Crossroad Blues (The Nick Travers Novels)

by Ace Atkins

  He turned and left.

  ?

  Loretta was waiting for Nick at the warehouse. She sat across from Virginia, exchanging pleasantries. Dull patterns of conversation echoed through the open space about weather, music, and pretty red hair. Anything but JoJo screwing him over. Virginia listened as she still lay on the couch with a blanket tucked tightly around her. Loretta looked stiff in her Sunday dress with a black leather pocket book in her lap. She smiled weakly when Nick walked in and stood up.

  He felt like a complete asshole.

  "He's sorry, Nick," she said. "He didn't mean nothin' by it."

  Virginia raised up. "What's the matter?"

  She stretched, yawned, and dropped her feet to the floor. All she had on was a sweatshirt and panties. It was sort of embarrassing. She hadn't changed or offered Loretta anything.

  "Not much," Nick said. "For some reason, JoJo won't tell me who's trying to take me out. It's a small thing, I know, but to me it's important," Nick said, and shook his head. "I'm sorry, that was rude. Loretta, let's go upstairs."

  Loretta passed him, and he patted her warm back. She led the way to the roof with her heels clanking on the stairs like the dull pound of a hammer.

  On the roof, the sun was going down, weak and losing its power, almost white over the Mississippi. The wind blew her stiff black hair as she leaned over the edge and looked at the view.

  "Sometimes I think we should move out of the Quarter, try to get out once in a while. Find some kind of balance from all that craziness. JoJo's been living there ever since he left Mississippi. He was just a shy country boy when we met."

  "I know this isn't you. What's JoJo doing?"

  She took a handkerchief from her purse and dotted her chest. "He's been under some pressure and didn't want to bother you. You know he--we both think of you like a son. I guess us without children and you without parents just fit. But you're always getting yourself in trouble for other people."

  "What kind of pressure?"

  "I think he best tell you."

  "Loretta, he might not want to involve me, but he should've told me something before I almost got killed the other night or had my ass shot off in Mississippi."

  "He didn't know. He really didn't. None of 'em did."

  "Loretta?"

  "He's gonna lose the bar, Nick."

  Chapter 39

  The flame remained even though the fountain's water scattered all around it. The whole concept amazed Jesse. A flame still bustin' through all that wetness. How's that possible? Had to be some kind of magic trick, he thought, as he took another swig of his drink, a big red one full of crushed ice.

  It tasted like Kool-Aid but sure made the world into a view from a Tilt-aA-Whirl. Puka and Inga were with him inside the bar's courtyard sippin' on the same fancy drinks that looked like they were poured inside a glass lantern. Puka kept on tellin' him about the plan, and Inga just twirled the silver bar pierced in her navel. She had on another one of them baby-doll shirts she'd cut off right under her tits. Had a picture of a bear right between 'em.

  "You just keep actin' like you're part of the program, Jesse," Puka said. "Don't mouth off to any of 'em. Even that big nigger you was tellin' me about."

  "How are you gonna sell them records?" Jesse asked. "Mr. Cruz is the only one who gives a shit 'bout them things."

  "That ain't true. Plenty care about ole things. Had a woman from Memphis pay me four hunnerd for an ole metal bed. You believe it?"

  Puka smiled wide, all proud of himself, exposing a row of brown coffee-stained teeth with a couple missin'. He looked kinda strange in that fancy New Orleans bar with overalls on, even though he changed his T-shirt at the Holiday Inn near the Superdome.

  Jesse was better than this. He'd moved up. He and Inga had gone to the Riverwalk earlier to spend some money after he'd left the albino to die. They'd bought some frilly women things, and he got a real cool black leather jacket, a new pair of black jeans, a bottle of Vitalis, and a box of pralines. Jesse didn't even think about the old man, knew he had dropped dead somewhere out in the weeds.

  "You're just pissed at him 'bout Keith," Jesse said.

  "Goddamned right I am! That son of a bitch got my son killed."

  Puka leaned forward, his breath all ragged and tired, with a face the color of an old beet. Maybe he shouldn't push it; man might have a heart attack.

  Jesse toed his shoes over at Inga and smiled. "How 'bout you, baby? What are you thinkin' 'bout this? Wanna take the money and head on down the road?"

  "This place scares me. All these dark corners and mean people. I don't want to stay here. I want to see Los Angeles. That place where stars put their hands. Then we go to Las Vegas."

  E did have his Hollywood years. If Cruz ever found out that he didn't take care of the old man like he said, he best be movin' down the road anyway. He'd send Sweet Boy right down on him, real quick-like.

  "There you go, son," Puka said. "She's done spoke for you."

  A couple guys near the fountain kept staring over at their table and laughing. At first, he thought it was Puka's overalls, callin' them country hicks and all that mess. He'd heard that his whole life. Reminded him of the time some boys from Ole Miss threw a beer can at his head when he was walking on the highway. Called him junior trailer trash.

  They giggled again.

  Then one got up for a beer and stopped cold in front of him. "You know, little E, that Elvis was just a no-talent hillbilly? That's why he died bloated and fat on the toilet."

  The rest of the boys laughed so hard that one almost fell in the fountain.

  Jesse felt for his knife inside the leather jacket.

  "Naw-aw, Jesse," Puka said. "We need you to be cool until we leave here. Think of how you could help your momma with that money. She's always wanted a satellite dish and maybe some money, so she didn't have to work in that Zippy Mart no more."

  Jesse pulled his hand back out of his jacket. The boys kept on looking over at Inga. And damn if she hadn't sat up straight and started staring at them. The drunk guy who'd spoke ill of E made a motion for her to show her tits. She looked over at him, lickin' her lips, and cupped a small breast.

  "What the hell you doin'?" Jesse asked. "You done gone crazy messin' around in front of me?"

  She patted Jesse's leg, got up, and whispered in his ear. "Would you really hurt him for me?"

  Inga moved on down the steps and into the night of Bourbon Street. The boy in a sweater with his hair all styled followed. He gave a few high fives to his friends as he left.

  "I'll be back, Puka," Jesse said.

  "You two kids are sick people. That's the difference between you and my son. You like to hurt, and Keith just did his job."

  Jesse followed the boy and Inga down St. Peter until they turned at a gas lamp and into an alley without lights. She had her arms around him and looked at Jesse over his back, then moved a hand down and start fiddlin' with his pants.

  Jesse thought the veins in his head were gonna bust watchin' that mess.

  Like a damned bear cat, he walked over to the drunk boy, flicked out his knife, and pressed it tight to the boy's pecker. He held it there like he was about to whittle a piece of cheese and laughed.

  "Why'd you call E a no-talent hillbilly? You boys think that's funny? Makin' fun of Him like that? I think He needs a sacrifice. Some type of offering. And seein' as how you're real proud of your pecker, here you go."

  "Please. Please."

  "Don't say it to me. Say it to Him."

  "Him who?" the boy asked, as he shook in Jesse's grasp. His pecker had shrunk like a dead worm.

  "E. Tell E how sorry you are."

  The boy bubbled out some nervous laugher. "My buddies paid you to do this. Like you can rent Marilyn Monroe hookers. Right?"

  Jesse cut into the skin, just a bit.

  "JESUS."

  "No, I said to E. Sorry, remember?"

  "E. I'm sorry."

  "Holy E."

  "Holy E. I'm sorry."
>
  "Sorry for what?"

  "Sorry for calling you a name."

  "And what?" Jesse asked.

  "I won't do it again."

  "Do you promise to always respect Elvis Presley, the holy mother Gladys Love, and the great estate of Graceland?"

  "I do."

  "Then take this small cut as your remembrance of being born again."

  Jesse tripped the boy into the hard flagstone, leaving him groveling and inspecting his pecker. Jesse grabbed the girl's hand, and they skipped down St. Peter to grab Puka and get back to the hotel. He needed to be fresh. Tomorrow was when Mr. Cruz wanted the next deed to be done. Viva Las Vegas.

  Chapter 40

  Nick watched the twin Creole doors of JoJo's Blues Bar through the front window of a used-book shop across Conti. He thumbed through a collection of Louisiana folk tales called Gumbo YaYa and glanced up in spurts. A dull yellow light shone through windows heavily papered with bills for upcoming acts.

  He slipped the book back into place and spoke briefly with the store's owner, who offered some bitter coffee that tasted like burnt motor oil. Nick tried not to make a face before he walked to the other side of the door and pretended to continue browsing. Still no JoJo. The coffee made him wince as he looked at a stack of recent acquisitions. No Salinger. No blues histories.

  What else was there?

  To better read the spines of a flat stack, he knelt and turned his head sideways. Out of the corner of his eye, through the store's barred windows, he saw JoJo emerge and briskly walk down Conti, away from the river. Nick thanked the owner for the coffee, dumped it in the trash, and began pursuit.

  Outside, the sounds of the Quarter rattled and drummed in a distant party. Even on a humid Sunday night, the conventioneers were going to get their money's worth.

  JoJo wore a blue short-sleeved dress shirt and black pants, his grayed head like a big Q-Tip walking past the colonnades. He moved fast for an old man, and Nick had to keep his eyes trained through the milling crowd on Chartres not to lose him.

  Where the hell was he headed? JoJo stopped once to tie his shoe and talk to a bouncer at a bar near the marble Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries Building, still an unfinished and vacant shell.

  JoJo kept walking, passed Bourbon, and headed toward Rampart Street. Now Nick was clueless. There was nothing on Rampart except a few brave business owners, hoodoo parlors, illegal gambling dens, crack houses, fifteen-dollar-whore brothels, and stained-mattress flophouses.

  Rampart was once a moat, a dug pit where French settlers put raw sewage and other crap to drive away Indians but instead attracted malaria-laced mosquitoes. Every time Nick passed the old street, he thought about what it was like when the asphalt was a brown bubbling pit of shit.

  Not much had changed, he thought, passing a neon-lit liquor store where they sold Colt 45 in ice-filled trash cans. Back in the twenties and thirties, the place was a hotbed for jazz musicians. Now Rampart was better known for its crime--the northernmost point of the Quarter, where no one wants to be during the night.

  JoJo passed Congo Square and the giant bronze statue of Louis Armstrong that played to an empty park, as Nick kept back two blocks from his friend. Nick's head was down and his feet shuffled slowly. Mannerisms tipped people off.

  He was about thirty yards behind when JoJo opened a black iron gate and disappeared. Nick walked faster, head up now, hearing his own boots clop, until he passed a cinder-block wall topped with shards of multicolored glass. The gate swung back slowly to its latch.

  Nick caught it. From inside a squat moss-covered shack came booming black voices. Friendly sounds. No windows, light coming from an open door. As he peeked inside, he understood--JoJo's cronies sitting on their old black asses passing around a bottle of Jack Daniel's.

  Sun Droyton, a bear of a man with a copper complexion, sat with his ham-size arms crossed before him, straw Panama Jack hat on his head. He wore a sliver of mustache and a soul patch on his face. His eyes were hooded and sleepy as he watched JoJo pour a drink.

  In another chair was Roland Gooddine, a wiry, scruffy man with skin as black as the baseball hat on his head. He had a hawk nose and small eyes, and his laughter was as constant as a nervous cough.

  Nick liked both men very much. JoJo's regulars. Men who always made him feel welcome, yelling his name as soon as he entered the bar. Remembered every sack he had with the Saints. They were the ones who threw him a party that Monday night. Called him "an awright bastard" for knocking the coach down.

  Nick thought about walking right in, but he didn't. He slid from view, sat on a pile of bricks, and listened.

  "I gots my car stuck down on Esplanade. Y'all take me back? We need to find somewheres--" Roland began.

  "We need to settle this shit," JoJo said.

  "I say we kill that son of a bitch that messed with you," Sun said.

  "There ain't a thing I can do but go to the police. And they ain't gonna do shit. If they do, those men'll mess with Henry," JoJo said.

  "You send them to me, and I'll put a mother-fuckin' shotgun in their mouths," said a voice out of view.

  "Where them Playboys at?" Roland asked.

  "Hey, shut up," said Sun.

  Nick yawned, brushed the dirt off his boots, and decided to walk inside. All the voices stopped and heads turned. He found a chipped ladder-back chair and sat down. "Yeah, where are all the Playboys?"

  "Nick," JoJo said softly.

  "Now I'm hurt," Nick said. "You fellas are having a party and didn't even tell me about it." He leaned back in the creaking chair and stared at dozens of water-stained centerfolds that decorated the ceiling. "Oh, there they are, like stars in the sky."

  "Get this honky the fuck out of here," said an old man with gray eyes. Even had on the same brogan shoes and overalls. There was a small amoeba-shaped scar on his cheek.

  "You have insurance, Mr. Snooks?" Nick asked, waving his orange cast.

  "That ain't Snooks," Roland said as he took off his tattered baseball cap and wiped his brow. "That's just ole Henry."

  "Thanks," Nick said.

  Roland grinned and nodded.

  "You owe me a Jeep, Henry," Nick said. "We'll forget the arm. I've broken it twice before, along with all my fingers. See how crooked they are?"

  The old man thrust his hands deep in his overalls and spit on the floor.

  "I don't owe you shit. You the one come 'round and started fuckin' everythin' up. You stupid white-bread--"

  "Hold on, Henry," JoJo said.

  "Can we please cut through this immense amount of horse shit? I want to help you guys," Nick said.

  "Get him the fuck out of here," Henry said.

  "You really make me feel welcome here in the Honeycomb Hideout. But I'm not leaving until you tell me what you guys are up to. Was Earl Snooks a friend of yours? Did he know something about Robert Johnson's death? Is that what this is about?"

  "Nick, please," JoJo said. "We'll talk 'bout this later at the bar."

  "JoJo, that would've been fine before I dragged my ass all around Mississippi and almost got killed by this crazy bastard in Algiers."

  "You shouldn't be here," Henry said.

  Nick put all four legs of the chair on the ground, took the bottle of whiskey from Sun, and smiled. "Like I said, I'm not leaving. Who wants to start a little group therapy?"

  ?

  Two hours later, the Jack Daniel's bottle was almost empty, words slurred, and the walls crumbled. To breathe the hot air was like sticking your mouth on the end of a hair dryer, and Nick had to intermittently wipe the beads of perspiration from his brow. The inside of his cast felt like a wet sock. Outside, a car rambled down Rampart Street with rap music pounding from its speakers.

  Buried secrets seemed out of place with the decade.

  Roland made an announcement to everybody that he was leaving to piss and buy another bottle of booze. "Don't mix up the two," Sun said, as his buddy hit his head on a swinging yellow bulb.

  "Y'all cough a little
up for the fund," Roland said.

  Nick gave him a ten.

  Henry's eyelids drooped low, and he ran a hand over his craggy face as if to remember where he sat. He stared blankly at the mildewed walls of the cinder-block shack and then looked up at the naked women on the ceiling. His weathered face looked like deeply stained leather.

  He had to be at least twenty years older than JoJo.

  "Why'd you pay to have me killed, Henry?" Nick asked.

  "Shit. If I wanted to kill you, you'd be livin' in a dirt-covered box."

  "Why'd you try to kill me, Henry?"

  "It's my fault, Nick," JoJo said. "I started askin' people about Earl Snooks for ya'."

  "So?"

  "Ole Henry thought you were like that friend of yours, Baker," Sun said. "Baker wanted to know about Snooks too."

  "I'm proud to say, I'm nothing like Michael Baker," Nick said.

  "Motherfucker sold me out," Henry said. "He said we was friends. Said he wouldn't tell nobody. Jes' like a priest, is what the man said. Said to get it all out about Snooks."

  "Get what out, Henry?"

  "I ain't fool enough to repeat myself."

  "Son of a bitch." Nick stood up.

  "Tell him, Henry," JoJo said.

  "Fuck you, JoJo!"

  "Henry. Goddamn it!" JoJo said.

  "It was a mistake talkin' to that man Baker. Fuck it all," Henry said as he grabbed his coat and shuffled for the door.

  "Did you tell him about Cracker and Johnson's lost records?" Nick asked.

  "Bullshit," JoJo said.

  Henry stopped and turned. "It ain't bullshit," he said as he ran a fist under his nose and sniffed, then looked at the faces surrounding him. "It ain't bullshit."