Neely Tucker - The Ways of the Dead

“I think they’re down to seeing who cut Sarah Reese’s throat. So-so come on. You wanted me to see if they had anything on you they’d spill, so I did. Now. If it ain’t them three, who out there has got a dick problem? A little-white-girl problem? Who works with a knife?”

“You just said her throat got cut.”

“I did.”

“They ain’t saying that on the TV.”

Sully smiled. “Tomorrow’s news today, amigo. You ain’t the only one who knows shit.”

“Who said?”

“You don’t need to know everything. So. Who works with a knife?”

Sly got up and went to the refrigerator, stepping over Donnell, irritated now, his phrasing being tossed back at him. “You trying to get to the end of the game without going around the board. Something this bad, there’s going to be all sorts of shit that pops out in the next twenty-four to forty-eight and almost all of it is going to be nothing. It’s going to be all about them three. White girl dead, police looking for three scary black dudes. Well, they going the wrong motherfucking way. That’s what I know that nobody else does. That’s what’s going to open things up for me to look elsewhere.”

“How come you sure it ain’t them?”

Sly stepped back over Donnell coming out of the kitchen, pissed off now, maybe a little rattled.

“Because I am. Because I fucking well am. You don’t trust me, go ahead with your cops. They don’t know shit. Her throat cut? So? They gave you a lollipop. That’s a what, not a who. But you do happen to be talking to the one person who is ahead on this. You know why I’m ahead? Because while the rest of the world is looking for them three in the store, I already talked to them. We had a conversation. Yeah. So I know that. I also know that somebody just started some shit on my turf without prior fucking approval, and that shit is not going to stand. I know that, too.”

He paused, seeming to catch himself. He was three feet from the couch.

“Now. I can’t just go shut this down. It’s too far above the waterline. What I need is for local law enforcement to take care of this, pronto. I don’t need a-a swarm of FBI and CIA and DEA paratroopers pounding the street out there for weeks on end, rattling brothers on warrants, on child support, on whatever. Some shit is going to pop out, they do that, and I ain’t in the shit-popping-out business. So I’ll ask around, keep you in the loop-yeah, alright, okay, I can use a story in the newspaper with the true facts in it, put a little heat on the feds to play straight. You, now, you’re going to let me know what you hear about them getting anywhere close to me.”

They looked at each other, the place quiet. Sly knew far more about the killing of Sarah Reese than he was saying, Sully knew that. His was the best intel on the street, possibly better than any law enforcement agency had. But there was no way to know exactly what it was, who it helped or hurt, or how Sly would play it out. But there was the same lesson from the war zones he’d covered until he got blown up applied here: If you want to know what the bad guys were doing, stick to the guys with the guns. They know the shit.

“Deal,” Sully said.

“Good enough.” Sly clicked the remote and the television died. “You can go home now.”

“I ain’t got the bike. Gimme me a ride?”

Sly snorted. “You can walk up to Georgia and try to get a cab or you can flop out on the couch. You not calling somebody to get you here.”

“I’ll flop.”

Sly shook his head, heading for his bedroom at the back, still tense, still worked up. “I’d stay on the couch, I was you,” he said, flicking off the lights. “Donnell ain’t partial to drunks walking around in the dark.”

Sully felt around on the back of the couch until he found a throw, laid back, and pulled it over him. He put one of the couch pillows under his throbbing knee and another under his head, then fished his cell out of his pocket, the thing bulky and awkward. He punched in Dusty’s home number. It went straight to voice mail.

“Look at the news,” he whispered. “I didn’t just cut out.”

Breakfast was an important start to the day, so Sully had another Miller and scrambled eggs. Sly, sitting on a bar stool at the kitchen counter, skipped the eggs and was sipping coffee, reading the A section, open to an inside page. It was just after eight and it was misting rain. He had taken Donnell out for a morning walk and was dressed in a black tracksuit that zipped up the front with white piping down the sides and sleeves.

“Says here Reese is a Republican,” Sly said.

“From Texas.”

“I got that he was one of those Southern crackers from the accent, the time I heard him in court.”

“He’s an asshole but he’s not a cracker.”

Sly did not look up. “Say that again.”

“Texans aren’t crackers.”

Sly grunted.

Sully doused his eggs with hot sauce. “I done told you. Dipshits from Georgia, north Florida, the Carolinas, those are crackers. West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas? Hillbillies. Hicks from Mississippi, Alabama, and north Louisiana-and just up in that western part of Tennessee and just across the river in the Arkansas delta? Those are your rednecks. South Louisiana? Cajuns. Not even God can help you with them.”

“Y’all all look the same to me.”

“I can’t help you with your prejudices.”

“Which ones are the poor white trash?”

“The ones who’ll shoot your ass somewhere between you calling them ‘white’ and ‘trash.’”

“Which one are you?”

“The river is sort of neutral ground. Mostly we stayed on the Louisiana side.”

“You got Creole to you?”

“Not so much as I know.”

“So what are Texans? You never said.”

“Texans. They fucking think the sun rises in Beaumont and sets in El Paso.”

Sly went back to the paper. “You people.”

There was jazz on the stereo, a sax on the lead, but Sully couldn’t place it and wasn’t going to give Sly the satisfaction. He drained the beer. “So what are we saying about yonder judge and his dearly departed?”

“That he’s next in line for the Supreme Court.”

“As long as the Republicans win next November, which is a done deal, you ask me.”

“Y’all ought to be easier on brother Bill.”

“Brother Bill ought to stop getting blown by interns.”

“Look here. Y’all saying that there’s a ‘massive manhunt’ for them three. A federal agent, name withheld here, says so. Police chief sticks to that ‘persons of interest’ bullshit, but says, yeah, it’s on. Got a whole article here about his cases, like you trying to say somebody he sentenced got involved. They’re talking about the Junior Simpson trial last year. That crew he was running over in Trinidad, behind Gallaudet? Judge popped Junior to twenty-five to life. Junior said something at the end of sentencing”-he peered closer at the paper, through his glasses-“‘I’ll see you again.’ That’s what he said to the judge. Lawyer said Junior was talking about an appeal.”

“What’s he say now?”

“‘Declines comment.’”

“I guess the fuck so.”

“Judge also dealt out life without parole to some dude y’all call a terrorist. From Libya. Made bombs.”

Sully was putting his dishes in the sink. “This is all busywork, ass covering, you-never-know stuff. Surely we put the token in there.”

“Them dishes don’t wash themselves, brother.”

Sully turned back around, took the dishes out of the sink, and put them in the dishwasher.

“Thank you. I got an ant problem up in here.” Sly went back to the paper and, a moment later, rattled it approvingly. “Token white boy, right here. Well. Italian. Does that count? ‘The rest of Judge Reese’s calendar has mostly been white-collar corruption cases, court records show, but three years ago he presided over a racketeering case involving Joseph Fiori, an alleged member of the New York crime syndicate. Justice Department sources said they were skeptical of Mafia involvement in Sarah Reese’s slaying.’ Shit. That wasn’t hard.”