Ace Atkins - Wicked City

“’Mornin’, boys.”

“Fannie,” Reuben said.

She was a green-eyed devil with fair skin and red lips, an upturned nose that some might say was pug but others might say pert. But she’d made her way with her chest, and even that early in the morning she made a big show out of taking in that first lungful of smoke, smiling in a lazy, careless way like she was still in a dream.

The door creaked again, slammed shut, leaving only her perfume and smoke on the wind.

“Be careful,” Reuben said.

“You be careful.”

“I ain’t never careful,” Reuben said.

“I’m sayin’ be careful ’cause you’re playin’ with my money.”

“The hell you say.”

“Where is it?”

Reuben fanned the cards in his hand and leaned back in the metal porch chair. He took a deep breath and shook his head. “Thought we agreed on that.”

“Things gonna die down real soon.”

“Didn’t say they wouldn’t.”

“You know every time you tell a lie, Reuben, the left corner of your mouth turns up. I heard fighters got tells like that, too. Like before they ’bout to nail you with a sucker punch, a good fighter will know it.”

“That’s true.”

“So when you gonna skip town?”

Reuben looked over the fan of cards. On the backs were photographs of naked women with big old titties. He blew out some smoke and rested the butt of the cigarette against his temple.

“A man can ask.”

“Johnnie, did your mother love you?”

“Sure,” Johnnie said. “Why wouldn’t she?”

“No reason.”

“You know, if Hoyt figures us for robbin’ him-”

“No reason, if both us keep our goddamn mouth shut,” Reuben said. “We’ll make the cut when we can. Till then, it’s tucked away.”

“Well, looky here,” Johnnie said, tossing down a pair of kings. “It’s Hoyt and Jimmie.”

Reuben laid down his cards. A full house.

“Aces and eights.”

Johnnie looked up from his cards and into Reuben’s eyes. “You know what they call that hand, don’t you?”

I FINISHED ADDINGsweet feed for my Tennessee walkers and capped off their water tank from a nearby well pump. I liked afternoons like this most, when I could break away from the filling station and drive out a few miles into the country to my little piece of land and work with Rocky and Joe Louis. I didn’t get to ride as much as I used to, but I’d often take Anne out on the weekends. She’d taken a keen interest in brushing the horses and taking them for rides along the winding trails that had been beaten smooth by the animals’ hooves. But I was alone today and cleaned out the stalls, replaced the hay, and checked their shoes and teeth. While the horses ate, I ran some saddle soap over their tack and talked to them in a smooth calming voice, and then sang to them a bit of “My Wild Irish Rose” and even “Danny Boy.” Songs that I’d heard on the radio between the westerns and comedy shows I’d known as a child in Troy and, because I had the red hair and the Irish name, always thought they’d been important.

I’d just hung up a bridle and some rusted shoes on the nails in the barn when I heard a car approaching from the long dirt road out back. When I looked out the narrow door, I saw Hugh Britton.

I met him at the metal gate and let him inside. Britton wore a black suit in the summer heat, careful where he stepped in his dress shoes. He looked like he was headed to church and I knew that meant business. He never looked quite right when wearing a suit on his old bones.

I walked back toward the barn, where we could stand in the shade under the rusted tin roof.

“Si Garrett’s gone,” Britton said.

“What do you mean?”

“Got on a plane in Montgomery last night and headed for Texas. No one knows for sure. Some say he checked into some kinda nuthouse for his nerves.”

“Is he coming back?”

He shook his head. “Doesn’t look like it. Left the investigation in charge of a man named Sykes.”

“Does John know him?”

He shook his head again.

“At least we still have the Guard,” I said.

“Bunch of babysitters,” Britton said, running a handkerchief across his sweaty neck. “They can’t get a lick done without the damn governor allowing them to bust up a single dice game. They are worthless, and, hell, no one believes they’ll stay. And this new fella, Sykes? He’s cut from the same cloth as Si Garrett. I guarantee as much.”

“Any new word from Mr. X?”

The mysterious Mr. X had been Britton’s inside source for some time. Mr. X was constantly sending typed letters on the rackets’ latest movements and underhanded deals. Lately, he’d been sending us small black records of phone conversations with Hoyt Shepherd. Most of them had happened years ago, but they’d proved pretty useful when it came to figuring the Machine’s business.

“He just sent me a new record. He was real scared about this one. Had me go to the Columbus bus station and fetch a locker key from a phone booth. Said this one might get him killed.”

“Who was on it?”

“Our esteemed governor, talking about campaign contributions from Hoyt and Jimmie.”

“You want to go to the newspaper boys with this one?”

“I think I want to keep this one in my back pocket,” Britton said, giving a sharp smile. “But there is one thing.”

I brushed the dirt off the front of my work pants.

“A woman in my church told me about this man,” he said. “He was on Fifth Avenue when Mr. Patterson was killed.”

THE MAN LIVED LESS THAN TWO MILES AWAY FROM MY land in a little cottage on Sandfort Road. I drove, following the twisting road cutting through the red bluffs of the Chattahoochee, and finally found the address and the small gravel drive. But when we knocked on the door, we were met with the sliver of a face behind the chain asking what the hell we wanted. Britton told the man we were with the Russell County Betterment Association and said he’d like to talk to him about Mr. Patterson. He didn’t mention the name of the woman from the church.

The man stood there for a few moments.

“I don’t know why you’d want to talk to me.”

“Were you on Fifth Avenue when Mr. Patterson was shot?” I asked.

There was silence and then: “No. You are mistaken.”

“Some people saw you there,” Britton said, in his smooth country drawl. “Said you had dinner at the Elite.”

“They were mistaken.”

“You weren’t there?” Britton asked.

“I said they were mistaken. Now leave me be.”

“Sir, if you’re afraid,” Britton said, “you don’t need to be. The National Guard troops are on every street corner. We could get you help.”

Fingers reached into the crack, like small pink worms, and unlatched the chain lock. The door swung open and we walked inside. The room was empty save for two chairs and a suitcase.

“Going somewhere?” I asked.

“Far from here, if people don’t quit running their goddamn mouths.”

“We can help you, sir,” Britton said, putting his hands in his pockets and shifting back on his heels. “Unless we speak out, they’ll go free and the city will fall right back into that hellhole.”

“Speak out?” the man asked as he walked toward Britton and stopped. He was pudgy and wearing a dirty white T-shirt. “My wife and daughter are gone. I put them on a bus two days after the killing. It wouldn’t stop. The phone wouldn’t stop ringing. I had to take the phone off the hook and sit up for two days straight drinking coffee with a shotgun on my lap, sitting out there on that porch, my heart up my throat every time a car passed on by slow or I saw the police. Do you understand? This is none of my concern.”