Dark End of the Street - v4 (11 page)

Jesus. Most of the room numbers were out of sequence. And most of the ones I looked into were storage filled with cans for vending machines, stacks of toilet paper, or new towels.

Just as I thought I was getting close, hearing my boots clacking on the hard concrete floor, the number jumped from ninety-nine to one hundred eleven. Shit. I ran back down the corridor, searching, but the hall was a dead end.

Suddenly, I heard another set of footsteps running down the tunnel and pressed myself close to the wall. A black man in a suit jogged past me, staring straight ahead. I took a deep breath and when I couldn’t hear footsteps anymore, I continued the search.

The next tunnel was dank and bare and the floor muddied with footprints. I was about to turn back when I heard something at the far end. Sounded like the feral cries of a wounded animal.

A
bby tried to focus away from the pain. With each rip of her hair, she could feel numbness spread throughout her body. She tried to concentrate on that, imagining the dead feeling coat her skin in a protective layer. She bit down on the cloth gagging her mouth again and tried not to scream as the woman worked on her back legs, pulling more hair out by the roots.

She’d never felt such sharp pain in her life. She bit down harder on the cloth, tears streaming down her cheeks.

“My sweet little girl,” Ellie said, playing with the edge of a gun in her ear. “Get it all out. Purge yourself of all that filth in your mind. Were you Daddy’s little girl? Is that it? You know Daddy died for something that wasn’t his business.”

Abby wished Ellie would just shoot her and be done with it. She’d never tell them about the little safe in her father’s office, the files she’d found there, or even utter a damned word. This is what happened to her father and she’d let the damned thing rot in that nasty truck stop before she’d say a word to these freaks. She closed her eyes and concentrated away from the pain. They could poke at her some more, rape her, or dump her body into the Mississippi. She didn’t care.

“You are filthy,” Ellie said. Then she matched her screams with Abby. “Come on!”

She slammed the pistol against Abby’s ear, carefully placed it back with the towels, and pulled some makeup from her purse. Abby flexed her body, tied at both ends, and turned her head to the door as it flew open.

T
he girl was tied to some type of elevated bench. A tall blond woman, who looked like she should be showing cars on The Price Is Right, stood over her with a makeup brush in her hand. She seemed frozen, caught in mid-act.

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.”

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.

“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.”