Dark End of the Street

by Ace Atkins

  “Look at this,” she said.

  Apparently, this year, Tennessee was scheduled for a referendum to decide whether the state would have a lottery. And a lot of folks felt legalized gambling would be next.

  Nix did, too.

  He told a reporter in Memphis he’d like to see riverboat gambling on the banks of the Mississippi by the end of his term.

  Chapter 28

  I CALLED U from a pay phone at the student union building and bought a Coke to wash the blue off my tongue. Abby had printed off dozens of articles and sat by a long row of vending machines, shuffling and marking pages. A few feet from me, a hippie-looking kid slept with the Cliff Notes for Crime and Punishment in his hands. He smelled pretty damned bad and I turned to face the other way, toward a long row of windows as I waited for Ulysses to pick up. He didn’t. I tried his beeper number and within about thirty seconds he called back.

  “Mrs. Davis’s cathouse; may I take your order?”

  “Yeah, I’m looking for a punk named Travers. Has to pay for his pussy.”

  “Hold on,” I said in a high voice.

  “Nick, quit fuckin’ around. What do you want? Man, I’m sitting outside some peckerwood’s trailer waiting for him to come back and get some money from his wife. I’m down to my last bottle of water and I’ve only got that bootleg Marsalis CD you sent me. It’s gettin’ old as hell.”

  “At least it’s not that shit you listened to on road trips. What was that, Grand Master who?”

  “Flash,” he said and took a deep breath.

  “That and the Sugarhill Gang and Run DMC.”

  “Man, I’m fine with that. I still love it. I have faith in the old school. And you better, too.”

  “All right, listen,” I said, the hippie starting to stir at my feet. He smelled his armpit, rubbed the peach fuzz on his chin and tried to hug the brick wall. “I’m still with Abby and we found out a few things. First off, her father had hired a P.I. in Memphis to find Clyde James.”

  “Your Clyde James?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Whew.”

  “Second, her old man was connected to a group called Sons of the South. You know them.”

  There was silence.

  “You’re a charter member.”

  U laughed.

  “Anyway, this group is apparently connected to this state senator Elias Nix who’s running for governor.”

  U coughed and I heard the static of his cell phone as he moved around. “You had me for a while. Now your ass is talking about conspiracy theories and governor’s candidates and… man, I think that peckerwood is coming in…”

  “U?”

  “Hold on,” he whispered. “All right, had to scrunch down in my seat again. Thought that was him.”

  “Was it?”

  “We’re still talkin’, ain’t we?”

  “This whole thing connects back to the casinos for Abby and for me and for Clyde… Nix wants to bring casinos to Memphis.”

  “That’s all we need. We’re a broke-ass city as it is.”

  “Hey, man, we have them in New Orleans, too.”

  “So you want me to go to Nashville and wake up Nix? Ask him why he wants to make money off all these broke motherfuckers?”

  “Not yet,” I said. “Maybe later. What do you know about Tunica and the Dixie Mafia?”

  “What I told you.”

  “What about property records? Can we find out who owns the Grand?”

  “Man, that’s a great idea. I’d call you Sherlock but that’s more an idea from Larry Holmes.”

  “So you did?”

  “Yep,” he said. “Hey, man, look. I got to go for real. Peckerwood is home and he’s walkin’ up the steps with a Budweiser tallboy and a fuckin’ Glock. Shit. All right; real quick: That casino is buried under corporate names so thick it would take your whole life and a NASA computer to find out who owns it.”

  “You know any FBI folks we can talk to?”

  “Let me check into it,” he said, sighing. “Adios.”

  The hippie was wide awake at my feet and petting a small ferret; apparently he’d kept it in his ragged green book bag. He smiled and fed it some biscuit. The ferret took the morsel and then crawled back into the bag looking for more.

  “Nothing, huh?” Abby asked. “Not much. He said he’ll start asking around this week.”

  “Asking who? Cops?”

  “Yep.”

  Abby watched me from a little chair she’d found. Wobbly legs. A thousand coats of paint. She said while I’d been on the phone, she’d arranged everything we found in the library by subject and chronology. Sons of the South. Elias Nix. She said she’d look through her father’s papers when we got back to Maggie’s and talk to me about maybe finding some more. When I asked where, she changed the subject.

  “What about criminals?” she asked when we got outside.

  I played with the keys in my hand as we walked down a hill and over to a parking lot where we’d left my truck. Dead leaves twisted around in a dust devil and I could hear oak branches clicking above us. The rain had stopped. A mean cold front had dipped all across north Mississippi.

  “I know a few,” I said, smiling. “But not good ones.”

  “I do,” she said.

  “You know criminals?”

  “I know one,” she said, a slight grin crossing her lips. “And he’s pretty good. Runs most of the marijuana for north Mississippi.”

  “And how does a little girl like yourself get to meet such characters?”

  “He used to come out to Maggie’s stables last year for riding lessons. He didn’t even know how to get on a horse. We taught him. Didn’t know who he was till later.”

  “Who is he?”

  “His name is Son Waltz. He’s just a kid, only a few years older than me. His godfather runs a pool hall near the Square and set him up with his own bar when he turned twenty-one.”

  “What is he, your boyfriend?”

  “Hell, no,” she said, her face flushing. “I just taught him a little about horses.”

  “And you think he’ll know something about the Dixie Mafia and Tunica?”

  “Raven knows everything.”

  “Thought you said his name was Son?”

  “He goes by Raven.”

  I smiled at her. “All right, we’ll find him tomorrow. I’m pretty beat.”

  “Tonight,” she said, stopping and tugging at my sleeve. I looked down at her and gave a fake scowl.

  “What about Hank?”

  “He can come, too,” she said. “C’mon. The Highpoint is just over on the county line and open till dawn.”

  Chapter 29

  THE HIGHPOINT ROADHOUSE was packed early that morning with dozens of pickup trucks, German sedans, and motorcycles. The bar was nothing more than an old Quonset hut held together with pounds of battleship-gray paint and spackling. The building stood on a little gravel neck off Highway 6 in Panola County and didn’t advertise with anything but a single blue light that burned by the front door. There, a skinny kid with a ponytail smoked a cigarette and seemed to be scraping some shit off his boot.

  The sky above us shone blackish blue as a slight patter of rain smacked big chunks of gravel in the parking lot alongside a narrow creek bed. I could hear the dull pounding of gutbucket blues playing inside. Reminded me of all the time I spent at Junior Kimbrough’s place before it burned.

  The door had been cracked open and the smell of smoke and sweat rushed outside. Almost seemed as if the old building was exhaling a mighty breath. I had on my old boots, now coated in murky gray mud, jeans, a long-sleeved T-shirt, and my jean jacket. The jacket wasn’t cutting it tonight. My face felt tight from the cold.

  I lit a cigarette, mainly for warmth, and also because that’s just what you do when walking in a bar, and passed by the kid at the door. He was a little shorter than me with Indian-black hair and eyes. He looked up at my face and nodded me in as if I’d just asked his permission. I gave him my world-famous what
-the-fuck look and brushed by him waiting for Abby.

  The boy didn’t give the same look to Abby. He just stared at her and, for a moment, I thought he was going to cause trouble. Then his face just kind of broke apart with this really nice smile and he hugged her. He had a St. Christopher’s medal around his neck and wore a dirty white tank top under a long black leather jacket.

  “Nick?”

  I looked back.

  “This is Raven.”

  I shook his hand and he gave me his own version of the what-the-fuck expression looking to Abby for some kind of explanation.

  “You have beer?” I was tired as hell and probably a little tired of explaining myself.

  “Coldest in the state.”

  “I’ll be right back.”

  Raven apparently did his business in public. He found a little enclave, far from the stage where a black man in an undertaker’s suit played a bright green Fender, and took a seat in a ratty brown plaid sofa. All around the big wide room people sat in folding chairs and recliners and other similar ratty coaches drinking cans of beer and smoking dope. The floor was buffed concrete.

  At the bar, a deputy sheriff with a wide grin, his hat upon the lacquered bar, sat watching the lone player on stage hit some notes that just hung in that smoky air filled with sadness, despair, and a world of heartache.

  I took a pull off a can of Budweiser and watched the old man knock out some more truly beautiful licks and nod with his appreciation of his Fender, as if the Fender worked independently of him. I knew how he felt. Sometimes I’d hit that sweet spot on my harps and it was almost as if someone else had played it. Like Little Walter or Sonny Boy were doing some serious channeling.

  The kid was drinking Coca-Cola from a mug filled with crushed ice. He had a fat, wet paper bag of boiled peanuts by him that was still hot. He shelled them onto the floor as he watched the player continue out his set and snuck looks at Abby.

  I lit another cigarette and leaned forward, my elbows on my knees, as a couple of college girls danced by the stage with a drunken laziness.

  “They leavin’ you alone?” Abby asked.

  “They’re still around,” he said. “See that dude at the bar?”

  I saw a black man in a camouflage baseball hat drinking beer. Raven stared right at him and the man looked back at the stage.

  “He’s DEA,” he said, grinning. “Still can’t find out how I get it in.”

  One of the dancing girls, probably in her late teens or early twenties, in tight jeans and short red sweater, walked by, running her fingers under Raven’s chin as she passed. Abby studied her hands and took a breath. I smiled.

  “So, kid,” I said.

  “Raven,” he said.

  “Raven,” I said. “How much you know about the action in Tunica?”

  “I know they have women there that ice skate in their bikinis and has-been country singers that get paid in prostitutes.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  I raised my eyebrows and looked back to the stage where the old man launched into some more north Mississippi blues. Ghostly riffs that spun and hung in the air like the patterns of smoke around us. A constant knocking drumbeat that seemed to come from an impatient spirit.

  “What about the Dixie Mafia?”

  He shook his head and laughed. “No way, man. Who are you?”

  “He’s cool, Raven,” Abby said. “You know what happened to my parents?”

  He nodded.

  “Nick’s helping.”

  “Why didn’t you come to me? Who is this guy anyway?”

  I closed my eyes and with a deep breath I said, “Listen, kid, I mean Raven. This is important as hell. Some people kidnapped Abby and took her to a casino. I was there looking for a friend of mine and helped her get out. Now I’m just looking for some information.”

  “Dixie Mafia? No way.” He dropped some peanut shells on the floor and reached in the sack for a handful more. I glanced at Abby and she moved beside Raven and told him a few things I couldn’t hear over the music. He nodded and nodded and then looked back at me.

  “You lie to her,” he said. “And I’ll kill you.”

  His eyes were black and hard and I believed he would try.

  “Fair deal.”

  She patted him on the knee as he finished chewing some more boiled peanuts, the final notes of the blues player swirling around us, dope smoke as thick as ever.

  “What casino?” he asked.

  “Magnolia Grand.”

  He laughed to himself and shook his head. “Ransom.”

  I took another pull of the beer, and leaned closer.

  “Levi Ransom,” he said. “Runs Dixie Mafia north of Biloxi. Motherfucker would love to run me out one of these days.”

  “What’s he like?”

  “Never seen him. Heard he had a man skinned alive for fucking his wife and that he raises pit bulls for fighting out at his farm. Think maybe he’s from Memphis. Met people in Angola who helped him. Set him up. My father was there. If he was alive, he could tell you about Ransom.”

  “Let me ask you this, would he have the kind of juice to influence politics?”

  “Where you from?”

  “Louisiana.”

  “You have to ask that? Gambling is money. Money runs the state.”

  “What about a group called Sons of the South? State’s rights. Rebel flags. All that shit.”

  Raven shook his head and poured more Coke into his mug. Abby leaned back into the sofa, her face tired and worn. Lines of determination under her eyes.

  “What about Elias Nix?” she asked.

  “Yeah, I know Nix. Some Republican asshole from Nashville. What about him?”

  I asked, “Could he be buddies with this guy Ransom?”

  “Listen, dude. Ransom is a legend around here. You hear whispers about what he wants and then it happens. If I heard Ransom wanted to move in on me, my ass would be gone. But Ransom is smart. He doesn’t let people get too close. Like I said, I know he runs the Grand and a couple of other casinos. Has to be tied to the syndicate in Biloxi. That’s all.”

  My face must’ve shown a lot of disappointment because Raven asked me to take a walk with him. Abby stayed behind and we went out through a back entrance to a little spot outside where old-time porch chairs lay rusting. I stood watching the patch of forest and all the cars bright in the intermittent glow of the moon. His eyes squinted and focused on me again.

  “I wasn’t kidding about killing you,” he said, showing me two handguns he wore under his leather coat.

  I pulled open my jacket and showed him the edge of my Browning hanging in a big inside pocket. “I watch my ass.”

  “You watch out for her, okay?” His breath clouded before him.

  I nodded and I could tell even though he was just a kid, he understood what it meant to give your word. I liked that.

  “You think Ransom is running the Tennessee election?” he asked.

  “Maybe.”

  “You know, when I’m in trouble or need some information I always find my opponent’s enemies. You know all that Art of War shit.”

  “Who are Ransom’s enemies?”

  “No one alive. But Nix, that’d be ole Jude Russell.”

  “You know how to get to him?”

  “Nope, but I can tell you he’s got a farm just north of Clarksdale. If he’s not out campaigning to be governor, he’d be there. If there was some shit about Nix and the ole Dixie Mafia, he’d either know it or be glad to hear about it. Besides, I hear he’s a just a good ole boy from Memphis. Likes to hunt and fish. Check it out.”

  I told him I would. The moon cleared from a big black patch of sky. Water hung off pine branches like ice. The weight of all the water falling seemed more than the narrow trees could bear.

  Chapter 30

  FROM THE ANTIQUE metal bed in Maggie’s house where I spent last night, I smelled smoked bacon frying and coffee perking. I’d been awake for a while, still feeling that unco
mfortable vibe of being in a house that wasn’t my own. I stared up at the bead board ceiling, sagging in a few spots as if pregnant from rainwater, and stretched and rubbed my feet together. Pale white light blanched through the lead glass window and splayed onto warped pine floors.

  I wanted to go back to sleep but I finally climbed into my clothes and pulled on my boots, tucking the Browning into my jean jacket. I hadn’t shaved for a few days and I hoped I could take a shower.

  “Mornin’,” Maggie said to me at the stove, slipping the bacon off an iron skillet and onto a blue Fiesta plate. “Abby’s still sleepin’.”

  She had on jeans and mud-crusted boots with a red checked shirt with snap buttons. Her black hair was wet and slicked back and her eyes were even greener than I remembered. Almost jade. I heard cartoons in the other room and a little boy laugh.

  She nodded to a blue-speckled coffee pot on the stove and I poured a cup. Outside, a weak fall sun shone onto a small backyard cut into the woods. A jungle gym. A wooden swingset.

  “Abby said y’all had some luck.”

  I nodded. She was a beautiful woman. One that didn’t need makeup or perfume or anything else other than what she’d been born with. You could tell she liked an honest sweat. Her hands were chapped and her skin flushed from work.

  We talked for a bit about the Sons of the South and Elias Nix and an idea I had for driving over to Clarksdale.

  I said, “Maybe I could track down Jude Russell in Memphis.”

  “What makes you think he’ll talk to you?”

  “I’m gonna try and get one of his wranglers to give him a message at his lodge.”

  “You ride?” she asked, taking a seat and pulling off her work boots.

  “Not in a long time. My folks used to have a farm.”

  “You had your own horse?”

  I nodded. “My dad ended up selling him for a case of beer.”

  “Let me know if you ever want to get back riding. I have trails that go on for acres. Good land with creeks and a nice bit of woods.”