Dirty South

37

Alix Sentry stood about five feet eight, bald with just wisps of brown hair ringing his head, with small brown eyes and a pointed nose. He sat on the other side of the partition and folded his hands under his chin. He stared right through the glass, twisting his nose like he was trying to smell something. He wore an orange jumpsuit reading ORLEANS PARISH JAIL and watched me in silence.

An intercom system separated us. I waited about thirty seconds for him to talk while he stared.

“You’re a nice-looking man,” he said.

“Aw, shucks,” I said.

He smiled. I leaned back in the seat.

“Maybe we can write,” I said. “Pen pals.”

He smiled. “I’d like that.”

“Fred Moore call you?”

“She’s such a sick little bitch.”

“Everyone likes Barbie,” I said. “A woman on the go.”

“She likes real ones.”

I nodded. “You going to help or not?”

“Depends on what you’ll pay me.”

“Same as Fred, five hundred.”

He laughed. “I wouldn’t give up Fred for five hundred.”

“I’m not asking you to give up Fred.”

He started playing with the zipper on the jumpsuit. “Isn’t this thing so ugly? I feel like I should be in the Ice Capades.”

“What do you have?”

“You know what I do?”

“Yes.”

“Then why would you think I’m so fucking stupid?” he asked, raising his eyebrows.

“I don’t think you’re stupid.”

“You know what they arrested me for?”

“Yeah.”

“Someone set me up,” he said.

“I don’t care.”

He blew out his breath and slumped back into his seat with his arms crossed over his chest. He was so average that I could see him living in Metairie with a wife and a Volvo.

“I want five thousand.”

“I don’t have it.”

“Fred said you did.”

“Fred isn’t my accountant,” I said. “I can pay you if I find the money.”

“That’s a big if.”

I looked over at the female deputy watching us and up at the water-stained tile ceiling buzzing with dull fluorescent light. “You have something else to do?”

He looked at the back of his hands and stretched.

“He sold me out,” he said. “He’s the one that planted those magazines of young boys and all of it. I don’t play like that; I never have. He trashed my house and made a phone call to the police that I’d been harassing his kids. Said he was a concerned father and I’d been walking around in a Speedo giving out toys.”

“What did you do to him?”

He laughed. “Got somewhere first.”

“Where?”

“To this old woman,” he said. “She gave me her jewelry and furs. Made her feel better. I was her friend. He wasn’t.”

I nodded. The room smelled of Lysol and urine. Words had been carved into the stall where I sat. A hundred phone numbers and names, a couple of business cards of attorneys.

“I’ll pay two if I get the money back.”

“Five,” he said. “I know it’s worth that.”

I blew out my breath and rubbed my face with my hands. Stretched the legs.

“I’ve been led to you through a few people and now I feel like I’m bargaining for something that doesn’t exist. I don’t think you know shit. I think you’re bored and just want to practice up while you’re waiting for your court date.”

“ALIAS told you about him, right?”

I leaned in. His eyes grew larger and he moved within inches of the glass. He bit off a cuticle and spit it on the floor.

“He said his ear was bad, right? A really ugly left ear.”

“I can pay you only if the money comes back,” I said. “And I mean all of it.”

“It’s a lot, isn’t it?”

“How do you know?”

“I think he’s gone.”

“Who?”

He laughed.

“Give me something,” I said. “You want him in jail and you want some cash. What else are you going to do?”

“I read,” he said. “I like Dickens. Poor kids making good for themselves. Finding out they’re really rich. Class struggle.”

“Is that it?”

He leaned back into the glass and spoke into the two-way intercom. “Don’t fuck with me. I can ruin people’s lives.”

I waited. He took a breath.

“You know that hotel in the Quarter with the fence made out of corn. It’s iron but looks like stalks.”

“Sure, on Royal. The Cornstalk.”

The place sat about two blocks over from JoJo and Loretta’s place.

“There is a street right there. It’s Dumaine or St. Phillip. I don’t remember, but he used to live there. It’s an old apartment. Used to be one of the motels where the rooms open up outside.”

“Right.”

“That’s all I have.”

“A name?”

“Marion Bloom.”

“Worked with a woman, too.”

“That would be Dahlia. You find Marion, you’ll find Dahlia. She does the work for him when she’s not stripping. When it’s a man, she can turn any boy in about five minutes.”

“Pretty?”

“If you like that,” he said. “You’ll know her when you see her. Real tall with light skin. Almond-shaped eyes. Makes her look kind of Asian. She’s a real doll.”

“That’s it?”

“From what I hear, five thousand is good.”

“You know who they were working with?”

He shook his head.

“Just the job,” he said. “Dahlia talks in her sleep and I talk to those people.”

I got up to leave.

“You have a gun?”

I nodded.

“Excellent.”