So I left it alone. Let it happen.
Javvy didn’t do anything to help me. Didn’t cast a spell or snap the guy’s neck.
All he did was pass through him.
But that was all it took.
As soon as Javvy was on the other side of the shotgun man, the look on the guy’s face changed. He went from a brash, smiling underling to a man of impossible doubt and terror.
His eyes widened to the point that the whites seemed to glow against the darkness of the night. His mouth sagged and trembled, and his entire body appeared to shake beneath his clothes.
He uttered a single word — no — and stepped back, raising the shotgun. I folded in on myself, packing myself into the passenger seat, as the man with the scar turned the weapon around and pressed both barrels into the soft flesh of one cheek.
I tried to close my eyes, tried to ward off the disturbing sequence playing out before me, but in the end, I saw it all. Saw the flash of both barrels going off at once. Saw the way the head expanded and disappeared. Saw the body collapse to the ground.
I sat there, shivering, for a period of time. When I came to regard the ground beneath me as still and solid, I stood up.
Javvy was standing right there. Blank eyes staring. Mouth open to reveal a depressing, telling blackness.
“It’s all my fault,” I said, and I got no response. The open maw closed and then slid open again, but no sound slipped free of it.
I knelt down and picked up the shotgun.
As I wiped down the barrel, I said, “I never even thought about your safety.”
He reached one glinting, vibrating hand toward me, a black hole where the middle of his hand used to be, and though I flinched, I didn’t fight it. The fingers passed through the membrane of my eye, the thin bone separating the outside air from my brain. It was a familiar sensation but one I hadn’t experienced in full since making my way down to Jacksonville.
I was transported to the nether world of Javvy’s memories, wherein his last moments were made abundantly clear. It was like a tear in the fabric of reality, and I could feel myself in both places simultaneously. Out of one eye, I saw the world as I had known it just moments ago: Standing in the dark under the collapsing steeple of an old country church, an opalescent hand, with its prism of colors, reaching into my taxed forebrain.
The other eye saw beyond this world, the one I commonly thought of as my true physical existence, and into the past, to a place where Javvy still existed. Here, he begged for his life. He proffered every piece of knowledge left to him to survive. He cried and prayed and kissed people’s feet. The prospect of death leaves a man without a sense of dignity.
The man standing over him was well-dressed, shadowy, fiery-eyed. He held a pistol in each hand, and a smile spread from ear to ear. He was not put off by this task. He was enlivened by it. Charged by it.
When he stepped into the light, it was not Rich D or Hector I saw. It wasn’t even Reg or Deuce or any member of the extended crew involved in prosecuting this case.
It was me, or at least an alternate world version of me, if I were taller, thinner, less ravaged by alcohol. The mirror world version of me who savagely beat and disfigured Javvy was also tinted slightly differently from me, though that could have been a trick of the vision. I had experienced similarly bizarre tricks via my otherworldly abilities, though not to this degree.
As if by some greater purpose, I was sucked into the skin and bones of Javvy and forced to endure his final moments through a first-person view. I saw through his eyes. I felt the electric shock of being pistol-whipped into a blurry, sad oblivion.
When I came to my senses, it wasn’t minutes or hours later. A full day had elapsed. The sun felt like it was burning a hole in my eyes, and the wretched smell of bile and whiskey filled the surrounded me like bad vibes. I was sitting in a stolen car outside Victor’s club, gnawing one finger to a bloody stump. I knew I needed to speak with him, but I didn’t exactly know why.
Here goes, I thought.
5
The last time I was in Victor’s presence, he’d said the next time would end in a hail of gunfire. I couldn’t help but take my chances. Tyra seemed fairly certain Victor was at least nominally involved, so I walked into the club amidst a sad morning shift and sat down at the bar.
The guy twisting a rag inside freshly washed glasses wore a bandage across one eye. I felt somewhat responsible, and judging by the way his eyebrows lifted when he saw me, he thought me responsible, too.
“I’ve got a piece under my jacket,” I said. “I’d be willing to put it on the bar in exchange for five minutes with your boss.”
The guy’s voice was broken glass in a garbage disposal. “Or, you can leave it on the table, and I shove it up your ass. How’s about that?”
“Chances are, I’d be able to put your nose through the back of your head before you managed that. Even if I didn’t, I’d be able to do some damage on that slab of meat you call a face, so why don’t we just get past it?”
“Victor won’t see you,” he responded, trading one glass for another. “Said if you come in, we pull the shotgun from under the bar and just blow your ass away.”
“Something tells me the riot gun’s down there,” I said, pointing to the other end of the bar, “just underneath the register, or else you’d have drawn down by now.”
“Not a bad guess, asshole.”
I yanked the piece and placed it on the bar. “I’m asking nicely. Don’t make me lose my personality over this.”
His hand was really going at that glass. After an interminable stretch, he put it down, grabbed the nine, and pressed the muzzle against my forehead.
“There isn’t a round in the chamber,” I said, and before his face could register the confusion, I grabbed the pint glass from the bar and shattered it against his bad eye.
The girl onstage, halfheartedly grinding to a rap song I didn’t know, screamed and took flight to the back of the stage.
He staggered once but didn’t let go of the pistol, so I smacked him with a second pint glass. That one got his full attention. I snatched the gun, dropped the clip, and placed them both back into my jeans.
“Victor. Please,” I said.
He just kept standing there bleeding, so I said, “Guess I’ll just let myself back there.”
Victor had been watching the whole thing on a monitor, and so when I stepped into his office, he was training a pistol of his own on me. Holding it like he’d never fired a weapon in his life, so I didn’t panic.
“I’m not here to rough you up,” I said. “I’ve got some questions.”
He continued to point the weapon as I walked in and took a seat, plucking a smoke from the pack and lighting up.
I said, “I don’t really smoke weed, but something makes me wish I was high right now. My nerves, they’re so…jumpy.”
“The fuck do you want?”
“One question.”
“All right. Get on with it.”
“Who?”
“Who what?”
“Who is dealing in people around here?”
“I’m sure I don’t know what in the hell—”
“Cut it out,” I said, placing the 9mm on my lap. I took a long, slow drag on the cigarette and blew a cloud into the air above me. “I’ve got it on good information you know who deals in people, that you yourself might even benefit from it.”
“Lies. All of it.”
“Well, then,” I said, “extend me a counterclaim. I’m love new information.”
“Who told you that lie?”
“Not that it matters, but one of Taj’s old girlfriends.”
He said, “Tyra?”
“Maybe so. Maybe not. Maybe Taj had a lot of hook-ups.”
“That bitch lies with every breath she takes. Can’t believe a word.”
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s put that theory to the test. Tell me what you know about human trafficking. Give me a name, and I walk out of here without hurting you.
”
“You’re a monster.”
“As I recall, last time I was here, you told me you’d have me tossed in a shallow grave. Seems like you’re the monster. Here I am, trying to give you another opportunity, and you’re holding a fucking gun in my face.”
He dropped the gun. Victor said, “Tyra is a liar. She and Taj went out briefly, but that went south when she cheated on him. Or maybe he cheated on her. Either way, they parted ways, and Taj started the path to where he ended up.”
“She seems pretty convinced they were in it for the long haul.”
“Of course. She gets off on being the center of attention. If you’re going around asking her questions, she’s going to tell you the most interesting stories she can.”
“Tell me how much of it is a lie.”
“All of it. She and Taj had a fling, but he was in love with somebody else.”
I tightened my gaze on him. “First I’ve heard of this,” I said. “Are you sure she’s the one lying for attention?”
“Dig into it,” Victor said. “Aren’t you supposed to be the detective?”
“Something like that.”
“Taj had this girl. Met her when she was…run through the system.”
“Stop speaking in metaphors.”
“She was an illegal. Getting passed along. Came from South America somewhere, and she was being whored out by the people you’re looking for.”
“And where is she now?”
Victor shrugged. “I just caught a little bit of that story.”
“So, then, tell me somebody who can help.”
“I don’t snitch on the big wolves. They’ll have me flayed for talking, but I do know one of the receivers.”
“I have no idea what that is.”
“Florida’s a key hub for human trafficking. You’ve got girls coming from all over, struggling to make it to America for whatever reason. They get blinded to the fact that the people they’re aligning with are human shit stains, so they go along to get along, just hoping everything with turn out.”
“And then?”
“And then they cross into Florida, thinking they’re free, but they just get passed along from person to person, until they’re isolated and working in some meth den in central Arkansas. Florida is like the Hartsfield International Airport of human trafficking. You’ve got to have people do intake and then ship people off to their final locations.”
“And you know one of these people.”
“Yup. He wears human skin, but I’m not so sure he’s one of us. He takes girls and spreads them out so the operation doesn’t get shut down. Real piece of work, that one.”
“Name and location. Or one or the other will work for me.”
“Hector Dominguez. You’re going to have to do some work to pluck him from the garbage pile, but if you do, you might be able to figure out what happened to the girl. That’s all I got, I swear before God.”
“And you can’t put me in contact with him?”
“Jacksonville doesn’t have a huge Hispanic population, so once you find out where they all hang out, it won’t be difficult to track our boy Hector down.”
“Why don’t we cut the shit?”
“He hangs out with the other Ricans in an area west of Jacksonville, where the gang affiliations start. All the blacks are starting to move out of that area, and the Hispanics are starting to move in. You’ve got the Cubans and Mexicans, but Puerto Ricans aren’t far behind. Most of them come from New York, trying to make it to Miami and stopping here instead.”
“Do you know how the Reapers are involved?” I asked.
“Don’t have much on them. They come in the club sometimes, but they never get rowdy, and they tip well. That’s all I need to know.”
“One of them tried to stick a shotgun up my ass and pull the trigger.”
“Did you like it?”
I mimicked his smile. “I like how it ended,” I said.
“Good money shot never hurt anybody.”
“You still thinking to have your boys shoot me on sight?”
Victor sighed. “You’re a much more persistent problem than I thought, so I told the bags of muscle to lay off. I figure you may come in handy one day, and then that’ll be the payback I need for you fucking up my club.”
“Give it time,” I said. “You’ll regret ever having me in your presence.”
“Oh, I already do. But I hope for the best in every situation.”
“Most people around me end up in a coffin.”
“Or the swamp. Let’s plan for a different exit for me, okay?”
Deuce was making himself scarce more often than not these days, and I had to deal with the solitude in my own way, which ended up being drinking. I had reconnected with him and doubled down on my loyalty, but he didn’t need an oath. He needed answers.
I was hoping I could come up with them for him.
When I wasn’t working on leads in the dark corners of Jacksonville I’d sit around and talk politics and crime with Uncle Mino, or drunkenly do the dishes. It was the way I guess I balanced my bizarre, roguish lifestyle with some semblance of normalcy.
Plus, I was sleeping better. Even with the gargantuan amount of alcohol I was consuming, my nighttime hours were being spent in a kind of distracted bliss. Seemed like Deuce was some form of nuclear reactor for psyche-based disruptions, so it was peaceful to have him gone.
The dreams themselves, too, had calmed down. When Deuce was around, I woke up most mornings drenched in sweat, as though I’d spent the better part of my evening sprinting to downtown Jacksonville. I didn’t, as I had in Lumber Junction, awaken with a nocturnal adventure fresh on the mind.
I think I missed home more than I thought I would. It was the past which dominated those mornings, and it was difficult to bounce back from them.
I missed my old road and the house, too. I missed Virgil’s Bar. Vanessa, lonely and broken, returning home for one last go-round before descending to an early grave. I missed her parents and the strip and all of the broken-down department stores downtown.
But it was Aunt Birdie who occupied my attention. With some time and distance from my hometown, I came to view her as the mother I deserved, even more so than my biological mother. She died during an unfortunate bout with cancer my senior year of high school, and a lot of my mental downtime was spent trying to convince myself that I had been a good son.
The solitude made me hate Deuce’s inconsistent appearances. Which was why when my best friend appeared in broad daylight one afternoon, though, I was rendered physically incapable of speech.
His mother pounced on him as soon as he appeared in the doorway.
“Man stopped by this afternoon,” she said. “Said he was an old business partner of yours. Some white fella.”
She pointed toward the dining room table, which in the preceding days, had become littered with carefully read notes and condolences.
On the table was a red-and-black box.
Deuce regarded it gloomily.
“I’m a take it back to my room, Mom,” he said.
“Whatever you like,” she said.
Deuce sat the container on the bedroom counter. He paused before opening it.
Inside, there was a blood-soaked jersey. It was emblazoned with a Georgia “G” and Deuce’s old number.
“This is my final warning, I guess,” Deuce said, staring down at the item. “Might as well be a fish wrapped in newspaper.”
“Is this what you’ve been dealing with,” I asked, “in lieu of your brother’s case?”
He waffled a hand in front of him. “They mean to have their money. I don’t pay up, and they’re liable to start breaking things.”
“Like your legs.”
“And the family house. You name it. They’re going to tie me to the tracks in any way they can, and if they can beat the money out of me, then they’ll take it public. My name isn’t much in the national sports conversation, but people love a fallen star story. It’d make national
news, and if I didn’t go to jail, I’d be ruined.”
“Glad you can laugh at the situation,” I said darkly.
“Aw, come on, Rol. Gallows humor is all we’ve got laughed. I mean, left.”
I wished I could be convinced and mollified by Deuce and his noncommittal protestations, but there was another, more horrifying truth emerging on the horizon, full of shadows and fire.
This realization came to me as I checked in with some part-time gangbangers who had no skin in the territory squabbles of the Reapers and other surrounding groups.
His name was Larry, but for some reason everybody called him Teek. He carried a hand cannon with him everywhere he went — a for real Desert Eagle fifty cal — and smoked joints out in public. I had made contact with him from some dudes who had sold drugs to Javvy and his buds.
Teek started by filling me in on the people getting fed to the machine running underneath the streets of Jacksonville. Defenseless people. Prostitutes and street dealers. People nobody ends up missing. They come to a new town — or else get dragged there — and lose contact with Earth, get pulled off in some other gravitational pull. Eventually, they’re lost to everybody except the last person to see them alive.
It was something I had been contemplating while on this weird vacation down in River City. Teek clarified this position when he said, “It’s the people disappear into the streets that get run over first. Know what I’m saying?”
I definitely thought I did.
Then he pivoted to a topic he found not unrelated.
“Your buddy the football player has been making moves behind the scenes.”
“He’s trying to find his brother’s killer,” I said.
“Not what it seems like to me,” he said. “Or anybody else with any lick of common sense. Your boy is trying to help somebody, and it ain’t his brother.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“Well, you’re the one left with your ass hanging in the air.”
“Won’t be the first time,” I responded.
I slid a smoke from the pack and put fire to it. I inhaled, relishing the taste, and let the smoke slip between my teeth.
Dirt Merchant Page 35
