Dirty South

CASH HUGS THAT COAST of Pontchartrain, that mean ole humpbacked levee running for miles out on-shore. Look like the spiny back of a dragon blockin’ you from seein’ anything off the lake. The sky is so pink and gray. These big-ass long clouds that crack and stretch like broken slabs of concrete in the early day. The sun just a slice of orange over that long, green levee, colorin’ these old fishin’ shacks on tall crooked wooden legs that stretch out long and crippled. Some of them is just legs now, weather and time and shit bleachin’ all that wood away.

Cash slow his purple boat, his right hand on that wheel that look like a racecar. He open up his C-phone and start talkin’. He yellin’ into it, tellin’ them to “Work ’em. Work ’em.”

He flick it shut and turn to JoJo. “My boys seen ’em. They was right down by the causeway and must’ve got scared. They’s runnin’ ’em back toward us. Both my boats like two pit bulls.”

JoJo smiled. “Hot damn,” he said. But then he stopped smilin’ when Cash turn the boat toward the bridges headin’ out of the city. “They see Nick?”

Cash shook his head. “Just Teddy and some other brother.”

“That brother is Dio,” you say.

“What?” Cash says, wealth flashin’ in his mouth. He starts to laugh.

“Dio ain’t dead,” you say. “Some rich motherfuckers over in Metairie made him up. He ain’t neva real.”

“What you mean, not real?” Cash asks, lookin’ back. Real concerned now.

“I said that nigga weren’t eva real,” you say. “This boy Christian just actin’ thugged up. They weren’t his rhymes, man. He stole them off a dead man he knew in Angola and then made his own self disappear. They schemed all them lost records and shit.”

Cash shook his head. “That the boy on the boat?”

“Yeah.”

“He got to win the Academy Award,” he say. “I even heard folks out in Calliope say they his people.”

Bronco reach into a duffel bag and hands JoJo a long, black pistol.

“Teddy know about this?” Cash ask.

You say he did.

“Lord help ’em both,” Cash say. “You gonna kill ’em, old man?”

“I kill anyone gets in my way.”

“You with him, Tavarius?” Cash ask.

“All the way.”

“Y’all just thugs and don’t even know it.”

Cash lay down the throttle and that long green levee break behind you. Y’all runnin’ down a long old railroad bridge crossin’ the water.

“The Trestle,” JoJo says, to no one in particular.

CHRISTIAN STEERED the boat while Teddy tied Trey’s body with thick white rope and wrapped the cord of a ship radio around his neck, letting the heavy transmitter fall to his chest. He duct-taped a big red fire extinguisher to his dead body and pulled the cover of a black pillowcase over his head.

“Goddamn, he wouldn’t quit lookin’ at me,” Teddy said. “You like that, Malcolm?” He started to laugh. “You like that?”