Ace Atkins - Dark End of the Street

Russell made a little sandwich from the remaining cheese, pickles, and salami from the tray and folded it into his hands like a magician before taking a bite.

Royal looked at his watch and stood up. He stared down at me and put his hat back on. “Mr. Russell has to get, folks. We appreciate your time and hope it’s helped you some. If you do find anything that connects Nix to what happened to your parents, you let us know.”

Russell stood, too, and wrapped one arm around Abby’s shoulders. At first, the move made her stiffen, but as he pulled her closer, she relaxed a little and smiled back.

“I’m so sorry,” he said. “I lost my mother when I was in college and had to drop out for a year. Didn’t understand how I could ever make it without her. But you do. You will.”

His brown eyes softened and he squeezed her even tighter.

“Y’all be careful out there,” he said.

I said we would and walked out of the hunting lodge and back to the Gray Ghost, to head back up Highway 61 to Memphis. Abby was quiet after we left. She just stared into the long gray curtains of rain and the red taillights stretching far in front of us. In the corner of my eye, I saw her pulling the sweatshirt over her hands like mittens as my radio played an old Peetie Wheetstraw tune.

“Nick?” she asked. “Would they help us if we found more papers of my daddy’s?”

PERFECT SNAPPED HER CELL PHONE shut and told Jon that Ransom had finally given the word. She immediately started thinking of ways they’d take Travers and the girl, most of her plans with her distracting the hell out of Travers while Jon shoved a gun in his face. She could play the sex kitten, the confused tourist, or maybe the victim. Maybe she’d teach Jon about the big game: wife beater. That wasn’t too bad. She could scream and yell while Jon grabbed her by the front of her blouse letting everyone know she’d screwed another man. Shit, the part was made for that jealous country boy and she knew Travers would jump up, wherever he was, and try to help out.

But, then again, what if other people were around and tried to stop Jon, too? They could have some serious monkey in their works. No, it had to be simple. Separation of li’l Miss Abby and Travers would be the key. And it all depended on where they stopped and how many people were around.

Perfect looked over at her partner while the Taurus kept on swallowing up Highway 61 blacktop heading north. He was still talking. Not to her, more to himself. All about Elvis and how he felt he was just like Jesus and how she should start off seeing some movie called King Creole because the later movies only made sense to the devout.

Lord, that boy was wired today. He’d downed a bottle full of white pills and had been talking a whole mess since they left Clarksdale. He was funny like that. Silent as ole Lurch, then little Chatty Cathy all the way north. He was talkin’ about his mamma and some big motorcycle he bought and then about going to some crappy amusement park in Memphis called Libertyland.

“Thought you said your mamma left you for a while?”

“I never said that.”

“You said she spent some time in Canada and that a woman named Erdele looked out for you.” She never forgot a word that was spoken to her. Sometimes she wished she could.

“My mamma never left me,” he said, drumming his fingers on his knee. “My mamma would never leave me. You heard me wrong is all.”

“When did you lose your virginity, Jon?”

“Miss Perfect, why you ask questions like that?” he asked, slipping his metal sunglasses back on. “You like to shock me with that kind of talk? Don’t you? You think you gonna make me embarrassed, woman?” He began playing with some gold rings on his fingers. “I had my first when I was nine years old.”

“That’s impossible.”

“That’s the truth. She was fifteen.”

“Can you handle a woman?”

“You’ll never know.”

“Oh, Jon,” she said, her eyes keeping on the road as she ran her fingers over his chin. “You want to find out? Here.”

She placed his hand on her knee.

“You keep going till you get scared,” she said. “I’ll put my hand on yours. It’s called chicken.”

“I know what it’s called,” he said, curling his lip.

“We gonna shoot ’em?” she asked, moving her hand an inch to his thigh.

“Yeah, I’m gonna use this ole forty-five, same kind that E had with Him when He visited the President,” he said, moving about the same. “When the President made Him a federal agent so He could fight crime. What you got?”

She moved a little more, raking her nails against his tight jeans. “Me? Oh, just a Smith & Wesson that an old boyfriend gave me. Poor bastard. Somebody threw an electric fan into his bubble bath.”

He moved up thigh-meets-crotch level. She could feel his hand trembling and vibrating. She liked it. Good humming in that hot blood. She moved her hand to the same spot on him. Damn.

“I once killed a man with three feet of twenty-pound-test fishing line.”

“Once shot a man in his…” She moved her hand all the way getting a good piece of Jon’s ole boy.

“Dang!” he shouted. “Watch the road.”

She swerved back into the right lane, barely missing a semi that roared past her. She smiled, checking out her eyeliner in the rearview and puckering her lips. Nice job. Black outlined to make them seem more full. “I won.”

Ipeered over at Abby to see if she’d noticed we’d cut across from Highway 61 and finally curved back onto 78 heading to the truck stop she’d told me about, but she was sleeping. Lips slightly parted. Hands tucked between her head and the door. I turned down the heat in my truck and lowered the stereo, just hearing the steady bump of my big tires on that straight shot to Memphis.

I didn’t feel like we’d gained shit from Jude Russell. He was affable and had confirmed my ideas about Nix being a racist moron, as well as a Republican. But about the only thing I could figure out was that somehow MacDonald had something on the casino business coming to Memphis that would seriously affect the campaign. But what about Clyde? A forgotten soul singer didn’t make a bit of sense. The casinos were the only common link.

The wind buffeted through cotton fields and made howling noises against the truck’s frame. The sky was dark as hell and I watched a large cardboard box cartwheel until finally slamming into the side of a crooked trailer.

I thought about my conversation with Maggie earlier that morning, about my problem with change, as I listened to Delbert McClinton.

I mean, did I ever think I’d be mature enough to raise a child like she’s doing? What about attending Little League games, looking for good deals in the Sunday paper, taking pride in my lawn, worrying about property values and gas mileage, exchanging wine with other couples, wearing Dockers or other sensible pants, wondering about the market’s effect on my 401K or ever believing the music was getting too loud?

Just the thought of those things made me nauseated. But, of course, I never thought I’d be approaching forty and running all across the Delta trying to solve other people’s problems either.

Abby stirred beside me and I turned up the music just a bit. Delbert’s new album made me want to drive forever. But the gas tank needle had been dropping mighty low ever since I cut off Highway 61 onto Highway 78.

“Abby? We getting close? Which exit was it again?”

“Off,” Jon shouted, pointing his finger at the exit. “There they go.” Perfect followed the Bronco past a Kentucky Fried Chicken and Hardees and into this huge-ass truck stop. Place advertisin’ Western Wear and Country Cookin’. He liked that. Two of his favorite things. Place was real honest.