Ace Atkins - Dirty South

“Bullshit,” JoJo said, dropping the shotgun and sauntering over to the old car.

“Well, hello, Tavarius,” he said so we could all hear.

I followed and found the boy tied with laundry line across his ankles and wrists. A torn piece of brown cloth gouged deep into his mouth. He tore at it with his teeth and tried to break free when he saw JoJo.

JoJo untied him.

I dialed 911.

“What you doin’?” Bronco asked.

“Calling the police.”

“Not on this,” he said, grinding his steel toe into the small of the man’s back. “He’s out of the game.”

He kicked at the man’s head, so quick and violent that I had to turn away.

Bronco picked up the man, as if he was recently found roadkill, and dragged him to the old car. The heels of the killer’s old brogan shoes scuffing behind him. The muscles and veins in Bronco’s huge forearms bulging with his years of strength.

“Get the keys.”

I did, turning off the ignition of the old Pontiac, painted a light gold. Vinyl seats covered in duct tape.

“Pop the trunk,” he said.

I did.

“See you back at the bar,” Bronco said.

“Wait.”

“Come on, Nick,” JoJo said. “Let’s get this kid safe.”

Tavarius was rubbing his wrists. He refused to look me in the face.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I know about Dio.”

He shook his head and walked away.

JoJo winked at me and followed.

I HEADED STRAIGHT for the Ninth Ward, driving along Claiborne under the interstate, past the old Victorians boarded up and left rotting, their third-story windows only feet from concrete and steel and speeding cars. I passed little community groceries that sold beer from iced trash cans and offered health care through a backroom doctor. Kids on bicycles circled me at street corners. Lazy-eyed crackheads tried to sell me fruit that had been cut and locked into Ziploc bags, and soft-faced women with protruding bellies wandered shoeless out on Elysian Fields. Under the nearby oaks, the ground had been worn as soft as talcum powder in the yards of the rotting antebellum homes.

I crossed over the channel on a short bridge. Cheap little billboards advertised discount cigarettes and beer, a free AIDS hot line. Barges hugged the edge of the docks and mammoth warehouses sat in rusting humps.

I took a turn onto Desire and wound through the little red, blue, and yellow shotguns. Ninth Ward Records sat behind its wrought-iron fence topped with decorative fleur-de-lis in a big squat concrete building of black and gold. Teddy had his electric-blue Bentley parked by the main glass door.

I walked inside and headed straight back to his office.

He was rearranging his CDs when I walked in. Must have been thousands of them in little piles all over the carpet. He had on a black suit with a red shirt and fedora. I noticed he hadn’t shaved in a while and his eyes looked rheumy.

“We need to talk.”

He nodded, moving like he was a hundred back to his big white sofa. He took off his jacket and stretched out his huge arms across its back.

I stood and crossed my arms over my shirt.

I looked down at my boots.

He was silent.

“ALIAS was conned,” I said. “And so were you.”

He moved forward, a big bear finding his place, and rubbed his hands together. “What happened?”

“Dio wasn’t real,” I said. “One of Trey’s buddies just acted it out. He’d stolen this guy’s rhymes when he was in Angola.”

“What the fuck?” Teddy asked, suddenly awake. “Man, what are you talking about, Dio wasn’t real?”

“The real Dio was a guy named Calvin Jacobs. He was killed in prison.”

Teddy shook his head. “I knew that boy. That boy made my company. I was with him when he got jacked by those men at the club.”

“You knew Christian Chase,” I said. “Trey Brill’s buddy? The real Dio’s sister is Dahlia, man. She got in with Brill ’cause she knew the truth. It was her idea to work the con on ALIAS. ALIAS wasn’t lying, man. She roped him in with Trey’s blessing.”

“Slow down,” Teddy said, standing now and pacing. “This don’t make no goddamn sense. Trey Brill set all this up. Did all this to me? Why? He don’t need money. Why he taken me out? And Malcolm. Jesus.”

Teddy started to cry and I made an awkward move for him, patting him a couple times on his back. “Trey got Malcolm killed,” he said, sobbing. “Didn’t he? Malcolm knew about Dio. Malcolm knew.”

“Only thing I can figure.”

“Lord, Lord. He killed my brother.” Teddy ran to his desk and I watched him. Manic and angry. Three hundred pounds of crying grief. Wringing his hands, face crunched tight in sorrow.

“You made this all happen, Nick,” Teddy said. “You got everybody to come to Jesus. Thank you, Nick. Thank you, Nick. Thank you, Nick. Malcolm knew you’d do right.”

He hugged me awkwardly again. “Brill is dead,” Teddy said.

“It’s okay,” I said. “The cops are looking for him. Dahlia turned on Trey and Christian.”

“She what?” Teddy asked.

“They messed up her mind,” I said. “Her soul is gone. They used her up, man.”

“Jesus. Jesus,” Teddy said. “Malcolm said you’d set it straight. I didn’t believe him. That day when we come to you, I told him he’s bein’ foolish. But that boy knew you’d set it straight. He always look up to you. Even when he was a kid.”

I smiled. I patted Teddy on the back. “Come on, let’s go.”

He fell to his knees. He dragged all the papers off his desk and toppled hundreds of CDs. He tried to stand, bounding like a trapped elephant, scattering plastic everywhere.

“Malcolm,” he screamed. “Malcolm. Lord God. Help me.”

He found his feet and gained his composure, wiping his face with the tail of his red silk shirt. He mopped his face, exposing his massive hairless stomach.

I watched him as he reached into the drawer of his desk and pulled out a handgun.

“Jesus, no,” I said. “The police will get his ass.”

“Trey couldn’t get enough. He had to bring in the kid.”

I looked at him and tilted my head.

Before I could speak, Teddy leveled the gun at me and fired off three quick rounds, dropping me onto his white carpet. I had to bite into my arm to stop the heat and pain.

“We wouldn’t never found out about Trey and Dahlia wasn’t for you,” Teddy said. “We appreciate that.”

Hard shoes kicked into me and rolled me on my back with the toe.

I stared up into the green eyes of Christian Chase.

YOU CAN’T SLEEP. It’s 4 A.M . and the old man snorin’ in Nick’s bed, his friend Bronco watching a black-and-white movie from the Old West. Bronco doesn’t care much for the man in the mask but he sure like that Indian that ride with him. Every time some shit goes down, Bronco give you a nudge in the ribs and say wake up and listen.

The warehouse seem like a big cave to you, some kind of place where you keep an airplane. Big fans work up the tin ceiling and the smooth wood on the floor feels soft on your bare feet. But you ain’t got no comfort. Neither does the dog. She knows something wrong. The way she just hang by the door, making some whimperin’ sounds.

The old man shootin’ up out of bed in his nightshirt, silver hair on his chest. “Nick?”

“It ain’t him,” you say. “He ain’t back.”

“What time is it?”

“Four.”

He sighs real tight. “Let’s go.”

“Where?” you ask. “I called Teddy fifty times.”

“Show me,” JoJo said, snaking his belt through his britches and buttonin’ up his shirt.