Dark End of the Street

by Ace Atkins

  I walked to the table, the metal door slamming shut behind me. The woman didn’t move. The girl’s eyes stayed trained on me while I circled the bench and saw a gun lying across a pile of towels.

  The girl was in her early twenties, blond and petite, and wearing nothing but white panties and a bra. I had the sudden thought that maybe I’d walked in on someone’s private game. That maybe among all the piles of blackjack tables and roulette tables, that people came back here to get off.

  But then I noticed the tears and the reddened skin. Piles of cotton strips with human hair sat on a pile between the girl’s legs. I thought I could smell urine.

  I lunged for the gun and the woman reached as well. But I had the jump and pushed her to the ground as she rammed into my chest with her head. She grabbed my leg, but I kicked her away and pointed the gun, a.38 revolver, at her chest.

  “Get up,” I said, walking slowly back to the girl, keeping the gun trained on the woman. “Where’s the key to these cuffs?”

  She didn’t say anything but then brightened with a smile. “You want to join us?”

  I pulled the cloth from the girl’s mouth and between sobs and gasps, she said the woman was trying to kill her. I tugged at the cuffs and found an instant release. No key necessary.

  The girl pulled her wrists to her body and alternated rubbing them for a second before pulling herself forward and ripping the straps from her legs. She bolted for the door but I stayed in place, the gun still trained on the woman.

  “Come on,” I said.

  “There’s more,” the girl yelled from the door. “He’s coming back.”

  I reached for a pile of jeans and a T-shirt and tossed them to her. While she slid eagerly into her clothes, I stuck the gun into my belt and used the cloth to bind the woman like you would a hog. I shoved a pile of the hairy strips into her mouth, and opened the door wide for the girl.

  All the doors were locked. Every hallway led to a dead end. I heard the squawk of a security radio down the hall and turned back the other way, grabbing the girl’s hand. I was sweating now and every step seemed awkward and loud.

  An exit sign beamed about fifty feet away down the narrow corridor and we started into a slow jog. Just as we reached the turn, the young kid I’d met in the security room turned the corner.

  “Thought I told you to wait,” he said as he coolly pointed a rifle at my face. But just as he did, my jog turned into a run and I gave a forearm shot to the kid’s nose. The kid fell back and his head cracked against the concrete floor. I scrambled for the rifle, picked it up without stopping, and motioned for the girl to follow.

  I kept the rifle in my sweating hands running toward a fire exit.

  The hallways soon turned into a humid Mississippi night. A ramp led to a walkway circling the building, and beyond that, off the concrete landing, lay a narrow channel stretching south through cotton fields. We jumped, our feet hitting the murky bottom, knees deep in water that shined with a pink neon glow.

  We needed to get back to the parking lot.

  Back to the Bronco and back to Memphis.

  We slogged through the shallow channel, cigarette butts and Burger King cups floating by, until we tripped onto the banks of a cotton patch. We had to get at least another hundred yards into the field and then cut back to the parking lot and the Gray Ghost. I gritted my teeth as I stooped low and motioned for the girl to come closer.

  Over my shoulder, I searched the back of the casino and saw three men with shotguns veering to the edge. My heart was a booming mess.

  A fat red moon hung over them like a Halloween decoration.

  She let go of my hand as soon as we reached the edge of the field and followed closely behind. I kept the rifle in my hand and slid off the safety with my thumb. “We’ll get out,” I said. “Just stay with me.”

  “Who sent you?” she asked. She was pretty. Shoulder-length blond hair. Wide-set brown eyes and full lips.

  “No one,” I said. “I saw you on a security camera.”

  “You a cop?” she said, looking at the gun in my belt. Her T-shirt was soaked and covered in mud, her hands plastered with blood and dirt.

  “Actually, I’m a college professor.”

  She looked at the men fanning into the cotton field and then back at me.

  I tried a crooked grin. “Music history.”

  She shook her head and ran ahead of me down a row of cotton. A man yelled out behind us and fired off a round. The heavy blast thudded in my ears and I tackled her to the ground. My elbows stuck into the tilled earth as my hand reached over her mouth.

  “Trust me.”

  She nodded slowly and I let go.

  I could see the Ghost from the edge of the cotton field. The girl was by my side, keeping low on her stomach and breathing hard. I peered back and saw a black man about halfway through the field with a rifle in his hands and the kid I’d knocked down approaching to the rear.

  I’d killed one man in my life and possibly a second in Chicago. Never made me feel good. But these people would take my life and the girl’s without a thought. I didn’t know what she’d done or why she was here, but these were evil men. They were rapists and killers and there was only one way through the field.

  I looked at the parking lot where a loose swarm of bugs collected around tall yellow lights. The cicadas ticking all around like a million clocks.

  I tightened my grip on the rifle, tucking the stock into my shoulder, and aimed at the black man.

  “Drop it,” I yelled.

  The man pointed his gun at me and fired. Clumps of dirt flew into my eyes.

  I aimed the rifle for the man’s chest and squeezed the trigger, dropping him in the field.

  A booming shot echoed behind us.

  I grabbed the girl’s hand and we ran toward the lot and to the Bronco.

  At the edge of the pavement, two large guards with crew cuts ran toward us. I fired off two shots at their feet and they hauled ass back to the casino.

  I reached into my pocket for my keys, hand shaking as I tried the lock.

  “Shit,” I yelled, finally finding the right one. We jumped inside.

  I reached over and unlocked the passenger door and the girl hopped in beside me.

  The side mirror exploded into slivers and I turned around as the kid was reloading his shotgun. I threw the Bronco into reverse and then spun out of the lot, smelling hot tires.

  I swung onto Highway 61, the song “Shake ’Em on Down” blaring from my CD player.

  I tried to steady my breath as the cold, black night zoomed past the truck.

  I turned to the girl and offered my hand.

  “I’m Nick.”

  The girl managed a bruised grin and took my hand.

  “I’m Abby.”

  Chapter 14

  PERFECT LEIGH PACED the casino security room as one of Ransom’s goons ran the fast-forward on the video surveillance with one hand and held his broken nose with the other. The tape featured hours of countless cars coming into the west parking lot, close shots of drivers’ faces and of license tags. Rednecks with broken teeth and drunken smiles. High-dollar hoodlums from Memphis with greasy hair and sunglasses. The boy had promised Ransom and her that an old Bronco wouldn’t be hard to spot. Boy didn’t know Ransom too well. If he did, he wouldn’t have made a promise he couldn’t be sure to keep, she thought, wiping away the yellow wax that stuck to her new T-shirt. The little sequin heart now dirty and spoiled.

  She ground her teeth together and looked at the pyramid of television screens. She wondered what Ransom would do with Humes’s stupid dead ass. Shit, all he had to do was tell the Tunica sheriff that someone had tried to rob the casino and then shot down their brave head of security. Ransom would then probably bend over and wait for his ass to be smooched.

  The boy played with the controls, scanning the images until he found the one they were searching for: gray Bronco, big white guy with a scar across his eyebrow. Dumb grin on his face as he noticed the camera.
<
br />   “Yeah, keep smiling, fuckhead,” she said. Maybe Abby MacDonald had more friends than she thought.

  The boy drummed the fingers of his left hand and ran the tape forward to the close shot of the Bronco’s license plate. Louisiana. Sportsman’s Paradise.

  She looked at his hand drumming. He noticed when he looked back at her. He stopped and softly felt his nose again.

  Suddenly, a pulsing cold air whooshed into the room and she crossed her arms over her body. They must’ve cranked down the A.C. to about forty degrees. A man put a rough hand on her shoulder and spoke loud. Too close to her ear. She jumped.

  “C. J., call Mr. Jim and have him run this plate,” Ransom said. Jesus. She didn’t even hear him come in. “Tell him I need it now.”

  The boy rewound the tape, pressed the play button, and Ransom inched closer to the screen and studied the man’s face in the monitor. He froze the image and kept it wavering there.

  “Sit down, Miss Leigh,” Ransom said. He took a seat. Gray hair in a tight ponytail. Black crocodile-skin boots. Black jeans and button-down shirt. Concho belt. Even his eyes were black. Dead black pools set into his bony, haggard face. A million cigarettes. A million fistfights.

  She sat down. He leaned close as the boy disappeared to make a phone call. He’d been drinking. And smoking. She smelled the Scotch and Cuban cigars he lived on. How did she ever find him appealing?

  He held her hand, smoothing his long calloused fingers over hers. His nails were too long for a man. But clean and manicured. “Y’all fucked up,” he said. “You should’ve taken that little girl out to Moon Lake and did it there. This was sloppy as hell, Perfect.”

  “You knew,” she said and drew her hand away. She took a breath and pretended like she was watching the monitors.

  Ransom plucked a cigar into his mouth, lit it, and blew out a cloud of smoke that crinkled and curled up into the ceiling. He stayed silent for a few minutes, just studying the wavering image of the man. He kept clicking it back and forth and toying with the video until he pointed to something she could barely make out.

  “Parking pass from the Peabody Hotel,” he said. His voice weathered and cracked.

  The boy walked back in the room, smiling. “Man’s name is Travers,” he said. “He’s from New Orleans.”

  “I’ll head up to Memphis tonight,” Perfect said. “He’s probably still at the hotel.”

  Ransom shook his head. “C. J., I want you to call Mr. Jim back. Have him put this thing out. I want someone quick, dirty, and good.”

  “That bastard tied me up like a hog,” she said.

  Ransom laughed to himself. “He sure did… but no.” He took another long draw of the cigar and surveyed Perfect’s crossed legs. “You ever killed someone?”

  She nodded.

  “Maybe some poor ole fool that couldn’t see it coming. But this is different.”

  “Let me go,” Perfect said. “Let me learn.”

  Ransom caressed the back of her neck. She remembered all those nights in Biloxi when she was nineteen. The spending sprees, the cocaine, and all those random blackouts. He still had a spot for her. He’d give in.

  He watched her legs some more. She parted them a half inch and saw his eyes move up to her face, scanning for something. Maybe trying to see if she was serious about killing the man who had disrespected her and made her feel so nasty.

  Ransom nodded. “Lord help this man Travers,” he said, toying with the band around his cigar. He ripped the band away and studied the label for a while as if he were reading a novel. “Tell Mr. Jim to make the hits for twenty thousand dollars. Each.”

  His face and eyes clouded with purple smoke.

  Graceland Too stood in Holly Springs, a good thirty miles from Oxford and about fifty from Memphis. A back city street led to the old two-story plantation house guarded by stone lions. Just like the ones at E’s place. But this place wasn’t so fancy. A vine grew wild and twisted up over the first floor and by the chimney. And the owner, some heavy guy named Paul McLeod, had stuck a satellite dish out back. All for a good purpose, Jon Burrows thought. This place was jacked into Elvis twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.

  McLeod charged tourists five bucks to come look at his E collection. He’d take the early shift and his son, Elvis Aaron Presley McLeod, would take the night. Junior was about six foot five and had this “photographic memory.” He could remember things about E that Burrows had never even heard of.

  The family had pictures of E on their walls, their ceilings, even in the damned bathroom. E played on about twenty televisions all through the house. Speedway in the living room. Change of Habit in the dining room. And the ’68 Comeback Special in the kitchen.

  Burrows smiled and wiped the sweat from his brow with the black Resistol hat he’d just bought at a truck stop outside Vicksburg. It was there that he’d called Black Elvis who put him in touch with the McLeods. Black Elvis said they’d take care of him until the heat wore off a bit. So he’d stayed there with them for the last couple weeks. And man, did they treat him right. Salty country ham in the morning with a side of hot biscuits. Even had coffee mugs with E’s face on them.

  Burrows walked down the gravel road, cicadas buzzin’ in the trees, a red twilight shining down on rain pools dotting the land. Tonight, everything smelled like sex. Rich and humid. Steam smoking from the hot ground. The air filled with sweet honeysuckle.

  Man, he sure missed his woman, Dixie. Black Elvis said her trailer would be the first place the police would look. But, man, he wanted to call his Tupelo honey so bad right now the buttons were about to pop off his fly.

  “Mister Jon,” McLeod called out into the early night.

  Burrows looked up at the porch of the old house. McLeod said it was 150 years old. Maybe that’s why it kind of leaned to the right.

  “Mister Jon, Elvis ’bout to put on Viva Las Vegas and I knowed that it’s yore favorite. You was tellin’ us about Miss Ann – you know, the Memphis Mafia called her Thumper – liked to get all hot when they was dancin’. You know, rubbin’ their noses together and all.”

  “All right.”

  “We’d made you a meal, too, Mister Jon,” McLeod said, his dentures slipping in his mouth. He held a plastic plate in his hand filled with a fried peanut butter and banana sandwich. McLeod used two sticks of butter for each sandwich. He said that’s the only way E would eat ’em.

  “ ‘Preciate it,” Burrows said, taking the plastic plate stamped with a picture of E from the Aloha from Hawaii special. “Think I’m gonna go hit Smart Boy in the cellar.”

  “Whatever you want, Mister Jon. Black Elvis speaks real high of you. You holler out you need anythin’.”

  “ ‘Preciate it,” Burrows said again, walking around to the twin doors of the cellar. He pulled the rusted handle on one of the doors and moved below the unmowed weeds and piles of chipped brick into the cool brick bunker.

  He closed the door behind him and walked to the electronic screen burning beneath a framed velvet image of E. It was the holy one. The one where E is crying. A blue halo around his head.

  He sat before the computer and clicked his way on to the Internet. The computer burped out some weird sounds before he heard the buzzing connection. He typed with one hand and held the sandwich with the other. What he wouldn’t give for an RC right about now.

  He smacked on the sandwich, warm butter oozing down his arm, as he watched for the address prompt. Sure glad he’d hooked up with that German chick a couple years ago. When they left Mississippi for Las Vegas, she’d taught him all kind of things about computers.

  Burrows pulled out a business card from his wallet and carefully keyed in the address. Within seconds, the home page for LOST YOUTH appeared. He clicked on a photograph of a poor Mexican boy and the face disappeared into another site called BOUNTY TIME. Names of wanted men were listed under regions. Burrows double-clicked on SOUTH. There he had a list of states. Under Mississippi he saw a name, picture, and last known addr
ess for a prison rat named Dock Boggs. Only $500. Shit.

  The other hit was out on a woman named Lillie Fitzpatrick. She was worth $2,000, but was all the way up in Atlanta running a beauty shop.

  He clicked on the next best thing. Louisiana. As the computer struggled to pull up the names, he finished off the sandwich and scraped the excess peanut butter off the roof of his mouth with his tongue.

  In the past two years, he’d killed over thirty men and women. Made some good money at it, but was always on the run. He felt like E did at the end, when no one understood how hard it was to travel. But he didn’t have people to put tin foil on his windows while he slept in hotels during the day or give him special pills to make him feel all happy. He just hit the road with his gift, driving through the truck stops of the South. A hot shower and a country meal were about the only thanks he ever got for his true talent.

  The computer screen brightened.

  Just as you start to feel all sorry for yourself, E illuminates a man to his true purpose. “I’ll never doubt you again, E,” Burrows said, crossing his heart with his sticky fingers.

  Jon Burrows knew one of the bounties.

  He pulled out the switchblade his mama had bought him at Wal-Mart and flicked it open. In the gleam of its sharpened steel, he could see a warped image of himself. Beard. A couple years older. And tougher than ever.

  Burrows snapped the blade shut and stared at the screen. The face of a white man with a scar across his left eyebrow appeared. Black hair with gray on the sides. Yep, it was him all right.

  NICK TRAVERS.

  And damn if he wasn’t gettin’ more valuable.

  Twenty thousand dollars.

  Chapter 15

  THE NEXT MORNING, I felt brittle carpet fibers on my cheeks and a hot slice of sunlight in my eyes. Sometime last night, I’d grabbed a stiff bedspread and pillow before the girl fell asleep and was slowly waking up sore as hell. I usually tried not to think about how many body parts I’d broken, sprained, or dislocated, but mornings like this made me aware. The girl was still curled up in bed, a loose strand of blond hair in her eyes. Lips pursed. Tightly wrapped in a smooth blue blanket.