Free Dirty South - v4 by Ace Atkins

lot more.
    The waiter brought them a couple of plates of Oysters Three Ways: grilled, fried, and raw on a bed of rock salt. Teddy slurped his right off his plate, gobbling everything up just like the street hustler that he’d always been. Or maybe because he thought this was his last supper or something. Pretty weird. Of course Teddy wasn’t brought up with any class. He hadn’t gone to Metairie Country Day or gone to Vandy on an academic scholarship that his parents bought. He hadn’t spent his winters skiing in Vail or summers down in Baja sipping tequila and screwing girls from UCLA.
    Teddy went to Freaknik in Atlanta and still paid women to be seen with him.
    “Can we get money from anywhere else?” Teddy asked. “Did you check into the cars or the house?”
    “Not in one night, man.”
    “Don’t you know some people?” he asked. “People in Old Metairie. That kind of money like chump change to them.”
    “Teddy, you are my friend. But it doesn’t work that way. I can’t just call up somebody and ask for a half a million. I mean, they’d think I was crazy.”
    Trey stirred the martini with his finger. He knew he needed to call Molly, finally buy that sofa from Restoration Hardware, and maybe hook up with this gash who was in grad school at Tulane. A buddy of his had already fucked her. He’d buy her a drink and take her to the Hyatt or something. Heard she had an ass that just wouldn’t quit.
    Teddy buried his head in his hands. The redfish entrée came and Teddy pushed it away. “Nick’s got to find it. He has to.”
    Trey played with his drink more. Two women, dirty blondes in halters and fake leather pants, walked into the bar. Their boyfriends behind them. Couple of tools in cheap Gap shirts and tourist running shoes. Last year’s Nikes.
    “I know this guy’s your friend, but who is he, really?” Trey asked, trying to seem interested in Teddy’s problems. “I mean, as a professional. He’s a teacher, right? My buddy Josh is a lawyer and has three investigators working for him. They’d do a better job. This guy doesn’t impress me.”
    “Yeah?” Teddy said. “Nick once got this woman out of jail after forty years. Also took down that L.A. motherfucker that owned that Blues Shack club.”
    “So he’s muscle?” Trey asked. “That’s not what we need. Let me get someone good on this. This guy, no offense, man, seems like a real loser. He was wearing a T-shirt with a cartoon on it.”
    “I have till the morning,” Teddy said, head up and watching Brill now. “Ain’t you listenin’?”
    Trey shrugged. “Aren’t you above this thug shit now? You worked too hard. You don’t need people like that.”
    “What you got goin’ on, Brill?” Teddy asked, looking Trey hard in the eye. He held his stare. “You wouldn’t want to see me lose, would you?”
    “After all we’ve been through?” Trey asked. “We’re more brothers than you and Malcolm.”
    “You still meetin’ with him tonight?”
    “Should I cancel?”
    “I guess not,” Teddy said. “Don’t have nothin’ to do with my troubles.”
    Trey winked at him.
    Teddy smiled. “You a hustla too, right?”
    Trey smiled back and took a sip of the martini. “You know it, dog.”
     
14
     
    I CHECKED WITH CURTIS at his house — and got nowhere — dropped by the warehouse and fed Annie, leaving on Cartoon Network for her to watch
Super-friends,
and headed out to a strip club in New Orleans East where I knew I’d find ALIAS. It was about eight o’clock and the sky turned black and purple on the horizon as I drove I-10 toward Slidell and found the exit. I passed an old Shoney’s and a now-defunct shopping mall that had become the place for local crack deals and gun-fights. The cops didn’t even like to patrol here anymore.
    About ten years ago, New Orleans East was a suburb of corporate apartments and yuppie condos along with the usual strip malls and chain restaurants. But since the Hope VI federal housing initiative