Crossroad Blues (The Nick Travers Novels)

by Ace Atkins

  Chapter 16

  Keith Fields received Jesse's phone call at three in the morning, but he wasn't asleep. He was just sprawled on his black leather couch, listening to an infomercial about an ab machine. He tried to imagine it melting away his gut as he munched on a box of vanilla wafers. Those little sandy crumbs bunching up between his thin roll of fat and his beer-stained T-shirt.

  "Jesse, just tell me where you're at."

  "A gas station somewhere 'round Quito."

  "Awright. Did anyone see you?"

  "I don't think so," Jesse said. "I was invisible, man."

  "I ain't got time for this," Keith said as he snatched his lighter and a pack of Vantage cigarettes. "Either you're a pro or not, Jesse. You tole me you could handle the job."

  "I was handlin' it, Keith, and this big nigra just bust through the door as I was about to kill the ole man."

  "Shit, Jesse. You weren't supposed to kill him! Goddamn, are you crazy?"

  "Puka said you wanted the nigra taken out."

  "You still talk like a god-dang racist peckerwood. Shit no, you were supposed to bring him back to Puka's, and I was gonna pick him up there. Nigra? What you gonna do if I give you a client here that's African American?"

  Jesse snickered.

  "I'm serious, you gonna call him a nigger? Like Puka would?"

  "No."

  "Then shut your damned hole and listen." Keith heaved off the couch and closed his balcony doors looking over Royal Street. A carriage horse clopped down the road and he could see a woman squatting in the shadows taking a piss. "I'm comin' up there. You find a place, and you stay put. I'll be up by mornin' and take care of this myself."

  "Keith, the nigr--the man just bust through the door."

  "I know, Jesse. I know."

  This hit was not just for some no-name client; this was a full-time deal. Good pay and good contacts. His boss had it. Had juice like the Mob guys used to have. Like the old criminals in New Orleans, only with a modern approach. Modern methods. Keith had heard bits and pieces, how he used to be some kind of big record producer in Los Angeles at one time. A little weird and freaky with the all-black clothes and stuff. But hey, that's L.A. Everybody's weird out there. Any man who trusted him enough to make him head of security couldn't be all bad.

  "Naw. I got this one, Keith," Jesse said. He could hear his friend's breath go ragged through the connection. "Just give me a few days. Need some money, though."

  "Awright. Till Saturday. But if you ain't snag him by then, you can forget about comin' to work with me. How you want this money sent? Western Union?"

  "Clickety-clack."

  ?

  Three hours later, Keith Fields locked his apartment and headed out into the French Quarter. His head ached bad from worryin' about the mess. Couldn't even go to sleep after Jesse called. Should've known that he couldn't handle somethin' professional. Keith could feel his temples throb with every bad thought. If his boss got word Jesse tried to kill the old man, then he might as well reach for his toes and kiss his pecker good-bye. Yeah, this was bad. Real bad. And this was the first thing his boss ever really asked him to do as the new head of security. Shit, Jesse. Why'd you have to mess it up?

  Keith stopped walking under a rusted overhang and closed his eyes tight. He ground an index finger hard into his temple. He'd just have to tell him. Go right in, sit down in those plushy black leather chairs and tell the truth.

  Mr. Cruz, you know that old nigra man you wanted? See, I tole my friend from back home to do it. But he's kinda slow and, well, he thinks he looks like Elvis. Yes, Elvis. And he got run off before he could grab the fool.

  Man, he was fucked.

  As he rounded the corner onto Conti, he formulated another plan: Be real business-like. Mr. Cruz would like that. Mr. Cruz, the target has not yet been apprehended, but I'm gonna' assume control of the project. Go to Mississippi myself and finish the job. After all, I am your head of security.

  Much better.

  Even this early, the construction crews hammered away on the new hotel. Keith could hear the buzzing and banging sounds that came around the site. It reminded him construction was how he first made it in New Orleans. That was after Los Angeles and bodyguard school and a short stint trying to be a soap actor. He'd gotten a walk-on role on Days of Our Lives as a male nurse. But his southern accent, his acting coach said, was his biggest flaw for ever getting a speaking part.

  Keith walked further down Conti and into the lobby of the Blues Shack Entertainment Complex. Its three stories contained two bars, a restaurant, an amphitheater, an African American art gallery, a blues museum with an actual reconstructed Mississippi juke joint, a cigar room, and a souvenir shop right out of a tourist's wet dream. All the T-shirts, ball caps, and beer coozies you could want with Little Bob, the guitar-playin' alligator logo.

  He took the dark-stained wood steps to where two beefy white guys dressed in black guarded a double leather-padded door. Keith nodded to them. They nodded back, and the guy on the right spoke into a small microphone on his golf-shirt lapel.

  He'd trained them right.

  The doors parted mechanically to reveal a room that resembled a set from an Arabian movie: big ceramic elephants, thick oriental rugs, lighted candles, incense, beads, and a fat ole Buddha statue. Mr. Cruz was into that stuff, always lighting candles and ringing bells.

  Toward the back, Mr. Cruz's secretary, Kimber, sat at her desk among the weirdness. Keith had to shake his head; the woman was so kick-ass gorgeous. Damned Hawaiian or Samoan or some shit. Always wearin' a little flowered sundress with her bra strap showing. Small waist, big breasts and ass. Legs like a Malibu Barbie.

  "He in?" Keith asked.

  "You have an appointment?"

  "No ma'am. It's important, though." Keith pulled his sleeves up higher over each bicep and ran a hand over his buzz-cut head.

  She licked her lips and sighed, pushing her chair back like he wasn't worth the effort. Then she walked into the back office, never looking Keith in the eye. Even as nervous as he was, he still scoped the outline of her panties through that slick, satiny material. Her ass wigglin' all around in her thong.

  "Come on back, Keith," he heard Mr. Cruz's bourbony voice call.

  He felt like he was in his god-dang principal's office back in Mississippi. As he entered the room, Keith saw Pascal Cruz talking on a headset phone, his arms waving out some details. Dressed in all black. Sport coat over one of those collarless shirts. Long black hair and pointed beard. Black eyes with arched upside-down V's for eyebrows. A face long and thin like he was on a hunger strike. Tall and bony. Loose limbed. Cruz reminded him of Satan from all those Baptist comic books he had to read as a kid.

  Kimber pointed to a chair in front of the glass-top desk, and he sat down. Keith swallowed and didn't look at her ass as she left. He needed to be respectful of Mr. Cruz. Keith was sure the bossman took a piece on the side.

  Mr. Cruz said something to the caller about "real bidness in Nawlins" and to come in the club anytime, for whatever they needed. "Carte blanche," he said, or something like that. Keith took a deep breath and his broad chest filled with air as the man hung up.

  "So, Keith, what can I do for you? Want a drink?"

  "No, sir. The reason why I wanted to take up some of your time today, sir, is that the operation or business that we talked about last week has not lived up to the full expectations of what we've, I mean I, have planned. My contact in Mississippi tells me before the business could be concluded that he, well--got sorta broken in on by two men and that the gentleman we talked about is still free.

  "Shit, I'm sorry, sir. I thought Jes--my contact would've taken care of everything. I'm sorry, sir. I'm real sorry. Shit!"

  "Slow down, Keith. Slow down. Don't get your dick twisted in a knot. Didn't snatch our man, huh?"

  "No, sir," Keith said, not daring to mention the fact that Jesse had tried to kill the man 'cause he was so damned stupid.

  "That's all right," Mr. Cruz said a
s he leaned back in his chrome-and-black-leather chair and looked at the ceiling. He put a finger on each side of his nose and sniffed.

  "Tell you what, Keith," Cruz said. "Let's go eat. I'm hungry as hell, and we'll talk about it. There's a reason for this. There is a reason for everything."

  Keith exhaled, feeling like his face had been turnin' blue.

  "I'll be right down. And on your way out, tell Kimber that I want her to call Floyd. Tell her I want him to meet us for lunch."

  "Yes, sir."

  ?

  Holy. For some reason that was the way Keith had always thought about Pascal Cruz. It wasn't just the way he lectured on all his Far East philosophy--which Keith thought was total bullshit. It was more in his slow, practiced movements and the way he wore his black, the way the pope wears white. It was almost like you expected Pascal Cruz to lead you to the Holy Land or something. Or be some kind of fuckin' prophet. Whatever it was, it sure as shit made him nervous.

  "Keith?"

  "Yessir."

  "You used to be a truck driver, didn't you?"

  "Yessir. Me and my buddy Jesse both."

  "Floyd's what we call a mechanic. Only it ain't engines he cleans up. Comprende?"

  "Yessir."

  Keith rubbed his sweating hands on the napkin tucked in his lap. He had this little piece of napkin string coming unhinged from the rest of the material real nice, like a piece of dental floss.

  Over Mr. Cruz's shoulder, he could see the heat lamps warm the buffet's food line in the Chalmette restaurant. They were early for lunch, the cooks still setting up the trays of food in the family-style arrangement: turnip greens, fried chicken, biscuits, black-eyed peas and all that shit. Steam rose past the sneeze guard above the heat lamps.

  "Yeah, ole Sweet Boy Floyd and me go way back. Back to Memphis and those sweet soul music days. Sweet Boy used to be a backup singer at Stax Records. Man, that was a time. Otis, Sam and Dave, Carla Thomas, Booker T and the MGs. That was the best music ever been made."

  "Yessir."

  "I want you and Sweet Boy to head out to the Delta and clear this mess up. I think it'd be a good learning experience for you."

  "Yessir."

  "Would you quit callin' me sir. Just call me Pascal. Like the painter, okay?"

  "Yessir."

  Keith was so intent on trying to keep eye contact with Mr. Cruz, or Pascal, that he didn't notice the big black man until he wrapped his arms around his boss's neck. Keith was too busy trying to look through Mr. Cruz's black sunglasses to see if the guy really had pupils.

  The black man's forearms were huge and covered in thick, gold jewelry. In fact, there was gold jewelry all around his neck and on his ears. When he smiled, all Keith could see was gold. It was kind of primitive. Like some kind of tribal thing.

  The black man said in a low, vibrating tone, "I love this man." His voice was somewhere between Barry White and James Earl Jones. A goddamn gold-plated Darth Vader.

  Mr. Cruz patted the man's arm and pulled him over into a seat.

  "Keith Fields, I want you to meet Sweet Boy Floyd."

  Keith shook his hand and it was dry. Not like his hair. His hair dripped with oily Jheri curl like a big-assed Jermaine Jackson wanna-be. He wore a black net shirt and slick polyester pants, two steps behind fashion.

  "This yore new talent?" Floyd asked.

  "It is," Mr. Cruz said.

  "Hmm. Aw-right there, podna. You know you hooked up with one fine organiza-shawn with this man? He's a class act."

  "I'm proud to be here," Keith said.

  A small crowd began to gather at the buffet and girls in robes began to walk to each table. Keith knew the deal; he'd been here before. All these teenage girls would sell you raffle tickets for lingerie. They'd parade around and model while you ate. Hell, these girls weren't even as old as Keith's sister, and she was only a junior in high school.

  Only in New Orleans.

  "Let's eat," Mr. Cruz said, as he led his employees to the buffet line. Keith let the two men go ahead as he quietly made a simple plate not to offend them. He was too nervous to eat. Cruz and Floyd bullshitted up ahead of him. He could hear Floyd's odd, high-pitched laugh from the other side of the buffet line.

  "You want some chicken, Keith?" Floyd asked.

  "No sir."

  "Sir. Shi-it."

  Cruz and Floyd laughed some more.

  Keith ate some soggy sweet potatoes and washed them down with a gulp of cold iced tea. He tried to push the food around the plate to make it look like he had eaten more, but Cruz and Floyd had no problem. They shoved their food in like they were hiding evidence, or it was the Last Supper. All that southern soul food in their mouths like a couple pigs. Hell, his manners weren't the best, but these two ate like a couple of prisoners. Arms wrapped around each plate like someone was gonna steal a greasy drumstick. How Cruz stayed so damned skinny Keith didn't know. Maybe he puked it all out like them Romans did.

  Cruz wiped his mouth and slurped down some tea. "Floyd, we had a little trouble in the Delta last night. I want you two to head down there today. I'll have Keith fill you in on the way. But I want this thing resolved quick."

  "Tell me now," Floyd said. "I like to know the who before the what."

  Cruz looked at an elderly pair of men behind him and turned back.

  "Baker's dead."

  "Thought you wanted it that way," Floyd said. "More of them records for you."

  "The records he had on him were nothin'. Not what he promised."

  Floyd snorted. "Not the lost nine, huh? Man, I cain't believe you fell for that. Ain't no such thing. His yuppie black ass was just workin' your chain like a crank."

  "I still believe it, Floyd. Keith's buddy out in the Delta knows where to find a man who might know where they are. I want you to trap this wild animal and bring him to New Orleans. That professor was on to somethin'."

  Sweet Boy Floyd nodded and kept eating. A moment later, he stuck a toothpick in his mouth, swiveled it to the other side, and said, "Got me some Delta pussy one time. Wasn't too bad."

  Three teenage girls, two blondes and a brunette, walked over to the table wearing nothing but white, lacy cupped bras and high-cut white panties. Their faces were smooth, no zits or anything. Just wide deer eyes and red-painted lips. Angels smiling painfully as a mean-looking old woman stood behind them pushing them on.

  "Would you gentlemen like a ticket?" the brunette asked with arms crossed over her bare stomach.

  "Tell you what, baby," Floyd said, as he chewed on his toothpick and tossed them a hundred. "Y'all come over to see us after the show and show us them lil ole titties of yours, and I'll buy a whole mess of them tickets."

  Pascal Cruz winked at Keith. "You're gonna like workin' with Sweet Boy. This man is the master. You just might learn something. Just keep your eyes open, son." But all Keith could see was his own reflection in Pascal Cruz's black Ray-Bans, his satanic smile spreading wide.

  Chapter 17

  Two days later, Nick still hadn't found out shit. Willie Brown wouldn't let him talk to Cracker, who was still in the hospital. So he spent his time at the Purple Heart with Virginia, making love, drinking, and going over the remaining names on the contact list. No luck. He drove all around Greenwood within a twenty-mile radius to talk to old blues singers or their relatives and friends.

  It was something to do while he waited, like playing solitaire or working a crossword puzzle. But he knew he needed Cracker.

  That morning, he lay on a musty bedspread in the Dixie Motel and mindlessly flipped television channels. Oprah. Love Boat. Soap operas. He threw the remote on the floor. A commercial came on from the Jamaican tourist board showing a white woman having her hair braided by a poor young girl. The young girl smiled and danced. Nick groaned and closed his eyes. Pathetic.

  Why would anyone want to kill an old man like Cracker? He knew why they'd want to kill Baker; the man could've given Mother Teresa a conniption. Maybe Baker pissed off Elvis, and Cracker witnessed it. Hell
, it could be just a simple robbery and murder from that psycho.

  Brown took down the description Nick gave him but refused to put out an APB on a young Elvis Presley. He even asked Nick if he'd been smoking some shit before the other night and he wasn't even joking.

  Nick reached over with a blind hand for the phone, pulled it over to his chest, and called JoJo in New Orleans. He was already missing the rhythms and cadence of his New Orleans circle: coffee at Louisiana Products, night jams in the Quarter, and JoJo's gruff voice.

  Felix, the bartender, answered the phone and told him to hold on.

  Nick had known JoJo since he was a freshman at Tulane. Back then, he already had an appetite for the blues and the natural place to filter in New Orleans was JoJo's. Nick used to go there at least three nights a week, sitting and watching Loretta, Fats, or the house band.

  JoJo knew Nick and his friends played football at Tulane and would send them over a round of Dixies. Their friendship never progressed over a polite nod, a named greeting, or the regular "how's the team doing?" questions.

  But a woman changed all that--not just any woman, but a blonde-haired siren in a sundress. It was during the football season of Nick's sophomore year. Tulane had lost to LSU again, and he'd gone to JoJo's for another blues-driven Saturday night.

  The woman, she was actually only in her early twenties, decided to dance by herself close to the band. That night it was Chicago Bob, and he was playing some covers like Little Walter's "Dead Presidents" and a little of Elmore James's "It Hurts Me Too."

  This blonde was moving her hands all over her body and really feeling the music. She mimicked all of Bob's licks that night. It was one of the most erotic things Nick had ever seen. Then her dreamy eyes turned to Nick and watched him the whole way through a hip thrust.