JD Hooks mopped the sweat from his brow and stepped out of his car, and into the blistering southern heat. The air was dense and suffocating, and the sweat clung to him like a wet blanket. Every summer, he considered leaving this place but never did. A lingering hope held him – hope that the next summer would be less brutal, the air less oppressive. Maybe it was just the curse of the South, believing better days were on the horizon, that next year would be different, it never was.
He stood on the sidewalk just out of reach of the long shadows cast by quiet homes that lined the street; his gray eyes were hidden from the sun's glow under the brim of his smoke-colored hat. He took the last drag of his cigarette and ground the butt under his boot. Tall and lean, his face weathered not by time, but by the merciless world that birthed him; the soft pink of scarred tissue lay hidden under the blue-gray stubble of the night before, a permanent reminder of his mortality, courtesy of a Japanese bayonet. Hooks fixed his eyes on the Victorian structure trimmed in forest and rose that stood before him, cast in storybook hues, out of place amongst the Greek revivals that surrounded it. Hooks checked the time displayed on his wrist, “Let's make this quick,” he whispered to himself and stepped under the yellow tape that marked the house as a crime scene.
In the kitchen the crime scene photographer was busy at work, the crack of the flashbulb marking gaps in between the silence. In the center of the kitchen, the bloated body of a man sat at the dinner table, his eyes fixed on the alabaster ceiling, staring into a clean void. The back of his head was split open like a canyon, its walls made of decaying flesh and protrusions of fragmented bone, that emptied into a pool of brain matter and dried blood, a black coagulated stain that seeped into the tile grout below. Hooks stood over the man and took a pen from his shirt pocket and brushed the hair from his head, a single gunshot wound rested just above his right eyebrow. The shot appeared to come from a .45 caliber weapon fired at close range. Hooks clicked his penlight, looked into the man's open mouth, and took note of the unchewed food that filled it.
"Poor guy didn't even get a last meal," Hooks recognized the southern drawl stretching each syllable. Detective Frank Taylor stood in the doorway, his shoulder resting against its frame. He was a short, rotund man, the buttons of his shirt struggling to hold the excess weight at bay, below his nose a thick mustache, of gray and white the hairs stained brown at their ends from the tobacco permanently packed in his cheek.
"Good to see you too, Frank," Hooks said, his voice low and gravelly, the voice of a man much older than his years.
Taylor walked to the sink and spit a brown stream into the drain, "How's the private sector treatin’ ya?"
"Same as always, mostly cheating husbands and lonely wives."
Frank crossed the room and stood opposite Hooks pointing at the dead man. "I take it Mr. Ross was one of the cheating husbands, and Mrs. Ross was the lonely wife?" Frank quipped, with a smirk.
"Yeah, she came to me about a month ago suspicious of her husband's late office hours. Turns out, Mr. Ross was working the night shift down at the 241 Club."
"Well shit JD, if I were going to cheat on my wife, I'd find better company than those girls at 241. If there’s a piece of ass worth dyin’ over it ain't them doped up…”
Hooks glared at Frank. "She wasn't too happy about it either. She ran out of the office when I showed her the pictures. She still owes me $350."
"Well then, I've got some bad news for you."
"What?"
"You're not getting paid. Mrs. Ross is in the back, dead as a doorknob."
Frank led Hooks to the master bedroom. Mrs. Ross lay across the bed, her ghost-white skin fading into the sheets – a wax effigy of the woman she once was. She appeared younger in death, her face relieved of the stress and pain that she carried the day she ran from his office. Hooks stared into her lifeless eyes, a pang of sorrow cut deep within him. Even in death, she was a beautiful woman, just past forty, her face marked with faint lines of time giving her a stern beauty that youth doesn’t know. He felt guilty, not in fault but in delivery, a messenger of shattered dreams with hands stained in liability. Hooks recalled the quiver in her voice as he told her of her husband's infidelity. It was something he had never grown accustomed to, dead bodies and heinous crimes numb the senses, but staring into a lover, a parent, a friend’s eyes, watching their world shatter, seeing their hopes and dreams melt into a pool of despair, that never got easier. He always felt like a man on a pale horse.
“Frank, you think Hermes felt responsible for the messages he carried?”
“Who?”
“Herm… never mind.”
“Who’s Hermes?”
Hooks shook his head, “He was the messenger of the gods.”
“You know, I don’t know a goddamn thing about any gods or whatnot, but I can tell you one thing, it ain’t your fault he couldn’t keep his pecker in his pants. She was gonna find out one way or another at least you got paid for it.”
“I didn’t get paid, but you got a point. The truth has a way of making itself known.”
Hooks wiped the sweat from his forehead and scanned the room, a frosted yellow chamber scattered with open drawers and splintered frames. On the nightstand, an empty bottle of vodka held down a wrinkled manilla envelope. Hooks pointed to the envelope," Is that why you called me?"
Frank gave a nod, "Looks like your handiwork."
Hooks took the envelope from the nightstand; alcohol-stained rings had caused the ink to run. "Mrs. Ross," her name written in black that faded into gray tears. Hooks had written her name himself, he recalled handing her the envelope – her hands shaking, the look of fear on her face. She was dressed in her Sunday best, a soft pastel blue, her hair curled just right, Easter hues desiring resurrection. He asked her twice, he knew she didn't want to know, but she had to know, they always did.
Hooks opened the envelope, inside were five photos confirming her husband's infidelity. The destruction of her world in black and white, the guilt of her husband frozen in the heat of carnal passion. Hooks handed off the photographs. Frank shuffled the sinful frames, stopping to look at each one more than once, "Mr. Ross, you sick son of a bitch,” he said, inspecting one of the photographs with one eye closed.
Hooks examined the room once more, something caught his eyes, small and circular and he knelt down, dug a pill from the beige carpet, and held it up like a man panning for gold. "Pick your poison," he said, looking up at Frank.
“Sleeping pills. There’s an empty bottle in the bathroom. Guess she couldn't handle seein’ what Mr. Ross had been workin’ on all those late nights at the office."
Hooks tossed the pill into an ashtray that sat under the bed side lamp. "The truth is a sonofabitch, it's one thing to believe something; it's another to know it as fact. Believing in something leaves room for doubt, room to lie to yourself. Gives a person space to cope with reality. Mrs. Ross was better off believing her husband was running around, that doubt, that was everything to her, knowing, well, she couldn’t handle that.”
"Damn, JD, you always had a way with words, that's what I miss about you, always pontificatin’ bout’ shit – puttin’ that fancy education to work.”
"We seem to remember things differently.”
“No, you're just too damn serious.”
“Seriours or not, It doesn't take seven years of college to figure out you've got a murder-suicide on your hands. I think even you could’ve figured this one out.”
"Heck, I just wanted confirmation of what I had already deduced; plus, I can put it in my report: 'JD Hooks, private eye, confirms Mrs. Ross, in her moment of desperation, shot her husband and drowned her sorrows with a bottle of vodka and a handful of sleeping pills.”
Frank, have a little respect for the dead.”
“Come on JD, you gotta laugh, or you’ll end up like Mrs. Ross here.”
Hooks checked his watch, "Next time, the Phenix City police need my expertise, I'm charging a consulting fee, that or you can subpoena me.”
The night revealed a sea of neon as Hooks drove into the city. Houses of ill repute packed tightly like a deck of cards; honky-tonks, casinos, clip joints, brothels - Phenix City was alive, pulsing with every vice known to man. This wasn't Chicago or New York, with pockets of malfeasance where vice was confined under red lights; here was a city built on crime born from the blood of Indian wars and Outlaw clans. Long before it wore the name of avian legend it harbored men no land would tolerate and they clashed with Creek braves, their blood soaked the land and their bodies fed the soil; and from it rose Phenix City, like some feathered devil.
To Hooks the city was a cancer, its corruption seeping into every crevice, its presence felt like a malignant tumor devouring everything in its path. Here no good men lay their heads, here there was no refuge. Restaurants served as fronts that housed sex and slot machines, neighborhoods held brothels hidden between residential faces, and churches laundered money in offering plates. In Phenix City there was no struggle between good and evil, no fight between criminals and the law; the crime was the law. It didn't matter what you called it, the Syndicate, the Dixie Mafia, the name of evil matters not, it belongs to tongues long gone and those yet to live. They owned the mayor, police chief, sheriff, and hospital - the city was theirs, and everyone knew it, this was the wickedest city in America, and it wore that title with pride.
Hooks circled the block, looking for a place to park. 14th Street was the backbone of the city, home to the biggest clubs and the biggest crooks, its sidewalks lined wall-to-wall peddling sin of every flavor; for the right price, a man could find anything his black heart desired. He pulled close to the curb and stepped out of the car.
The street was lined with brick structures washed in white, the paint chipped and worn, their entrances illuminated like supernatural beacons promising flesh and mammon. A symphony of slot machines and strip shows spilled from the open doors as he passed by. Across the river, Ft. Benning provided a fresh supply of meat, soldiers, young and naive and eager to spend their earnings on slots and sex. Hooks watched the latest recruits stumble about ignorant and unaware of what they were, virgin sacrifices in army green offered to the maleficent gods.
Along the street B-girls prowled like half-naked sirens, luring young men to their destruction. "Buy a girl a drink," their calls were flirtatious, and Hooks dismissed them with a nod. They glared at him but he walked without hesitation, with a gate that foretold his indifference and they turned their attention to younger faces.
A block ahead, a young GI, drunk and angry and looking for a fight stumbled onto the sidewalk. He couldn't decipher the soldiers’ words but he recognized the hustle. Some B-girl had cheated him out of his money, and now he wanted it back. He wouldn't get it.
Two bouncers confronted the soldier, large men with hard faces dressed in khaki slacks and white button-ups. They ordered him to leave. He didn't. The soldier rushed forward. A crack echoed through the crowded street, and a stream of crimson sprayed onto the asphalt. One of the bouncers slammed a blackjack into the soldier’s face, his teeth shattered. He struggled to his feet, blood pouring from his mouth and nose. Just stay down, Hooks thought. Alcohol roused his courage and numbed pain and the soldier lunged at the bouncer with a wide left hook. The second bouncer, with knuckles wrapped in brass, struck him. The blow landed with a thud, solid and heavy. The bouncer continued the beating, hitting him again and again, each blow tearing the skin and cracking the bone until he lay still.
A group of soldiers rushed from across the street hoping to defend their fallen comrade, but the cold steel of a .38 turned them away. “Y’all get back now. You don't want to die before the next war do you boys?” The soldiers backed away slowly up the street as the bouncer tucked the pistol away. The man with brass knuckles gave the lifeless soldier one last kick, and spit on him.
The crowd dispersed, as Hooks approached, their thirst for blood satisfied. In their wake, they left the soldier. Hooks stepped over him, his body bloody and broken, his arms outstretched like a martyr crucified to asphalt.
The lock stuck and with deft movements, Hooks jimmied it until the pins caught and the tumbler engaged. His office was small, enclosed in whitewashed wood paneling, stained in nicotine yellow. He flipped the sign, “closed,” and took a seat, and lit a cigarette.
The desk, a second-hand mahogany relic gifted by his father, was nearly black, its surface cracked, and scarred. The prized possession of a lawyer, ornate and sophisticated, its decorative frame once held legal documents, now labored under the weight of overdue bills and files laden with petty crimes and broken marriages.
Hooks traced his fingers across its surface, feeling the indentations of his father, like cryptic brail. He had dreamed of becoming a lawyer, a dream his father passed to him before he could speak, and that dream lived in him, it predated him. Had his father been a farmer perhaps he would have dreamed of fields of cotton, perhaps his dreams were not his own; but a father’s dreams repackaged as aspirations and gifted to him before he was born, a father’s second chance manifest in an infant soul. The war had stolen those dreams, with captivating lies of valor and duty, and laid him on beaches far from home where heroes stained the tide red, and when he returned his father was buried and his dreams with him.
His home had changed in the years between his absence and return; the war had taken the best men Phenix City had to offer and in their wake left wolves. Men who grew fat on gambling, racketeering, prostitution, vices that had woven themselves into the heart of the city, and left no room for men who valued the law, men like his father.
In the wake of his father’s death Hooks had tried to take over the practice, but soon found himself in conflict with the Mob. They had already paid off every lawyer in the city and Hooks was expected to follow suit, but he refused; and a few nights later he found himself lying on rain-soaked asphalt, his mouth full of blood, his fingers wrapped tight around a tattered envelope that told of he’d been disbarred.
It was then that Hooks understood what the war had taught him, the ultimate law, one not found in courtrooms or libraries, one written in with rifle barrels and bayonet tips, its ink a dark crimson drawn from the dying hearts. Years of chasing his father’s dream were washed away with the reality that his home was now subject to the true law, the only law that mattered, the law of violence.
Hooks ran his fingers across the desk once more, for a moment he tasted copper, his tongue searched for gravel between his teeth. He spit in the ashtray but found no blood, then he extinguished his cigarette, locked up his office, and headed back down 14th Street.
The Bama Club, a haven for the city's high rollers, was the only straight joint in town. Hooks took a seat at the bar, ordered a bourbon, and lit a cigarette. The cheers of enthusiastic patrons eager to walk away with house money filled the bar and he wiped the sweat from his glass and took a drink. A young woman sat at the end of the bar. Her eyes had been fixed on him since he sat down. She wore a blue dress, its slit stopping mid-thigh, exposing legs untouched by the sun and she ran her finger around the rim of her glass. He knew the game, he tried to look away, but his eyes lingered on the navy fabric that thinly covered her curves. She caught his stare and with a flattered smile, took the seat next to him.
“You drinkin’ alone?” Her voice was soft. She tried to hide the hard vowels and nasally inflection but Hooks could hear a foreign origin in her speech.
“That’s the idea,” he replied, his eyes fixed on the bar.
“Well, I can keep you company.”
“I got all the company I need right here, ma’am,” he said, tapping the rim of his glass. Her narrowed eyes and pursed lips betrayed her feelings, but Hooks didn’t care. She straightened her back, the deep curve of her neckline exposing her breasts to the yellow light that hung above, a new temptation rising before him.
Before the girl could make another pass, Big Mary intervened, dismissing the girl as if she were an unwelcome pest. “Go on now, darlin’ don’t waste your time, he ain’t interested. Go, now, there’s plenty of folks from out of town with money to spend.” Big Mary ran the Bama Club with an iron fist. She was equal parts sweet and ruthless, a characteristic unique to southern women, three hundred pounds of woman with three hundred pounds of personality. Hooks trusted implicitly.
“Bless her heart. Poor girl’s new around here she ain’t familiar with usual faces.”
“I can see that.”
With the girl gone, Big Mary wiped the counter, pushing the remnants of alcoholic indulgence to the bar’s end. She laid the rag over her shoulder and spoke to Hooks in a tone befitting a mother, “One of them days?”
Hooks finished his drink and slid the empty glass towards Mary. “Had a client,” he said, as Mary refilled his glass with his choice bourbon. “Gave her some bad news, she didn’t take it well.”
“Ain’t that what a PI does, give folks bad news?” Mary asked.
“Usually they cry or attempt to reason their way out of it. It’s not every day they put a .45 to their husband's head then take a handful of sleeping pills and wash it down with vodka.”
“What the hell did her husband do?” Mary asked, her curiosity piqued.
Hooks paused, allowing a faint chuckle to escape, “He developed a taste for the ladies down at 241.”
“Hell, I’d a killed him too. But I ain’t dying on account of a no good man. I’d take the bastard's money and head to the Keys, find me a young thang to keep me company.”
Hooks pushed his hat back with two fingers, “You let me know if you ever run to Florida.”
“JD, you’re a fine thang but you're too old for me.”
“Too old? That’s the first time I’ve heard that.”
“I tell you what JD, I don't understand why a man with a wife and a home, wants to go stickin’ his pecker in a bunch of whores… ain’t no good ever come from it.”
“A man left to his own devices is scarcely better than a dog,” Hooks mused, smoke curling from his lips. “A dog, on its own, is just an animal –-eating, fucking, dying–-pure instinct. You give that dog a master, he will pull a sled clear across Alaska, he will lie with you in the jungle for three days and won’t make a sound till a Jap stands on top of you. A dog with a master, that’s man’s best friend. This town is full of dogs, and they’ve been alone for too long.”
Mary wiped the counter, once more and laid the rag back across her shoulder, “Well, you just be careful and don’t get bit. Folks don’t appreciate nobody diggin’ in their business.”
“I’ll do my best,” Hooks replied, pulling a couple of crumbled dollars from his pocket. He laid the money on the bar, snuffed out his cigarette, and prepared to face the day, morning would come soon and he had work to do.