Dirty South

by Ace Atkins

  “Yeah, my lawyer was a cocksucker,” he said. “You know that little weight coach we had? The one who drank protein shakes and wore bikers’ pants? He told me this guy was the best in New Orleans. All he did was clean out the rest of my bank account and have his secretary send me a ‘sorry for fuckin’ up your life’ card on my goddamned birthday.”

  I picked up a couple of stones on the ground and whizzed them into the woods. The afternoon sun had flushed blood and heat into my face. “What did he do, Riggins?”

  “You’re gonna think I’m the biggest dumb-ass you ever heard,” he said. “Almost don’t want to tell you.”

  “Trey’s fucking over Teddy Paris.”

  “Fat Teddy?”

  I nodded.

  “Remember when I sent that fucking whore to meet Teddy after we got back from San Francisco?”

  “Yeah,” I said, my face unchanging. “Hilarious.”

  “Man, that was funny as shit.”

  He laughed for a few minutes, really chuckling to himself, until he dropped his big head into his hands and his back began to shake.

  “What did Trey do?”

  “He sold me my own property.”

  “Come again?”

  He snorted and pulled out some Copenhagen from a tin. “I know that sounds crazy. But a few years back, he had me invest in this condo project out in Gretna,” he said, tucking a pinch into his lip. “Well, a year after I retired, I didn’t get dick. I get this lawyer and he has some accountant check things out. Turns out, I’d already put in for a hundred grand on the place. He’d sold it back to me for fucking three. Shit, I didn’t know one of these deals from another.”

  “I guess Matlock wasn’t your lawyer,” I said.

  “The police and my lawyer couldn’t prove shit,” he said. “He’s got these little corporations set up all over. More hidden names than assholes in China.”

  “He run over anyone else?”

  He nodded. “Tim Z. Bone. DuBois.”

  “You know how to find them?”

  “No,” he said. “But they were all in the same deal. Tim Z. wanted to grease Trey’s ass with STP and run a rabid squirrel into his cornhole with some PVC pipe. He got put in jail just for tellin’ Trey about it on the phone. He’s got one of those restraining-order things on him now. But in the end, we all decided he’d wallow in his own sin. You know, that’s back when I was all into the Fellowship of Christian Athletes shit. I thought the world was gonna end in 2000. That’s when I built the bunker.”

  “Never can be too careful.”

  “I got enough cans of beans to make the whole nation fart on cue.”

  “What made you trust this guy so much?”

  “He’d keep your mind on other things,” he said. “Like this one time, he had this woman come over when I had the gym. To sign contracts and shit. She looked just like Barbie. Had big fake tits and blond hair and the IQ of a squirrel.”

  “Smart as the one who would run into the PVC pipe?”

  “What?”

  “Never mind.”

  “Well, anyway, we ended up doin’ it in a three-way mirror after the gym had closed.”

  “So there were six of you?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” he said. “That’s funnier than shit. Would you quit fuckin’ with me and let me tell the damned story? That’s what you wanted, right?”

  He didn’t smile.

  I did.

  “I found out when we were about to go to court that she didn’t even work for Brill,” he said. “She was a damn stripper at that place on Bourbon called the Maiden Voyage. You know, where they used to brag they had the Best Chest in the West?”

  We walked back to the trailer, Annie by my side, Riggins leading the way. He strategically spit as we walked, and pointed out different markers that signified boundaries of his land.

  “I guess you getting ready for training camp,” Riggins said, his eyes wide.

  “Jimmy, I haven’t played for ten years.”

  “Really?” he asked, squinting into the sun.

  “No lie.”

  “Been chopping a lot of wood,” he said. “I’m gonna call the suits tomorrow. Tell them I’ll take a little less for this season.”

  “See you out there, brother.”

  From my rearview mirror, I watched Jimmy wave from the middle of his long dirt road. I noticed a wall he’d made from small logs that seemed to go on forever. Before I turned a corner, I saw him grab his ax and start on another tall pine.

  54

  SUMMER HEAT BAKED oil puddles in the eight-story garage where I sat on the hood of Trey’s new silver BMW with a rusty crowbar in my hand. I’d taken Annie back to the warehouse and spent my last hour counting people walking off the elevator, checking out trucks in the garage, and noticing all the oil spots that reminded me of presidents’ heads. I thought about Maggie and her farm, Polk Salad Annie taking a crap on my sofa yesterday, and ALIAS stealing from JoJo. I tried to remember what JoJo had told me about the liquor-license changeover and a bouncer he knew we could trust.

  With restocking the booze, booking the bands, and making schedules for the waitresses we’d have to hire, I hoped I’d still have time to teach. I just wanted to keep the bar running half as smooth as it had under JoJo. I wanted to keep everything the same.

  A small bell rang and the doors opened. Footsteps echoed through the concrete cavern and I heard laughing and a woman’s voice playfully telling someone to “shut up.”

  “I’m fuckin’ starved,” Brill said as he punched his key chain and the BMW’s horn honked and lights winked. I didn’t move.

  Trey caught my eye. I shifted the crowbar into my right hand.

  He began to walk faster, leaving the woman in his wake. She tilted her head, looking toward me, sitting hard on her friend’s car. She was in her midtwenties and blond. Boy-short hair and pixie face. A tight white top, Capri pants, and a pink sweater tied around her shoulders.

  “What the fuck?” Trey asked.

  The woman ran, her arms flouncing on each side of her body, heels wobbling beneath her tanned calves. “Trey, don’t. Trey.”

  He reached for his cell phone and I assumed called 911.

  No light crept into the floor of the parking garage from the windowless walls. The air smelled like carbon monoxide and garbage.

  Brill gave his directions and the little blonde hung on his arm.

  “Where’s Dahlia?” I asked.

  “Fuck you.”

  “Let’s talk.”

  “About what?”

  “How you stole from Jimmy Riggins and raped a drunk little girl. Or how you were grabbing the ass of the woman who conned ALIAS the other night at Whiskey Blue.”

  He began to walk away.

  I popped three hard ones with the crowbar into the hood.

  “Shit!” Trey screamed.

  “Malcolm was a good guy,” I said. “He knew about you siphoning off money from Teddy. Right?”

  He shook his head and ground his back teeth together. His face was red and blotched. He wore a blue dress shirt and loose tie. Khakis and big brown New York designer shoes.

  “How much did you pay Dahlia?”

  “Who’s Dahlia?” the blonde asked.

  “Shut up,” Brill said.

  A red Toyota truck circled up the curving drive of the parking deck, light casting over me, Trey, and the girl. The car kept rolling, tires squealing, as it headed upward. Trey stood still. “Fuck you,” he said. “Fuck you. Beat my car. I don’t give a shit.”

  He turned to walk away. I felt a surge inside me, my hands shaking at my sides, and I ran toward him, the crowbar clanging to the ground. I grabbed him by the back of his shirt and threw him against a dirty minivan. It knocked the wind from him and he dropped to his knees as the woman screamed.

  The minivan’s alarm began to sound with the impact.

  I gripped the front of his shirt, lifting him to his feet.

  He was crying now and trying to catch a breath. His lower
lip twitched and he babbled some obscenities at me.

  With one hand, I banged him against the van again.

  “Listen, you spoiled little shit,” I said. “I know what you are. You wipe your ass with people like that little girl. I know you left Christian holding the bag while you ran games on Jimmy Riggins and some of my teammates. I know Dahlia was the girl who conned ALIAS along with Marion Bloom. She told me. But I bet this was the first time you ever had someone killed. I don’t care who strung Malcolm up in that tree or what kind of shit you planted in his house. You called it. And you had that same street freak you hired come for me.”

  I tightened my grip on his oxford cloth. “Malcolm worked for what he had. He wasn’t a twisted little fuck like you.”

  When I stood back, I noticed that part of his shirt had come off in my hands.

  The girl kneeled, weeping, and holding out her hand. Her fingers stretched out to Trey, who was getting to his feet and pointing at me.

  Trey moved inches from my face. I could smell coffee on his breath as he yelled hard. “Don’t you see? Don’t you fucking see?”

  The girl screamed, “No. No.” She tugged at his arm, pulling him away. “He’s going to kill you.”

  “It’s ALIAS,” he said. “Ask Teddy. There was no con. Teddy knows. Did you ask Dahlia about ALIAS? She’s been with him for months. They took the money together. He lied and told Teddy he’d been conned. Did you ever ask Teddy about the charges he filed against ALIAS last year and the ten thousand ALIAS stole? Or when he caught Dahlia giving ALIAS head in the back of his Bentley?”

  “ALIAS doesn’t know Dahlia,” I said. “She was with you at Whiskey Blue.”

  “She’s just some ass, man,” he said. “She’s fucked everybody at Ninth Ward. She was there because that’s where the rappers go. Man, I was drunk when she came over to me. Have you seen her? What would you do?”

  The girl behind him began to sob harder. I noticed a gold sorority insignia around her neck.

  “Bullshit,” I said.

  “Why would I fucking kill Malcolm?” Trey yelled, grasping his hair in his hands. “He ran the whole company. The only thing Teddy can do is fuck it up. Malcolm was my friend too. I miss him.”

  I stepped back, his words flying into me with blood and foam from his mouth. The woman pulling him away, the alarm on the car still blaring into my ears.

  “That kid is evil, man,” he said. “Ask Teddy if I’m lying.”

  I watched him.

  “You hate me because I have money,” he said. “All guys like you and Riggins want to be my friend and then hate me for what I am. Fuck you. Fuck all of you.”

  I gritted my teeth and stood by the car, watching Brill and the girl slip into the BMW, back up, and spin away. The car fishtailed, nearly striking a Cadillac, before disappearing down into the parking deck.

  55

  TEARS RAN DOWN Teddy’s big cheeks while he answered the question from the BET VJ for 106th and Park. A camera and sound guy cornered him in his big leather sectional while the feed went out live. A few groupies lounged in Teddy’s pool in bikinis with margaritas, watching the sun set into a nice blender of oranges and reds. Louisiana Caribbean. I leaned against a wall by the open kitchen and drank a Coke. There were cheeses and wine, little quiches, fancy toast, and big bowls of caviar on his marble counter.

  I didn’t like watching Teddy blasted with all those white-hot lights. I knew the showman in him had made him get back to work too soon after the death of his brother.

  Has times been tough? Is the talk of the end of the Ninth Ward label true? Is there any truth that Malcolm’s suicide came out of some debt to a rapper from East St. Louis?

  “Silkie,” Teddy said to the young bald man dressed in a baggy Fat Albert sweatshirt and stocking cap. “I think people talk about greatness. And my brother was great. It’s just hard for people to get over that he’s gone.”

  What about what folks are saying about Malcolm’s relationship with the late, great Diabolical? That their relationship had been seein’ some dark days before Dio went missin’?

  Teddy twisted a fat diamond ring on his finger and nodded. “Let people talk. Let ’em talk. I’m here to tell people that Ninth Ward is keepin’ on top. We goin’ out to represent all New Orleans like my brother’s dream. Ninth Ward, Sixth Ward. Calliope. Magnolia. We keep on rollin’.”

  What about the feud with you and Cash?

  Teddy shook his head and smiled. “Never was no feud,” he said. “People like to talk and divide us. People like to break us apart. But we all the Dirty South.”

  Dirty, dirty. Now let’s send it back to New York with a new one from a New-Orleans-boy-made-good-in-Beverly-Hills, Master P.

  The VJ shook Teddy’s hand and apologized if the questions got too personal. Teddy shook his hand back, clasping it long and firm, and then shoved the VJ in the chest with the flat of his hand.

  “Get out of my house, you goddamn punk-ass nigga.”

  “Hey, man,” the VJ said. “Fuck you.”

  Teddy lunged for him.

  I ran behind Teddy and pushed his swinging arms to his side. He stormed outside and slammed the French doors behind him. Outside, he smiled, leaned down to the pool, and flirted with a couple of women.

  After the crew packed up and left, the VJ talking shit about a lawsuit, I took a seat in the leather sectional. Teddy came back and turned on a DVD of Goodfellas.

  It was the scene where Pesci and De Niro were burying the body and laughed about the body parts being thrown around. Teddy laughed with them, his eyes glued into the TV world.

  “Teddy?”

  “What’s up?”

  “We need to talk.”

  “Wait till you see this,” Teddy said. “They go back to his mamma’s house for more spaghetti. Ain’t that some shit? Do you like spaghetti? Man, I could eat the shit out of Italian. You know, lasagna and fettuccini. Man, I had some eggplant with Parmesan that would knock your dick in the dirt.”

  “Yeah,” I said. I stood and walked back to the table of food.

  “Hey, man? Grab me a candy bar up there.”

  “There aren’t any.”

  “What?” Teddy said, leaping out of his seat. He stood over the table and frowned as if someone had served several helpings of dog shit. “Not even a goddamn Snickers. Shit. Sometimes I wonder what I pay people for. You know I got all these people round me on my payroll and they ain’t doin’ shit. Man, I should open my own goddamn catering business and have it done right. We’d have candy bars and shit and Pepsi and shit. Real food.”

  “I’d skimp on the shit,” I said. “Want some caviar?”

  “That shit got class, but man, it tastes just like fish.”

  I smiled.

  “Let’s ride,” he said, grabbing his keys and running for the door. I couldn’t even catch a breath.

  Two minutes later, we were riding in the Bentley, top down and new beats cranked. He drove about eighty in a forty.

  “That’s the one we cut the other night,” he said, sweat beading down his puffy jowls as he talked. “You remember. ‘Project Girl.’ Shiit. Man, that’s what it’s all about. It’s all about the ass. Can’t you see that ‘Project Girl’ pop that ass? You got to make them pop their ass. That’s what Malcolm used to say. Shit, pop it. Pop it. Can’t you see it?”

  He let go of the steering wheel and pretended he was gripping two mounds of muscular butt. “Malcolm was a magician. Malcolm could make the crowd slow down, speed up. Pick up the whole world at the projects in Desire and have them roll with his beats. Man, I’m gonna miss those beats. Those crazy NOLA beats. Hard and representin’.”

  “Where we headed?”

  “Get me a goddamned Snickers.”

  “Teddy, you ever have any problems with ALIAS?”

  “What you mean?”

  “He ever steal from you?”

  Teddy turned down his stereo, the heated salty air rushing through the car. The clouds over Pontchartrain growing fat and pink
in the soft evening, almost raw like a new wound. The air smelled like fresh-cut grass and mint. Sprinklers misted over the trimmed grass.

  He lit a cigar from his pocket.

  “Yeah,” he said, thick smoke flying from his mouth. “Kid took two of my credit cards last year. Bought some things.”

  “What?”

  “Man, I didn’t want to talk about this shit. ALIAS is my boy. You know how he get to your heart, all that shit he been through.”

  “What did he buy?”

  “Aw, man. Who tole you about that?”

  “Just tell me.”

  Teddy sighed.

  “Everything,” he said. “He worked those Visa cards hard.”

  “Like what?”

  “I’m talking like twenty thousand? Yeah, some shit like that. Crazy shit. Like bikes from Toys ‘R’ Us and five thousand worth of Air Jordans.”

  “You think maybe he worked this con on himself to get it out of the trust fund?”

  “Came to me a few times.”

  “You ever think about mentioning it to me?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “How you gonna ever know?”

  “You ever see ALIAS with a girl named Dahlia?”

  “The stripper?” he asked. “I don’t know her.”

  “What about Dataria?” I asked, pulling out the Polaroid with her and Bloom.

  “Yeah, you showed me that shit.”

  He stole a glance while driving, then pulled the car to the side of the road. Cars whizzed past us, honking, and Teddy lifted up his sunglasses to get a closer look.

  “I ain’t neva seen that bitch,” he said. “But man, she could make a dead man’s pecker twist into a pretzel.”

  “She has a way.”

  He nodded, pulling out, and cruising down the road with two fingers. Driving slow. He turned into a space at the BP and killed the engine. A couple of teenage boys hung back and pointed at the Bentley parked away from the gas pumps. They knew him.

  “Come on,” he said. “You want a Snickers?”

  “I’m cool.”

  “Zagnut?”

  “I’ll take a Whatchamacallit.”

  “A what?”

  “Teddy.”