Picking the Ballad's Bones (7 page)

All of that would have
absolutely fascinated her a few months ago, back before this
trouble first started, before the fire at Anna Mae's folk festival
and the long drive Gussie had made with Willie, Julianne, and that
cute little Texas Ranger smack into a death trap. Before everyone
she knew or cared about seemed to be getting killed or hurt or in
danger of it. Before Lettie and Mic had gotten themselves thrown
into jail for trying to bring Hy
MacDonald
back across the Canadian border. Folk-singers seemed to be
contraband these days.

But—well,
damn.
She
was
tired. She
could
call Mac-Donald,
couldn't she? He'd been deported back here to Scotland and she
remembered that he lived near Edinburgh someplace. If she hadn't
been so strung out she'd have thought of it a long time
ago.

"Come on, Willie," she said, taking
him by the arm and firmly leading him toward the
station.

"What's wrong with this picture?" he
asked suddenly, holding up his hands to make a frame, putting the
whole sentence in quotes.

"What do you mean?" she asked
blearily.

"Where are the cops?" he asked. "They
were thick as crabgrass at that last stop. You s'pect we've been
cleared since then? Or maybe they only do terrorists on alternate
Thursdays and this is the day everybody goes after bank-robbers or
kidnappers instead?"

Well, wasn't that Willie MacKai all
over? You'd swear he was dead between the ears and find out he was
way ahead of you. And he was right, of course. Not a single uniform
was in sight except for a cluster of soldier boys standing next to
the station. She tugged a little on his arm. "Let's just count our
blessings."

* * *

Brose Fairchild didn't even see the
cops through the haze of smoke in the lounge car until they were
almost on top of him. Since the car had no exit, he wouldn't have
been able to escape anyway. The cops spotted him with no
difficulty. Willie had the banjo, but Brose, as the only largish,
freckled, red-haired black man on the train, was easily the most
conspicuous. The cops had been perfectly polite, but he heard them
say "nigger" every time they said "sir" and when they started
questioning him, he wondered if the police were as careful not to
be overtly accused of brutality over here as they were in the
States. Of course, all that meant was they shouldn't leave scars,
but the whole affair had him sweating up a storm even without the
help of the traditional bright interrogation lights.

The hell of it was that he was
entirely innocent of any crime he could think of except declining
to aid the lawmen with their "inquiries," which he would be
delighted to do. If circumstances were a little different, he would
have given them the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the
truth, but they'd think he was fuckin' nuts if he told them that
and he couldn't think up any real good lies that wouldn't get him
busted in the mouth. Things being the way they were, he shrugged a
lot and kept quiet.

That strategy did not exactly endear
him to the police either. "Are you deaf, sir?" the woman officer,
who looked as if she'd be hell on the soccer field, asked him
politely.

"No, ma'am. That's the Widah Martin,"
he said without thinking about it.

"And who is she? Is this Julianne
Martin you're referring to? One of the other passengers who arrived
with you on flight ninety-one twenty-two?"

"Yeah. That's her. Listen, do I get a
phone call?" Brose asked, remembering what all the crooks on TV
said (right after saying "ya can't pin nothin' on me") when faced
with police harassment.

The woman cop raised a sandy eyebrow
at him. "And just whom would you like to call, sir?"

Brose didn't know, exactly, though the
SPCA naturally came to mind. Brose had devoted his scrubby ranch to
caring for animal dropouts from the local humane society shelter
where he worked. He wished some Lassie dog, Flipper, or Flicka
would come break him out now. "I'll think of somebody," he grunted
to the woman, and urgently wished he could.

* * *

"DD?"

"What is it now, boss?"

"What have I been telling you all
along about these people?"

"Oops. I forgot. No jail."

"That's right."

"Shit. Okay, okay. I'll take care of
it."

* * *

As Brose was trying to
decide who he could phone who might help him—maybe the American
embassy? he doubted if they'd be any big help, but it was worth a
try—someone knocked on the frosted pane of the door to the
interrogation room. The woman officer flicked her eyes to one side
like she'd been watching way too many reruns of
Miami Vice.
Her partner, who looked
as if he should still be driving a skateboard, answered the knock.
There was a little intense whispering back and forth, then the
fellow stepped outside the door. After a moment, he stepped back
inside the door and motioned for the woman, who joined
them.

When she returned they put Brose in a
cell. About fifteen minutes later, they took him out
again.

"What the hell's going on?"

"You're being released," the
skateboard jockey told him. "But the attorney from the American
embassy understands that you are not to leave Britain. We'll
require your testimony against the terrorist."

"You mean, you know I ain't
him?"

"That's right, sir. He surrendered in
London a few moments ago. We received a telephone call and shortly
after the embassy's attorney arrived demanding your release. If you
get in touch with your friends, we would appreciate it if you
enlisted their cooperation as well."

"Uh-huh," Brose said.
"Sure."

As he collected his belongings, he
spied a strangely familiar blonde, all done up in a little gray
suit with a white blouse and a pussycat bow. She smiled a cold,
prissy smile at him as the barred door clanged behind him and
followed him when he stepped once more onto the street.

"How do you do," she said in a
la-di-da accent, extending her hand. "I'm Miss Firestone, the
solicitor from the embassy

"Uh-huh," Brose said, ambling away
from the police station. "Thanks a lot. See ya 'round—"

Miss Firestone caught up with him,
hooking her arm through his and bumping her gray-suited hip against
him. "Whatsa matter, Yank? Don't you want to buy a girl a drink?"
she asked, sounding very familiar indeed now. "You could be a
little friendlier, surely, after I've gone and done one of me best
impersonations for your benefit?"

"Torchy?" he asked.

She tipped her blond Princess Di wig
at him and several long red tendrils of her own hair snaked around
her face. "At yer service," she said.

He looked from her back to
the police station, expecting pursuit. "How did you get them to buy
it?"

"Easy, ducks. I told you. I'm an
actress. And some of my best friends are lawyers. Now come along,
why don't you, and I'll show you a real English pub."

Since he didn't have a clue where the
others had gone, Brose figured Torchy's idea was as good as
any.

"So—did that Irish guy turn himself in
really?" he asked loudly when they were sitting in front of a
couple of pints. The rock music was so loud it hurt his stomach but
the place wasn't crowded. Torchy had explained that the older,
quainter places would be full of London yuppies at this hour so she
took him to a newer pub, a former petrol station called The Plastic
Card.

"Yes, he did.
Very
sorry he was, once
he'd been given time to think about it," she said.

CHAPTER 7

Anna Mae Gunn was not one to stay lost
for long. As an activist, she knew the value of connections. As an
organizer of several now-defunct folk festivals, she knew at least
a few people in most parts of the world, including an American
woman, Terry Pruitt, one of the friendlier members of a British
folk-rock group, who lived in Carlisle and made a point of singing
about it and who had invited Anna Mae to visit her if she had the
chance. Anna Mae found the number in the phone book
easily.

"Terry?"

"No, this is Dan," said a warm male
voice. "Terry's in the shower. You're not another lady from
America, are you?"

"Another?"

"Yeah, two of Terry's other—" and in
the background Anna Mae heard a voice that sounded like Ellie's say
urgently, "Shh, Dan. Careful."

"Oops, sorry. I mean, who may I say is
calling?"

"Tell Terry and Ellie—that is who I
hear, isn't it?—that this is Anna Mae Gunn."

"Anna Mae? Didn't you help Sam Hawkins
organize—"

But at that moment, Ellie
Randolph came on the line. "Where
are
you?"

"In a phone booth outside what appears
to be a bar. Have you seen any of the others?"

"We saw Brose Fairchild being hauled
away by the cops. We never saw where Willie or the others
went."

"Can you meet me here? And ask Terry
if she knows of any good lawyers."

"Terry and Dan are getting ready to
take a train to Heathrow to fly to Norway for an African Music
Conference."

"Oh, great."

"But they say if we'll drive the van
back from the train station we can borrow their van."

A sudden chill ran down Anna Mae's
back, as if someone was watching her, which, of course, someone
could be. "Look, I'd better get off the street. I'll meet you
inside this bar. Here's the name and address."

Anna Mae entered the pub,
whose walls winked with neon beer signs glowing through a whirl of
smoke. Above the bar was a particularly prominent specimen, one
which appeared to have once hung outside. The illustration that had
once graced it was now quite faded and a rock had been thrown
through the neon legend so that the first letter was illegible. The
rest of the sign said hell
OIL
.

Anna Mae scooted in next to a blonde
who looked like the Princess of Wales and started to order a drink
from a cadaverous-looking bartender.

"Hello, ducky," the Princess said.
"We've been wondering where you were, 'aven't we, Brose
luv?"

One seat down from her at
the bar, Brose Fairchild grunted a greeting. The Princess lifted
her blond wig and stuck it in her briefcase, shaking out her long
red hair. Anna Mae suppressed an expression of disgust. Here she'd
been worrying how they were going to get Brose out of jail,
thinking about staging a protest or some kind of media event, and
he was sitting in this bar with this—this bimbo, Anna Mae thought,
then promptly felt ashamed of herself. Torchy had been nothing but
helpful so far and there was something very charming about her—she
was as charismatic as the best performer Anna Mae had ever seen,
with her elfish grin and those fascinating eyes that were at times
mischievous and at times
deep and
unfathomable, changing like some weird hologram from bright green
to dark brown. And in the dim light of the bar, with the neon
flashing off them they glittered with red. You couldn't help liking
Torchy, and she had been friendly enough—very friendly with Willie,
which made Anna Mae wonder how they came to be separated and where
Willie
was
anyway. Nevertheless, Torchy was clearly trouble if Anna Mae
had ever seen it.

The
music was too loud for conversation and Brose looked as
relieved as Anna Mae when Ellie and Faron arrived with a tall
gray-haired man and a slender dark-haired woman Anna Mae remembered
as Terry Pruitt. Both of them looked a little like elves too, come
to think of it. Maybe it was just the influence of being in Celt
country. But everything about Terry Pruitt was slightly
elongated—long-boned legs and arms, long face framed by long brown
hair, and hands whose fingers were twice the length of Anna Mae's.
The man had a floppy, beseeching expression that made Anna Mae
think he could be a were-puppy. Elkhound maybe.

The seating in the van was limited and
Torchy ended up on Brose's lap. Surprise surprise.

"Where do you suggest we look for the
ballads around here, Terry?" Faron asked.

"I'm not at all sure," she answered.
"The folk scare is over. The folk-rock scare is over. The pubs that
used to do that sort of thing are into rock and country, sometimes
jazz nowadays. There are several archival collections scattered
about—one on Iona that I've heard about, and then, of course, I'm
sure there's something or other in Edinburgh at the university
library."

"Seems logical," Faron said, "With
both Burns and Scott being from around there. And the Borders were
a great source of ballads."

"I'd think the Highlands were more
interesting," Torchy said.

"
Only
if you speak Gaelic," the
were-elkhound, Dan, told her. "And that trip got kind of overdone
around here. That's one reason we're doing African music now.
Besides getting to learn about people from other places
there's always little gatherings going on and
people do like something different now and then."