Crossroad Blues (The Nick Travers Novels)

by Ace Atkins

  "Aw, fuck it," Henry said as he poured Nick a full glass of whiskey. "I guess it don't matter none now. You know I'm Snooks. If they want to put me in prison, give me a bunk at Angola. I ain't gonna last long."

  He sucked down the rest of his whiskey and looked out the dirty windowpanes.

  Nick pulled a pocket recorder out of his jacket and placed it on the table.

  "No, sir," Henry said. "You want to go back and find what happen, I'll tell you. But ain't no way you gonna record my ass. You hear me? You promise me that this ain't nobody else's bidness?"

  "I can't promise that."

  "Then fuck it. I ain't sayin' nothin' lessen I have your word. It ain't goin' no further. Hear me, son? You hear me?"

  Nick grabbed the recorder and placed it back in his jean jacket. "You have my word."

  Maybe he'd convince him later that the story was too important. But if not, Nick knew he'd have to honor the agreement. It was like what William Holden said in The Wild Bunch: "When you side with a man you stay with him and if you can't do that, you're like some animal."

  "Before I met Johnson, I thought I had the world by the nuts. Had me my own juke, run out the back of a grocery sto' my father left me when he died, and made me a nice little profit with all them farmers 'round. Had a good home, near the store, and jes' married me a fine-lookin' wife. You should've seen her. Had her a Mexican mother and she had these green eyes, long black hair like an Indian squaw, and fine-lookin' body. She was just seventeen years old and, man, I was in love.

  "Well, Johnson used to come by and play at my juke every few months. Sometimes I wouldn't see him for almost a year, and then he would set his guitar down and say he wanted to play. I used to feed him a meal, some whiskey, and let him be on his way. Sometime he'd teach me a few things on the guitar and sometime he wouldn't talk at all. He was real funny that way."

  Nick's hands were quivering. This was it. The story men had spent their entire lives waiting to hear. He didn't move a bit. Didn't smile. Didn't frown. It was like balancing a house of cards on your head. One gesture could bring the whole act down.

  "Back in thirty-eight, he'd been by a few months before and met my wife," Henry said. "Now I ain't sayin' he was just looking at her. I mean, he 'bout fell over when she come out the back of the store carryin' a sack of feed. He said something kinda off-color about her backside. And I tole him if he done that again, I was gonna beat him in the head.

  "Well he jes' laugh and laugh about that; thought it real funny I say that. And soon as he started playin' later that night, he started to sing to her. So now I was mad and told her to go home. She patted my hand and left. And so did Bob, a little later.

  "When I come home from the juke, I heard the back door slam and seen her button up the front of her dress. She deny it was him, but I knew."

  "So when did you see him next?" Nick asked, the words circling in the rotted cottage as unreal as the grainy images from a World War II newsreel. But, somehow, he believed it. Somehow it all made sense. The rain patted the house hard now, and the thunder shook every loose dish inside the cracking wood frame.

  "Before he come back that summer, a man come lookin' for him," Henry continued. "Fat white man in a long black Buick, had this little albino boy come with him, carryin' a bottle of whiskey for him like a little slave or somethin'. He told me he was from Texas and lookin' for a man name Johnson. Then he told me he play the guitar and say what he look like. Say he had this lazy left eye that he kept a tipped hat pulled over."

  The bitter whiskey made the acidic bile rise in Nick's throat. He coughed, watching Henry's gray eyes stare into the equally gray rain through the rusted screen door.

  "When I heard he was playin' down the highway, I knew he was comin' back. First thing I done is go into Greenwood and send a Western Union message to that fat man."

  A truck without a muffler rattled by the house, and the smell of burnt beans grew stronger. Henry got up and turned the burner down under a flowered metal pot.

  "Fat man's name was Devlin," Henry said, leaning into his kitchen sink, looking deep into the drain and rubbing the stubble on his chin. "Said Johnson stole somethin' that was his. He gave me twenty dollars for sendin' the message when he came the next day. Said he wanted to teach Johnson a lesson and ask me to give him a bottle of whiskey."

  Another rumble of thunder rattled the whole house and a coffee cup fell to the floor, shattering. Henry opened the screen door and looked out to the Mississippi.

  "Later that night, I picked him up outside Greenwood. His suit that was always so neat, it was all covered in dust like he just hopped off a train or somethin'. When we got to the juke, I served him a drink, ask him 'bout his records, and how fine he was doin'. He jes' stared down at the bar, like he didn't care nothin' 'bout talkin', and walked out."

  Henry stepped outside, the rain covering his black face, like a drunk man put under a cold shower. Nick followed him and put his hand on Henry's upper arm. Henry jerked away like an angry child and walked out into his yard.

  "I didn't mean fo' all that to happen. When Johnson come back, he jes sat in the corner of the juke, arms folded 'round his guitar. I knew what that white man done. Johnson had a ash face like a corpse. He was dead already and knew it. Kept on mutterin' that the devil comin' for him, time to give his soul and all that crazy mess. He stayed for a while until his partner, man named Honeyboy, come along and see he wasn't jes' drunk. Two fellas put him in back of a flatbed truck, and I ain't never saw him again. I kilt him though; weren't for me, that fat white bastard wouldn't know where he been at."

  "You didn't kill him," Nick said.

  "I kilt him! I kilt the greatest blues player ever lived over a woman who left me six months later for a sour-faced preacher who peed on hisself during Baptist revivals."

  "Did Cracker know all this?"

  "Me and Cracker's sin is a whole 'nother story."

  Chapter 44

  They were back at the kitchen table now, and Nick took another swig of the whiskey. He could feel his hand and upper arm swell in the cast and looked down to his shirt, which was torn from the fight at the Blues Shack. Henry didn't seem to notice. His mind was hundreds of miles and years away.

  "After they took Bob, we closed up the juke joint. I was shuttin' all the doors and gatherin' up the glasses when the fat man came back in. Tole me to keep my nigga mouth shut or I'd end up just like Johnson. He stood there laughing in my own place, sayin' who was I foolin' looking all upset about what he done. He said niggas didn't care no more about killing than an animal.

  "That's when I hit him with the two-by-four in the head. I was mad at him. Mad at Bob. Mad at the man for makin' me a part of what he done. I couldn't stop, and when he reached up under his pant leg, I knew what he was lookin' for. I stopped. It just made me madder. Everybody else gone. I'd knocked over a jug of corn whiskey and the tap, tap, tap sound just hanged there like a clock movin' on."

  "So you killed him," Nick said.

  "No, man sure was about to kill me when that little albino boy name Cracker walked in and shot his boss man right in the neck and then again in the heart. Lil boy fell down on his knees after that. I walked slow over to him, my feet clankin' on the juke's wood floor, and reached out for the gun.

  "You got to understand the mess we was in at the time. A black man that kilt a white man might not see the dawn's light. We jes waited there for some white men to bust in the door and string a noose 'round our necks. But they didn't. The corn whiskey stopped tappin' on the floor and I looked down at that whiskey and white man's blood mixing. It kinda was washin' it away. And I knew what we had to do.

  "I told Cracker to get off his knees and clean the man's blood up. And I knew if we dug a grave, it might make people nervous, so I found a real good spot for the fat man. Problem was that he was so wide it took most of the night to wedge him in there. And then right as the dawn was comin' round through the window, me and Cracker took that long black Buick to a deep part of the Yazoo River and
let it slide on in."

  "And you told Baker everything?" Nick asked.

  "He started comin' 'round early this year, askin' me if I knew Robert Johnson. He knew who I was. He wanted to know why I'd changed my name. What it was all about. I guess I got weak. Told him the same thing I jes told you. I guess it somethin' with bein' old and wantin' to confess yo' sins."

  "And he went looking for Cracker?"

  "Yeah. He say Robert Johnson died about the same time this record producer name Devlin went missin'. Say Devlin might have been the las' person to make records with Bob."

  "What'd you tell him?"

  "Said I didn't know nothin' 'bout some lost Robert Johnson records."

  "Do you?"

  "Man had some recordings on 'im. But I'm gonna tell you the same thing I tole that man. Nothin'. What's buried is gone. Even when that man tried to close down JoJo's if I didn't tell, it didn't make no difference. You ain't cuttin' into my soul no more. Please just go."

  ?

  The black clouds had blown over Orleans Parish. Broken shafts of bright yellow sunlight broke through curtained gray clouds like an image from a religious postcard. The rust on the Greater New Orleans Bridge looked almost purple in the splotched light as Nick drove back into the city.

  It was exhausting to come back into the later century after hearing Henry's story. But Nick didn't feel superior after hearing a tale told by a man partially responsible for his hero's death. Just sad and tired. What a waste of two lives. Earl Snooks had essentially died a short time after Robert Johnson, his ghost still reaching out after all these years.

  There was such an abrupt end to a man who saw beauty in rugged images. Hard, simple words that brought a clarity, color, and feeling to a specific moment, concentrated like only the best poets could write:

  When the train, it left the station

  with two lights on behind

  Well, the blue light was my blues

  and the red light was my mind

  All my love's in vain.

  Nick exited off Camp Street, then took a left on Julia down to the warehouse and reality. He could see the lights were on in the second floor as he drove into the garage that had once served as a loading dock for lumber. For a moment, he just sat in there and stared at the broken patterns in the brick. He shut off the ignition and walked upstairs.

  The front door and the sliding door to his apartment were unlocked. A sad Little Walter tune played low and scratchy on the turntable.

  Nick opened the refrigerator and grabbed a half of a po' boy from earlier and a cold Dixie. As he was about to put on some shorts and running shoes for a jog, he noticed a handwritten note placed on his kitchen counter. "Had to get out for a while," Virginia wrote. "Going for a walk in Audubon Park. Be back in a couple of hours."

  Nick grabbed his keys and ran back down the metal stairs. Little Walter's voice and harp played distorted and burned-out under the needle.

  Chapter 45

  Jesse watched Virginia standing next to the stone entrance of Audubon Park. She wore a flannel shirt tied at the waist, blue jeans, and cowboy boots. Damn she looked fine, just standin' there, face all smooth and body bumpy. He grew hard watchin' her breathe. Most of all, he liked her eyes. He had noticed how blue they were when she brushed against him gettin' off the streetcar. Blue like E's.

  She didn't pay no attention to him though, just looked over the park covered in trees and green like the set from Blue Hawaii. Real plushy. Almost too nice to be real.

  He was gonna grab the woman tonight, anyway but Floyd said he wanted to go along and help. Guess he was mad about that dude kickin' his ass. His face was all swollen and puffy as if he wore a rubber mask.

  Jesse sat and watched from under a gnarled water oak, Spanish moss dripping in front of his face like a veil. He licked a lollipop Inga gave him as he straddled a low branch shaped like a fat woman's arm. He'd be patient for the right moment to bring her in, while Floyd waited in an old Dodge van parked next to the golf course.

  She wouldn't make a scene. He flicked his switchblade out and shaved the tiny black hairs off his thumb. It would work out. He'd get the dude's woman. The dude would then tell him where the real Johnson records were. Then he would take them and sell them. And he, Inga, and Puka could get out of New Orleans and the South.

  Bright light city gonna set my soul, gonna set my soul on fire.

  She walked inside the park. He flicked the blade open again and followed, the spidery moss flailing over him in baptism.

  ?

  The Cadillac fish-tailed as Nick turned onto a partially flooded St. Charles Avenue. He darted through traffic like a scared dog, in and around. He passed a streetcar headed in the same direction. The antebellum and Victorian homes whizzed past in his peripheral vision.

  Nick slammed on his brakes and almost ran over a city worker in a yellow slicker holding up a caution sign while another man filled a pothole. He drove over the streetcar's neutral ground and headed against traffic, as swerving cars blared their horns.

  Cruz had been watching him and knew about Virginia. After the fight at the Blues Shack today, everything was out. No more coy games. No hidden agendas. All the bullshit was gone. This was their chance to grab something he cared about and give them an advantage. He was too damn worried about getting the records, so damned wrapped up in the life of a dead man, that he didn't even watch out for Virginia.

  It was like him to keep himself in the past so much that he completely blocked out the present.

  He passed the construction and weaved back over into the right lane. Son of a bitch, they'd been following him, and he hadn't even noticed. Probably led them right to Earl Snooks. Goddamn that was soft. He didn't take a single precaution for her safety, just skipped around after three men were killed like they couldn't touch him. A tight lump arched in his throat as his mind raced with horrific thoughts of what twisted minds could do to a beautiful young woman.

  ?

  Jesse tickled his arm lightly as he followed the path behind the redhead. The light rain must've driven everybody out of the park. There was just the sound of patting water dimpling little puddles and cicadas grating all around. Jesse stopped as Virginia watched two squirrels tumbling over each other on a putting green as flat and soft as velvet. To the left was a long, flat lagoon.

  This place sure was weird. All those twisted trees like they had been here since before Jesus or something. It was damned awesome. After he got what he wanted and killed the woman, maybe he'd take Inga back here.

  Maybe they could screw monkey-style high in those old trees. Yeah, they'd climb up there naked, and people passing by wouldn't even know what they were doin'. They'd keep quiet. He'd be like a damn ole Tarzan wild man.

  When he turned back on the path, he saw the redheaded woman stare at his hard-on like he was crazy.

  ?

  Nick stopped the car at Tulane and ran across the street, leaving the engine running and the keys in the ignition. He jumped over the stone fence and shouted Virginia's name. The late-day sun heated the pools of water, making steam rise off sidewalks.

  There was a mother pushing a stroller of twins and a couple of college girls jogging. No one was on the golf course, and the rest of the park was empty except for a derelict inside a brick gazebo.

  Nick asked him if he'd seen a woman with red hair. The white man with a brushy white beard and rancid breath nodded.

  "Where is she? When was she here?" Nick asked.

  The man's head lolled around and he smiled.

  "Hey, I said, 'where is she?'" Nick said, moving on the step up toward him. "Where did she go?"

  "Huh?" the man asked.

  Nick kept running forward in the wet grass and began to call for Virginia.

  The shouts of her name fell empty.

  ?

  The smooth androgynous face, pompadour black hair, and sideburns were like looking at a bubblegum publicity shot of a young Elvis. He even had that same practiced coy grin. Virginia stared at t
he boy's face before she noticed the knife hanging loosely in his left hand.

  His smile turned into a leer and he darted for her. She spun around and ran toward a row of homes bordering the park. Huge, rich-looking ones with high fences. He followed and reached for her, pulling her down by the shirt. She knocked his hand away and kicked him hard in the balls. He grunted with pain and pulled her down by a boot. The deep green juice of the grass stained her forearms and the knees of her jeans as she took off.

  She thought about what had happened to the deputy and the old man in Mississippi and when someone had tried to kill Nick in Algiers. This wasn't a time to be tough. She knew the difference between standing up for herself and stupidity. Virginia tried for the fence of a Victorian home and could feel the rough wood under her palms. She tried to gain a foothold as the kid pounced on top of her and pinned her to the ground. He gripped her wrists like tight bracelets and bit into his lip with concentration.

  She screamed and tried to knee him in the groin but missed, kicking him in the hip. She could smell his rancid breath as she dug her nails under the skin of his neck. He hit her hard in the jaw and pressed her shoulders to the ground before placing a blade to her throat.

  He smiled and said, "You scream again, cry, or any of that shit, and me and you'll dance later."

  The boy thrust his pelvis into hers as his eyes rolled into the back of his head.

  ?

  Nick heard something back toward the golf course and turned and ran toward the sound. He was sweating from the humidity and his breath came in large, hard gasps. The cast made him feel off balance as he pushed his way through a group of elderly tourists. They pointed at a map of the park's trail, and one woman called him a rude man.