by Ben Adams
Rosa brought them a couple bottles of Negro Modelo. John leaned forward, his mouth slightly open. He thought of something funny while she was getting their drinks, but she left to check on other lunch guests before he could say anything and he slumped back into the red vinyl chair. He held his beer bottle with both hands, almost in his lap, and picked at the label.
“About Leadbelly, anything I need to know?” John asked.
“Nah,” the sheriff said, sipping his beer. “He’s just one a those characters we have here in town. A good natured type, jokes around a lot. No one really takes him seriously.”
“Someone took him seriously enough to take his picture.”
“You wanna go by his trailer?” The sheriff leaned over the table, perking up. “I know where he lives.”
“How long you been sheriff?” John asked, the bottle almost slipping from his grip.
“I’ve worn this badge the past fifteen years. My pa was sheriff before me, and my grandpa before him. I guess you could say being a lawman’s in my blood.”
“So you like it, then?”
“Sure, I like it. I like this town. The people. Honestly, I don’t really have that much to do, just the occasional domestic disturbance, but nothing that can’t be handled by talking things out. These are good people here. Most of the time I don’t even wear a gun, only when strangers come around asking questions.” He slapped John’s arm, laughing.
Forcing fake laughter, John watched the sheriff for signs that he was either joking or about to arrest him.
“What about you, how’d you get into the P.I. business?”
“It’s a pretty long story,” John said. “I graduated school, needed a job. My boss, Rufus, was a friend of my grandfather, kind of an unofficial uncle. He needed an assistant, said he’d take me on. Really, he was doing it as a favor for my mom.”
“What does your dad do?”
“Not sure. He hasn’t been around for a while.”
“He run out on you?”
“That’s the way it looks. Truth is, we don’t really know. He disappeared when I was five. He went to work one day and never came home. We filed a missing person’s claim. There was an investigation and everything. Police told us he clocked in at his office, but never came back from his lunch break. He just disappeared. It’s one of those unsolved mysteries, like you see on TV.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, John.”
“Don’t be. My mom and I got on fine without him. We didn’t need him after all. Never did.”
John picked at his beer label, peeling it away from the bottle. He didn’t drink during the day and the beer was starting to affect him, loosening his reserve.
“The crazy part is,” John continued, “I still have dreams about him, ever since he left. We’d do all these father-son things, play catch, he’d give me advice about girls, shit like that. All the stuff we would have done had he stayed, the stuff I missed out on as a kid, I get to experience when I sleep. Messed up part is, after all these father-son moments, I tell him to fuck off. Every single night. It’s like my subconscious or whatever is letting me say what I’ll never get a chance to say. But those dreams, they seem more like memories, like it actually happened. It’s weird.”
Rosa brought their food and another round of drinks. When she placed the plates, she leaned over and John saw the top of her bra, black lace. He cleared his throat.
After they were done eating, Rosa came over to check on them. “Do you need anything else?”
“I think we’re good,” the sheriff said, slapping his gut. His gut wasn’t big, but it did hang over his belt a little.
“Just the check, please,” John said, wanting to ask Rosa for her phone number, address, shoe size, anything that would help him be able to spend time with her.
“Lee, I can’t believe you didn’t tell him?” she said, her hand on her hip. “Well, John, don’t worry about it. You just have a nice day.” She put her hand on his shoulder and slid it across his back as she walked off.
“What was that all about?” John asked, watching her walk away.
“Oh, a few years back,” the sheriff leaned back, his hands folded across his belly, “Rosa’s brother was taking classes at the college. Got jumped walking to his car. Got roughed up pretty bad. Rosa asked me to help. We found the kids, took care of them. They won’t be bothering anyone anymore.”
“You mean…” John formed his hand into the shape of a gun.
“No, no,” the sheriff said, laughing. “The DA’s a fishing buddy. I talked him into charging the kids with attempted murder. Since the judge on the case is a cousin a mine, he found them guilty. Now they’re serving fifteen with no parole.”
“Small town justice.”
“It’s got its perks. The DA and I get free food whenever we come in here.”
“Dang.”
“Rosa’s good people. Her brother’s a good kid, a bit of a fuck up, but a good kid. The plaza was a ghost town before she showed up. This here restaurant pretty much revitalized the downtown. The town owes her. You see, we’re a small community here. We look out for our own.”
The sheriff stood and pushed in his chair. He set his Stetson back on his head, into the erosions of a lifetime of hat wear. John dug into his pocket, dropped a twenty on the table next to the wadded and stained napkins, salsa-smeared plates, and empty beer bottles. Sheriff Masters wrinkled his forehead, making his hat move slightly.
“I gotta leave something,” John said. “Besides, it’s on the Enquirer.”
“You sonuvabitch! You’re buying dinner.”
The afternoon sun moved across the sky, expanding awning shade, creating the perfect hiding place from heat. John and Sheriff Masters moved slowly, sleepy from well-cooked Mexican food and beer. They crossed the street, walking to the sheriff’s car.
John took one last look at Rosa’s Restaurante. Inside, Rosa flowed between tables. She wiped a table next to the window, looked up, and waved. John waved back, his hand at his waist, like he was trying to hide his gesture. He wished he was still inside, sitting at a table, working on a puzzle, talking to her between coffee refills. He wanted to be near her, cracking jokes, waiting for the moment when he could ask her out. Instead, he was standing in the street about to get into a cop car.
He slid into the front, onto a hot Pleather seat, the metal cage rattling behind the headrest. The sheriff picked up his CB and started talking.
“Shirley? Shirley, you there?”
“Yeah, Lee. You find that newcomer yet?”
“Yeah,” he said, chuckling. “He’s here with me now.”
“Oh. Hi, there.”
Sheriff Masters stuck the CB under John’s mouth, motioned toward him as if to say, ‘Say something.’
“Uh, hi,” John said.
“So, what brings you to town? You know, we’ve been getting an awful lotta calls about you. Well, only two, but still.”
“Shirley,” the sheriff interrupted, “I’m going out to Jeremiah’s for a bit. Gotta have a talk with Al Leadbelly.”
“Al Leadbelly? Is he in some kind a trouble? Let me talk to that stranger again. This has something to do with him, don’t it?”
“Don’t you worry about that none. You just let Jimmy know where to find me if he needs me.” The sheriff turned to John, said, “Jimmy’s my deputy, not too bright.”
“Roger that.” The CB went silent.
They drove to the lumberyard, passing houses verging on collapse. A tarp covered one roof, held down by bricks, ready to blow away at first wind. Another’s roof sagged, waiting to snap with the next snow. The town was crumbling to dust, becoming desert.
“So, how many of these…what’d you call them, sightings have you been on?”
“This is my first one.”
The sheriff groaned. The route to the lumberyard devolved from potholed roads into dirt and loose gravel.
“Look, Sheriff, this might be my first Elvis sighting,” John said, sensing the sheriff’s apprehension,
“but I can tell you for a fact this Leadbelly guy isn’t Elvis. Unless Elvis has been frozen the past thirty years.”
“I’m more worried about that paper a yours, wondering what they’re gonna do with that photo when they find out he’s not Elvis.”
“They’ll probably publish it anyway,” John said, the beer and Rosa causing him to be careless.
“They’d do that?” The sheriff looked at John, angry and aggrieved.
“This guy, Rex Grant, the Enquirer’s editor, he only cares about selling papers.”
“What do you think’ll happen when they publish it?”
“Well, you’ll probably have a bunch of Elvis super-fans running around looking for Leadbelly.”
“Quite frankly, I don’t want that to happen,” the sheriff said, twisting the steering wheel as he drove. The town was a quiet place full of dead grass and slowly dying people, and the sheriff didn’t want fanatics disturbing decay.
John understood the need for quiet and stability. It’s how he worked best, late nights, his mom sleeping, the harmonic hums of computer and fridge. His investigation conflicted with tranquility. Its outcome meant screaming groupies, hotel riots, and several generations of Elvis fans treating this town like their personal souvenir stand. John knew this was unavoidable, that Rex Grant didn’t care if the photo was a hoax, that he’d publish it regardless of John’s objections. They drove past two men hosing down a septic tank, and John knew it was time to tell the sheriff about the other part of his investigation, his other reason for needing to find Leadbelly.
“Sheriff, about Leadbelly. I’m not the first person the Enquirer sent looking for him. A few weeks ago, they sent a reporter down here. He was found outside Truth or Consequences, shot. They hired me to find Leadbelly, find out what happened to the kid.”
“Holy shit!” The sheriff almost skidded off the road. John put on his seatbelt. “You’re on a goddamn homicide investigation. You lucky sonuvabitch!”
“You’re a little too excited about a dead body.”
“Sorry. This here’s a quiet town. It’s been about five years since our last homicide,” the sheriff said.
“You might have to wait a little longer.”
“You don’t think Leadbelly did it, do you?”
“Not sure,” John said, thinking about what he’d found in Leadbelly’s trailer, the menu from the strip club in Truth or Consequences.
“Hold on a sec.” Sheriff Masters picked up the CB again. “How old’d you say this kid was?”
“The Enquirer said he was eighteen, just an intern,” John said.
“Shirley, you there?”
“I’m here, Lee.”
“Can you call the Sheriff’s Department down in Truth or Consequences, find out about a case they got going? Something involving a male, late-teens-to-early-twenties, found outside a town a couple of weeks ago.”
“Does this got something to do with Al Leadbelly? Or that stranger?”
“Just make the call, Shirley.”
“Alright. Will do,” she said.
“She sounds disappointed,” John said.
“Yeah,” the sheriff said, “Shirley’s got an appointment at the hairdresser’s this afternoon. She’s gonna be sitting under a cone dryer for a while, wants to talk about the case.”
“How do you know that?” John asked.
“‘Cause I married her,” the sheriff said, laughing.
The sheriff turned off of 7th Street, pulled into the lumberyard parking lot and rolled down his window. “There’s that sonuvabitch! Leadbelly! Leadbelly! Get over here! This fella’s got some questions for you.”
The lumberyard consisted of a small retail building covered in rough, red paint, like the wind had sprayed dirt on it when the paint was wet. Behind the building, cut timber was stacked according to size in a maze of home improvement material bordered by a chain link fence.
Leadbelly disappeared into the lumber stacks.
“Leadbelly! Leadbelly!”
Sheriff Masters and John stood at the entrance to the lumber stockpile, an opening wide enough for a truck to back into.
A man who looked like the sheriff, but shorter and fatter, his belly hiding his belt buckle, office life having faded his cowboy hat tan line, stomped out of the retail building.
“Lee, what are you going on about?” he asked.
“We’re here on police business. This here’s John Abernathy,” the sheriff said, pointing to John. “He has some questions for Leadbelly.”
“Questions? What kinda questions?”
“Don’t you worry about it none, Jeremiah. We won’t be disrupting your business.”
“Just as long as you’re not. And…and I’m gonna be here for the questioning.” Jeremiah poked himself in the chest, like he was confirming his own importance.
“What are you, a goddamn lawyer now?”
“Gotta look out for my employees is all.”
“Yeah, that’s who you’re looking out for.”
John had seen situations like this with Rooftop, two people with long and complicated histories fighting for dominion over the past and the present.
“Sheriff,” John said, trying to calm everyone down, “I don’t mind Jeremiah sticking around.”
“Alright. Just remember, Jeremiah, this is official police business. So, don’t go interrupting.”
They watched Leadbelly return from the stacks of cut timber. He walked out with saw-bound one-by-sixes on his shoulder. The stomach knots John withstood since coming to town returned, although they weren’t as gnarled. His lunch helped. Or maybe it was Rosa’s enduring influence. But the tangle fully loosened as Leadbelly got closer.
The sheriff called him again. “Leadbelly! Leadbelly! Get over here! This fella’s got some questions for you!”
Leadbelly put down the planks and strutted over, the sun being absorbed by the black and green bruise around his eye and cheek. He shared many striking similarities with Elvis, height, eyes, jaw, black hair, sideburns crawling down his face, but as he walked closer, John instantly knew the man was not Elvis, just an imitation. His black hair color looked like it was courtesy of a box bought in a pharmacy, and he needed to re-dye. Gray roots were growing along his temples. Despite the indications of age, Leadbelly was still considerably younger than Elvis. If Elvis were still alive, he’d be in his late seventies. Leadbelly looked like he wouldn’t reach that mark for another thirty years.
But there was one thing that was the same. The voice.
“Al Leadbelly?” John asked.
“Man, I wouldn’t be coming over here if I weren’t. Sheriff, what’s this all about? I got work to do, man.”
“Leadbelly,” the sheriff said, “this here’s John Abernathy. Now, he’s got some questions for you and you’re gonna answer them. That’s just how it is.”
“Alright then, ask away. But be quick with it, man. I got some ladies meeting me at the Whataburger after work.”
John put his hand in his pocket, felt for Mrs. Morris’s picture. His fingers rubbed its glossy surface, then grazed the rough edge of the folded menu from the strip club. He pulled it out, swatted it against his hand. Leadbelly’s arrogance reminded John of everything he hated about his job, the late hours, the miserable people, having to photograph a client’s husband putting on clown makeup while a dominatrix, dressed like the man’s mom, told him all the ways he’d disappointed her. And the fact that it kept John from doing what he loved.
“I know how you got those bruises,” John said, pointing to Leadbelly’s face with the menu.
“This?” Leadbelly pointed to his purple eye. “Man, this is nothing.”
“Tell me about the kid, the one you got into a fight with.”
“Nothing to tell, man. He just came up, started talking shit. Wouldn’t shut up.”
“What was he saying?”
“Nothing really, man. Most a the time when people talk shit to me it’s ‘cause I slept with their sister or something. This kid, he just said he
knew me’s all. I ain’t never seen him before.” Leadbelly shrugged, like the kid and the fight were insignificant.
“But he knew you, didn’t he?” John said, thinking about the people Colonel Hollister had watching Leadbelly’s trailer. “That’s what he told you, that he knew you. That he’s been following you. Why was he following you, Leadbelly?”
“How the hell should I know, man?”
“He knew your secret, didn’t he? That’s what he said to you.”
“He was just some drunk kid, man. That’s all.”
“A drunk kid you felt the need to beat up,” John said, pointing at Leadbelly with the menu like it was Leadbelly’s signed confession.
“It wasn’t like that, man,” Leadbelly said, shaking his head, his pompadour swaying.
“When was the last time you where in Truth or Consequences?” John asked, shifting directions. He unfolded the gentleman’s club menu, showed it to Leadbelly.
“Oh, man. Fuzzy Beaver’s? I go there every couple of weeks. They have a great all-you-can-eat buffet.”
“You couldn’t have thought of a different way to say that?”
“They got really good chicken wings, too, man. Although you gotta wash your hands before you get a lap dance. The girls don’t like greasy fingers messing up their glitter.”
“What about this?” John said, taking Mrs. Morris’s picture from his pocket. “Is this you in this photo?”
“Well, man, that looks like me, and that’s my place. So, it must be me. What’s this got to do with Fuzzy Beaver’s? It’s a hell of a place. You really should check it out.”
“I was hired by The National Enquirer to investigate it. But they already sent someone down here. Here’s what I’m thinking, the kid they sent found you and followed you down to Truth or Consequences on one of your excursions.”
“They got this girl there, man,” Leadbelly said, eyes empty with daydreams, “you know how strippers are all named after cities?”
“The kid follows you,” John continued, “asks you some questions, like the kid from the bar.”
“Her name’s Old Detroit. She’s gotta be like seventy, man.”
“It gets a little heated. He makes some accusations.”