Dark End of the Street

by Ace Atkins

  “Thank you, Levi,” the man said with authority. He gave the ole two-hand handshake and tried like hell to keep that eye contact going as he spoke. “I’ve got to make one more party before kickoff.”

  “Jude, appreciate you stoppin’ by,” Ransom said. “Jude? This is a friend of the family’s, Miss Leigh. Miss Leigh, this is Jude Russell, he’s out makin’ the rounds today trying to get to some of his Tennessee constituents who’ve come south. Wants them thinkin’ to that first Tuesday next month.”

  Russell. Yeah, she knew him. Liberal senator out of Memphis who wanted to be governor. His father had been some kind of racist pig during segregation. Guy spent every minute trying to tell people that he wasn’t like his dead daddy.

  “Nice to meet you,” Perfect said, fishing with a sly little grin.

  Nothin’. No smile. No warm shake. He acted like she wasn’t even there.

  About ten yards later, Russell was intercepted by another round of the khaki club. He gave more two-handed shakes and wide big-toothed grins. Ransom was watching. He cleaned his sunglasses with a show handkerchief, squinted one gray eye, and looked out through a clean lens.

  “I hate that son of a bitch,” he said.

  Chapter 18

  THE TUNICA JUSTICE COMPLEX WAS remarkable for nothing but its newness. Red brick and squat with the architectural detail of a Ritz cracker box, the building sat on the edge of an aging downtown cut in the center by railroad tracks. Outside there was an American flag that flapped stiff and bold from a high pole and a few immature trees – barely rooted in their soil – sitting brown and dead by the front doors.

  As I parked in a visitor’s slot, Ulysses jumped out before my truck stopped, sliding his boots on the asphalt. He had on a pair of thin shades and had the collar of his black leather coat flipped up on his neck.

  “Hey, Shaft,” I said. “You want to hold up?”

  “Oh, yeah, man. Guess you ain’t in a hurry to go to jail.”

  I stopped and put my hands in the pockets of my jeans. I looked over at the dead trees and the long shot of the old downtown dressed up with boutiques, antique stores, and a coffee shop.

  “Remember that time you locked that weight coach… what was his name?”

  “Shit,” I said. “I don’t remember.”

  “At camp? C’mon. Remember you locked him in that old laundry bin where we used to throw old jockstraps and socks.”

  “What made you think of that?”

  “Last time I seen you worried about anything. They were talkin’ about cuttin’ you.”

  “Shit.”

  “This ain’t nothin’. Self-defense. It’ll work out.”

  I nodded.

  “And the girl gonna be fine, too.”

  We’d left Abby in Memphis with an associate of U’s named Bubba Cotton. Bubba was bigger than me and U combined and, according to U, had once killed a man using a shrimp fork at a Red Lobster by the airport. I felt pretty confident that Abby was safe.

  A curtain of deep black clouds headed east on the horizon and a stop sign at the crossroads beat in the strong wind. The sun was hard and white but swallowed whole in seconds by the clouds. A whistle could be heard through narrow cracks in the shotgun cottages across the road.

  U headed on in the complex, like a man strolling into an A &P to buy a loaf of bread, and motioned for me to follow. I kind of wished I was back at the Peabody now. I’d kick off my boots, watch the clouds drift over the river, and order a club sandwich and a Dr Pepper from room service.

  U motioned again.

  The building’s stale air hit us as soon as we walked inside to a Plexiglas window protecting a receptionist. She was white and fortyish and as gaudily made up as a corpse on viewing day. She wasn’t chewing gum or smoking a cigarette or seemed to be doing anything active at all. She had her hands flat on a stack of papers across her desk. Her eyes cast downward refusing to admit that she heard us walk through the door.

  For some reason, I wasn’t sure why, her attitude was pissing me off. I wanted to reach through that little cut-out circle, where you were supposed to speak, and flick her in the head.

  “Miss?” U asked.

  She continued her daze.

  Maybe it was a religious thing. Maybe she was meditating or slowly saying a special Russian prayer to herself over and over like the one in Franny and Zooey.

  “Miss?”

  Her eyes shifted upward.

  “We need to speak to the sheriff.”

  “Sheriff Beckum?”

  “Is there another one?” U asked.

  She looked annoyed. A reaction. A movement of facial muscles. Amazing.

  “He’s in a conference right now.”

  Above her hung a picture of the man himself. Sheriff Beckum. Looked to be in his early thirties, businessman haircut, porn star mustache. Not that I watched a lot of porn or anything. It was just that few people could really pull off the mustache thing and look cool.

  “You think we could wait?” U asked.

  “Can a deputy help you, sir?”

  U crossed his arms across his chest and looked away, annoyed.

  I took a huge breath of air and said simply and slowly: “Ma’am, we have a murder to report.”

  Sheriff Robert Beckum entered the hallway in a way I didn’t expect. No creased khakis or frowns or mirrored Smokey and the Bandit sunglasses. Beckum was clean-shaven – I made a mental note to compliment the change later – and wearing corduroy pants and a faded-blue flannel shirt. Mud was scattered across one sleeve and he wore a big grin of a man completely and honestly content with his day.

  He offered his hand to U and then turned to me.

  “Y’all serious about a murder?”

  He seemed thinner than the picture, and younger. Maybe even late twenties. Beckum had an intense face with a pointed nose and brown hair slicked back against his skull. He kept your attention like an eager shoe salesman and held your hand longer than was expected.

  But I had learned long ago, handshakes truly told you little about a person.

  I relied more on eye contact. And Beckum never broke away from my glance.

  “There was some trouble last night at the Magnolia Grand,” I said. “A young woman was being held against her will. I helped her and in the process of getting away I shot a man.”

  Beckum shook his head. “Well, goddamn. Nobody tells me nothing ’round here anymore. You’d think a sheriff would know when a man’s been shot.”

  U stole a glance at me.

  “Last night, about midnight,” I said.

  “Y’all been gambling? Drinkin’ a little?”

  I shook my head.

  “I was there to talk to the man who runs their security.”

  Beckum still never wavered from my glance. Kind of annoying. Had this look on his face like he could read minds and expected you to kind of quake with fear as he gave the ole squinty glance.

  “Why?” he asked.

  “I was looking for a friend.”

  “He work there?”

  “No.”

  “The girl’s a friend, too?”

  “No.”

  “How’d you know she was being held against her will?”

  “She was tied up.”

  “In the casino?” Beckum asked, a sarcastic smile on his lips.

  “In a storage room in the casino. I saw her on a video monitor. When we were running away from the casino a man started shooting at me. I shot back. And I hit him in the chest.”

  “Why’d you bring a gun to a casino?”

  “I didn’t,” I said. “I took it off one of the guards who tried to stop me from leaving.”

  Beckum nodded and looked over at U.

  “What’s your deal in all this, hoss?”

  “I’m a registered bondsman,” he said. “I’m here to make sure he’s treated properly… hoss.”

  Beckum snickered. Out of the corner of his eye, I saw U flex his jaw muscles.

  Beckum saw it, too, but glanced awa
y like it didn’t register. It did. His face flushed as he spoke.

  “Guess it’s time we all take a ride to the Grand and see what the hell this is all about.”

  “Indeed,” U said.

  Chapter 19

  EVEN IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DAY, the scene was the same as the night before. The perfectly dimmed blue and green neon light. The pinging electronic music. The hundreds of slots, card tables, and roulette wheels buzzing with the energy of a never-ending party. The scent was the same, too. A musky odor of nervousness and beer breath mixed with cheap cigars and endless cigarettes.

  I walked toward the security offices flanked by U and Beckum, scanning the crowd for the men we met last night. Didn’t matter if I had two or two hundred with me, I still felt a raw nervousness in the back of my throat. I swallowed, ground my molars together, and kept walking.

  Somewhere in the crowd, a craggy blond in a red cocktail dress whooped it up with a black man in a red suit after the dice she’d kissed rolled a winner. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched the woman – bloodshot eyes, lazy grin – reach into the man’s pocket, give a tug, and then stumble backward.

  On the opposite side, I saw two boys with black hair slap the heads of rubber frogs with cushioned mallets. One chewed gum. The other pretended he was smoking with a pretzel stick.

  My stomach burned. The sound of my grinding teeth buzzed in my ears.

  Ahead, two men in green blazers met Beckum by the cash exchange windows. U and I hung back. Beckum clasped the shoulder of one of the guards, a white man with teeth like a rake and a buzz cut, smiled, and pointed to a back door in agreement.

  He motioned for us to follow.

  “Big boss is over at the command post,” Beckum said.

  “It’s the other way,” I said.

  Beckum shrugged and kept walking. He had on tan ostrich-skin boots that probably cost a thousand bucks but had been worn like they cost fifty. Scarred and muddy.

  “How could they not report this?” I asked in a low voice.

  “Maybe you didn’t kill him,” U said, still staring straight ahead. “Maybe they don’t want folks knowing they keep little girls chained in back rooms.”

  A minute later, we followed Beckum up a staircase to the casino’s second floor and into a wood-paneled office dotted with Tiffany lamps and sepia-toned photographs of Wild West scenes. Waxy looking figures in coffins. Hardened women holding six-shooters.

  A fireplug of an old man stood as we walked in the door. Wide-jowled face with an Irish-veined nose and pale blue eyes. He had a round body, short legs, and thick stubby fingers that couldn’t quite clasp around my hand.

  He smiled along with Beckum when the murder was mentioned. He scratched the back of his unshaven neck and stared over at another guard who sat in a far corner.

  “Did we forget about a guard getting killed last night?” Fat Man asked.

  The man in the corner laughed, too.

  “He wasn’t a guard,” I said. “His name was Humes. Head of security for this whole damned place.”

  Fat Man shook with laughter. “Not only did I find out a man got killed last night,” he said, “but now you’re telling me I have a boss.”

  I felt the blood rush into my face and my right fist tighten. U didn’t say a word. I could only hear his steady breath behind me in the paneled room. Overhead, Kenny G played some irritating saxophone. My nails dug into the palm of my hand.

  “So you don’t know Humes?” I asked.

  Fat Man shrugged. Beckum snickered again.

  I crossed my arms across my chest and stared at Fat Man’s face. Impassive. Slow breath. A sociopath of a liar.

  “Sheriff, this man is fucking with you. I want to walk you through what happened last night. You won’t mind, will you?”

  Fat Man shrugged again and exhaled his boredom. His breath smelled of onions and cigarettes. The red veins in his face a road map of a disappointing life.

  The door wasn’t there. There was a rack of tourist brochures instead where the maid had let me in the night before. I touched the Sheetrock and found dry paint. I scanned for the outline of a door and even pressed against the wall as Beckum and Fat Man stood by watching.

  “You guys are good,” I said. “What about your back halls? I want to see them.”

  “Listen, y’all,” Beckum said. “I’m tired as hell. I got off a hunt about six this morning and haven’t slept a lick. How ’bout we call this whole thing off? I don’t know what y’all want or why and, to be honest, I really don’t give a shit. But I don’t have time to look for secret doors and dead men who don’t exist and little missing girls and that kind of nonsense.”

  “I want to see the hallways,” I said.

  “You’re in them,” Fat Man said.

  “No, the ones the staff use. You couldn’t have sealed off all of that, too.”

  “We have some back rooms for storage and employee lounges and that type thing. But, Sheriff, this is getting a little ridiculous.”

  “You mind?”

  Fat Man led the way to a steel door in the main casino lobby. He punched a code on the door and sauntered inside. A cold musty odor exhaled from the open door as we walked through the concrete caves intermittently lit with caged bulbs. I moved on ahead trying to reconnect with the same route as last night.

  “Where do you keep the surveillance monitors?”

  “Upstairs.”

  “Bullshit,” I said. I kept walking. The walls seemed to constrict as the blood flowed hot through my face and ears. I could hear my own breathing as the clacking of my boots beat a steady rhythm.

  The hallway ended with a path to the right and left. This was the path back to the sealed door. I walked about fifteen yards ahead to see the hall blocked with seven-foot stacks of paint cans.

  “Clever,” I said, brushing past Fat Man and continuing down the hall.

  “Mister…?” Beckum called out.

  U caught up with me. “They good,” he said.

  I nodded.

  I turned to the first door. This was it. Or at least I thought this was it. Shit, I was so damned turned around, this was maybe the women’s bathroom. Felt like this was the turn from last night. I didn’t remember any doors along the corridor before the surveillance room. I reached for the door. It was locked.

  “Open it,” I said.

  “Listen, I’ll indulge you,” Beckum said. “But don’t be smarting off to these folks.”

  Fat Man pulled a set of keys from his pocket, extracted a single one from dozens, and pushed open the door.

  The room was filled with dusty blackjack tables and roulette wheels and a few mannequin Southern belles propped armless by the door. Along the back wall was a row of something long and rectangular under a tarp. I walked over and pulled it away.

  Slot machines.

  “Y’all done?” Fat Man asked, giving a phony yawn.

  “Room one-oh-two,” I said. “But let me guess… it’s now a swimming pool.”

  It wasn’t.

  It didn’t exist at all.

  The room sequence stopped at 101. A long concrete hallway continued on without a single entrance. Caged lamps burned in the semidarkened corridor.

  “Can’t you see what they’ve done?” I asked, my voice sounding hollow. “They’ve erased everything. Go interview employees. They’ll tell you about the work they put in last night. They sealed up two doors and moved a lot of shit around. Check on this man Humes. He was here last night. People saw him. Someone had to have heard the shots… there were witnesses. You can’t just pretend that the man never existed. That’s bullshit.”

  Beckum looked over to U. “Best get this boy some sleep. And keep him the hell away from this place.”

  “That’s all you going to do?” U asked.

  Beckum ran his hand over his head and looked down the concrete corridor. “What do you want me to do? Arrest the man for murder? Do you really want that for your buddy?”

  Fifteen minutes later, I slammed my fist in
to the dashboard of the Bronco. U reclined the seat back and stared into the cotton fields I had shown him. A quiet splatter of rain dolloped on the hood. The sky was deep black and seemed to stretch all the way to the Gulf.

  “I’m not crazy, U,” I said.

  “Listen, brother, I’m with you,” he said. “If you say you seen a chicken smoking, I’ll walk over to his feathered ass and bring back a pack of Camels.”

  Chapter 20

  JON BURROWS LOVED the smell of Graceland. Burnt bacon, cheap women’s perfume, and Tampa Nugget cigars still lingered more than twenty years later. Maybe because everything in the holy estate was the way He’d left it for His return. Jon’s heart just started rockin’ in his chest every time he entered that front hall and saw that long white leather couch and them stained-glass windows of peacocks. Jon could see E’s piano where He sang gospel till dawn with the boys and them pretty blue curtains in the dining room where Dodger used to serve Him boiled ham and sweet potatoes. He wanted to jump past the velvet ropes and sprint up to E’s bedroom so he could lay on that shag carpet and soak up all them smells. This was holy air that seeped deep into your lungs and made you one with Him. Jon took in a big lungful, got loose from the tour of old people, nonbelievers, and fools, and walked outside following a back path to the Meditation Gardens.

  The man he’d called from a pay phone in Holly Springs told him to pick a spot to make contact and he figured this was as good a place as any. He knew the layout, the curves, the cracks, just in case the law was playin’ some kind of game. Jon pulled the Resistol down in his eyes and stroked his thick black beard.

  Today he wore nothin’ but black to match his feelin’. Black jeans, a black T-shirt – with one sleeve rolled up to show his tattoo with Elvis wearin’ a crown of thorns – and real shiny black boots. Jon kind of felt the way he imagined E did when he was making Charro!, back when everyone didn’t think He could act. Hell, He only sang the title song and didn’t even dance once. If that ain’t actin’, Jon didn’t know what actin’ was.