Crossroad Blues (The Nick Travers Novels) (24 page)

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

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 the 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.

The sound came from back toward St. Charles Avenue. Maybe he was hearing things, his mind becoming a paranoid trap from the day. Could have been a kid, anything. But he needed to find Virginia before Cruz did. That line of action wasn't a stretch for the man; it was the way he operated. For her to be prancing around smelling the roses and shit like that was ridiculous.

He needed to find her and take her to Jay's to stay, while he fixed this mess. Damn, why didn't she understand? She should have known to stay inside and wait. Wasn't that clear?

Jesse had a hand over the woman's mouth as they lay flat on the ground. They were right next to a fence and under some bushes. He could hear the dude shoutin' the woman's name like a crazy man. Ain't no way the big dude could see 'em unless he came over and started rootin' around here. It was a little trick he picked up from that pasty ole fool. Make like an animal. Blend in like a rabbit or a monkey.

Jesse had his other hand underneath the woman's soaked flannel shirt and knotted her undershirt so tight around her chest it made her gasp. She needed to know this was takin' care of business. That big dude come 'round here, the deal was done. Jesse was too smart for that.

He would wait until the dude was out of sight, and then crawl under the fence to where Floyd was waitin' in the van. He was probably wonderin' where he was at now, as he bobbed his head to that awful jungle music.

The woman smelled good. Kinda sweet. He licked her face to see what her sweat tasted like. She gasped again on his wet hand and he gripped her face tighter. The big dude just ran on by, none the wiser.

"C'mon. Let's go, baby doll. You're my ticket."

Nick roamed the park for almost an hour. His knees ached from trudging the concrete in his cowboy boots, and his casted hand had turned a bright purple from the earlier fight. He walked the entire perimeter and inside the park four times, from St. Charles Avenue to the Audubon Zoo.

He sat down on a bench and cradled his head in his hands. He finally called the warehouse and his machine picked up. He called again a few times, then went back to the park.

That was when saw it: a wadded, soaked flannel shirt. He reached for it and smelled the damp odor of her honeysuckle perfume. But it was the freshly carved letters in a nearby oak tree that made a huge stone sink in his stomach.

In the glow of a high fluorescent lamp, it was clear:
TCB
and a jagged line of a lightning bolt's flash.

"Got me a nice eviction notice to be out at the end of the month. Been here for almost thirty years. I'd like to take Pascal Cruz and kick that notice up his ass so far he chokes on it. That ain't the big worry though."

Nick got up, dropped a quarter in the jukebox for "Walkin' After Midnight," and returned to the back of the bar. Sometimes when you're in love, it's hard to see the woman's whole face for concentrating on every curve and line. Nick could only imagine pieces. Dimples, chin, and a spray of freckles across her nose. Then he saw the gold mouth of Cruz's man and gripped a shot glass hard in his hand. He wanted to take it and throw it into the warped, staring reflection and see all the candied liquor pour out in a sweet mess of color. Nick pulled his hand back as Henry walked in and shook rain from his ragged houndstooth hat.

The old man didn't look back into the bar's narrow corner, just found his stool at the end of the bar, like it was any other night, and ordered a drink. Nick slowly placed the shot back on the bar.

Nick walked over to the bar and sat down next to Henry. The old man just stared straight ahead until Keesha plunked down a tall Beam and Coke.

"You know where they are?" Nick asked.

"I ain't going back to Mississippi," Henry said.

"Can you help me?"

"What? So you can make all that money?"

"Listen to me, Henry. I listened to your story, and I appreciated your being honest about what happened on that night in thirty-eight. But if you want a quick shot at redemption, this is your chance. Another man is after those Johnson records, and he took a woman who didn't have a damn thing to do with any of this."

"Shiiit."

"They'll kill her, Henry, just like they killed Baker and Cracker."

JoJo moved behind both of them and put his arms around both their shoulders. His soft cotton shirt felt smooth against Nick's neck. Fatherly. "Henry, don't fuck with us, if you know about them records. I ain't bullshittin'. It's time for you to come through."

Henry took a long pull of his drink and stared at the old photo of himself. He turned back to look at JoJo.

Two hours later, all three were in JoJo's Cadillac headed on a midnight run to a small town outside Greenwood, Mississippi, where it all began.

Hours later, Nick felt the humid Mississippi night air on his face and heard JoJo and Henry mumbling in the front seat. His head pounded as he looked at the luminescent dial on his stainless-steel diver's watch. Past three A.M. The old leather seats smelled of mothballs and faint mildew.

Nick tried not to think of Virginia. When he did, he became queasy and could see a torrent of hair-pulling and rape. He ground his teeth hard to escape the image, and pushed himself up from the backseat to see the flat expanses of fat white cotton almost ready to harvest.

The moonlight kept everything washed in surreal colors like a black-and-white film. Sun-parched clapboard shacks, rusted trailer homes, and laundry still on the lines dotted the landscape. A few pine and oak trees were lonely islands surrounded by the naked dirt. Scenes best accompanied by a lone bottleneck guitar.

"God, I feel like a cat just shit in my mouth," Nick said.

"I wasn't pourin' them Dixies and Jack down your throat," JoJo said, looking back into the rearview mirror and shaking his head. "Henry's takin' me the rest of the way to Quito--"

"Turn right over there," Henry said, pointing to a lonely crossroads.

Headlights hit a single dead tree near a cotton field. The tree's sun-bleached branches hung like mangled arms. Nick wondered if Robert Johnson found a similar crossroads to cut his fingernails to the quick and play the guitar until the devil tapped him on the shoulder.

"We gonna go straight for a while," Henry said.

In the window glass, Nick could see Henry's gray eyes wide, taking in his home like a man returned from a time machine. A look of shock with a world not quite the way he left it.

"My uncle used to live right there," he said, pointing to a crooked row of trailer homes. "Had him a mule, used to plow rows of corn by himself. Sweet ole thing. Don't know what happened to him. Don't know what happened to anybody after I left."

The road was the same one Nick had taken with Willie Brown on the night he first met Cracker, which felt like years ago. Too many things clouded his mind in such a short time. He wondered if Brown had a family, if they understood the complexities surrounding a fine man's death. Nick wished Brown was with them now.

"After years pass, rumor becomes fact," Henry said. "You know what I mean. It was best I lost myself in the biggest city I know. One day I pointed my truck south to New Orleans and never looked back."

JoJo looked back and caught Nick's eye in the mirror and winked. First time he'd seen JoJo like his old self in a long time. It was a little redemption mission for both men, Nick thought, as they hit a straight mile of highway with crooked crosses of telephone poles. Nick couldn't help but hear Johnson's eerie voice sing:

You may bury my body

down by the highway side

so my old evil spirit

can catch a Greyhound Bus and ride

"Goddamn, it was right here. Right over here," Henry said as he pounded a fist into the Cadillac's dash.

"All right, Henry," JoJo said. "No need to be abusin' my automobile."

"Henry, they moved the Three Forks," Nick said.

"Listen, kid, I ain't senile. I know where my store was at."

"That was over fifty years ago," Nick said.

"JoJo, tell this kid to shut the fuck up."

"Where do I need to go, Nick?" JoJo asked.

JoJo turned onto a soft, dusty road in front of the porch. Before he could fully stop, Henry was already out of the car and hobbling onto the porch. A pile of rotted wood and rusted metal scraps lay in a nearby heap.

"He said he wasn't senile, shiiit," JoJo said.

Nick jumped out and followed Henry, who tried to open a chain-caught door. Outside, a yellow light clicked on, and Nick could hear the clack of a shotgun loading.

"I'll give you fifty bucks if yo' cover your ass up and let us come inside," JoJo said. "Can we come inside? This man left something here."

"I ain't no fool, y'all rob me," James said.

"James?" Nick said, stepping onto the cracking porch. "Remember me? I was here with Willie."

James lowered his shotgun and put his hand out. "Nick, Nick? Is that you? Man, I'm sorry. Y'all scared the shit out of me. Been keepin' this gun with me after what happened to Willie and Cracker. Y'all c'mon inside. I ain't got much."

Henry walked ahead of everybody, his gray eyes lit. He traced his hands over the battered molding around the doorframes and stooped low to put his hand on the crooked floor planks. His eyes shut tight as if he could still feel the reverberation of a Delta steel guitar.