Dark End of the Street

by Ace Atkins

  The room had a pleasant energy as most places do during a storm. It felt good just being inside as a true shitstorm pounded the trees outside and batted the hell out of the windows.

  “Hey, wait. Royal? Tell Rance to go get Muddy out of the pen and bring him here. Hell. So, what is this all about? Who are you?”

  I introduced myself and Abby. I briefly told him about Abby’s parents – trying to get through it without too many details – and how we believed that Nix was connected.

  “So why come to me?”

  “We want to know about him.”

  “You want to know if he’s just a good ole boy or a fuckin’ – excuse me – Nazi,” Russell said as a fat Lab came into the room shaking its wet coat and rested its snout in his lap. Russell rubbed his head and picked up a towel to dry the dog.

  “Who is he and who are the Sons of the South?” I asked.

  “Christ. I drove about an hour out of my way and am gonna have to haul ass back to some rubber-chicken dinner tonight because you want to know about my opponent? Shit, Royal, way you were talkin’ made it sound like this boy might have pictures of Nix screwin’ a goat.”

  Everyone around the table laughed except Royal, who looked a little pissed. Russell tossed the towel on the ground and leaned back in his chair. He placed his hands behind his head and looked at the ceiling.

  “Letters?”

  In the rain, Royal and I walked back to my truck for the papers we’d found at Abby’s. And for the next thirty minutes after we returned, we sat around and read useless memos and congratulatory messages from Nix to Abby’s dad. I knew she felt invaded and uncomfortable, and I was sorry for that. But I also knew this was the only way to get him to talk.

  “Well,” he began. “You want to tell me your deal in all this, partner?”

  “I’m a friend of the family.”

  “How’d you know her father?”

  “I didn’t.”

  Abby said, “He’s my friend.”

  Russell was good, an old poker-player type who could watch a man’s face and see what was clicking behind the facade. But I was pretty damned good, too, and stared right back. JoJo had taught me well.

  “She hire you?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “What do you do, Travers?”

  “Loaf.”

  He laughed.

  “I teach blues history at Tulane.”

  “No kidding,” he said, a big smile crossing his lips. “Been to the Sunflower Festival, I’m sure.”

  “Yep.”

  “You know we’re not too far from the Stovall plantation where Muddy made that record for that man with the Library of Congress.”

  “Alan Lomax.”

  “You know him?”

  “I met him once in D.C.”

  “He still around? I bet he’s got some stories goin’ back into Clarksdale in the day when white folks kept to their side of town.”

  “He’s in Florida. Been pretty sick.”

  Russell had gotten me way off subject. I was used to people answering questions with a question or trying to angle the conversation so they could learn about you. That kind of talk usually came from oily record company types who got pissed when I asked them about royalties for some of the blues players I’ve worked with. But this was different, Russell seemed to have a genuine interest in the history of the Delta and had apparently done more than just read a few liner notes.

  The politician scratched the ears of his big dog and finished off his beer. He offered me one and I refused.

  “So,” I said, trying to get back to Nix. “Is he a Nazi?”

  Russell clenched his jaw and rubbed his bare feet together. One foot was bruised and swollen purple around the big toe. He looked over at Royal and the older man shrugged. Apparently he did more than just look out for the place. He was an adviser of some sort.

  I smiled for a minute. I’d bullshitted my way into a lot of things, mainly to find musicians or people who owed them money. But here I was sitting with the man who could be the next governor of Tennessee and I had to keep smiling. My ole tracker mentor would be damned proud. Rule one: You can bullshit your way through anything.

  A maid placed a silver tray of pickles, salami, cheese, and sausage in the middle of the table. We all took a few things off the tray and sat back while Russell seemed to contemplate me.

  “Is she one of your students?” he asked.

  I shook my head.

  “Girlfriend?”

  “No.”

  “So what does this have to do with blues?”

  I thought about telling him about Clyde James and Loretta and my time in Memphis and the casino and everything leading up to the meeting. But it was one of those things that I knew would only make him more suspicious. It was better to keep it clean. Friend of the family. New information on Nix.

  “She’s a friend, man. I don’t know what to tell you. The Oxford police aren’t listening to her and we wanted to know more about Nix and the Sons of the South.”

  “And you thought, ‘Let’s just knock on the door of ole Jude’?”

  “Yeah, something like that.”

  He studied my face again.

  “Well, nothin’ I can tell you can get me in trouble. I tell some of the media, ones I can trust, the same thing. First off, if you tell someone else what I say I’ll deny it. Not ’cause it’s not the truth but because it could get me sued.”

  He sighed. Rain pattering on the metal roof the only sound in the room.

  “Sons of the South is dangerous as hell and Nix’s connection to them scares me for our state. You care about blues and the heritage of black folks around here? Nix doesn’t see that. The South is white. The music. The culture.”

  “Celtic.”

  “Yep,” he said, pointing the nose of his empty beer at me. “Exactly. Their favorite word.”

  “And-”

  Royal broke in: “This will illustrate our point,” he said. Not even looking at Russell as he spoke. Almost like a father. “Two years ago there was some trouble in Biloxi during spring break. Remember? It was national news. Well, some black college students were accused of raping a white girl and tearing up a bar. Turns out the girl was in some wet T-shirt contest and had brought five men back to her room with her. I don’t know the particulars and don’t want to. But when it made the news, we know some members of Sons of the South went to Biloxi looking for the boys when they were released from jail. They dragged one behind their car on a country road and crucified him on a barn door with a nail gun.”

  Russell looked at my face as I listened. He nodded and gave it the proper pause before speaking again, to let the weight of the story sink in to both of us.

  “The thing that makes them dangerous,” Russell said, “is that the makeup of the SOS isn’t a bunch of truckers and pig farmers. We’re talking about college professors, lawyers. Big-time Nashville businessmen. You ever live in Tennessee?”

  I shook my head.

  “Tennessee is really like three states. You have the east around Nashville that is blue-blood and conservative as hell. Voted against Gore in the election. Then you have the west that’s more rural and usually aligned with us. Then you have Memphis. Memphis is another world. Mostly black. Democrats till they die. The worry comes from the swing Nix could have in those western counties. His speeches sound awfully good to the Bible-thumpers.”

  “But what about the gambling?” I asked. “I mean, he supports a state lottery and gaming on the river. Why aren’t the Bible-thumpers opposed to that?”

  “They are. But he talks about how gambling could attract big money and skirts the issues, bringin’ up rhetoric about family values and a return to the Tennessee he knew as a child. He’s charming as hell and keeps the SOS just enough in the shadows that no one really attacks it, besides some good reporters who understand how damned dangerous this could be. Shit, today there was a whole profile on him in the Nashville paper and the reporter only mentioned the SOS in one paragraph. The
SOS is Elias Nix. Founder, member, and demagogue.”

  Russell made a little sandwich from the remaining cheese, pickles, and salami from the tray and folded it into his hands like a magician before taking a bite.

  Royal looked at his watch and stood up. He stared down at me and put his hat back on. “Mr. Russell has to get, folks. We appreciate your time and hope it’s helped you some. If you do find anything that connects Nix to what happened to your parents, you let us know.”

  Russell stood, too, and wrapped one arm around Abby’s shoulders. At first, the move made her stiffen, but as he pulled her closer, she relaxed a little and smiled back.

  “I’m so sorry,” he said. “I lost my mother when I was in college and had to drop out for a year. Didn’t understand how I could ever make it without her. But you do. You will.”

  His brown eyes softened and he squeezed her even tighter.

  “Y’all be careful out there,” he said.

  I said we would and walked out of the hunting lodge and back to the Gray Ghost, to head back up Highway 61 to Memphis. Abby was quiet after we left. She just stared into the long gray curtains of rain and the red taillights stretching far in front of us. In the corner of my eye, I saw her pulling the sweatshirt over her hands like mittens as my radio played an old Peetie Wheetstraw tune.

  “Nick?” she asked. “Would they help us if we found more papers of my daddy’s?”

  Chapter 33

  PERFECT SNAPPED HER CELL PHONE shut and told Jon that Ransom had finally given the word. She immediately started thinking of ways they’d take Travers and the girl, most of her plans with her distracting the hell out of Travers while Jon shoved a gun in his face. She could play the sex kitten, the confused tourist, or maybe the victim. Maybe she’d teach Jon about the big game: wife beater. That wasn’t too bad. She could scream and yell while Jon grabbed her by the front of her blouse letting everyone know she’d screwed another man. Shit, the part was made for that jealous country boy and she knew Travers would jump up, wherever he was, and try to help out.

  But, then again, what if other people were around and tried to stop Jon, too? They could have some serious monkey in their works. No, it had to be simple. Separation of li’l Miss Abby and Travers would be the key. And it all depended on where they stopped and how many people were around.

  Perfect looked over at her partner while the Taurus kept on swallowing up Highway 61 blacktop heading north. He was still talking. Not to her, more to himself. All about Elvis and how he felt he was just like Jesus and how she should start off seeing some movie called King Creole because the later movies only made sense to the devout.

  Lord, that boy was wired today. He’d downed a bottle full of white pills and had been talking a whole mess since they left Clarksdale. He was funny like that. Silent as ole Lurch, then little Chatty Cathy all the way north. He was talkin’ about his mamma and some big motorcycle he bought and then about going to some crappy amusement park in Memphis called Libertyland.

  “Thought you said your mamma left you for a while?”

  “I never said that.”

  “You said she spent some time in Canada and that a woman named Erdele looked out for you.” She never forgot a word that was spoken to her. Sometimes she wished she could.

  “My mamma never left me,” he said, drumming his fingers on his knee. “My mamma would never leave me. You heard me wrong is all.”

  “When did you lose your virginity, Jon?”

  “Miss Perfect, why you ask questions like that?” he asked, slipping his metal sunglasses back on. “You like to shock me with that kind of talk? Don’t you? You think you gonna make me embarrassed, woman?” He began playing with some gold rings on his fingers. “I had my first when I was nine years old.”

  “That’s impossible.”

  “That’s the truth. She was fifteen.”

  “Can you handle a woman?”

  “You’ll never know.”

  “Oh, Jon,” she said, her eyes keeping on the road as she ran her fingers over his chin. “You want to find out? Here.”

  She placed his hand on her knee.

  “You keep going till you get scared,” she said. “I’ll put my hand on yours. It’s called chicken.”

  “I know what it’s called,” he said, curling his lip.

  “We gonna shoot ’em?” she asked, moving her hand an inch to his thigh.

  “Yeah, I’m gonna use this ole forty-five, same kind that E had with Him when He visited the President,” he said, moving about the same. “When the President made Him a federal agent so He could fight crime. What you got?”

  She moved a little more, raking her nails against his tight jeans. “Me? Oh, just a Smith & Wesson that an old boyfriend gave me. Poor bastard. Somebody threw an electric fan into his bubble bath.”

  He moved up thigh-meets-crotch level. She could feel his hand trembling and vibrating. She liked it. Good humming in that hot blood. She moved her hand to the same spot on him. Damn.

  “I once killed a man with three feet of twenty-pound-test fishing line.”

  “Once shot a man in his…” She moved her hand all the way getting a good piece of Jon’s ole boy.

  “Dang!” he shouted. “Watch the road.”

  She swerved back into the right lane, barely missing a semi that roared past her. She smiled, checking out her eyeliner in the rearview and puckering her lips. Nice job. Black outlined to make them seem more full. “I won.”

  I peered over at Abby to see if she’d noticed we’d cut across from Highway 61 and finally curved back onto 78 heading to the truck stop she’d told me about, but she was sleeping. Lips slightly parted. Hands tucked between her head and the door. I turned down the heat in my truck and lowered the stereo, just hearing the steady bump of my big tires on that straight shot to Memphis.

  I didn’t feel like we’d gained shit from Jude Russell. He was affable and had confirmed my ideas about Nix being a racist moron, as well as a Republican. But about the only thing I could figure out was that somehow MacDonald had something on the casino business coming to Memphis that would seriously affect the campaign. But what about Clyde? A forgotten soul singer didn’t make a bit of sense. The casinos were the only common link.

  The wind buffeted through cotton fields and made howling noises against the truck’s frame. The sky was dark as hell and I watched a large cardboard box cartwheel until finally slamming into the side of a crooked trailer.

  I thought about my conversation with Maggie earlier that morning, about my problem with change, as I listened to Delbert McClinton.

  I mean, did I ever think I’d be mature enough to raise a child like she’s doing? What about attending Little League games, looking for good deals in the Sunday paper, taking pride in my lawn, worrying about property values and gas mileage, exchanging wine with other couples, wearing Dockers or other sensible pants, wondering about the market’s effect on my 401K or ever believing the music was getting too loud?

  Just the thought of those things made me nauseated. But, of course, I never thought I’d be approaching forty and running all across the Delta trying to solve other people’s problems either.

  Abby stirred beside me and I turned up the music just a bit. Delbert’s new album made me want to drive forever. But the gas tank needle had been dropping mighty low ever since I cut off Highway 61 onto Highway 78.

  “Abby? We getting close? Which exit was it again?”

  “Off,” Jon shouted, pointing his finger at the exit. “There they go.” Perfect followed the Bronco past a Kentucky Fried Chicken and Hardees and into this huge-ass truck stop. Place advertisin’ Western Wear and Country Cookin’. He liked that. Two of his favorite things. Place was real honest.

  Jon watched them park underneath one of them big ole overhangs for semis. Travers started smokin’ and pumpin’ gas like an idiot and the little blond girl, cute as all get out, walked on into the place like she was in a heck of hurry. Probably had to pee.

  Peein’ and Coca-Cola.
That’s what these places should advertise. That’s what people wanted. Jon reached in to the backseat for his Resistol hat and pulled it low over his eyes.

  “You goin’ in?” Miss Perfect asked.

  He nodded.

  “Watch her. She’s a tricky little bitch.”

  “What you gonna do?”

  “Distract your boy here,” she said. “Let you get where you need with the girl. We can do it at that pump if we have to. Get them in the car. We’ll handcuff both of ’em and keep ’em in back.”

  Jon jumped out and walked through a mess of puddles into the long shot of bright lights and rows and mesh hats and cowboy boots. The girl was walkin’ back to the bathroom, near an old arcade. Jon jingled the change in his pocket and muttered to himself, “Let’s play.”

  I was almost done filling up the Gray Ghost when I noticed this blond woman in an uncomfortably tight pink sweater and jeans with tall stiletto heels. I was sure she was a professional. If not a hooker, maybe a dancer who specialized in brass poles. The woman kept walking toward me. Really nice smile. Blue eyes. Her hair in blond curly locks. Beauty mark on her cheek.

  I checked her out; I like to look at women.

  I kept smoking my cigarette and instantly found myself kind of posing. Chest out. Cigarette dangling. You know, the whole Marlboro Man thing.

  “Hey,” she said, toying with her little finger in her mouth.

  “Hey,” I said, coughing and dropping the cigarette onto my new T-shirt. “Shit,” I broke from my pose, brushed off the burning ashes, and quickly crushed the cigarette with my boot.

  “That’s stupid,” she said.

  “I try to keep the sparks away from the gas.”

  “Knew a man who died like that,” she said, squinting her eyes looking into mine.

  “I’ll be more careful,” I said, glancing at the asphalt for any gas leaks.

  “Sometimes just a little spark can lead to an explosion,” she said. She rested her forearms on the gas pump, price spinning higher, and looking at me. Her eyes were an unnatural blue. Beautiful, but a color not found in nature.