Dirt Merchant Read online

  “I think I know where you were going with that.”

  “Only, this feels worse than getting your ass whipped by the Bucs. This goes a hell of a long way to making me feel like I’m dying.”

  “I wish I knew of a cure. I can tell you, I think you’ve got something eating away your insides, and I don’t know what the cure is, besides laying down and dying, and I don’t think you’ve got an aim toward.”

  “At least no time soon.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “What you want to know?”

  “Tell me what the major dysfunction is, and maybe I can help. Not likely — can’t promise anything — but I can try.”

  “Oh, man, it’s nothing I can’t handle. Just a little bit of the foggy brain.”

  “Deuce, it’s a hell of a lot more than that, and you and I both know that. Denial is no way to suffer through this.”

  “If it gets bad—”

  “Don’t start,” I said.

  “If it does get bad,” he said. “If I start to turn into something like the thing inserting itself into my dreams, you know how to deal with it.”

  “No I don’t.”

  “Yes, you do. Yes. You. Do.”

  He let that linger in the atmosphere for a while. Then, he said, “It’s not complicated. I may have a poltergeist in my” — he tapped his temple — “but I can’t fix this right now.”

  The air grew thin in there. I got up and circled the room.

  Deuce said, “I can’t be visiting voodoo doctors and palm readers and shit.”

  “If you don’t, I might be calling a priest.”

  “The Exorcism of Darron Gaines.”

  “I’ll keep you away from the crucifixes and pea soup, just in case.”

  Jacksonville gangs weren’t of the same ilk of the kind you see in big cities, but they were present in the town and expanding, so we recruited Reg to help us discern where to pinpoint our search to. He came back at us with a laptop and some YouTube videos.

  A video called “Brick Brick” featured some prominent gang-controlled locations he recognized, and he helped us pick through them, though he demurred at being part of the questioning process because he was afraid of the repercussions associated with it. Deuce told him he didn’t want to ruin a potential rap career, and Reginald busted into a freestyle that was so pitiful, even I thought I could top it. Only time I heard Deuce laugh that day.

  After we had watched “Brick Brick” a second time, I had no better idea of where to look than before. The rap video was filled to the rafters with hoods in black: black shirts, black bandanas, black jeans and shoes. Even their guns and cars were black. That much I could tell. Where it took place, though, that flummoxed me. There were so many cuts and canted angles, I couldn’t tell one shot from another.

  “What neighborhood is this shot in?” I asked.

  He went through the video, shot-by-shot. “It’s all over,” he said.

  He scrubbed the clip to one particular moment. On-screen was a two business strip mall consisting of a low-rent grocery store and a car wash attached at the end. “That food store right there,” he said, “is in Cleveland. I drive by that all the time.”

  “So the Reapers rep Cleveland,” Deuce said, as if in conclusion.

  Reg sucked his teeth, staring at the screen. “I can’t say for sure. I mean, this is shot all over. That’s one of the points, right? They want to show that they run this town, not just one area code or one street or whatever.”

  “Where else are they filming?”

  He chewed one fingernail as he watched the video again. “That right there is Phoenix. That shot right there is Davis Street. They supposed to keep to the north, up in Soutel, but this video is literally from north, south, east, and west. They probably going to get some retaliation for that.”

  “But no evidence that they’ve been taking women hostage and cutting people up,” I replied.

  “None. These niggas — ‘scuse me. These homies run up in somebody’s crib and shoot them. They don’t take the time to do, you know, what they did.”

  I typed some places into my terrible phone.

  “I’ll start with these places,” I said. “It’s only bound to get better from there, right?”

  “Unless you step up on somebody who’s all colored up, and then it’ll be getting worse. And worse. And worse. And worse.”

  I hit the pavement in the turf controlled by the Black Reapers in search of some kind of lead. I was basically just stirring the pot, but I hoped I’d be able to turn something up.

  However, when I found myself alone in gang territory, I questioned just what in the hell I was supposed to be doing.

  My half-assed door-to-door led me to a basketball court where some twentysomethings fought the cold by engaging in a violent game of three-on-three.

  One of the youths saw me as I approached and made a high-pitched whoop-whoop to warn the others. The game stopped mid-dribble, and its participants regarded me with contempt. Men slid packages into their pockets and slipped between adjacent buildings. Those who remained grew instantly suspicious.

  Nothing I didn’t expect.

  The guy who stepped out of the crowd was tall, muscular. Wore a burgundy muscle shirt and long basketball shorts. Lean face. Heavy jaw. Intense eyes.

  “Know anything about a murder happened here week or so ago?”

  “Lot of murders happen around here.”

  “A specific murder.”

  A general look of bemused astonishment pervaded the group. “The fuck you think we’d tell you that for, honky?”

  “Looking for a man named Rich D. Maybe just D. Think his real name is Dietrich.”

  “You looking in the wrong fucking place, homes.”

  “Wish I had a picture,” I said. “Guess I forgot how to do this sort of thing.”

  “Don’t need a picture.”

  “You need one thing,” I said.

  He waited.

  “You need me to get the hell out of here. Right?”

  A slight nod.

  “I’ll do that, so long as you give me something to go on..”

  “Ain’t no snitches here. They don’t last long in this neighborhood, mane.”

  I smiled.

  “Rich D. Where’s he hiding out?”

  “I don’t even know who you talking about. Red, you know what the fuck he talking about?”

  “Ain’t got no clue.”

  Basketball in hand. Turning it over and over.

  “Shouldn’t you have a black sponsor out here? You know, conjure up a little bit of credibility. You’ve got some balls, stepping up and just flat-out asking us where Rich D is.”

  I smirked. “Thought you didn’t know him.”

  “I heard you say his name.”

  “So maybe you can ask all your teammates there for a little bit of help. An assist, maybe.”

  Bounce bounce. Basketball on blacktop, just audible over the sound of an iPod speaker blasting hip-hop music.

  He looked around at his compatriots and wiped sweat from his forehead. “You must be out your goddamned mind,” he said.

  “Maybe a little,” I said. “It doesn’t negate the fact that I need help. You like having the Reapers handle their business in your neighborhood?”

  No reaction. I looked from person to person.

  “How many of you have lost a brother, sister, cousin, parent to those assholes?”

  “The fuck you know about Reapers, homes?”

  “I know they sell drugs. I know they get young men put in boxes six feet south. I know they treat this area like a personal ATM.”

  Bounce. Bounce. No reaction. Some of the dudes who had fled when I’d first arrived returned, cautiously eyeing the train wreck of a conversation between me and this guy.

  “You got thirty seconds to have your happy ass across that street, unless you want to find out what them hot boys back there got strapped to their waists.”

  I backed away. “All right,” I said. �
��I’m gone. Be out of your sight in a few seconds.”

  I plucked a slip of paper with my burner number scribbled on it from a pocket — slowly — and placed it underneath a half-empty can of Rock Star. They regarded it with disdain.

  I said, “Anybody wants to help me, call that number. It’s burner. I’m not a cop. I’m not going to snitch anybody out. We’ve got a score to settle with some people. They had a hand in some nasty business, and the deceased deserve a chance for retribution.”

  “Thing about the dead, homes, is there ain’t no retribution. Once you dead, it’s all done.”

  “I’d like to see that through on my own, see what comes of trying. Nobody should be denied the attempt a good shot at justice.”

  8

  Deuce waited until we were halfway to the middle of nowhere before he spoke. “Rol,” he said, “I know you want to help, and I appreciate all that you’ve done so far — honestly, I couldn’t have done it with you — but Tyra…”

  “She was forthright,” I said. “I’m not trying to make her my primary source, but I think she may be able to help.”

  From the driver’s seat, Reg said, “She’s cursed, man. Everything she touches turns to shit, and if y’all weren’t already boned, I’d have blamed your predicament on her, too.”

  “What’s so bad that I can’t trust what she says?”

  Reg turned to me, allowing the car to drift precariously toward the center line. “What’s she going to tell you that I can’t?”

  I leaned back, tried to get comfortable. “How close were you and Taj toward the end?”

  “Man, we was always tight, Rolson,” he replied. “I’ve got secrets on secrets on my homie.”

  I cleared my throat, sipped from my flask until that familiar wavy feeling returned.

  “What was he into?” I asked. “Really, Reg. What was he into?”

  “Best I could figure—”

  “Not your best estimation,” I said. “Tyra said we’re stepping into something poisonous, and if that is true, I want to know what kind of rattlesnake is on the other end of it.”

  Deuce said, “At firs, Taj’s extracurricular activities didn’t concern me, but if he was in some major dirt, we need to know.”

  Reg hesitated. His hands clenched the steering wheel.

  “Reg, don’t make me embarrass you in front of your boys. I’ll drag you down to Pearl Wood and beat your ass sideways.”

  I could practically hear Reg’s brain toking on a single thought: What should I tell them? He was in Nixon territory with me. What did he know, and when did he know it? If he was stalling for time, there was a good chance he had some secretes he didn’t want to share, and he wasn’t smart enough to prevaricate with believability.

  There was a long, slow rolling of the eyes on Reg’s part, a physical reaction to an emotionally-charged question, but finally he came out of his self-imposed silence.

  We turned onto a darkened street, in the shadow of a house that itself had no lights. Two men in tattered jeans and baggy shirts half-jogged across the street in front of us, the glare from the headlights reflecting in their eyes.

  Reg closed his eyes and ran one hand from back-to-front over his head, a calming gesture.

  “Man, shit,” he said. “It wasn’t never supposed to be like this.”

  Our silence cued him to continue.

  “D, you know how Taj was, man. He was always looking for something to get into. He was never bad, but you know better than anybody he didn’t do well with idle hands. You could lock him up, but the first second he caught you not looking, he was off, doing his thing.”

  “And what, he slipped into dealing for the Zone 5 boys?”

  “He used to run with Peep Laroche, you remember him?”

  “Fat dude? Used to chop cars with your uncle on your mama’s side?”

  “That one. Anyway, Taj bumped up against him for something — he never told me that much — and he said he owed that blind old bastard a favor. The favor, of course, involved the Black Reapers.”

  “That how it start,” Deuce asked, “or is that all there was to it?”

  “Nah, it goes into a few directions after that, cuz, and just let me say—”

  “Just say it, Reg,” Deuce commanded. “Can’t get any worse than the end result.”

  Reginald shrugged. “It does go some dark places, I ain’t gonna even lie.”

  “Get to it,” Deuce said.

  “He was never a dealer, never sold drugs, but he had an aptitude for moving them, so that’s what he did. He pulled me in because he needed help with the quantity, and I know the neighborhoods, know the people. Taj, he was hyper, but he never done anything bad like this before, you know?”

  “That it? He just missed a shipment, and they ganked him for that?”

  “I promise you, cuz. That’s all he told me. I helped him out when he needed it, but he never said anything more than maybe he done fucked up. That’s the for real truth of it all.”

  Deuce’s fist snapped across the car. I heard the impact before I saw it. Sounded like thunder, and I had to press my hands against my ears to ward off the ringing.

  Reg swerved unintentionally, reached his right hand out. It caught the volume knob on the dashboard. Music screamed to earsplitting volume as the car whipped back and forth on the road. I felt the world go squishy as I tried to keep my whiskey down.

  “The fuck, man?”

  Blood gushed from the right nostril. He continued driving but tilted his head back and pinched his nose.

  “Shut your dumb ass up and drive. You know why I hit you.”

  “Deuce, man, come on. I’m telling you everything I know. He hooked up with the Reapers, and he told me some stuff on the subject of drug running, but he never mentioned being at risk for dying.”

  Reg started to pull over, but Deuce pointed at the road.

  “Keep driving, Reg,” he said.

  I felt the bad vibes coming off him like heat off a locked-up engine block. His eyes boiled with an anger I’d never seen before. He was normally so even-handed. He dealt to resolve conflict, and even when he didn’t, he wasn’t vindictive.

  This was a side of him I’d never seen before. His eyes burned, red and fiery, as though a bomb hand gone off behind the eyelids. Beneath it all, the music pulsed and throbbed, creating a low-fi hum in my ears. It coincided with the gravity Deuce possessed in this cramped space.

  I came to conclude that this was a new side to him because it wasn’t a side to him at all. It was the force within him; that was the only reasonable explanation for his behavior. And it didn’t end with this bizarre presence. I had something to do with it. I was Deuce’s lightning rod. I didn’t have to be the necromancer to make his power more evident.

  I took a swig and something flashed before me. Car speeding down a dirt road, the sound of someone beating on the trunk from the inside. Taj was in the car, a fact as clear and plain as it was unavoidable.

  Then, the sound of a power saw. Screams. Something tearing. Something fleshy. Meat and skin rending from bone. Blade dissecting joints. The hysterical cries of a dying man.

  But no significant details. Just flashes of memory. The equivalent of someone thumbing through pages in a well-worn book.

  I was close to the death scene.

  But not close enough.

  Mostly, what I saw was darkness. It was one of my first real visions since dropping anchor in Jacksonville, and it wasn’t strong enough to build a monument of hope on. I got the feeling that was with Deuce now, and if he didn’t know how to access it, I’d have to rely entirely on instinct and police detection to solve the crime.

  But I did keep having flashes. Kept drinking, too, thinking that might be an accelerant for the otherworldly experiences.

  Whenever I drank, I caught sight of something else. We were drawing closer by the minute, and the slideshow of Taj’s last night grew like a flashbulb in my mind.

  He struggled against wrist and ankle bindings.

&nbs
p; I gulped air, met Deuce’s stare. He nodded as though he understood but didn’t say anything.

  “You okay,” Reg asked, his voice a nasal drone due to the busted nose.

  “Stop here,” I said.

  Reg kept driving.

  “Stop the fucking car!” I screamed.

  He pulled into a shallow ditch, and I scrambled free of my seat belt. Scrambling through knee-high weeds, I sloshed toward the spot darker than all the others.

  We were on the edge of town, further north than any other direction, where the city petered out into monotonous swampland.

  Guess my second sight isn’t entirely depleted, I thought.

  “Where are we?” I asked Deuce, who trailed behind me by several yards.

  “Up by Seton Creek, maybe,” he replied. “Or out at the Nassau Reserve.”

  “Can’t be,” Reg said from farthest behind us. “I know I ain’t driven that far, man. We was just—”

  And then he stopped talking.

  “I’ll be damned,” he said, and moments later, Deuce and I stopped walking, too.

  We were out in the middle of the wilderness, water up to our asses and sinking deeper.

  “I guess I must have,” Reg began. “Couldn’t have been. I — we was just in town, I swear.”

  I felt a dramatic shift in the air, a weight behind me, pushing me forward. It wasn’t the gentle nudging I’d been used to. At first, I thought it might be Deuce, but that didn’t square with reality. This was something else, and I was afraid to look around.

  The stench of death was strong out here.

  My power, it seemed, wasn’t completely gone.

  “Y’all smell that?” I asked.

  “Nah, man,” Reg countered, tonelessly.

  “Deuce, you still with us?”

  “Yeah,” he answered. His voice was shaking.

  “You seeing something?” I asked.

  “I don’t want to say, man,” he replied. His voice barely carried over the sound of the wind whipping at my back. It was cold outside and even colder in the water. I thought I felt something brush against my leg. Visions of alligators danced in my head.