Phantom Banjo (10 page)

CHAPTER 6

“
Lulu, oh Lulu open up the
door. /Lulu, oh Lulu, come and open up the door. /Before I have to
open it with my old forty-four. /I bin all around this
world”

—
"I Bin All Around This World,"
Trad.

Willie scratched his sunburnt head with
sunburnt fingers cramped and sore from holding on to the dun's
snarled mane. He tried to amble casually into Lulubelle's but all
he could manage with his stiff knees and saddle sores was kind of a
jock-itch waddle.

Inside, once his ears got adjusted to the
noise and his eyes to the darkness and his nostrils to the welcome
and familiar miasma of smoke and liquor fumes, Willie plainly saw
that Lulubelle Baker's was all that such a place was supposed to
be. It was filled with song, of a sort, something that was probably
supposed to be Jimi Hendrix-style electric guitar but sounded like
an alley full of cats having a love-in. It contained a bar with
gleaming bottles of spirits, and reveling drinkers and lots of
lingerie-clad women. And girls and little girls and young boys,
which made him think he'd just have a drink and call the boss and
be out of there, because he somehow didn't think the young ones
were there with their mommies and daddies because it was a family
kind of joint.

The women and children popped in and out of
view as they passed through clusters of men into the glow of a lava
lamp or the come-hither lights from the gambling machines. Mostly,
everything and everybody was obscured by the smoky haze.

Willie inhaled deeply and made his way to the
bar, with difficulty, since there was barely room for a man to walk
normally, much less one whose temporarily bowed legs were taking up
enough room for two.

He ordered a whiskey, picked up a bar napkin,
and sponged off the worst of the sores where they showed under the
tattered legs of his cutoffs.

"Oooh, darlin', don't that smart?" cooed a
solicitous female voice in his right ear. "Why don't you let li'l
Lulubelle kiss it and make it well?"

He turned to answer her—he'd either have to
speak in her ear too or she'd have to read lips. There was no way
even he could project over the caterwauling guitar and the bleeps
and burbles of the computerized machines, the clinking glasses and
the shouting. He didn't much want to either. He was bone-tired, and
clumsy because of it. He clean forgot the banjo strapped on across
his back and as he swung around to talk to the woman he felt
something catch him up and she yelped.

"Ouch, dammit all to hell, you just about put
my eye out. That kind of thing costs extra, sweetcakes. Better take
that contraption off your back or you'll be busted before you get
started."

"Not nearly as busted as you yourself,
ma'am," he said, tipping an imaginary hat in one of his more feeble
attempts at low Texas gallantry. Then he flipped the banjo around
so that it swung across his chest and belly instead of his back and
at least he could be in charge of the damage he did. "Hope it
didn't hurt you none. Would be a real shame to put out such a purty
eye."

She pouted at him. She was young, for the
madam of such a place, but probably she was fronting for
someone—the mob or something, he supposed. Even with all that green
and blue eyeliner she didn't look more than twenty-two. Without it,
she'd be more like eighteen, he reckoned. The eyes in question were
huge and brown, the skin tanned and glowing like sunset, the hair
streaked blond, strawberry-blond, peachy-red, and amber. Her tits
were huge, her legs were long, and everything else was temptingly
small and delicate, including the red lace teddy that left
something, though not much, to further negotiation.

"You used to be able to do better than that,
stud," she complained, apparently about the compliment.

"When was that, darlin’?" he asked. "I don't
believe I've had the pleasure."

"If you had, you'd sure as hell remember it,
honey," she said. "I just meant, I heard tell you can do better
than that. You do have a reputation," she said, sidling up to him
now and breathing in his ear so he could smell her cheap musky
perfume through the smoke. She moved all the time when she talked,
sort of throbbing-like. He felt heat rising from her skin, as if
she had a fever. Beads of sweat broke out on her face and in her
cleavage, and dried right up. She licked her lips with the tip of
her tongue and he knew that if only he could have heard it there
would have been a faint hiss from the moisture turning to steam. On
the one hand, that was kind of exciting. On the other hand, he was
not drunk enough to want a woman with a disease.

"Well, sure, darlin'," he said smoothly,
although even he wasn't sure that his notoriety had spread among
womankind quite that far. He'd been out of circulation for a while,
after all. Too bad his reputation as a musician wasn't as
widespread and apparently illustrious. " 'Course I can do better,
but cut me some slack. I think I did purty well for a man that's
just pulled a friend out of a car crash, watched him die, killed
two snakes, and been rid all over creation for a couple of days
bareback on a loco horse."

"I can see where that might tarnish even a
silver tongue like yours. Let's go upstairs and see if I can't find
something to polish it up with, what say?"

She sashayed in front of him without waiting
for an answer and he followed, carrying the second glass of whiskey
he'd bought for medicinal purposes.

The banjo twanged and he thought he could
just make out a medley of "Brandy, Leave Me Alone," "Cocaine,"
"Scotch and Soda," and "Mandy Lane." Of course, it was probably
just his ears playing tricks on him, all the beeps and hums
providing the notes he was thinking about, inspired by the
atmosphere at Lulubelle's. He was almost certain it had to be his
imagination and the orange glow of a beer sign that made
Lulubelle's eyes ignite with red light when she turned to make sure
he was following.

* * *

"Whewee," Pete said. "That's what I call a
hot date."

"Gussie, this is great," Mrs. Jorgensen said.
"What an imagination you have! I hope I can persuade you to stick
around and help me write a skit for our Christmas presentation. But
right now it's time for lights out."

"Lights out? After that?" Crazy Ruthie the
Dog Lady, who boarded her pack with the woman who ran the costume
shop, protested. "I won't be able to sleep a wink.'"

"Me neither," sighed Tony, who was wearing an
even dopier grin than usual.

Mrs. Jorgensen looked at her watch. It kept
them from seeing her hand tremble. She was more interested in
Gussie's crazy story than she wanted to show. Her misspent youth
may have been misspent, but it had been completely hers and she
missed it more bitterly than she was willing to admit to anyone,
especially herself. "Okay, a few more minutes but that's it."

"Thanks, Miz J. You're a doll. If a person
can't party no more, least he can do is hear about it—" Pete
mumbled, a reminiscent tear running down his spiderweb-veined
cheek.

* * *

Lulubelle led Willie down a long hall. Some
of the doors were open and it reminded him a little of parties he
had attended during the sixties, people doing all kinds of drugs,
having all kinds of sex, eating and drinking all kinds of
intoxicants. One whole roomful of people was soaking in a hot tub
full of liquid chocolate and looked like a human candy-bar
commercial.

Lulubelle opened a door and led him into a
smallish room with a bed, a couch, a TV, and walls and ceiling
covered with the kind of mirrored squares you could buy at the
hardware store. The place smelled like a clearance sale at the
perfume factory, underlain by the odors of oil, dirt, sweat, pot
and cigarette smoke, and booze.

"What's your pleasure?" she asked, starting
to shimmy out of her teddy.

"Hold on, there, darlin'. I'm not sure right
now I can even afford to be on the premises. This is some operation
you've got here."

She wound her fingers from the back of his
neck to cup his ear and brush his cheek. Her hands carried the
salted-fishy smell of sex. The banjo stirred with his pulse to an
eight-bar blues.

"Oh, in your case it's real reasonable,
lover," she said. "I don't need cash money. Any old thing'll do.
That banged-up old banjo oughta fetch something at a pawnshop. You
can give me that."

"Sorry, darlin'," he said, and he started to
launch into an explanation of how it was Sam Hawthorne's banjo,
etc., but then he decided he didn't really want to do that after
all and said, "I'm a mite attached to it. 'Sides, charming as you
are, that horse and I just about did one another in. I'm not
exactly up to it."

"But, honey, that's my specialty," she
laughed.

"No thanks," he said. A chance to stand for a
few minutes, a whiff of smoke, and a stiff drink had revived him
some after all that fresh air and exercise. He would have thought
he was in a dream except that he hurt so realistically. And he
might have been in DT's except that he had it on good authority
those started after you stopped drinking, which he had not.

"Be that way then. But I was about to pour
myself a li'l drinkee-poo and put my feet up and I still intend to
do it with or without you. Want a nip? It's on the house."

"Well, if you put it that way. You wouldn't
happen to have a cigarette, would you?"

"Sure 'nuff. Here you go, my favorite
brand."

She handed him a packet with what looked like
a forest fire on the wrapper. He thought he'd been on the ranch too
long. "What kind's this?" he asked.

"Brimstone Lights," she said. "I like the
unfiltered kind, myself. Twice the tar and nicotine as the other
brands."

He lit one, inhaled and coughed, his eyes and
nose running. The banjo tinkled faintly to the tune of "Fire Down
Below."

"Where did you get these cancer sticks?"

"Company brand," she said. "The folks that
own Lulubelle's are into a lot of other things."

"Yeah, between you and me it's a wonder they
ain't into jail."

"Now, now, sugar, don't you go gettin' all
judgmental on me. Besides, even cops got to have a little fun once
in a while. Want to watch some TV?"

He knew he should be doing something else but
he wasn't sure what. He was damn sure in no shape to sit another
horse or even ride in a car for much of a distance. Or walk for
that matter. But there was Mark, lying dead in that cabin, and the
wreck on one end of the road and the stalled Jeep on the other. He
owed it to the boss to call in. "Mind if I use your phone
first?"

"Don't have one," she said. "Our clients hear
about us by word of mouth. You might call it sort of a grass-roots
movement."

"They used to talk about that a lot in my old
business," Willie said. "I was a folk musician, see . . ."

"I know," she said. "I've been a fan of
yours. You did some of the damndest drinking songs I have ever
heard and, uh, brought in lots of business."

"Yes, ma'am, I did. But like I said, I don't
recall having had the pleasure of meeting you before."

"Oh, I was around, but you might say I've
admired you from afar. You were good. That Huddie Ledbetter now, he
was another of my favorites."

"Leadbelly? You couldn't have known
Leadbelly?"

"Couldn't I?" she asked. And when she turned
to face him he saw that it was only the dim light that had made her
skin glow so youthfully. In good light it was more like polished
leather with little cracks and flakes. Her limbs were downright
skinny and the boobs were obviously the work of a plastic surgeon
from the hard aggressive way they stood out. The strawberry hair
was dull as straw that had been in the bottom of a horse stall for
a couple of weeks and gray at the roots and her teeth had lines of
yellow nicotine where they'd been capped. He felt a little more
comfortable with her then, more like he didn't have to put on so
much of an act. Well, not quite comfortable. In the glow of the
lava lamp on the TV her eyes were still red, like a cougar's by
moonlight. Willie was not one to be sentimental about the beauty of
cougars.

"Well, you sure don't seem old enough to have
known Leadbelly," he said, not entirely lying. Hell, even if she
was in her mid-fifties, which was, taking into account the hard
life she'd been living, his outside guess, she would have barely
been a teenager when Leadbelly died in '49.

"Sure did. You might say I was his muse."

God help me, he thought. Another over-aged
groupie remembering how she screwed the stars. Then, because he had
a penchant for absolute fairness at unexpected moments, he admitted
to himself that he had always thought it was the women like her
that made being a star fun in the first place. "I'm sure you were,
darlin'," he told her.

"It's about time for the news," she said, and
the TV came on, although he hadn't seen her tap a remote-control
button.

The update on the fire at the Library of
Congress came after the President's request for an increased
defense budget and there was a brief mention of Sam Hawthorne's
funeral back in Boston.

The channel flipped once more, though again,
he didn't notice Lulubelle doing anything to flip it, and a blond
female announcer said, "Tonight's top headline is the crash of a
U.S. Airlines commuter jet from Los Angeles to San Francisco. The
plane carried over two hundred passengers and crew, many of them
performers and music lovers bound for the San Francisco Folk
Festival. Among the confirmed dead are Josh Grisholm, and Nedra
Buchanan, best known for her collaboration with the enemy during
the Vietnam War. The ill-fated festival was also to have featured
the late Sam Hawthorne, who died two days ago at a concert in
Austin, Texas, and fiddler Bill Beresford, who died in the
mysterious fire bombings that destroyed the lower levels of the
Library of Congress buildings."