38 Porter Hayes

The two-story brick building had been a lot of things over the years. A grocery store, a pool hall, and most recently a blues club called the Hard Luck Café. A mural of Isaac Hayes in all his Hot Buttered Soul glory faced the parking lot. Now, Deonte Taylor, who most folks knew as Hotbox, did his business up on the second floor, running drugs from down on the Gulf Coast on up to Chicago. He'd taken over this little slice after Craig Petties went to jail, Petties running pretty much all of Memphis before he skipped town to hide out with the Beltrán-Leyva cartel in Mexico.

Three of Deonte's boys were playing pool when Hayes walked in. A CD jukebox was pumping out some of that Memphis crunk. All that bullshit about hustling money, pimpin' hos, and drinking champagne. It wasn't exactly Johnnie Taylor singing "Party Life" but damn, not much was. Hayes reached into his coat, shook out a Winston, and lit up. "Came to see Deonte."

"Deonte ain't here," one of the young men said.

"Yeah, he is," Hayes said. "His ride's parked out front."

"And what's it to you, Pops?" asked another.

"Pops?" Hayes said. "Damn."

Hayes staggered his feet and placed his hands in the leather jacket, feeling the grip of his .38 in his right hand. "Okay. Wait a minute. Who's your momma, young man?"

"What the fuck you say?"

"Your momma Juanita Brooks?" Hayes asked. "I used to see you at St. James AME church on Sundays. You used to stand up during the sermon, looking over everyone's head to follow that golden collection plate with your eyes. All that cash sure held some interest for you."

"And who the hell are you?"

"Tell Deonte that Porter Hayes wants to see him."

One of the young men shooting pool looked up from the table. He exchanged a look with a kid in an Oakland Raiders cap. The kid with the cap stopped what he was doing, racked the cue, and headed up a set of side stairs. Okay. Now he was about to get a little respect.

"Wait here," Juanita Brooks's son said.

"Sorry to hear about your momma," Hayes said. "Gone too soon. She was a sweet young lady."

The kid just stood there, face drawn, not sure what to make of this old man in his leather jacket who knew his momma back in the day. What Porter wanted to tell the kid was that he knew his granddaddy, too; one of his brother's people running with the Invaders when Hayes had been a cop just back from Nam. His granddaddy had been as tough as he was stupid. Ended up selling out Porter's brother Marvin to the feds for that thirty pieces of silver.

The kid in the Raiders cap rambled down the old rickety steps and pointed upstairs. "Hotbox said you were cool."

"Boys," Hayes said, blowing out smoke and tossing down the butt, "y'all ain't got no idea."

Deonte's upstairs office wasn't really an office at all, mainly a storeroom filled with boxes full of Nikes and Panasonic TVs, pyramids of STP oil, Beautiful Textures Tangle Taming shampoo, and cases and cases of Courvoisier and Mickey's Big Mouth. Deonte Taylor hung loose in the middle of it all, dressed in some saggy-ass black jeans and a Raiders jersey. A braided gold chain around his neck.

"Damn, Deonte," Hayes said. "Looks like goddamn Kmart in here."

"Porter Hayes," he said. He looked to one of his lieutenants. "Listen, man. This old Superfly motherfucker used to own this town. I heard ladies used to hand you their panties when you were out on a job. Even in church."

Hayes grinned and shrugged. He reached up and smoothed down the mustache.

"You need a TV?" Taylor asked. "Some of them burner phones with big-ass numbers you can see without your glasses? What they call those things. Jitterbugs?"

Hayes walked on into the crowded space. The room was dark and airless, smelling like man funk and weed. He could hear more crunk from downstairs shaking the floor and old plaster walls. Pinups of naked women, most of them pornographic, had been shellacked between the bricked-in windows. The tops of the windows were rounded with some fancy plaster molding, Hayes had heard something about this place, way back when, being a dance hall. Or was it a whorehouse?

"Your boy Randy produced that," he said. "That damn Project Pat. ‘This Ain't No Game.'"

"Project Pat? Okay, then," Hayes said. "Listen, Deonte. I need your help."

"You don't want a TV?" Deonte asked. "I got forty-inch Panasonics with Dolby sound. I bet you still got one of those old box televisions with the rabbit ears, watching reruns for Don Cornelius running that Soul Train line. Confunkshun, Ohio Players. Damn Midnight Star. I tell you, man. You watch an old down-and-dirty flick on this motherfucker and it gonna make that peepee hard again."

"I don't have a TV," Hayes said. "And my peepee doing just fine."

"I bet," Taylor said. "Some of that John the Conquer root?"

"Centrum Silver."

"You really don't have a TV?"

"House got broken into last Christmas," Hayes said. "Nearly cleaned me out. Along with my stereo and collection of Luther Vandross albums."

"Oh, damn," he said. "Luther. Rest in peace. ‘A House Is Not a Home' reminds me of my grandmomma."

"Fine woman," Hayes said. "She had the most incredible Sunday hats I ever saw. Sometimes, I think I may get older, but the past is never past. You know who said that?"

"Run DMC."

Hayes laughed. He looked over at the boxes of TVs as if he was interested and then turned back to Deonte and his two boys. "Someone's been hitting containers down at the port," Hayes said. "I don't care who or why. I just want to get back something that's been lost."

"What is it?"

"Don't know."

"How big of a container?"

"One of those big-ass Conexes," Hayes said. "This just happened two nights ago. Two units were hit and whoever did it got away clean."

Deonte shrugged. He nodded to one of his boys and the boy headed on back downstairs. Hayes didn't know if he was headed down to make some calls or about to rouse the boys from downstairs to start some trouble. Hayes wasn't worried. Deacon Malone would've walked in by now, scoping out the situation and ready to react if necessary.

"I don't mess with the port," Deonte said. "Or anything along the river. You got the cops and those folks from US Customs. I don't need or want any federal charges on my ass."

"But you know who it might be," Hayes said. "Because they'd come to you about moving what they stole."

"This shit that you don't know what it is?"

"Well," Hayes said. "I don't think it's Jordans or flat-screens, if that's any help."

"Then who gives a good goddamn?"

"Exactly," Hayes said. "I'd like to check it out and make an offer if I see what I like."

"Drugs?"

"I don't believe so," Hayes said. "But haven't ruled it out."

"Guns?"

"Maybe," Hayes said.

"If it were guns," Deonte said. "I'd already have them."

"True."

"I can check around for you," Deonte Taylor said. "But you'd owe me twice after I got that mixing board back for Randy. That wasn't no easy favor. Got Crips all up by his studio. One of my boys got shot getting it back."

Hayes shrugged. "He lived."

"You a hard man, Porter Hayes."

"Don't know any other way to be."

Hayes shook Deonte "Hotbox" Taylor's hand before taking the old rickety steps down to the first floor and janky-ass poolroom. He found Deacon Malone flipping albums on the jukebox. He had on his long wool coat that he liked to wear on Sundays. Hayes knew he had two sawed-off shotguns hung from inside like smoked meats.

Malone pressed a few buttons and looked up from the hot neon. The three young guns in the pool hall studied the big man as if he were a brand-new rhino brought into the Memphis Zoo. Soon the crunk shut off and they heard the sweet melodic voice of Reverend Al Green take over. "Take Me to the River." Charles Hodges on organ. Yes, yes, yes. Now that was music.

"Get what you need?" Malone said, pushing out through a side door. The morning light shone into the darkened room behind them.

"Don't know," Porter Hayes said. "Time will tell."

Two hours later, Hayes doubled back from downtown, driving south on Highway 61 to the Third Street Flea Market. Deonte had come through with the name Miss Ricky Swearengen, who got his start with drag shows at the J Wags disco but now sold shit out back of his specialized Ford Econoline van. Deonte said Miss Ricky's crew had been hitting containers up and down the river for the last few weeks. They'd been the one he'd been reading about in the Commercial Appeal who drove off with a truck full of Nikes coming in from South Korea. Deonte said wasn't no need to rush since Ricky only had one leg and did business from his wheelchair. Deonte's people had seen him out earlier that morning hustling Oriental rugs out behind the old Southwest Twin Drive-In. Does that sound like what you're looking for?

Hayes pulled his Mercedes into what used to be the parking lot for the old theater. The movie screens were now rusted to hell, the projector room looking like a spaceship perched on top of what had been the concessions building. Hayes walked through where folks had set up for the Saturday market on the back of pickup trucks, card tables, or just laid out on the asphalt over bedsheets. Kids sold their music on CDs they burned. An old woman bundled up in a red coat and an Atlanta Falcons ski hat sold dozens of porcelain figurines of little white children playing games and dressed up as animals. A fat man in overalls sold fishing equipment from the back of a busted-ass truck. There were used power tools, TVs, and stereos. All of it likely stolen. One young man hocked vinyl records stored in milk crates from the back of a rusted-out Toyota. Hayes thought about checking to see if the man had any of his Luther.

Hayes strolled through line after line of hustlers with what looked to be hot merchandise. At least two of the cars were selling Nikes that surely had been part of the big Nike heist he'd read about. One handmade sign read "Jenuine Jordans." It didn't take him too long to find a man in a wheelchair who sure as hell looked like his name would be Miss Ricky. Hayes couldn't tell how old he was, but he looked eaten up with drugs or some illness. The man didn't have any facial hair or eyebrows and wore a satin turban over what Hayes assumed was a bald head. His skin was the color of an old penny and his eyes looked almost yellow.

The man was slumped into the chair and Hayes wasn't sure if he was dead or alive.

"You Ricky Swearengen?"

"Every inch," Ricky said. "And I know you. You're a goddamn cop."

"Used to be," Hayes said. "But not for a long while."

"You looking for some rugs?" Ricky asked. "Check this shit out. You ain't never seen nothing like what I got. What size you looking for? You being a fine man of taste and distinction."

"What else you got in that van?"

"Some real old vases, brass lamps, and old guns and shit," Miss Ricky said. "I bought this whole damn truckload from the estate of a nice old Turkish woman. Said she'd had all this in her family for years. I could put all this up on eBay but I figured I'd bring it out to market this fine November morning. Check out the quality of them rugs. This ain't no Sears and Roebuck bullshit. Tell me what catches your eye, young man."

"Young man?" he said. "Me and you look like we made about the same trips around the sun."

"Maybe," he said. "Okay, then. What's your game, Porter Hayes?"

"You know who I am."

"Hotbox told me you'd be coming," he said. "Told me to play it straight with you."

"Then you know I know that all this old, dusty shit didn't come from some ole dead Turkish lady or drop off a damn truck," Hayes said. "And I'm sure when you opened up that container, this wasn't exactly the shit you were hoping to find?"

Miss Ricky giggled. It was high-pitched and annoying and he covered his mouth with a thin hand. He wore a fuchsia muumuu, his right foot showing off a brand-new high-top Jordan.

"Is this everything?" Hayes asked.

"Maybe."

"Everything from that Conex y'all busted into?"

"Go ahead and tell Momma what it is you're looking for."

"I got to be honest, Miss Ricky," Hayes said. "I ain't exactly sure. Mind if I take a look at the merchandise?"

Ricky tossed a dismissive hand over his shoulder, staring right ahead at the rusted movie screen. Someone had set up a backyard grill from behind an old Crown Vic, grilling out hot dogs and selling Kool-Aid.

Hayes searched in the high pile of rugs and inspected pieces of pottery that had been laid on a card table. There were maps, swords, old coins, and brass containers that looked like spittoons. But damn. For the life of him, Hayes didn't see a thing that was worth killing over. But who knew? Maybe these old rugs were priceless. Maybe these were the finest goddamn rugs ever made. Maybe those old gold urns held the ashes of Alexander the Great. After about twenty minutes, he gave up and walked back to Miss Ricky. Ricky had a cheap Mexican blanket up over his lap.

"I think you're holding back."

"Miss Ricky ain't hold nothing," he said, giggling. "Well. Except for one big thing."

"How much do you want for the whole lot?" he said. "I mean every damn thing y'all pulled out of that container. And I mean everything."

"That's interesting to Miss Ricky," Ricky said. "Is this the part when you say you know so-and-so who work for the police and then if I don't come across, you're gonna have them bust my ass? They been working that bullshit since Starsky and Hutch got to cornholin' Huggy Bear."

"Something's missing here."

"Ain't nothing missing."

"Nothing?"

"Maybe a few things," Ricky said. "Some cheap-ass blankets, and a few plastic tubes filled with old maps and shit. Nothing but yellowed paper, not thick enough to wipe your ass. Man, I got to move this shit. Everybody love them old rugs. Those old knives and shit make a man look as big and bold as Sho'nuff from The Last Dragon. I figure you can have it all if you want it. But you know how it work. Remember Bob Barker stepping up with that long, thin microphone. All this shit can be yours, motherfucker, if that price is goddamn right."

"I don't think that's what Bob said."

"Oh, no?" Ricky raised his nonexistent eyebrows, his skin looking like melted caramel. "Well. That's what I heard."

"Give me a price."

Ricky put his index finger to his lips, pursed them, and then gave him a price that made Hayes nearly crack a rib from laughter. Hayes just shook his head and sized up what all Ricky had laid out and what kind of truck he'd need to move it. "How 'bout we spin that big wheel one more time?"

Ricky looked up at the gray sky and then back at Porter Hayes. He shuffled the Mexican blanket over his one leg and then looked back at Hayes.

"You and I both know if you try and pass this off out on Summer Avenue, cops gonna be all over your ass," Hayes said. "This shit belongs to my client, and my client is willing to offer a fair price for its return. Call it a finder's fee."

"Three grand?" Ricky said. "That's fair as hell. I mean look at all this stuff. A treasure for the goddamn ages. Look at the workmanship on those rugs, Porter Hayes. Got a better weave on them than half the women in Memphis."

"I think we can make a deal here," he said. "But I need to make a call and check in with my financial backers."

"Sound like I'm not the only one spinning some bullshit today."

Hayes stepped away from Miss Ricky's Econoline and walked out to the old movie screen while he dialed up Addison. She picked up after three rings.

"I think I found what Dean was searching for," he said. "Figured you might be interested?"

"Why?"

"Insurance policy," he said. "Or to save your husband's life. Even if he is a motherfucker. Excuse my French."

Addison didn't answer. Her silence lasted so long he thought they might've been disconnected.

"How much?" Addison asked.

Hayes told her. She agreed the cash wouldn't be a problem.

"What if I told you that I didn't care what happened to him?" she said. "That's on him."

"Ma'am," Hayes said, "I'd say that every day you are sounding more and more like your old man."

"Let's get it anyway," Addison said. "What could it hurt?"