by Ace Atkins
“Hey,” Poochie yell. “Hey.”
But Bronco and JoJo already lookin’ inside of rooms and offices and wanderin’ round the studio where you supposed to cut a record tomorrow.
“JoJo!” Bronco yells. The old man go and you follow.
Poochie try to grab your arm but you already inside Teddy’s office and see Bronco down on one knee, just like that Indian scout in the movie, sniffin’ and trailin’ animals and shit. Only this time, don’t take much.
A big ole pool of red blood mixed in that high, white carpet.
“What up, man?” you yell at Poochie. You get in his face. “What up?”
“They gone, man,” he say. “That’s all.”
“Where?”
Poochie shake his head again. “I don’t know.”
“Where’s Teddy?”
Then you see the gold hook, the one laden down with keys to the two Bentleys and three Escalades, and that big Scarab sport boat. The big ole fish key chain ain’t on the hook.
“Where’s Nick?”
“I seen him come in,” Poochie say. “But only Teddy and some dude left.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Some punk nigga.”
“Was he branded?” you ask.
“I don’t know.”
“What he look like?”
“He had eyes like him,” he said, pointing to Bronco.
JoJo look at you and y’all know.
“How long they been gone?”
“They was yellin’ in here and shit for a while and then they left ’bout an hour ago.”
“I know where they at,” you say. “But he gone.”
JoJo look at you.
“He got his boat out in the lake. Man, we ain’t ever gonna find him. That boat run.”
“We need a faster boat, kid,” he says. “What you got hidden with all your toys?”
“Na,” you say. You reach into your wallet and find a platinum card, raised lettering. “But I got someone who can hook us up.”
The C-phone already caught in your hand callin’ on Cash.
68
I PRESSED MY PALM to the wet bloody mess below my rib cage. My fingers trembled and my breath slowed. All I could smell was new car in the trunk of Teddy’s Bentley and something ripe and sour. My head bounced against a tire iron every time he slowed, my feet crinkling on some shopping bags where they’d placed me. I don’t know if they thought I was dead, or cared. I’d passed out right until I’d been carried out. Everything seemed dulled. My head throbbed from where I fell and hit the edge of Teddy’s desk. I was in shock. My mind unclear.
I kept my palm to the wound, trying to stop the blood. Apply pressure, that’s what you did. Right? I tried to breathe. I wanted to kick at the side of the car. I wanted to try and rip out of the trunk. But I was shut inside, didn’t have the energy, and knew any sound would just draw them to shoot me again.
I breathed. And swallowed.
I felt as if someone had carved into my flesh with a hot knife and kept twisting the blade inside me. Jesus. Jesus.
I closed my eyes and prayed.
Teddy. My mind wasn’t right. Teddy.
We hit a bump and a solid, fleshy mass lolled against me. In the dim glow of the taillights, flickering on and off in a red strobe, I turned my head and saw Trey Brill staring at me with glassy blue eyes. His face gray and covered in dried blood.
“Goddamn,” I yelled. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t move in the trunk. I felt as if my body had been wired together and shut inside a coffin.
I kicked hard, denting in the side of the car. I gritted my teeth.
The car slowed.
I heard muffled voices.
I closed my eyes, slowed my breathing even more. I turned my head away from Trey and the smell of his body releasing all of its fluids.
Outside, hands beat on the trunk.
“Calm down,” Christian said.
“It’ll be okay,” Teddy said.
“Cool.”
“Okay, Malcolm,” Teddy said.
“Man, chill.”
“Malcolm?”
“I’m not fuckin’ Malcolm,” Christian yelled. “Now open the goddamn trunk and let’s get this shit done.”
I kept my eyes shut, felt Teddy’s meaty hands lift under me like a spatula and cradle me into his huge arms. I let all my muscles go slack. No breathing. I held my breath.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Lord God Jesus. Jesus my savior.”
“Teddy, shut the fuck up,” Christian said.
Their feet crunched on gravel.
Feet shifted upon wooden planks and I heard the slap of water against pilings. I opened my eyelids just a crack. Still dark. The glow of security lights over dozens of boats parked in narrow little slips.
His feet stopped and he dropped me onto the deck right on my hurt side. I bit so hard into my lip that I could taste blood, an electric current of pain lighting up my body. But I didn’t scream.
In my mind, I saw clear blue water leaking from my eyes and a black shroud covering my face in a tight mask. I took in air slow.
With a thud, Trey’s body dropped onto the deck beside me like a freshly caught fish onto ice. I smelled his odor and heard a ticking sound. When I opened my eyes, I saw nothing but his large Rolex’s second hand sweeping across the black face. His wrists turning purple and light gray.
Teddy cried, almost as if he’d become a child again. Sniffling, wailing.
An engine started and puttered.
Christian used my back as a springboard to pop back up to the slip and untie the lines. Seconds later, we moved out.
In the dim blue-black light of the false dawn, I prayed some more.
I thought of my body resting as I bled. I thought about my energy storing up. I’d just lie still for a while. Try and keep conscious. I bit my hurt lip to feel more pain. Keep alert.
My face flush to the ground, brown water running into my purposely open mouth, I saw a revolver on Christian’s hip.
“Stop, cryin’, boy,” he said. “Hard part’s over.”
I heard the radio tune around the dial.
He found a rap station playing a song that kept on with a steady beat. “Oohhhwee.” More beats. More rhymes. “Ooohhhweee.”
Christian rapped along as he steered.
Teddy moved beside him, silk shirt bloody and untucked.
I could only see his back and fat neck stretched tight as he looked down into the water. “Where we goin’, Malcolm?”
“You my dog, Teddy,” Christian said. “You right. We brothers now.”
69
THAT DOCK WHERE TEDDY keep that Scarab is empty as hell. Light just comin’ over the edge of the lake while you and JoJo and Bronco look out from the marina at all the places where they could’ve gone out in that black water. JoJo’s old truck parked next to Teddy’s Bentley, right by the edge of all those boats, all faded blue and dented. JoJo looks across Pontchartrain and then over at Bronco, who shakes his head.
“Ain’t no way,” Bronco says. “That’s the biggest thing I ever seen.”
“Where that friend you promise?” JoJo asks.
“He comin’.”
“What’s he to you?”
“He owes me.”
“For what?”
“Whatever he want.”
“Words are nothin’ to a thug,” he says. “This boy don’t sound no different than an animal.”
Just as he say that, his old truck gets swallowed up by five white Escalades and a bright yellow Ferrari where you see Cash float out shirtless with leather pants. He wears sunglasses and got a toothpick cocked out the side of his mouth.
JoJo look over at you and shake his head.
“He got a boat,” you say. “Fast as hell.”
He looks over at Bronco. Bronco nods.
“Have no fear,” Cash say.
You ain’t got no time for no introductions and no time for a lot of words.
“Travers
out on the lake,” you say.
“What?” he ask. “You want me to take out my sweet little boat for his ass?”
“Listen, goddammit,” JoJo say, gettin’ in Cash’s face and seein’ Cash ain’t used to that. “You either help us get out on that lake and look for my boy or get back to shinin’ your sissy-ass chains.”
Cash smiles platinum and grunts. “Who you, old man?”
“The man been kickin’ ass before your granddaddy even got his dick wet.”
Twelve of Cash’s Angola crew moan and laugh. Cash look at them, givin’ that mean eye, lettin’ them know to shut that mouth.
“Why you want to help that white boy?” he ask.
JoJo turns. “Come on, Tavarius.”
“Tavarius?” Cash asks, laughin’. “Man, now that’s funny. That your name, ALIAS?”
You look at him, cockin’ that head and lookin’ up into his eyes. “Yeah, that’s my name.”
Y’all walk through the crowd, bumpin’ shoulders with some of those do-rag niggas, when Cash yell: “You wit’ me now?”
You turn and nod.
“Well, let’s get in the goddamn boats. Ain’t never too early for no ride.”
JoJo look back, cuttin’ his eyes straight down the narrow little dock. “What you got?”
Cash flicks his forefinger out — almost makin’ it out like a gun — and point to one of them Cigarette racin’ boats you seen when you down in Miami. Man, you heard them things could run you all the way down to the Bahamas before the hour through.
But this boat don’t look nothin’ like that shit in Miami. This one ghetto hard all the way. It’s purple and gold and got the words BALLIN’ III painted in shiny looped letters at the back and the cartoon head of a pit bull in a diamond collar snarlin’ up front of that sleek, long boat. Look like some kind of rocket ship.
“Y’all take the other two,” he yell to some of his boys.
Down the dock, you see Cash got two more boats that look like the same.
“I designed them myself,” Cash says as y’all walk back. “Only limitation is that imagination.”
“Lord God, help the world,” JoJo said. “Your ghetto ass know how to steer?”
“Sit down, ole man, and strap your ass in, ’cause we headed to the goddamn moon.”
The engine start with a chug, chug, chug and y’all is rollin’ out hard as that edge of the lake, where it look like black glass, is turnin’ all purple with the sky.
Y’all is flyin’, skippin’ over tiny little waves listenin’ to Mystikal tellin’ the world to get out his way. Salty mist hittin’ your eyes. Tastin’ the lake on your lips.
JoJo holds on tight.
Bronco finds himself standin’ right by Cash, lookin’ into the wind.
You see that old man’s smile match the thug’s.
70
“WE NEED SOME WEIGHT,” Christian yelled to Teddy. “Teddy? You listenin’, man? I said, we got some weight?”
“You’re right, Malcolm. It’s all right. We get the weight. Sweet Jesus. We got that weight.”
Christian started laughing. “Stone-cold crazy. Stonecold. Malcolm. Yeah, boy.”
The speedboat cut hard and picked up speed. I felt the water beating hard on the hull and slapping us up and down with the chop. I kept my eyes closed, growing nauseous.
Christian kept rapping along with the radio station in his khakis and sandals. I peeked back at Teddy standing by his side. I looked over at Trey and the way his head bobbed, his body slapping down with the hull every few seconds.
I felt bile rise in my throat.
I got to my feet. Everything shaking. My balance teetering, head swimming in long Olympic strokes. I held on to the rail and, without any great stealth, made my way, trying to get the revolver Christian wore tucked in his belt.
I was within a few feet when he spiked the throttle and threw me onto my back with a thud. He laughed. Teddy peered down at me — but it wasn’t Teddy in his eyes — and he looked away. Dumb and mute.
Christian slowed the boat. A constant chugging from the motor.
He stood over me and kicked me hard in the head.
He kicked me again.
I curled into a ball and then rolled to my hands and knees.
I used the rail and got to my feet, puking all over my shirt.
Everything felt like it was spinning and turning.
“Teddy,” I said. “Come on, man. What happened? It’s still you. It’s still you.”
He slowly twisted his head from side to side. “No.”
“Come on, man.”
Christian leveled the gun at my head, the biggest wicked grin forming on his lips. Green eyes slanting. A pink, blue dawn sliding over the black water, framing his body.
He jumped and fell.
On the deck, Trey’s hands wrapped around Christian’s ankles. Blood poured from his mouth and he made a gurgling, croaking sound.
Christian fired off three rounds into Trey’s head, sending misting blood across the white fiberglass of the hull.
I leapt for him, grabbed his throat, and head-butted him. I plunged my thumbs into his voice box and he made a muted shriek as it cracked in my hands. The gun clattered to the ground.
Teddy never moved as Christian fell. I picked up the gun.
Without hesitation, I aimed it at Christian’s head and pulled the trigger.
Click.
I pulled it again.
Click.
I heard another click and turned.
Teddy was back. Or some part of him.
He had the hammer thumbed back on his .357 Magnum. His eyes and face were dead. No light, no feeling. His black skin slick with sweat. He aimed the barrel toward me and said in his deep voice, “Sit your ass down till we find a good and dark place to kill you.”
71
CASH HUGS THAT COAST of Pontchartrain, that mean ole humpbacked levee running for miles out on-shore. Look like the spiny back of a dragon blockin’ you from seein’ anything off the lake. The sky is so pink and gray. These big-ass long clouds that crack and stretch like broken slabs of concrete in the early day. The sun just a slice of orange over that long, green levee, colorin’ these old fishin’ shacks on tall crooked wooden legs that stretch out long and crippled. Some of them is just legs now, weather and time and shit bleachin’ all that wood away.
Cash slow his purple boat, his right hand on that wheel that look like a racecar. He open up his C-phone and start talkin’. He yellin’ into it, tellin’ them to “Work ’em. Work ’em.”
He flick it shut and turn to JoJo. “My boys seen ’em. They was right down by the causeway and must’ve got scared. They’s runnin’ ’em back toward us. Both my boats like two pit bulls.”
JoJo smiled. “Hot damn,” he said. But then he stopped smilin’ when Cash turn the boat toward the bridges headin’ out of the city. “They see Nick?”
Cash shook his head. “Just Teddy and some other brother.”
“That brother is Dio,” you say.
“What?” Cash says, wealth flashin’ in his mouth. He starts to laugh.
“Dio ain’t dead,” you say. “Some rich motherfuckers over in Metairie made him up. He ain’t neva real.”
“What you mean, not real?” Cash asks, lookin’ back. Real concerned now.
“I said that nigga weren’t eva real,” you say. “This boy Christian just actin’ thugged up. They weren’t his rhymes, man. He stole them off a dead man he knew in Angola and then made his own self disappear. They schemed all them lost records and shit.”
Cash shook his head. “That the boy on the boat?”
“Yeah.”
“He got to win the Academy Award,” he say. “I even heard folks out in Calliope say they his people.”
Bronco reach into a duffel bag and hands JoJo a long, black pistol.
“Teddy know about this?” Cash ask.
You say he did.
“Lord help ’em both,” Cash say. “You gonna kill ’em, old man?”
“I kill anyone gets in my way.”
“You with him, Tavarius?” Cash ask.
“All the way.”
“Y’all just thugs and don’t even know it.”
Cash lay down the throttle and that long green levee break behind you. Y’all runnin’ down a long old railroad bridge crossin’ the water.
“The Trestle,” JoJo says, to no one in particular.
CHRISTIAN STEERED the boat while Teddy tied Trey’s body with thick white rope and wrapped the cord of a ship radio around his neck, letting the heavy transmitter fall to his chest. He duct-taped a big red fire extinguisher to his dead body and pulled the cover of a black pillowcase over his head.
“Goddamn, he wouldn’t quit lookin’ at me,” Teddy said. “You like that, Malcolm?” He started to laugh. “You like that?”
“Yeah, Teddy,” Christian said. “Good boy.”
I held my place on a backseat, rolling and rocking with the boat. My entire body smeared with my own blood and vomit. Dark maroon stains across my palms.
“Teddy, you remember that time you won the Atlanta game? You scooped up the ball and ran in for a touchdown. We went down to that bar in the Quarter and later on you danced on a table with that midget. You remember that? Man, we had a good time.”
I smiled up at him.
He tilted his head at me. His eyes narrowing. “You ain’t nothin’.”
“I’m your friend. It’s Nick.”
“Nick?”
He smiled for a moment, eyes softening.
His shape darkened as we headed for the long train bridge — Christian squeezing through the narrow opening — sewing our way under two more long bridges of the old highway and then the interstate twisting north. He smiled as the day softened all pink and gold all the way to the Gulf. Christian running us close to the shore and cursing God for only finding marsh.
We slowed to a chug as he looked for solid ground.
I held out my hand to Teddy.
The smile shut off.
“It’s all gone too far,” he said.
We were on the far edge of Orleans Parish, the edge of the Bayou Sauvage.
I could smell the foulness of the bayou rot as we moved away from the lake and deeper into the high grass. I’d hunted around here sometime back with JoJo, a place called Blind Lagoon.