by Ace Atkins
I asked JoJo if he needed anything.
For a while he didn’t answer.
The cleaning crew soon left, the floor wet and shining like glass but smelling putrid.
“Why you bring these people in our lives?” JoJo asked. He slumped forward and folded his thick, scarred hands together. He stared up at me with such an intensity that I felt bumps form on the back of my neck. “Why, Nick?”
I opened my mouth but words wouldn’t form.
“That detective said you knew who did this. Said you tole him they were folks from Memphis following you.”
I wanted to tell him about Clyde and the men who had harassed Loretta before I’d even agreed to help. But it didn’t seem appropriate. It was a deal I’d made with Loretta, and although I didn’t see how it could possibly cause anymore pain to JoJo, I just nodded with him.
“Loretta’s gonna live,” JoJo said. “Has to. Don’t nothin’ work without her. Understand?” He raised his voice. “I said, do you understand, boy?”
“Yes, sir.”
It was me that couldn’t look at him now.
“I worked my whole life to own that bar. Been open since nineteen sixty-five. Do you know what it means to pour your soul into something and see it disappear?”
I watched the toe of my boot.
He knocked the coffee away with his hand. Some of the brown mess scattered across my face and poured toward Abby’s lap. She stood quickly and walked into the hall to leave us alone.
“I want you to stay away from my family,” JoJo said. “We didn’t do nothin’ but open up to you. Give you a place to be. That old woman, tubes coming out of her lungs, love you, man. Love you like her child.”
I watched him. “You have no idea how sorry I am.”
He reached out and grabbed the front of my blue jean jacket, twisting the cotton into his hands, and pulled me close to his face.
JoJo loosened his grip and broke from his flash of anger, pushing me away with disgust and pointing his finger. He yelled: “Stay out of our lives!”
I told him I was sorry again.
The sound of his breathing matched my own blood before I got up and walked from the room. I knew it was the only thing that would help him tonight. And I hated that. I hated myself for not being more observant if someone was following us or for not arriving five minutes earlier.
Out in the hall, I grabbed Abby’s hand and dragged her down a linoleum hallway to the elevator. “I want you to pack your things,” I said. All the different rooms and hallways made me feel dizzy and small. A rock formed behind my voice box.
“What about-?”
“We’re going back to Memphis.”
Chapter 45
RANSOM WAS PISSED. In all the years Perfect had known his broken-down butt she’d never known him to take a loss so hard. So she shot and killed some old black woman. Who cared? She knew Ransom wanted to find out about where to find her brother, but it was his damned fault he didn’t allow Perfect to work with her own talents. His moronic hick-ass thought a gun could do all the work. She wanted to tell him this wasn’t the ‘sixties as he continued to lecture them from the flatbed of his pickup truck parked in some Tunica cotton field. She wanted to tell him she needed time to learn about that old woman’s faults and desires. This was sophomore crap and she would not stay here and listen to how it should’ve worked.
“Goddamn it!” Ransom yelled, throwing a rock into a few acres of flat poured concrete as dawn crept over the cotton fields and his casino to the east. Early day was a strange time. They were tired as hell from the drive from NOLA but dawn brought a weird electricity to Perfect, almost like those tingling vibes before you make love.
“If that’s all you can say, I’m gone,” Perfect said, walking back to the rental.
He leaped off the flatbed, black leather jacket and one of those silk black shirts old men prefer, and came right to her, gripping his fingers into her shoulders, so hard it made her jaws clamp. “That boy saved us back there. We don’t need a damn screw-up right now. Do you know how big this is?”
“No,” she said, clawing her long red nails into his hairy hands. “No, I don’t. Why don’t you tell us. Why don’t you tell us why you’re so fuckin’ obsessed with some street-walking nigger?”
He grunted and walked back to his truck. The haze of the morning all dewy and crisp. The cotton popped and made swishing sounds in the rich dirt.
“I’m through with this,” she said. “I don’t work like some kind of street-trash criminal. When have I ever lost for you? Ever? What about that family who sold you the land where we’re now standin’? What about the Baptist preacher who knew all about that police detective and his problems with little girls?”
He shook his head. “There is no time.”
“Time for what? For doing a job right?”
“I don’t know who my enemies are,” he said. She studied the acne scars on his reddened skin. “I don’t know who they are. But the one thing I know is that they can use this man against me. He should’ve been dead thirty years ago.”
“I’m done,” she said. “This is not what I do.”
“You selfish little bitch. Aren’t you the same one who got your panties all wet at the Grove wanting to kill? You said you wanted to learn another talent, or some shit.”
“That was different.”
“Why?”
“That was one man,” Perfect said, chewing on a loose cuticle. “He disrespected me at the casino.”
Ransom let out such a laugh that it echoed all around them in the clearing of trees. He put his hands on his hips, all loose and craggy in the face, and said, “Well, shit. You want to put a bullet in that boy for hog-tying you? That is professional… Miss Coahoma County.”
She looked away.
Jon remained on the hood of his rental. He toyed with his beard; he’d lost the hat and rain slicker around Vicksburg. His movements jolted and jumpy after he’d taken about fifteen more of those white pills on the way back. Singing Elvis songs along with a tape he’d bought at a truck stop over the Louisiana border. She told him if he didn’t slow down his heart would bust.
Ransom walked to the edge of the poured concrete and looked into the air as if he were imagining the way the new casino would take shape, like he could see all the neon, hear the slots, and smell all that nasty money in his mind.
“I quit,” she said.
He nodded, toeing the edge of the concrete. It wasn’t all the way dry and he made an indentation with his crocodile boots. He smoothed the edge away with his heel and grinned that all-knowing crooked smile at her.
“Them ripples kind of disappear.”
Her heart kind of changed gears for a moment, like a transmission shooting loose in her chest.
“How ’bout you stay the night?”
“I have to go.”
“With what? My boys are takin’ that car right now and lettin’ it loose in the projects. You been on the road all night. Take a room.”
“Where’s my car?”
He shrugged.
She said: “Your mind is crippled.”
“I don’t like fuckups. I talked to the boy. I don’t like folks who can’t control themselves. You gonna make me screw up this whole thing. That man is lost in Memphis and she was the only damned link.”
“What about Travers?”
“Our boy is takin’ care of him.”
“You don’t even know Jon. He’s crazy. He takes pills like vitamins and prays to Elvis like he’s Jesus Christ. Yeah, boy, that’s gonna work out just great.”
“Take a room, sister,” he said, cleaning the gray concrete off his polished boots.
He moved his hand up to her waist and she caught his wrist in her long, narrow fingers. He stretched his hand over the rim of her low-riding pants and hooked his thumb into her thong underwear. “Think we could all use a rest.”
She looked at the concrete.
She looked at the road map of a face and the brittle black beard. His
breath smelled of cigars and butter.
When she glanced back to the car, Jon had noticed Ransom.
But he looked away the only time she really wanted to see his eyes. Needed to see his eyes.
Jon Burrows had cast her away.
Even before he saw her walk from the room later that morning, Jon could smell her. That sickly sweet smell like magnolia leaves when they get all mushy and brown. Decaying and ripe with tired sex. She wore a real slutty look about her, too. A halter top made out of black leather, and matching pants. High heels made out of clear plastic. Her blond hair was moussed up and combed straight back and behind her ears. Every damned thing about her looked fast. Speed. All slicked up and ready to go.
He felt his leg start twitchin’ in the little cove where they kept Coke and candy machines. That ole ice maker hummin’ at the same speed as his heart.
He watched her walk down the long hallway and take the stairs, silent as hell because none of the rooms on the floor was bein’ used by payin’ folks. He followed. The carpet of gold flowers swimming in blue made his head hurt. He imagined he was walkin’ on the sea as he caught the door before it clicked shut. Barely. Just a low tick as he pulled it wide and heard Perfect’s heels clicking down the stairs.
He watched her head getting smaller and smaller. Two floors. Three.
Blood in his ears. Teeth grittin’ in his head.
Three floors down in this damned motel. Ransom’s room.
He waited till he heard the metal door click and he ran down the steps. His bare feet not makin’ a sound. He was invisible. Floatin’. Peformin’ the miracles and usin’ the talent He’d left him.
He opened the door, peered into the long hallway. Same carpet. White, low walls. Smell of fresh paint. Same hum of the ice maker. Same hum in his heart.
Miss Perfect. He saw her beautiful back, shoulder blades movin’ up under her tanned skin and that heart-shaped butt wigglin’ in those leather pants.
The door opened down the hall; Jon ducked back into a little cove. Listening. Long caves of sound. A thousand rooms not yet used. The building just a castle for Ransom.
Bristlin’ fibers. Hands over flesh and body. The smack of a kiss and a moan of pleasure from Miss Perfect. He didn’t care. He had to see it.
Jon gave just enough of himself to look into the hall and see craggy-ass Ransom in a blue velvet robe pushin’ Miss Perfect against the wall, pinnin’ her arms over her head and buryin’ that nasty wrinkled face into the two most perfect scoops of flesh he’d ever seen.
But Jon knew who’d started the business. He knew Ransom was just followin’ her lead. That woman knew how to control the action.
Jon heard a pop in his own head and saw Perfect look down the hall.
He ducked back, sure she didn’t see him, and tongued a bit of tooth out of his mouth. He felt a wash of blood on his tongue, his heart racin’ like an overused mule’s. He tried to think about that cool ice in the metal bin before him and the way it just lay there, cold and unchanged. He fingered the chip of tooth off his tongue and spit out a long string of blood. Makin’ it loop back up to his lip, tastin’ himself and likin’ it.
Down the hall the door shut with giggles and laughter.
Jon walked back to his room, closed the door, and flicked on the television. Nothin’ but three channels and dirty movies. He watched a couple featurin’ Asian women and waterfalls and things. Didn’t help. He flipped back through to Spiderman and that only bored him.
He pulled the curtains, makin’ it dark as hell, slipped on his metal shades and picked up his Beretta. Jon swallowed some more blood, movin’ his mind away from Miss Perfect and them things that troubled him.
Hidden people laughed and squealed from the bolted-down television. Some boy in high school named Screech who kept screwin’ up. A blond girl with a tight little ole stomach who did nothin’ but roll her eyes at him.
The laughter playin’ over and over in his mind until his temples started to hurt a mess.
That was it.
He felt the silence of the vacant hall – TV light flickerin’ over his face – and pulled the trigger.
The television exploded into white, blue, and yellow sparks sending the smell of burning plastic swirling around him.
Chapter 46
THE CITY OF NEW ORLEANS rolled into Memphis a little after 3:30 P.M. I’d spent most of my trip awake on the train watching the Mississippi Delta flash by in scattered bits of old rusted trailers, eternal acres of fattened white cotton ready for the gins, and crevices of cypress swamps, morning light hard and gold on the green skin of the water. I prayed a little, thinking about Loretta, wanting God to help. Help me put things back in order. Help me, knowing I shouldn’t ask, find whomever was responsible and take them out. I couldn’t stop seeing the face of that Elvis freak in my mind. He’d been there. That piece of shit broke into JoJo’s. Set fire to my second home.
I could still smell the smoke on my shirt as I reached up and grabbed Abby’s bag from the overhead bin. She thanked me and I followed her off the train and onto a wide concrete platform with a tall view of short buildings built along the bluffs. Mostly old warehouses, a few bars, and art studios.
We followed the herd down some marble steps into a wide train terminal filled with long wooden benches and lit with green neon signs marking the ten tracks out of town. U was at the foot of the steps, arms crossed over his body, broad smile on his face, as he walked up a few steps to meet us. He surprised me with a huge hug – U wasn’t what I’d call an emotional man – and yanked the duffel bag from Abby’s hand.
“I got it,” I said, taking the bag back from him. Carrying both outside.
“Just talked to JoJo,” U said. “Said Loretta’s awake. Said she was sorry about the bar… but glad she got the day off. She asked ’bout you, thought those people coming for your ass next.”
I felt my breath drain from my body, thick and polluted. I took in some new air, watching the uncluttered blue sky. A perfect crispness seemed to be wrapping the whole world. But I felt stale. I couldn’t fall asleep or focus on anything but my anger.
He’d parked across the street at the Arcade diner and we found a little cove by the kitchen where we ordered a couple plates of sweet potato pancakes and coffee. Place hadn’t changed in fifty years. Same torn vinyl booths. Squiggly ‘fifties Orbit impressions on tables worn out in spots by years of elbows and coffee mugs.
“How you doin’, Miss Abby?” U asked.
“Fine, when one of y’all tell me why we’re back in Memphis,” she said. She sat taller in her seat. Hair in a ponytail. My Tulane football sweatshirt. “Whatever it is, I’m in.”
U raised his eyebrows. A green-haired waitress in a black T-shirt poured us some coffee. I passed U the sugar first. He watched me. He watched my hands shake.
I drank some coffee. I said: “Obviously you got my message.”
“Big job.”
“At least point the way.”
Abby picked at her food. Her fork clanked to the rim of her sticky plate. The green-haired waitress refilled our cups. A kid in the booth behind us sported a nose ring and a Britney Spears T-shirt. He looked like he liked Britney about as much as I liked the Dave Matthews Band.
“Said it was big,” U said. “Didn’t say I wasn’t coming.”
He looked over his shoulder, the leather of his jacket squeaking along the booth. The Britney kid was watching the green-haired waitress’s ass. U turned back and pulled a map of southern Tennessee before us, already marked in red pen. A big red circle had been drawn around an area south of Jackson.
“That’s it?”
He nodded, and as quickly as he slid it out, folded up the map carefully and stuck it back into his pocket. “We could be there by sundown. And that’s what we want.”
Abby was quiet. But she watched. I looked at her eyes; she stared back.
“How’d you find it?” I asked, still watching Abby. I smiled. She didn’t.
“Heard it was near Bemis
, this little town that was some kind of social experiment around the turn of the century. Yeah, I checked it all out. Anyway, I called in a favor from a good ol’ boy I just keep on bringin’ back to jail,” U said, dropping into an imitation he believed sounded like a redneck. “Met this peckerwood at a bar. A biker bar. Imagine me in a biker bar. It was like Eddie Murphy in 48 Hours. ‘There’s a new sheriff in town,’ and all that.”
“So peckerwood-biker boy told you where to find the compound?”
“His nasty ass – and I do mean nasty – wore a leather vest and no shirt, even drew a little map for me. One electric fence. Some surveillance.”
“Two of us can do it?” I asked.
“Hold on,” Abby said, pushing her plate out of the way. “What are you going to do with me? You’re not leaving me here. I’m the one whose parents were killed. I’m the one who found Nix. What are you going to do, drop me at the mall with your credit card?”
“Nick ain’t got no credit,” U said.
She made a grunting noise. “I want to go back to Oxford.”
“Not till this is over.”
“I’m not moving in with Bubba so I can sit around and watch Ricki Lake,” she said. “Besides, do you even know how to shoot that gun?”
“Yes.”
“How? I hunted with my father; what did you do?”
“I used to-”
“Hold up,” U said, raising his palm out. “I got this. See, Nick is from Alabama.”
“So?”
“That about says it all.”
“Give me two days,” I said to Abby. “I’m sorry, but this isn’t up for committee.”
Abby grunted again and tromped to the bathroom to cool off. I got up to make sure she was all right. For some reason I wanted everyone to be okay with everything.
“Nick, cool out,” he said. “We got it.”
I sat back down and asked, “So, you’re in?”
“Me and you are the same, brother,” he said, looking out the window. Maybe seeing that same blue crispness but feeling better about it. “You know that. We just a couple of Zen cowboys, Travers. What else we supposed to do with our lives? Ain’t many of us around.”