Dark End of the Street - v4

by Ace Atkins

  I told her that I guess she couldn’t help me after all and kept walking.

  Down another turn, I found another woman, this one much more attractive with brownish hair and lots of freckles, standing at a hostess table. I looked around for Stewart.

  The room held all women. I noticed most of them wore a hell of a lot of makeup and really uncomfortable, loud outfits. It was as if they were trying to outdo each other on who had worse taste. The far wall was a long plate glass window protecting diners from the eighteenth green.

  The women watched me as I looked around. I smiled at a couple. They quickly turned their heads back to their martinis.

  The woman asked me if she could help. She looked to be in her early twenties. Tan, with a lot of jewelry.

  I told her who I was looking for and she was really nice about it. She walked me down a hall. We were talking about all the wonderful things that the club offered when she abruptly stopped talking and stood at the beginning of a long corridor. It reminded me of those invisible fences that kept barking dogs from me while I jogged Audubon Park.

  Down the hall, I saw a bunch of men talking and playing cards in a large paneled room. Cigar smoke trailed out to us.

  I looked at her.

  “That’s as far as you go?”

  “House rules. Men only.”

  “Take one step,” I said, looking down at the line where the carpet turned green.

  “Might get me fired.”

  “Really?”

  She nodded.

  I whistled low, thanked her, and followed the hall. This one was completely lined with glass cases with more insignificant awards in silver and gold. Mostly golf. A few tennis. I looked for Miss Congeniality, but didn’t see one.

  The room at the end of the walk of fame was more impressive than where the women had been herded. A twenty-foot concave ceiling made the men talking seem more obnoxious, the guffawing in full stereo. Green plaid and long oak tables. The chandeliers were brass.

  Paddle fans blew away cigar smoke.

  A couple of men turned. Most ignored me and kept drinking beer, absolutely delighted they didn’t actually have to work.

  A bartender offered me a beer. I declined but asked for some untouched coffee that sat on a nearby burner. He said he’d pour me a cup.

  I found Stewart sitting with another man near a large window looking out onto a fairway. Fewer than five miles away were crammed projects, rows of pawnshops, and check-cashing businesses.

  “Mr. Stewart,” I said.

  He looked up at me but resumed talking. He was truly an old gambler, knew by applying any significance upon me that he’d already lost. Apparently, there was some type of fund-raiser later in the evening and he was upset about the P.A. system they planned to use.

  I said: “We need to talk.”

  He continued his conversation. But Stewart’s companion, a little fellow who seemed so eager he was actually shaking, was having a hard time listening with me standing there.

  The bartender came over with my coffee and I ordered a club sandwich. I loved club sandwiches.

  “Does that come with fries?”

  “Chips.”

  “That will do.”

  Stewart finally turned, looked up at the bartender, and said, “No. That won’t do. This man isn’t with me and is not a member of the club. Cancel that order.”

  “Now you’ve made the bartender uncomfortable, Royal. And this kid, too. You’re uncomfortable, aren’t you?”

  “No,” the man said. “I’m fine. Really.”

  I said: “Well, I am.”

  Stewart, long gray hair and bleak blue eyes, leaned close to me and said, “You have about twenty seconds to get your ass out of here or I’ll have you arrested.”

  The bartender hadn’t moved. The twenty-year-old P.A. master crossed his arms over his Polo shirt.

  I smiled and leaned back over the table to Royal. “Has Jude ever told you about ‘sixty-eight in Memphis? Sounds like it was a wild ride.”

  Stewart bit the inside of his cheek and ran his fingers around the brim of a hat that lay by his elbow. He nodded, a man who’d been played out and knew how to walk from the game.

  “My apologies,” he said in that weathered Memphis accent. “I didn’t realize my guest was staying for lunch.”

  Chapter 59

  “I’LL GIVE YOU twenty-four hours,” I said, taking a sip of the warm coffee. Felt good to be out of the cold. There was a fireplace near my back and I could feel the heat through my flannel shirt.

  “For what?” Stewart asked. The boy had left our discussion group.

  “It goes like this. I won’t bullshit you or waste your time or play any fucking games. I want Jude Russell out of this election. I have three things. I have a witness, a very credible one,” I said, lying, “that puts Jude Russell at the scene of a double homicide in December of ‘sixty eight.”

  He laughed by making absurd breathing noises out of his nose.

  “Second, I have another witness that places Russell as a business associate of a known member of the Dixie Mafia. A man named Levi Ransom who I believe has contributed to Jude’s campaign fund.”

  Stewart folded his arms across his chest, perpetually shook his head and swallowed a lot. His blue eyes never left mine. Not for one second would he miss a word I said. He was making mental notes the whole way through.

  “You want him to drop from this race? Just because you say you have people who’ve made up the most outrageous lie I’ve ever heard?”

  “Oh, you mean I would need some hard facts? Shit,” I said, scratching my head. “Didn’t think about that.” I pushed forward a copy of the homicide file U had pulled with a couple pages I’d creatively added. “I guess a police file will have to do. Just mentions his role in the shooting and leaves a lot of unanswered questions about why the investigation wasn’t followed. The victims were black. I bet that’ll get him tons of votes in south Memphis. You didn’t even have to fix up that run-down supermarket down there as a P.R. stunt.”

  Stewart fiddled with his hands and nodded a few times to himself.

  “You’re crazy,” he said. “Out of your mind nuts.”

  “No doubt.”

  The waiter laid down the club sandwich on the table. Toasted white bread. Lots of mayo on the cold cuts. I expected something a little better here, but suddenly knew I shouldn’t have.

  “I believe you have some phone calls to make,” I said, leaving the sandwich and sliding back into my coat. Outside, two men in yellow sweaters watched each other pivoting their hips in a practiced swing.

  He said: “It won’t work.”

  “You don’t think I’ll do it?” I pushed away from the table with my hands and watched his face, his teeth grinding, the blood dripping into his neck. “You don’t think I’m clever enough to go to Kinko’s and print off about twenty copies of the file, transcribed interviews with contact names and numbers of my sources, and then have a buddy mail them out to every major media outlet in Tennessee and Mississippi? Yeah, I couldn’t do that. That would be too much trouble.”

  His face had been completely drained of color.

  I stood. “You have twenty-four hours to find a replacement,” I said. “Russell’s wife is sick. He has personal issues. His cat died. I don’t give a fuck. I’m only giving you this option because the only thing worse than having a killer running this state is having that gun-toting moron and his fools from Jackson win. I don’t think we want that. Do we?”

  I didn’t listen for an answer. I left the copied file and pushed my way through a bar of men with faces flushed with alcohol and sun. They didn’t seem to notice me or the conversation. They were too busy talking about themselves. Pushing ahead without ever looking back.

  Jon Burrows was tired of circlin’ that bail bonds business over on Poplar. He knew the layout real good — hell, you could see most of it through them dang big windows — now he just had to wait till night and sneak into that back door that was unlocked. Make s
ure all three of ’em were there.

  Jon decided to cut on over to Union Avenue while he waited and have a float at Taylor’s Café beside the old Memphis Recording Service. He liked the smell of the old Sun Record Studios and the little diner next door where E’s founder, Mr. Phillips, used to take coffee in his special booth. Back then, E would sit at the counter, dreaming about the time when Mr. Phillips would let Him make that big record. ‘Course Mr. Phillips always said he didn’t discover Elvis, he said that Elvis discovered him.

  Jon found a nice spot at the counter, same tin ceiling and checkered floor from E’s time, and watched some crazy ole Japanese tourists yammering away about their new T-shirt, or was it one of them Crown Electric grease monkey shirts? Jon couldn’t tell, so he turned back to his float. Coca-Cola and vanilla ice cream. Nice ole bubbly sweet mixture.

  He thought about Perfect for a while. Thought about that Coca-Cola–bottle shaped body and the sweet taste of her. Then he remembered her lyin’ in that filth, or maybe that was just a dream, and then there was no more of her. Kind of like she’d never shared his air.

  Jon asked for another float.

  The kid workin’ the café reminded him of when he first come up to Memphis. Hair greased into a ducktail. Tough long sideburns, longer than even E’s, almost down to his chin, and a tattoo on his neck. But he was small in his ways, the way Jon had once been when he’d been Jesse Garon. He never realized how large you could be. Didn’t realize all the ways you could grow and be one with E.

  But you could tell the kid just liked sharin’ the space that the Man once knew. And that made him feel a bond with the fella. Jon pulled out a roll of hunnerds from his pocket and lay down a couple.

  “Good luck on your way with E,” he said.

  “You in a show?” the kid asked.

  “I ain’t a performer,” Jon said.

  The kid watched him, making his eyes small. But he scooped up the money like a hungry dog and got to wipin’ down the bar.

  The bar didn’t have a crumb on it, but the kid kept on rubbing it anyway. Kept it smooth and neat. Somethin’ about the rag over the wood made Jon think about Ransom.

  He thought about Ransom sendin’ him up to Memphis for a triple hit with no backup. Just alone.

  The kid kept searching for crumbs.

  Jon knew he could hit the bond shop and take them all out in two shakes of a lamb’s tail. But the dang office was a squirt of piss away from the jail. Them cops would be all over him before he’d hit the door runnin’.

  He needed somethin’ quieter. He needed somethin’ to hush up his gun.

  Just as he was thinkin’ who in Memphis could handle such a device, the cell phone in the front pocket of Jon’s black leather jacket began to ring. He answered it.

  It was Ransom.

  Ransom said there had been some kind of big change in the plans.

  Chapter 60

  AT A QUARTER till nine, Jon Burrows, showered, tanned, and shaved in a crisp white dress suit, peered down at the side mirror of the rental car Levi Ransom was driving and watched a beautiful convoy of killers joining them along the highway to Memphis. At first, he’d only noticed the two lunkheads who’d been playing with their Smith & Wessons in the parking lot of the border truck stop where he joined Ransom, but then he saw the pickup holdin’ that grizzled fella and the sheriff. Then, an identical rental to the one they were in passed, and two good ole boys in black leather jackets gave a two-fingered wave to ole Levi as they passed and ran ahead for a while.

  ‘Course, Ransom knew who his boy was. He knew that when trouble started comin’ down, when they tried to take down Travers, that Jon was his man. That’s why he called him back. He didn’t want his A-1 rockabilly star locked up in no dang pokey. Jon turned his head and popped a couple more Benzedrine tablets into his mouth.

  Felt like he could fly back to Memphis himself. Why wouldn’t Ransom speed up? Why was he goin’ so dang slow?

  Hell, he was ready. Now. Jon looked down at his white double-breasted jacket with matching pants and white zip boots. White shirt. Red tie. Cuff links. He’d borrowed the suit and shoes from the Holy area where they stored His things down in this big warehouse by the airport. He hadn’t taken much, just this suit and the black jacket E’d worn on the NBC TV special in ‘sixty-eight. He thought it was appropriate ’cause he was thinkin’ about all them sweet Memories from the last few weeks as he watched the convoy and knawed on his knuckle tryin’ to get his leg to quit shakin’. The past sure made you feel kind of funny in the stomach.

  “Kid, this is where it all breaks down,” Ransom said.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I’ve been playin’ this game for thirty years and I want it runnin’ clean by November. You understand?”

  Jon nodded. Let’s go. Let’s go. Speed up.

  Ransom smiled to himself as he passed over the Tennessee line, just like a man comin’ home from the wilderness to a place he now owned.

  Mr. Ransom sure didn’t take no mess. As soon as they parked by these two ancient, metal bridges, he pulled out a big ole Colt revolver and tucked a handful of bullets into his black coat. It was dark as a black steer’s ole butt outside and the bridges looked like somethin’ that should’ve been torn down about a hunnerd years ago. They lay loose and rusted and broken ahead of them, stretchin’ over the river all the way to Arkansas. A few of them orange highway lights flashed in the night, warning people not to get too close.

  Jon could get close. He had this feelin’ buzzin’ in his head like he wanted to sprint over to Arkansas and back.

  Ransom told the two big dudes with pistols to go back down under one of the old bridges and get ready. Them twin bridges just skippin’ over the Mississippi.

  The man with withered skin and the sheriff fanned out on the first bridge. The other folks workin’ with them were out there somewhere, hidin’.

  Ransom walked ahead, past the orange light, and onto the bridge. Jon followed, the old man walkin’ way too slow. He had to bite the inside of his cheek just to walk in place.

  Jon kept the pace and soon his feet made clankin’ sounds on the metal grates. He was just waitin’ for the bridge to break loose and for him to tumble out into the night sky where he’d just keep on flyin’ back home.

  He was kind of twichin’ inside when he looked down and saw the big ole river swirlin’ and twistin’ below. Looked like they was up at least two hunnerd feet in the air.

  He took a deep breath and walked along the spaced slats where the railroad cars used to run. He kept followin’ Ransom and soon heard him callin’ the other boys on a handheld radio.

  Come on. Where were they? “Faster.”

  Ransom looked over at him.

  “Nothin’,” he said. Gosh dang he wanted to explode inside. His heart felt like it was beatin’ like an egg timer.

  About twenty feet away, a red balloon twisted in the wind.

  Jon ran over to it but Ransom walked.

  Jon stared at the red balloon, waitin’ for it to pop. Or maybe he was gonna pop.

  Finally Ransom strolled on over and ripped a card from its string. Just looked like some Christmas card, but Lord it made Ransom mad. He threw it to the ground and spit over the bridge’s railing.

  “Come on,” he said. “Someone is playin’ us.”

  “Who?”

  “Travers’s buddy decided he needed a little cash. He’s smart. He’s runnin’ us around to find out how bad we want it.”

  “How much he gettin’?”

  “If we find him?”

  Jon nodded.

  “Zero.”

  Jon laughed with him and kept watchin’ Ransom’s craggy face till he ’bout fell down into the river. His foot hit air where a metal grate used to be. His heart picked up a tick and now beat like it wasn’t takin’ no pause. Just a tick, tick, tick.

  Ransom quickly grabbed his hand, Jon’s stomach up in his chest, and helped him onto the railroad line.

  “Careful, son,” he said. “T
his bridge was built for the Union Pacific around nineteen-oh-five. Ain’t used to people walkin’ her.”

  “How far is that drop?”

  Ransom watched his face, the lights of Memphis burning behind them. “Far enough.”

  Jon looked up and saw the moonlight hitting the unpainted, rusted metal beams and twisting down in purple rays. The light lay in a million crisscrossed patterns that made his head a little dizzy. He felt like he might throw up. His head racin’ harder than his body. His body was in a low tremor, maybe Ransom didn’t see it.

  Ahead, the opening to the bridge on the Tennessee side stood like a big dark mouth. Behind him, Jon couldn’t even see where the bridge ended and Arkansas began.

  Ransom yelled over to the old man and the sheriff on the twin bridge. They called back that they hadn’t found nothin’ either.

  Jon wondered if E had ever been out here as he tried to keep his body still. He looked at all the old graffiti spellin’ out high school classes from the ‘fifties and ‘sixties and lovers that was probably dead now.

  Maybe down on the banks where he’d seen all them bums and street people livin’, E may have taken His girl when He was back at Humes High, before the blue storm that had hit the world.

  Jon pulled out the yellow scarf from his pocket and wrapped it around his neck as he stepped from the bridge. His whole body shaking harder, like a demon had stepped into his soul and was dancin’ like there was a party in hell.

  He needed to find Black Elvis. He needed somewhere to get washed out for a few days. He stared down at his hand jumpin’ on his thigh like bacon in a skillet.

  Jon was about to throw up when he heard a mighty roar.

  “Holy shit, get the fuck down!” Ransom yelled, tackling Jon and His holy suit to the ground. Jon reached back for his gun to take Ransom’s life, when he saw what Ransom had seen.

  And good Lord, his leg started twitchin’ and his heart beat a million times a second. He was runnin’ another notch higher, runnin’ like someone had kicked up the fuel switch on a minibike. “Dang!”