by Ace Atkins
?
Cruz walked out into the hot August sun from the small brick building near Esplanade where he kept his cars and extra supplies for the Blues Shack. He put on his shades and ran his hands down over his suit to press out the black wrinkles.
"Floyd, this man is old. We don't want him to die. Go get him something to eat and let him sleep a little. He'll come around. But"--Cruz raised a finger--"if he dies without telling us anything, then all this will be worthless."
"Shit, what that ole fucka want? Chicken or a po' boy?"
"Ask him, Floyd, and give me a call later. I'll be in the office."
"Pascal, between you and me, you bonin' yo' secretary, ain't you? That's why you spend all that time at the club."
"I like to work. That's why I'm successful."
"That ain't no answer," Floyd said, his hair shimmering like a dirty, soaked mop.
"Call me later, Floyd, and tell me where I need to send you next. I don't give a shit if it's damned Tibet."
"Man, I thought one of them records was it, when we started to play that shit, sound like him to me."
"It wasn't Robert Johnson."
"How can you be sure?" Floyd asked, his gold teeth reflecting the sun.
"I just know."
"So we've just bent over twice and taken it in the ass over two collections that ain't worth a squirta piss. Hey man, you remember you wanted to know what was happenin' after Baker showed you them record contracts he found? Them ragged yellow ones from Texas that said this Devlin guy had some studio time with Johnson before he died?"
"Yeah?" Cruz asked, cleaning his sunglasses and slipping them back on.
"Well, I checked out them contracts, and they was real. Man I found said he'd have to be a kick-ass forger to fake that paper. You knew that. But I also followed Baker 'round for a few days. Even listened to him bone his old lady from outside his bedroom window. Fine-lookin' white woman with tits like apples. Anyway, I seen him meet a few times in this place called JoJo's down on Conti."
"Yeah, I know the place. Probably be out of business when we start revving up."
"I checked it out. Turns out the old fucker who owns the joint is from the Delta. Real plugged in with that old circuit. Knew all them King Biscuit folks like Sonny Boy and Robert Lockwood."
Cruz stopped and stared at a street painter working. A dying banana-tree leaf touched his cheek. The man's painting was of the same alley where they stood. But there were no cars, no airbrushed signs advertising two-for-one T-shirts or jumbo cocktails. Only the flagstone sidewalks, the crooked iron balconies above the colonnades and passing horses. The world is a place of perceptions, he thought.
"Hey?" Floyd said. "See what I'm sayin'?"
Chapter 29
Randy Sexton lived in an 1860s shotgun cottage painted a bright yellow with green gingerbread trim, just off the streetcar line in Uptown. On the porch, Randy slumped in an unpainted Adirondack chair as an American flag caught stiffly on the breeze. He sipped on a glass of ice tea. Work gloves lay on the floor beside him. Randy stood and smiled as if embarrassed by his leisure, then walked down the steps and caught Nick's hand.
It was Saturday morning, but in New Orleans, the days of the week rolled by without consequence. Sometimes Nick felt he lived in the perpetual whirl of a never-ending party that was beginning to tire.
"Hey, man, I'm so sorry," Randy said. "I had no idea about your being in jail until yesterday, and your lawyer told me you were on the way home. Jesus. What happened?"
"Someone killed the old albino man and a sheriff's deputy who was helping me. When I got back to the motel the other night, they thought I was the killer. Man, I'd left them just a few hours before and they were just watching TV, laughing. I should have stayed."
Branches from the hedges littered the stone walkway to the porch like hair on a barbershop floor. An old plastic radio with a rounded dial was tuned to a classical station playing Dvorak's symphony From the New World.
Randy nodded to a chair beside him and took another gulp of tea.
"Would you like some?"
"You have a beer?" Nick asked.
"It's ten in the morni--I'll get the beer."
He returned with a bottle of Dixie. Nick drank it in two gulps. The bottle was cold to the touch and the beer burned the back of his throat.
"Listen, I don't know what to do. This man Cracker had some old records he kept under his porch, said they were old blues recordings from the thirties. He said Baker stole the other half of the records. The ones I saw were all lacquer-coated aluminum. They weren't labeled and we never had them played. Hell, they could have been cows making love. Anyway, they were with Cracker and the deputy, Willie Brown, when I left. Now the sheriff's department people say they can't find anything like them."
"Holy shit," Randy said.
"Yeah, man. Holy shit. Brown thought Baker was trying to sell the first set and sent someone back for the rest."
"I don't know. He was too arrogant for that. It's not his style to leave New Orleans in mystery," Randy said. "He'd miss all his waiters and tailors too much. He was a man of routine. You know, I could tell you any day of the week what was in Baker's pockets? I could."
"Holes?"
"No, a pack of Doublemint, a money clip, keys, a handkerchief, and a rusted dime with a hole through it."
"I won't ask," Nick said. "You ever heard anything about Robert Johnson having another recording session? That other tracks exist?"
"Never. You would know more about that than me, man. Is that what you think those records were? Lost recordings?"
"I don't know. Maybe it's just something I'd like to believe. Would be a hell of a reason to kill somebody, maybe the greatest find of this century. Poor Willie Brown. He was a good guy. Kinda reminded me of Jay Medeaux."
Nick fiddled with the label on the Dixie bottle.
"Listen, I've got an idea of something we can do besides sitting on our hands and recounting the contents of Michael's pockets," Nick said.
"What?"
"Do you trust me?"
"Yeah."
"That I'd never do anything to embarrass the department?"
"Yeah."
"Let me use your phone. I need to make a few calls."
Chapter 30
Detective Jay Medeaux arrived red-faced and sweating at the Riverwalk. His tousled mop of blond hair and boyish face was a contradiction to the button-down shirt and candy-striped tie. A beeper hung beneath his big belly, and a Beretta 9mm on his hip.
"The monkey is in the tree," Jay said.
"Watch out for falling coconuts," Nick responded.
Jay sat down and pulled out two pieces of faxed info and handed them to him. Nick knew Jay from his sophomore year at Tulane, where they'd roomed together and shared a common interest in beer and a hatred of authority. Sometimes late at night after several beverages at JoJo's, they'd call their position coaches, pretending to be sportswriters for The Times-Picayune, wanting to know about their last bowel movement or the effectiveness of the "Thigh Master" on college athletes.
Jay never finished college. He left Tulane shortly after his knee turned into a knotted pulp that resembled a rotten grapefruit. It wasn't long before he enrolled in the academy to fulfill his lifelong dream of becoming a cop. He always loved those Eastwood movies.
"There you go. Kid's name, date of birth, previous arrest record, and his address in New Orleans," Jay said.
"You're all right, brother."
"Where's my sandwich, brother?"
"Easy there, big fella," Nick said. "Don't bite my hand."
"Well, get that shit out of the way."
He handed Jay a wax-paper-wrapped muffuletta from Central Grocery and a pack of Zapp's chips. The sandwich was stacked with salami, ham, provolone, and olive relish on special Italian bread. Damned good.
"So what's this all about?" Jay asked.
"I don't know if you want to know."
"I bet I do, since I'm risking my ass."
; "Risking your ass? That's a little extreme," Nick said, and stole a chip. "You remember a colleague of mine, Michael Baker? No? Well, he disappeared while working on a project in Mississippi. When I went looking for him, one of his sources was kidnapped or killed or something while I was there. This kid you checked out for me was the one found dead at the scene with a sheriff's deputy."
Jay stared out at a tourist paddle wheeler playing calliope music and pigeons walking over an indigent girl passed out beside a fountain. Her hair was the color of cotton candy.
"The deputy, Willie Brown, played football at LSU Ever hear of him?"
"Can't say I have," Jay said. "But, of course, football players either study law enforcement or early childhood development."
"Or history?"
"Yeah, sorry, Nick. Some of the guys were intellectuals or harmonica players. Heard you were in the pokey. Make any pen pals?"
"How come every time you talk about jail, you have to throw in homosexuality? I'm sure lots of guys leave jail untouched."
"Like I said, make any pen pals?"
Nick opened his sandwich and a bag of chips. As he ate, the oil added fine thumbprints to the papers. He read back through, folded the sheets, and tucked them into his jeans.
"Kid has an address in the French Quarter," Nick said as he scrunched up the sandwich's wax paper. "Why would anyone leave him at the scene?"
"I'd say they didn't have time to grab the body. Probably got scared and hauled ass. Or thought it'd look like he was the shooter."
"I'd like to see his place."
"I'm sure their sheriff's department would want us to check his pad out," Jay said. "It would be very cooperative if the NOPD helped."
"You want an impartial observer?"
"Know any good ones?"
?
Keith Fields had lived in a one-bedroom apartment on the second story of an antique shop that specialized in tin soldiers. The door to the stairwell off Royal Street was unlocked, and they walked up the creaking steps to the unit. The halls smelled like dust and mildew, with dark water stains splotched through the white paint. At the top of the stairs, Jay knocked on the door.
No answer.
Jay knocked again and tried the doorknob.
"We really should try to notify any friends and family of the deceased, especially since they might be in danger," Jay said, jamming a tool that looked like a carrot peeler into the lock.
Jay pushed open the door, and Nick walked ahead into the apartment. The place was neat: white leather couch, big-screen television, a mirrored coffee table with a stack of Penthouse magazines arranged in a fan. In a corner, toward two French doors, Fields had a cheap weight set with several pictures of bodybuilders stapled in a collage on the wall.
"I'll start with the bedroom," Nick said.
Nick pulled out each drawer from a chest and looked not only inside but behind. He went through the dead kid's clothes: T-shirts, red satin underwear, a few pairs of blue jeans, and several pairs of black pants.
There was a bedside table, but its drawer was empty. Nick looked under the bed and mattresses and found a few more Penthouse magazines, a pack of condoms, and a Polaroid picture of a girl covered in Mardi Gras beads, flashing her breasts. A golden cross hung on the wall and a Bible rested on the bedside table.
In the closet, clothes hung neatly on hangers, and more black pants and several empty slots. On a shelf above the hanging clothes were two rolled posters of Budweiser girls, a movie poster for a gangster film, a Smith & Wesson still in the carton, and an empty shoebox.
Nick reached down and slipped his hand into the assorted acrid-smelling shoes and found nothing. He reached into coat and pants pockets. Nothing.
"How you doing?" he called to Jay.
"Kid liked beer. Couldn't have been too bad. Seemed to like to bet on sports, not much else. Kept some pot in here. Usual shit. How 'bout you?"
"Either this kid throws away anything personal or we got beat," Nick said.
"Have you found a checkbook or canceled pay stubs? Maybe he had another job."
"I don't think this guy clocked in and out. Can we get a photo of him?"
"He was arrested in Mississippi a few years ago. I could have his mug shot sent here."
"That'd be great. Maybe you could call the landlord too."
"Maybe you could kiss my ass," Jay said. "This isn't my biggest priority, ya know? Right now, I'm assigned to the rape and murder of an Uptown socialite. Your old friend Kate Archer has been busting the department's ass every day for the last week."
"Please."
"You still hate hearing her name, don't you?"
"Doesn't bother me a bit. I've found someone new," Nick said as he reached deep into a pants pocket and found a plastic card with a driver's-license-size picture. It was a security ID badge for a local club.
Chapter 31
Since it opened in New Orleans two years ago, Nick had done his best to stay away from the Blues Shack. He had no hatred for it, nor did he make any kind of high-seated assumption that it bastardized the pureness of blues. He knew the place was all about money. All the public relations bullshit couldn't fix that. The Blues Shack was nothing more than a watered-down version of the real thing for tourists--the Putt-Putt golf of the blues world, complete with fake weathered clapboards and strategically placed rusted road signs on the wall.
As Nick walked through the purposefully crude drawings and tin-shingled doors, listening to the tinkling keys of Professor Longhair, he knew he was in Disneyland. Safe, kind, and packaged for mass consumption.
A perky blonde with a bobbed haircut and large breasts smiled at Nick as he walked through the door. An African-style dress hung off her curved frame. She asked if he wanted to sit in the Blues Hall of Fame Room or at the bar.
Nick said neither. He wanted to talk to the owner.
She laughed.
"Are you trying to get a bartending job?"
"Far as you know."
"'Scuse me?"
"I'm an old friend of his," Nick said. "We shared the same prison shower. He handed me the soap."
Her mouth turned crooked as she cradled a phone between her ear and shoulder. "Is Mr. Cruz in?"
Nick blew his breath out his cheeks and waited. He looked up at the high video monitors playing several historic blues performances. Below, a teenage, T-shirt-wearing tourist nodded and laughed at the music being played over him. He had on a pair of sunglasses and mimicked being blind.
It was like watching someone taking a dump in church.
Nick shook his head before the hostess pointed him to a tall, winding wooden staircase to the second floor. The rail was carved to look like a snake, and the scales felt smooth underneath his hand.
"Mr. Cruz's executive assistant will wait for you upstairs," she said.
At the landing stood a beefy white guy with a buzz-cut head and thick biceps who wore a radio on his hip. Executive assistant? The guy had his hands tucked underneath his armpits and blew a pink bubble out of his mouth. He steered Nick to the twin padded doors, spoke into his lapel, and left.
The doors parted as if in a corny biblical epic.
?
"You're a friend of Mr. Cruz's?" a beautiful Asian woman asked Nick. She wore a light, flowered sundress and no bra. Must be casual day.
A fattened Buddha statue sat in the hall behind the woman. The rest of the furnishings were a mixture of Scandinavian and Oriental: big black leather couches, chrome racks, curvy floor lamps with tasseled rugs, long, rounded pillows, and ceramic elephants.
"Actually, no. I wanted to ask him a few questions about an employee, Keith Fields."
"So who are you?"
"That is a very spiritual question I'm constantly asked. Perhaps that's a question for Buddha."
She frowned and stared at the white pages of a leather day planner sitting on top of a glass desk. On her right forearm were four small bruises like an inked hand print.
"Is Mr. Cruz in?"
"He's in a m
eeting right now," she said.
Nick sank into the black leather couch and lit a cigarette.
"Sir, we don't allow smoking here."
"I'm sorry," Nick said, blowing out a stream of smoke. It was obnoxious, rude, and intentional.
"Sir, I'm going to have to call security."
"Tell him it'll take five minutes."
From a door down the hall Nick heard a door rattle, and bourbony laughter rushed out the open door. A short, dumpy man with dyed black hair was followed out by a taller man in an all black suit and sunglasses. The taller man was skeletal, with a gaunt face and thin, bony fingers. A black pointed beard jutted from his chin. He looked over at Nick and then put a hand on the dumpy man's shoulder. Nick recognized the shorter guy as a city councilman.
The tall man walked the councilman out with his hand his shoulder the whole way. It looked as if he were actually massaging the guy's neck. Whatever it takes. Nick stood up, his cigarette dangling loosely in his mouth as if he were Mississippi Fred McDowell.
The man turned and stared at Nick. "You know, if you did that in L.A. they'd put you under the jail."
"I'll have to make a note to myself never to go to L.A.," Nick said.
"Mr. Cruz, do you want me to call security?" the secretary asked.
Cruz shook off the question and said, "What can I help you with, sir?"
"I need five minutes to talk to you about an employee of yours who was killed in Mississippi."