Dirty South

by Ace Atkins

  “Calm down,” Trey said, pouring himself a few fingers of Knob Creek. “It’ll work out.”

  “What!” Christian screamed. “Are you goddamn crazy?”

  “All right, let’s think. How do you even know this had something to do with Dahlia?”

  “Who else could lead them to us?” he said. “It’s all your fault. It’s all your fucking fault. We had goddamn everything we wanted and you had to go in with that cunt to take ALIAS.”

  “She wanted a cut of something.”

  “Then give her some of your money.”

  “I wanted her to get dirty, too,” Trey said. “You know how that works.”

  “Like we all get dirty?” Christian asked. “Like how you had Redbone make that con man from the strip club disappear after you took ALIAS. Sometimes it doesn’t play out like that.”

  “What?” Trey said, mussing his hair in the mirror again. “You getting all street on me again. Don’t confuse yourself. You know where you come from. Don’t start actin’ like some stupid nigger.”

  Christian balled his hands at his side and ran for Trey. He stood so close that their noses touched. The foulness in Christian’s breath and the fear that poured from his own skin made Trey’s heart race.

  He tried to calm himself. “Just chill out.”

  “Some of us don’t have our daddy to hold our hands.”

  “Hey, man,” Trey said. “Fuck off.”

  He turned his back to Christian. He didn’t mean anything by it, but as soon as he pivoted, he knew he’d made a mistake.

  “I’m not going back to Angola,” Christian said. “Not for you.”

  Christian’s hands darted from his chest and took Trey by the throat. He threw his friend onto his back on the glass desk. Trey felt a heavy split down the middle, cracking like an ice pond from their weight.

  Trey’s head rhythmically beat onto the glass.

  Trey heard more cracking and tried to yell and scream for help. But he could only think it, his mind unable to control anything. He couldn’t move or speak, only feel the saliva pool on his lips and feel the blood and wetness pour from his mouth and eyes.

  “This ain’t your game, dog,” Christian said.

  64

  MY CELL PHONE RANG as I headed back from NOPD, where I’d left Dahlia still talking with Jay. I answered, driving with one hand, passing Medina’s on Canal and crossing under I-10. I’d planned to meet JoJo down at Acme for a plate of jambalaya and some oysters. This was their last night in New Orleans. He and Bronco had finished up packing the apartment.

  “He’s with me,” the voice said. Cell-phone static crackled over the line.

  “Good for you,” I said. “Who is this?”

  “Let’s play,” he said. “I have ALIAS, you fucking dumb-ass. I have my goddamn gun screwed in his ear right now. You fucking do one more thing and I’ll drop his ass in the sewer. You fucking hear me?”

  “Slow down, Christian.”

  “Fuck you,” he said. “Meet me down in the Ninth Ward on Piety. There is a house at-”

  “I meet you where I say,” I said. “Fuck no. I’m not meeting you.”

  The connection died.

  I didn’t breathe for about a minute.

  The cell rang again.

  A better connection. He didn’t say anything.

  “I’ll meet you at your folks’ house,” I said. “In Metairie.”

  “No,” he said. “This isn’t about them.”

  His voice was strained. The words hard but almost forced from his mouth in a quiet yell.

  “That’s it. I’m headed to Old Metairie right now. You can decide on a place. Wait, okay. Yep. Just turned. Headed down I-10. I’ll be there in fifteen.”

  I hung up and made a quick phone call.

  The cell phone rang as I ran my truck about eighty, skirting the edge of the Metairie Cemetery. High up on the interstate, the mausoleums looked like a small city. Endless rows of crypts.

  I answered the phone.

  “Where?” he asked.

  “You know the country day school?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “You know, where you and Trey got to be friends?”

  “You say my friend’s name again and I’ll kill this little boy with you on the phone.”

  METAIRIE COUNTRY DAY sat at the end of a neighborhood cul-de-sac in a large whitewashed brick house with green shutters. Huge magnolias and oaks stood in bright spotlights in the darkness. Behind the main house, classrooms stretched under two porticos separated by a commons. I heard my feet on the brick walk passing the classrooms as the wind scattered in the oak leaves and branches. Newsletters fluttered on a school bulletin board advertising ski trips to Switzerland and on-line shopping for Eddie Bauer, Lands’ End, and L.L. Bean. Elephant ears and monkey grass grew strong in freshly tilled soil.

  I was far from JFK High.

  I walked to the end of the portico and the last classroom. It was 10 and I didn’t hear anyone.

  I looked into a darkened playground at the still swing sets and empty slides and then back at the long open walkway.

  I heard a car door slam behind the school and playground and saw the chugging exhaust of an old car’s tailpipe in the brake lights. I reached for the gun tucked in my belt but left it there.

  I walked back toward the front of the school and the main house. I stared over a railing at the little cul-de-sac and the houses lining the street. My truck was parked into a little curve under a light.

  I looked at my watch and decided to make one more sweep.

  I turned on my heel.

  A tremendous force whopped my skull.

  I tumbled to my knees, trying to gain my balance, but only finding my palms for support.

  Everything was black. I could feel the heat of the blood from my skinned hands.

  The air smelled of garbage and decaying skin. My eyes rolled and my vision faded from brown to black. I felt wire around my throat and tore at the hands that choked me.

  65

  I COULD NOT BREATHE, the air snuffed from inside, my face filling with blood. My gun fell to the ground.

  I jabbed my elbow back into the freak’s chest and leaned forward, pulling him off his feet. I pressed my thumb into his wrists and felt his hands open. Bone and gristle snapping. I bent back his hands and butted him in the head.

  He staggered back, facedown, slowly getting to his feet. He raised his head. Grayed skin wrinkled and decayed as a dead leaf across his skull. He reached into his coat and pulled out a little revolver.

  He smiled with rotten, uneven teeth that looked like a brown picket fence.

  I heard the crack of a gun; I closed my eyes.

  The freak doubled over and sprinted down under the dark colonnades. I grabbed my Glock and followed a trail of thin, dark blood.

  I’d heard the same car running by the playground and practice fields.

  I turned the corner and Bronco joined me at my side. He kept pace, a mesh Caterpillar hat scrunched down in his eyes. I was damned glad I’d called them.

  “JoJo’s got cover from the back,” he said. Grinning with the hunt. “You want me to drop that man from here?”

  The freak was only about ten yards away, running past the darkened shapes of metal ponies and swing sets. His right hand grasping his left arm and staggering.

  JoJo crossed before him, a thick shotgun sighted across the freak’s eyes.

  Bronco stopped running and held his Colt in his right hand.

  We slowed to a walk.

  The man wheezed as if broken inside, sputters of air coming from him. His yellow eyes squinted, face twisted into a feral look of an animal cornered. His lips quivered over his broken teeth and he moved his hand to his pocket.

  “Where’s the boy?” JoJo asked, pumping the gun.

  The man kept wheezing.

  Bronco came up fast behind him and slammed a boot into his lower back with a hard steel toe, knocking him to the ground.

  He kept his boot there
, breathing hard, and shook out a cigarette from a pack, placing it dry into his mouth. “Me and JoJo used to run deer up and down Clarksdale when we was kids. I got to be pretty good. ’Cept JoJo won’t admit it.”

  “Bullshit,” JoJo said, dropping the shotgun and sauntering over to the old car.

  “Well, hello, Tavarius,” he said so we could all hear.

  I followed and found the boy tied with laundry line across his ankles and wrists. A torn piece of brown cloth gouged deep into his mouth. He tore at it with his teeth and tried to break free when he saw JoJo.

  JoJo untied him.

  I dialed 911.

  “What you doin’?” Bronco asked.

  “Calling the police.”

  “Not on this,” he said, grinding his steel toe into the small of the man’s back. “He’s out of the game.”

  He kicked at the man’s head, so quick and violent that I had to turn away.

  Bronco picked up the man, as if he was recently found roadkill, and dragged him to the old car. The heels of the killer’s old brogan shoes scuffing behind him. The muscles and veins in Bronco’s huge forearms bulging with his years of strength.

  “Get the keys.”

  I did, turning off the ignition of the old Pontiac, painted a light gold. Vinyl seats covered in duct tape.

  “Pop the trunk,” he said.

  I did.

  “See you back at the bar,” Bronco said.

  “Wait.”

  “Come on, Nick,” JoJo said. “Let’s get this kid safe.”

  Tavarius was rubbing his wrists. He refused to look me in the face.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I know about Dio.”

  He shook his head and walked away.

  JoJo winked at me and followed.

  66

  I HEADED STRAIGHT for the Ninth Ward, driving along Claiborne under the interstate, past the old Victorians boarded up and left rotting, their third-story windows only feet from concrete and steel and speeding cars. I passed little community groceries that sold beer from iced trash cans and offered health care through a backroom doctor. Kids on bicycles circled me at street corners. Lazy-eyed crackheads tried to sell me fruit that had been cut and locked into Ziploc bags, and soft-faced women with protruding bellies wandered shoeless out on Elysian Fields. Under the nearby oaks, the ground had been worn as soft as talcum powder in the yards of the rotting antebellum homes.

  I crossed over the channel on a short bridge. Cheap little billboards advertised discount cigarettes and beer, a free AIDS hot line. Barges hugged the edge of the docks and mammoth warehouses sat in rusting humps.

  I took a turn onto Desire and wound through the little red, blue, and yellow shotguns. Ninth Ward Records sat behind its wrought-iron fence topped with decorative fleur-de-lis in a big squat concrete building of black and gold. Teddy had his electric-blue Bentley parked by the main glass door.

  I walked inside and headed straight back to his office.

  He was rearranging his CDs when I walked in. Must have been thousands of them in little piles all over the carpet. He had on a black suit with a red shirt and fedora. I noticed he hadn’t shaved in a while and his eyes looked rheumy.

  “We need to talk.”

  He nodded, moving like he was a hundred back to his big white sofa. He took off his jacket and stretched out his huge arms across its back.

  I stood and crossed my arms over my shirt.

  I looked down at my boots.

  He was silent.

  “ALIAS was conned,” I said. “And so were you.”

  He moved forward, a big bear finding his place, and rubbed his hands together. “What happened?”

  “Dio wasn’t real,” I said. “One of Trey’s buddies just acted it out. He’d stolen this guy’s rhymes when he was in Angola.”

  “What the fuck?” Teddy asked, suddenly awake. “Man, what are you talking about, Dio wasn’t real?”

  “The real Dio was a guy named Calvin Jacobs. He was killed in prison.”

  Teddy shook his head. “I knew that boy. That boy made my company. I was with him when he got jacked by those men at the club.”

  “You knew Christian Chase,” I said. “Trey Brill’s buddy? The real Dio’s sister is Dahlia, man. She got in with Brill ’cause she knew the truth. It was her idea to work the con on ALIAS. ALIAS wasn’t lying, man. She roped him in with Trey’s blessing.”

  “Slow down,” Teddy said, standing now and pacing. “This don’t make no goddamn sense. Trey Brill set all this up. Did all this to me? Why? He don’t need money. Why he taken me out? And Malcolm. Jesus.”

  Teddy started to cry and I made an awkward move for him, patting him a couple times on his back. “Trey got Malcolm killed,” he said, sobbing. “Didn’t he? Malcolm knew about Dio. Malcolm knew.”

  “Only thing I can figure.”

  “Lord, Lord. He killed my brother.” Teddy ran to his desk and I watched him. Manic and angry. Three hundred pounds of crying grief. Wringing his hands, face crunched tight in sorrow.

  “You made this all happen, Nick,” Teddy said. “You got everybody to come to Jesus. Thank you, Nick. Thank you, Nick. Thank you, Nick. Malcolm knew you’d do right.”

  He hugged me awkwardly again. “Brill is dead,” Teddy said.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “The cops are looking for him. Dahlia turned on Trey and Christian.”

  “She what?” Teddy asked.

  “They messed up her mind,” I said. “Her soul is gone. They used her up, man.”

  “Jesus. Jesus,” Teddy said. “Malcolm said you’d set it straight. I didn’t believe him. That day when we come to you, I told him he’s bein’ foolish. But that boy knew you’d set it straight. He always look up to you. Even when he was a kid.”

  I smiled. I patted Teddy on the back. “Come on, let’s go.”

  He fell to his knees. He dragged all the papers off his desk and toppled hundreds of CDs. He tried to stand, bounding like a trapped elephant, scattering plastic everywhere.

  “Malcolm,” he screamed. “Malcolm. Lord God. Help me.”

  He found his feet and gained his composure, wiping his face with the tail of his red silk shirt. He mopped his face, exposing his massive hairless stomach.

  I watched him as he reached into the drawer of his desk and pulled out a handgun.

  “Jesus, no,” I said. “The police will get his ass.”

  “Trey couldn’t get enough. He had to bring in the kid.”

  I looked at him and tilted my head.

  Before I could speak, Teddy leveled the gun at me and fired off three quick rounds, dropping me onto his white carpet. I had to bite into my arm to stop the heat and pain.

  “We wouldn’t never found out about Trey and Dahlia wasn’t for you,” Teddy said. “We appreciate that.”

  Hard shoes kicked into me and rolled me on my back with the toe.

  I stared up into the green eyes of Christian Chase.

  67

  YOU CAN’T SLEEP. It’s 4 A.M. and the old man snorin’ in Nick’s bed, his friend Bronco watching a black-and-white movie from the Old West. Bronco doesn’t care much for the man in the mask but he sure like that Indian that ride with him. Every time some shit goes down, Bronco give you a nudge in the ribs and say wake up and listen.

  The warehouse seem like a big cave to you, some kind of place where you keep an airplane. Big fans work up the tin ceiling and the smooth wood on the floor feels soft on your bare feet. But you ain’t got no comfort. Neither does the dog. She knows something wrong. The way she just hang by the door, making some whimperin’ sounds.

  The old man shootin’ up out of bed in his nightshirt, silver hair on his chest. “Nick?”

  “It ain’t him,” you say. “He ain’t back.”

  “What time is it?”

  “Four.”

  He sighs real tight. “Let’s go.”

  “Where?” you ask. “I called Teddy fifty times.”

  “Show me,” JoJo said, snaking his belt through his bri
tches and buttonin’ up his shirt.

  Bronco watches him, stands, cuts off the TV, and straps the shoulders onto his country-ass overalls. His eyes are real hard as he reaches for his cigarettes and some shotgun he bought that he call “Sweet Sixteen.”

  “Smells,” JoJo said.

  You nod. Things are wrong. Feel wrong in your head.

  You stand and walk over to the sink, pourin’ cold water into your hands and watching the sink fill up while you wash your face. As you bend into the water, you watch the Superman symbol Dio touched sink into the clear water like an anchor.

  “I know,” you say. You wipe your hands on a dry towel, feelin’ funny and dry in the mind ’cause of the time. Your mind awake; body want to sleep. “Let’s roll.”

  Don’t take no time when you down at Ninth Ward. You remember the first time Teddy drove you here and you thinkin’ that the roof was really made out of gold. But it just look like painted tin tonight in the shine of them crime lights. Bugs gatherin’ all around them.

  You bang on the window and one of Teddy’s cousins, this boy y’all call Poochie, come to the door. He smile and wave when he see you. Poochie ain’t but like two years older than you and he look like he playin’ dress-up with his cornrows and skinny head in that blue uniform.

  “Nigga, you even got a gun,” you say, givin’ him the pound.

  The old man whack you in the back of the head. “Where’s Teddy?” JoJo ask.

  Ole Poochie shake his head and say he don’t know. But the way he won’t meet you in the eye mean he lyin’.

  “Poochie, don’t pull my dick, you seen him down here with my boy Nick.”

  Poochie nod.

  “So where he at?”

  “They left, man. Don’t go ridin’ me about this shit.”

  “Somethin’ happen?”

  JoJo shake his head. Bronco already headin’ down the hall.

  “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.