Ace Atkins - Dirty South

“Does that animal fart?” Teddy asked. “Or was that you, Nick?”

“She’s a lady.”

“So it was you?”

“It was the dog.”

Teddy snapped shut the cell phone and tucked it into his pocket. He wore a black fedora on his head and had an unlit cigar in his mouth. A dry wind kicked up some elephant ears and palm trees. Across the street, I heard a child screaming.

“You feelin’ better?” I asked.

“I ain’t leavin’ town,” he said.

“Cash just wants the kid.”

“Cash will do what he says,” he said. “That’s his way.”

“I know his way,” I said, feeling the bruise beginning to form beneath my eye. I opened the door from my truck and stepped out onto the gravel and into the darkness. “Don’t tell me about Cash’s way.”

Nae Nae’s house was painted pink with green trim and had children’s toys scattered across her weedy lot. I saw the strobelike flashes of a television coming from the inside. It was almost 2 A.M.

Teddy knocked on the door and relit his cigar.

Nothing.

He knocked some more.

A woman in her early twenties opened up with a kitchen knife in her hand. She wore an old Saints T-shirt of Ricky Williams and her long braids whipped across her face as she jabbed the knife near Teddy’s heart.

“What the fuck are you doin’ at this time of night?” she asked in a high-pitched whisper. “Don’t you know my baby still asleep in here? Your goddamned nephew and all you got to say is nothin’, standin’ there with your white hoodlum friends tryin’ to get me up to get yourself some of that ass that you always wantin’. Well, you ain’t gettin’ shit from this girl, and you tell that greasy-ass brother of yours that I ain’t satisfied for shit.”

She dropped the name of a local attorney who was known throughout the black neighborhoods as “Pitbull” Sammy. I’d seen the billboards and they were good.

“Hey, Nae Nae,” Teddy said, taking off his hat and moving the knife down at her side. “Good to see you.”

“What he want?” She pointed at me with the knife.

“He’s my driver,” Teddy said. “Listen, did Malcolm give you something this week?”

She pulled at the frayed bottom of her Saints T-shirt and tucked the knife into the elastic band of her panties. “Maybe.”

“Nae Nae?”

“You try and take that away,” she said, shaking her little fist at Teddy. “And I’ll kill you dead.”

“Get in line,” Teddy said. He slipped the hat back on his head and motioned for me to wait back at the truck with Annie. I did. Teddy knew what I wanted. I let him take the lead.

They talked for a good fifteen minutes in the yellow light of the porch. Bugs flitting about their heads. She eventually moved up under the bridge of Teddy’s arm and looked up at him, laughing. Teddy picked her up off her feet right before he left and swung her back down to the ground.

He’d turned a knife-wielding woman into a friend. I couldn’t believe how good Teddy could be.

“Son of a bitch,” I said, my voice sounding hollow from inside the truck. Annie moved, her head between the two front passenger seats with the bone stuck between her molars, curious about my musings.

Teddy slid back in and kept puffing on the cigar. I reached over him and rolled down the window.

Teddy rubbed the back of his neck, the seats cracking under his weight. “All right.”

“All right, what?”

“Let’s go see him.”

“You sure?”

“My brother givin’ away fifty-thousand-dollar cars on the week Cash is about to take my ass out,” Teddy said, gritting his teeth and slamming his fists into the dash. His breath came in jumpy spurts.

I started the truck and we drove north toward Lake Pontchartrain where Malcolm kept his house across the street from his brother.

We didn’t talk the whole way. Teddy just kind of leaned into the wind as we rode, puffing on his cigar and searching for answers in his mind.

AT 3:45, TEDDY BOOSTED me onto his shoulders to grab the second-floor balcony of Malcolm’s house. I reached the lowest edge of the iron, got a good grip, and pulled myself onto the ledge. We’d spotted a French door ajar by his bedroom and outdoor Jacuzzi after ringing his doorbell about thirty times. Down from the patio, Teddy told me to come down and let him in. I looked down at Teddy, still in the bathrobe and slippers, and said, “No shit.”

I walked through the darkness of the house, white carpet, gold albums on the walls, and down onto the slate of his foyer and the front door. I saw a Brinks security system by the row of switches but it didn’t seem to be armed. But really I couldn’t tell if the red light meant it was on or off. I opened the door anyway.

Teddy strolled in, punching a code, and turned on all the lights.

Malcolm had a big open den with three big-screen televisions lined up side by side and a back bookshelf filled with CDs and dozens of pieces of Sony stereo components and Bose speakers. A few books on the Kama Sutra. Playboy s going back to the mideighties in leather cases.

“Quite a collection,” I said.

“He’s always been into freaks.”

“A man of classics.”

“Why you always makin’ jokes, Nick?” he asked. “This shit ain’t funny. Goddamn.”

“It’s gonna be all right,” I said. “Be cool.”

“Ain’t your ass.”

We moved upstairs to Malcolm’s bedroom. He had one of the last water beds I’d seen since the seventies and a ceiling that was completely mirrored. Prints of Janet Jackson and Aaliyah and some woman named Gangsta Boo hung on the walls. Gangsta Boo had even signed and dated hers. Thanks for that night in Memphis. In the photo she was grabbing her crotch.

“What happened that night in Memphis?” I asked Teddy. “With the upstanding young woman?”

“Don’t ask.”

Teddy and I looked through his chest of drawers and found a lot of sweats and Ts and jewelry but no check stubs or deposit statements. He had a small desk by a window but the drawers were all empty. The room smelled of cologne and sweat.

We walked downstairs and Teddy opened up his brother’s refrigerator, pulling out a couple of Eskimo Pies. He handed one to me.

I grabbed the wooden stick. I hadn’t eaten in a while.

We walked through the house like a couple of kids in a museum, eating ice cream and talking. He pointed out some family photos hung on the wall and a ten-foot-tall oil painting of Teddy leaning against his Bentley. “That was his Christmas present.”

The house was still and hummed with the quiet AC.

“I don’t think we’re going to make it,” I said. “I’ll stay with you, Teddy. All right?”

“No way.”

“Make me leave.”

He nodded and pulled me into his big meaty arms and rubbed the top of my head.

“Shit, man, cut it out,” I said.

“I love you, Nick,” he said. He hugged me like he always did after a game, whether we won or lost. He always acted like he just wanted to savor this one moment and keep it forever fresh in his head.

“Son of a bitch.”

“Really, man,” he said. “You the only one I trust.”

I found a little room by the kitchen with his washer and dryer, a bulletin board, and a tiny little desk. I rifled through the drawers and saw nothing, but reached high on a ledge and found a large box filled with bank statements and credit card bills.

Teddy helped himself to another Eskimo Pie. I had the same.

“What you think of ALIAS?” he asked as I pulled out a few slips of paper, looked through them, and passed them on to him for a second opinion.

“I don’t know.”

“He’s a good kid,” Teddy said. “Grew up in Calliope and lost his mamma about two years back. Heard she’d been dead for a couple of weeks before anyone called the cops. ALIAS wouldn’t call ’cause he thought the child welfare people would take him away.”