet.”
Before I hung up, I added a cursory, “I’m sorry.”
As I dragged myself to the front seat, I got a reply in the form of a single sentence text.
Don’t expect me to wait on you, it said.
I held the phone for longer than it should have taken to type out a message, and, when I couldn’t think of something to say, just tossed it into the passenger seat. But my mind revolved around her for the rest of the day.
4
I was in the middle of busting a hangover with some hair of the dog when my phone blew up. It was Javvy on the other line. “I got info on who clipped Deuce’s brother,” he said. “Come and meet me at the first place I showed you.”
“Javvy, you all right?”
“No, not that one,” he replied, his voice quavering a little. “The one with the two dudes you met. You know what I mean.”
“There are people there with you.”
“Yeah, you got it. Just meet me over there ASAP.”
The phone went dead in my hand.
Deuce wasn’t home.
Reg didn’t answer.
Guess I was going it alone.
I got a text as I slipped behind the wheel. An address. I followed an interminable set of turns until I reached a dirty and dilapidated church well outside of town.
It was a structural disgrace. The paint job had chipped away until the naked wood beneath showed, and that was nothing to celebrate. The sign outside had mostly collapsed in on itself, save for two remaining words: the devil.
Seemed about right.
As I got out of the car and crossed the yard, I kept my eyes open. A willow tree drooped beneath a single, yellowish light in the parking lot. Behind the church was an aluminum roofed fellowship area, and someone had dumped an old refrigerator beneath it.
No sign of the men who had taken Javvy. No cars. No guns. No screams. No nothing. I worried what I would encounter once I entered the musty old building.
I was struck first by the smell of the place. It had a decaying, mildewed smell, like wet clothes left in a pile for too long.
The foyer was littered with trash of all sorts, used condoms and old liquor bottles and disintegrating newspapers. I even saw two dessicated rats, but my eyes were drawn away from the filth to the spectacle which had been laid bare before me.
I walked slowly up the aisle, staring in awe at the pulpit. The room was lit by what must have been dozens of candles, all carefully placed to provide the room with the right aura.
The pews had long ago been removed or destroyed, great chunks of wood strewn around the room as if to give any view a clue as to what had happened. Some overturned furniture lay in the corner, propped sideways by a trashed wooden cabinet.
Ahead, the choir loft, raised above the main floor of the building featured a sight like none I had ever seen. Of all the blasphemies I had witnessed and participated in over the span of my life, this was, by far, the worst.
It was a message for us, a fairly clear and disgusting one. Javvy was nailed to the wall, his torso opened like a biology experiment. He had been crucified in a mocking homage to the man the people who came here every week prayed to.
I moved closer. On the floor beneath him lay a stainless steel pan filled with innards. Human innards, coiled and slimy with human fluids.
Javvy’s face was locked in a pale, contorted grimace, eyes bulging pitifully in the sockets. Mouth agape, revealing toothless gums. I even thought I saw the stump of a tongue in there somewhere.
I’d seen some gruesome shit in my time, but this was heinous. Not just disrespectful to human life, but sacrilegious in a way I couldn’t quite abide. He was a human sculpture, a piece of transgressive art. A warning. A message. A lesson.
He couldn’t be found like this.
Just as I reached up to remove the screws that secured Javvy in place, a board creaked behind me. I didn’t react, didn’t make a fuss. Just continued looking up at the dead man.
“You want I should turn around so you can get a good look at me before gunning me down, or are you the type to shoot a man in his back?”
“Either one’s fine by me,” he said. “You’ll be dead by sunrise, whichever way you stand.”
I turned around, hands raised.
“Long while until sunrise,” I said. “Why not just empty that clip and get on with your night? You could be mowing down an All-Star Special before the sun comes up.”
The guy smiled. He was probably my age, except he had corn rows and a dead-eyed stare. A long scar ran from the edge of one temple across his nose to the opposite cheek. He had a sawed off shotgun leveled in my direction. From that distance, it’d probably cut me in two.
His eyes flickered, and he looked up at Javvy’s desecrated corpse.
“That your handiwork?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Nope.”
“You going to take me to the guy who did this?”
He nodded. “Yup.”
“And that’s when the real fun begins.”
He smiled, nodded. “It’s a way to pay the bills.
I made my way down to where he was standing. Hands in the air. No sudden movements. I said, “I don’t think you’d be smiling, if it was just a job.”
The smile broadened. “Guess you’re right. I don’t mind saying I take pride in what I do.”
“I always heard ‘pride goeth before a fall,’ but who even listens to the Bible anymore?”
He said, “Been a while since I opened the Good Book, but I remember God giving a pass to people he found to be righteous enough.”
“And you think what you’re doing is righteous?”
“Every man thinks what he does is justifiable. I’m not different.”
“That true of your boss? He think he’s righteous?”
“As the day is long, my man. Now, let’s get going.”
He led me up the aisle and out the lopsided doors.
“You know a tall, skinny guy?” I asked. “Wears a dark-colored hoodie?”
“I know plenty of niggas wear that uniform,” he responded.
“You a gang member?”
“What kind of fucked-up question is that?”
“Plausible one,” I said. “You a Reaper?”
He didn’t answer.
“Oh, come on. The fuck does it matter, if you’re dragging me to my death?”
“Yeah, man. I got ties
to the Black Reapers. What’s it matter to you?”
“So, the guy I’m thinking of—”
“What fucking guy?”
“The skinny Reaper guy. Anyway, he told me the man I’m looking for is tight with the Reapers and Hector Dominguez. You know anything about people I’m trying to kill?”
The guy sucked his teeth. “Man, you crazy as shit.”
“But I’m persistent. Does your...organization run with people who traffic in people?”
“Meaning?”
“Do the Reapers protect slavers who turn women out across the southeast?”
Nothing.
Silence.
Bingo.
“I take that as a yes,” I said.
“You can take it however the fuck you want. Now, shut your mouth. I’m sick-a hearin’ it.”
We ended up by a waiting car, which was parked underneath a nearby shed. Before I got in, he confiscated my piece and tossed it into a collection of overgrown bushes.
If you get in that car, I thought, it will be the last choice you will make of your own volition.
Then, I caught a flicker. It wasn’t much, but it was evident in the way my vision began to glow. I caught sight of someone striding toward us, and I knew by the way the feet never touched the ground that it wasn’t an accomplice of my new acquaintance.
It was Javvy. He was so freshly dead, his spirit appeared to shine with an iridescence equal to the candles flickering inside the church.
“You see that?” I asked my shotgun-wielding captor.
“See what?”
“Never mind.”
The flicker continued its march toward me, and I found myself staring at it, instead of the guy with the gun.
“Hey, man, I heard you was a fucking freak, but—”
“Shh,” I said, and he listened. He was quiet.
I thought I could hear the sound of twigs crackling underfoot, but that was just my imagination. Still, the truth was that a dead man had found his way beyond the folds of death, and he was heading right for us.
I welcomed the return of the power, even if it was a temporary opening of the gates.
“Javvy,” I said.
“That Spic is dead, man,” the shotgun guy said. He had no idea.
Javvy and I made eye contact. His blank eyes — without pupils, without irises and lenses — conveyed a sense of purpose and knowing. Of…understanding.
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