Ace Atkins - Dirty South

As he drove away, he threw my Glock 17 into the ditch along the road. I wiped the dirt on the side of my leg and tucked the empty gun into my jacket.

Their wagon train of SUVs and Italian imports looped back onto Powder Street and the old rusted bridge that stretched over to the city. I walked behind them, rubbing the blood from my face, straightening out my clothes and calling a United Cab from the cell still in my pocket.

TREY LOVED THAT SCENE from The Grifters . The one when Cusack walks into that TGI Friday’s place and holds a twenty in his fingers but has the folded dollar flipped underneath his palm. When the bartender gets ready to make his change, he coolly flicks out the buck and no one notices a freakin’ thing. Trey didn’t like to keep things from Teddy. Didn’t like to hide things from the big guy. He’d always gotten along with him, enjoyed picking out his clothes, decorating his home, and shaping Ninth Ward into a national company. But Teddy didn’t have to know everything.

Trey looked over at Malcolm, drunk and stoned, sleeping on the couch in Trey’s office in the CBD. He clicked off his e-mail and reached into his desk drawer for two CDs he’d burned earlier today. Nothing but a white paper label.

On his walls hung pictures of his travels with his fraternity brothers from college. All of them in that little bar down in Costa Rica listening to that reggae band and singing like hell. Another of him and Christian in Switzerland when they climbed that mountain and drank some really good German beer, both flashing their wrists with freshly built Rolexes. The good one. The Submariner.

Trey tucked the CDs into Malcolm’s coat pocket and shook him awake. The overhead lights had been shut off by his secretary and only small little table lamps glowed. Malcolm stirred a bit and Trey made himself a Ketel One martini at the minibar. No vermouth. He hated vermouth. A clean twist of lemon.

On the bar, he kept a small CD player and flicked through the CDs. No fucking rap. But he did have some awesome Dave Matthews. A little Widespread Panic and some Limp Bizkit. Great driving music.

He cranked up the Bizkit. It was Friday night. All the offices were closed and he could play a little. Malcolm grabbed a beer beside him and began to wash his face in the tiny marble sink.

“What are you doing?”

“Cleanin’ up,” Malcolm said.

“There’s a bathroom down the hall.”

He began to walk away, shaking his head, his Hornets jersey slipped over a white T with some hundred-dollar jeans. His face covered in shadows.

“Why don’t you turn that shit down?” Malcolm said.

“Check your pockets while you’re out.”

Malcolm looked at Trey for a second and then walked back to his stiff jean jacket, searching through each compartment. When he found the CDs, he froze.

“How many more?”

“Twenty-two tracks, enough for a double album.”

“Don’t make no sense.”

Trey took the martini and walked back to his desk and plunked down the drink on the table. He just started to dance, rocking his head up and down. Feeling that music. All that energy. He might be a businessman but he could still rock.

Malcolm turned down the music. He walked over as Trey started giggling a little and reached his right hand in the air for a high five.

“Where you gettin’ this?”

“His mother.”

“Dio said his mamma died.”

“Then it was his aunt.”

“Damn, man,” he said.

“A little extra kick that we needed,” Trey said. “Right?”

“Teddy will want to know.”

“And you’ll tell him about his aunt,” Trey said. “I keep up with all his family. They’re all part of the estate. Teddy will understand.”

“Is it good?”

“The best.”

“Don’t want to be known for producin’ a dead man all my life.”

“Dio is forever,” Trey said, reaching for Malcolm’s hand.

Malcolm didn’t take it. “You startin’ to make sense.”

Trey stopped smiling and had to catch his breath. “What are you talking about?”

“You know, Brill,” he said. “Quit tryin’ to fuck me.”

“Keep cool.”

Malcolm’s face turned inward. “This shit got to stop.”

Trey walked over to the window. From the outside, they just looked like mirrors. Dozens of silver glass frames. But on the inside, everything was so fucking clear. The Quarter. A gambling boat drifting down the river. Some women lining up down by Harrah’s.

“Let’s roll,” Trey said.

“I’m done.”

“Nope,” Trey said. “We’re hangin’ out Uptown. Some wicked women I know going be down at F &M’s later. You’re a celebrity after that spread of you and Teddy in the Picayune .”

Malcolm stared at Trey. Trey could hear Malcolm’s breathing.

Trey didn’t even look back. He’d come back around. They always did.

He downed the martini, cranked the tunes, and danced. It was Friday night every night of his life.

Malcolm flipped the CDs onto Trey’s desk and walked away.

I EXAMINED A SMUDGE of blue welts along my rib cage as I stepped out of the shower and got more pissed off. I hurt. I could smell the sour-milk body odor of that one thug and see flashes of the fire. I looked down at the remnants of my old book and rubbed Annie’s head, checking her over. She seemed fine. A little wired and confused, but fine.

I needed to call Teddy and tell him about Cash. He’d want to know about the deal for ALIAS, although he wouldn’t take it. Everything was about the kid. His money and his talents.

As I was about to pick up the phone, I kicked my toe at the copy of Catcher in the Rye that I’d found in my mother’s things when I was fifteen. It was scorched, the dust jacket destroyed, but some of the pages remained intact.

The book had been my only insight into a woman who’d killed herself the day she’d turned thirty-two.

She left me with my father, an alcoholic high-school football coach, who let our farm in Alabama become overgrown in high grass and filled with rotting fences and barns.

I brushed off the blackened edges of the book, flipped through the pages that weren’t fused. I checked the cover page, as I often did.

To Alice,

H.C.’s alter ego – accept this humble offering (condition, etc.) but I wasn’t sure if you had a hardbound copy.

For myself, the chief in “laughing man” is easy to identify with. It’s in Nine Stories (find included).

Hope you enjoy (if you haven’t already read it) and accept these from,

Your secret admirer

I stood for a few minutes trying to catch my breath and slipped into a pair of 501s, a King Biscuit Festival T from 1991, and my boots. I thought about the Chief and wondered who he’d been to my mother and sometimes got mad at him for not trying to save her.

I called Pinky’s Bar. Fred wasn’t there and I hung up.

The phone rang in my hand.

“What you got?” Teddy asked.

“Who’s Nae Nae?”

“Nick, man, I told you to stay out of Malcolm’s business.”

“Who is Nae Nae?”

“Bitch he got pregnant last year,” he said. “What she tellin’ you about Malcolm? Ain’t nothin’ but lies, man. Did you know she even set up a goddamned Web site about her havin’ Malcolm’s baby and him not giving her any money. Ain’t that some shit? A Web site, man. Somethin’ like malcolmsbaby-dot-com. Shit.”

“Cash said he wants to trade ALIAS for your life.”

“No way.”

“Where does Nae Nae live?”

“Nick,” he said. “Come on.”

THIRTY MINUTES later, I pulled into a short driveway off Elysian Fields with Teddy and Polk Salad Annie by my side. Teddy was in his silk bathrobe and working cell phone calls trying to borrow the money Cash wanted, while Annie chewed on a bone I’d brought.