Free Dark End of the Street - v4 by Ace Atkins Page B

tighter. She kicked again and broke free and scrambled more, her breath working in her dry mouth.
    At the top, another man in a mask grabbed her by her sweatshirt, twisted the muzzle of a gun into her ear, and pushed her back to Ellie’s car.
    Two minutes later, they’d thrown her into the trunk and skidded out. In the weak red glow of the taillights, Abby said her first prayer in months.
     
Chapter 11
     
    DIXIE HOMES, one of Memphis’s oldest public housing projects, stood tired and beaten not far from an insane asylum and a record store once frequented by Elvis Presley. I recognized the projects almost instantly because of an article I’d read in Rolling Stone about some rappers who’d been raised there. Name was hard to forget. But these projects weren’t even close to being as decrepit and mean as those in New Orleans. They were old but clean and reminded me of the stories I’d heard about what public housing used to be like in the ‘fifties. Dixie Homes consisted of several rows of two-story red brick units separated by a common area filled with blackened barbecue pits made from oil drums cut in half, rusted dime-store sun chairs, and clotheslines stretched taught from crooked metal crosses. Through the common areas, tattered clothes dried in the weak fall sun that had replaced the rain.
    I parked near Poplar and walked through the projects asking anyone I saw if they knew a woman named Wordie. Didn’t feel uncomfortable or uneasy. Most people in the projects were a hell of a lot friendlier than those you’d meet in those yuppie cracker box apartments that lined Metairie. Shit, this was a community. I knew I’d find Wordie within ten minutes. People here actually knew each other. Had to if they wanted to survive. About five minutes later, a little old black woman with enormous — almost Jackie O–sized — sunglasses carrying a walker pointed to the next street over. Said Wordie had a Santy Claus on her porch.
    I thanked her, popped a couple of fresh pieces of Bazooka in my mouth, and walked up the winding hill where yellow, red, and brown leaves scattered over me like ticker tape.
    I soon saw the plastic Santa Claus, black and carrying a fat sack, standing by a corner unit. A crushed Coke can and stray headless Barbie doll lay at the foot of the Santa like discarded presents. I knocked on the worn wood of the screen door.
    At the top of the hill, a group of teens lingered by a convenience store pay phone waiting to sell crack to white kids from the suburbs. At the base of the hill, two black children dressed in starched school uniforms walked by my Bronco carrying backpacks heavy laden with books.
    Just as I was about to look in the window, the door swung open revealing one of the largest women I’d ever seen. Even larger than the woman at Wild Bill’s. This woman could kick her ass. Her arms were the size of my thighs. Her thighs were as large as my waist. She wore a heavy scowl upon her lips as if she’d been waiting for me to show up all day so she could vent all her problems upon me.
    “Hello, ma’am.”
    She had on a tight black muscle T-shirt, black biker shorts, and pink Jelly shoes. Her hair had been woven and dyed into a mismatched pattern of yellow and red braids. I wanted to ask her where in the hell she got size-forty biker pants.
    I didn’t. I was scared.
    “You Wordie?”
    “Maybe. Who the fuck is you?”
    “A friend of Clyde’s.”
    She crossed her arms over her massive breasts, the left one adorned with a tattoo of a red rose.
    “His sister’s trying to find him.”
    “Listen, I got to go,” she said, trying to close the door. I could hear the chatter of Oprah Winfrey inside.
    “What’s Oprah talkin’ about today?”
    Wordie gave me a frown. “Oh, I don’t know. Some woman givin’ advice to women whose got husbands that peckers don’t work.”
    “You married?”
    “Hell no,” she said, giving a little laugh, then catching herself and then trying to close the door