Ace Atkins - Dirty South

“Some guy that sells RVs out in town knew where I was livin’ and, because he’s some mucho jock sniffer, decided I need some shit called ‘a hand up.’ I said that sounded like a hand job and to take both of his hands to spread his ass real wide to make room for his fuckin’ head.”

“I need to talk to you about Trey Brill,” I said. I had to squint into the sunlight shooting through the oak leaves and vines just to watch his face.

The branch in Riggins’s hand snapped and he brushed at his beard with his fingers. He nodded for a while and spit into the dead fire.

“You seen my wife?” he asked.

“Didn’t know you were married.”

“When Brill cleaned me out, she left me for my next-door neighbor,” he said, his muscles tightening under the bristled cheeks. “A guy who made fuckin’ watches for a living. Watches out of jewels and faces of old movie stars. Guy had this hair transplant that looked like the goddamn head on a little girl’s doll. Goddamn. I stole his Jet Ski, rode it down to St. Charles Parish, and then set the motherfucker on fire.”

I nodded.

“You knew about me and Brill, right?” he asked. “You’re not thinking of having him run your money. God, I thought everybody knew how he fucked me like a monkey on a football.”

“Tell me about it,” I said. “The money. Not the monkey. I saw that you filed suit for mismanagement.”

“Yeah, my lawyer was a cocksucker,” he said. “You know that little weight coach we had? The one who drank protein shakes and wore bikers’ pants? He told me this guy was the best in New Orleans. All he did was clean out the rest of my bank account and have his secretary send me a ‘sorry for fuckin’ up your life’ card on my goddamned birthday.”

I picked up a couple of stones on the ground and whizzed them into the woods. The afternoon sun had flushed blood and heat into my face. “What did he do, Riggins?”

“You’re gonna think I’m the biggest dumb-ass you ever heard,” he said. “Almost don’t want to tell you.”

“Trey’s fucking over Teddy Paris.”

“Fat Teddy?”

I nodded.

“Remember when I sent that fucking whore to meet Teddy after we got back from San Francisco?”

“Yeah,” I said, my face unchanging. “Hilarious.”

“Man, that was funny as shit.”

He laughed for a few minutes, really chuckling to himself, until he dropped his big head into his hands and his back began to shake.

“What did Trey do?”

“He sold me my own property.”

“Come again?”

He snorted and pulled out some Copenhagen from a tin. “I know that sounds crazy. But a few years back, he had me invest in this condo project out in Gretna,” he said, tucking a pinch into his lip. “Well, a year after I retired, I didn’t get dick. I get this lawyer and he has some accountant check things out. Turns out, I’d already put in for a hundred grand on the place. He’d sold it back to me for fucking three. Shit, I didn’t know one of these deals from another.”

“I guess Matlock wasn’t your lawyer,” I said.

“The police and my lawyer couldn’t prove shit,” he said. “He’s got these little corporations set up all over. More hidden names than assholes in China.”

“He run over anyone else?”

He nodded. “Tim Z. Bone. DuBois.”

“You know how to find them?”

“No,” he said. “But they were all in the same deal. Tim Z. wanted to grease Trey’s ass with STP and run a rabid squirrel into his cornhole with some PVC pipe. He got put in jail just for tellin’ Trey about it on the phone. He’s got one of those restraining-order things on him now. But in the end, we all decided he’d wallow in his own sin. You know, that’s back when I was all into the Fellowship of Christian Athletes shit. I thought the world was gonna end in 2000. That’s when I built the bunker.”

“Never can be too careful.”

“I got enough cans of beans to make the whole nation fart on cue.”

“What made you trust this guy so much?”

“He’d keep your mind on other things,” he said. “Like this one time, he had this woman come over when I had the gym. To sign contracts and shit. She looked just like Barbie. Had big fake tits and blond hair and the IQ of a squirrel.”

“Smart as the one who would run into the PVC pipe?”

“What?”

“Never mind.”

“Well, anyway, we ended up doin’ it in a three-way mirror after the gym had closed.”

“So there were six of you?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he said. “That’s funnier than shit. Would you quit fuckin’ with me and let me tell the damned story? That’s what you wanted, right?”

He didn’t smile.

I did.

“I found out when we were about to go to court that she didn’t even work for Brill,” he said. “She was a damn stripper at that place on Bourbon called the Maiden Voyage. You know, where they used to brag they had the Best Chest in the West?”

We walked back to the trailer, Annie by my side, Riggins leading the way. He strategically spit as we walked, and pointed out different markers that signified boundaries of his land.

“I guess you getting ready for training camp,” Riggins said, his eyes wide.

“Jimmy, I haven’t played for ten years.”

“Really?” he asked, squinting into the sun.

“No lie.”

“Been chopping a lot of wood,” he said. “I’m gonna call the suits tomorrow. Tell them I’ll take a little less for this season.”

“See you out there, brother.”

From my rearview mirror, I watched Jimmy wave from the middle of his long dirt road. I noticed a wall he’d made from small logs that seemed to go on forever. Before I turned a corner, I saw him grab his ax and start on another tall pine.

SUMMER HEAT BAKED oil puddles in the eight-story garage where I sat on the hood of Trey’s new silver BMW with a rusty crowbar in my hand. I’d taken Annie back to the warehouse and spent my last hour counting people walking off the elevator, checking out trucks in the garage, and noticing all the oil spots that reminded me of presidents’ heads. I thought about Maggie and her farm, Polk Salad Annie taking a crap on my sofa yesterday, and ALIAS stealing from JoJo. I tried to remember what JoJo had told me about the liquor-license changeover and a bouncer he knew we could trust.

With restocking the booze, booking the bands, and making schedules for the waitresses we’d have to hire, I hoped I’d still have time to teach. I just wanted to keep the bar running half as smooth as it had under JoJo. I wanted to keep everything the same.

A small bell rang and the doors opened. Footsteps echoed through the concrete cavern and I heard laughing and a woman’s voice playfully telling someone to “shut up.”

“I’m fuckin’ starved,” Brill said as he punched his key chain and the BMW’s horn honked and lights winked. I didn’t move.

Trey caught my eye. I shifted the crowbar into my right hand.

He began to walk faster, leaving the woman in his wake. She tilted her head, looking toward me, sitting hard on her friend’s car. She was in her midtwenties and blond. Boy-short hair and pixie face. A tight white top, Capri pants, and a pink sweater tied around her shoulders.

“What the fuck?” Trey asked.

The woman ran, her arms flouncing on each side of her body, heels wobbling beneath her tanned calves. “Trey, don’t. Trey.”

He reached for his cell phone and I assumed called 911.

No light crept into the floor of the parking garage from the windowless walls. The air smelled like carbon monoxide and garbage.

Brill gave his directions and the little blonde hung on his arm.

“Where’s Dahlia?” I asked.