Crossroad Blues (The Nick Travers Novels) Read online

  Loretta went into the kitchen and started banging around. After a few minutes, Nick heard the sound of coffee perking and bacon popping. JoJo leaned into a green Lay-Z-Boy, his lower legs propped up on the extension. He pulled a church bulletin from his inside jacket pocket and squinted at the words.

  "Band las' night wasn't worth a shit," JoJo said. "Some dumb son of a bitch tryin' to play some old Stax R&B, only he couldn't sing a lick. Tourists couldn't tell, but all the regulars walked out. Man, it was embarrassing."

  "JoJo, who'd you ask about Earl Snooks?"

  JoJo rubbed a hand over the white hair on his head and kept his eyes on the bulletin.

  "Lotsa folks. I tole you I'd make some phone calls."

  "Last night I had a call from a man who said he was Earl Snooks."

  "You always have dead men ringin' you up on the telephone?"

  "Went to Algiers early this morning to meet him and someone tried to kill me. Well, I don't think they wanted to kill me, just mess me up a little. They rammed into my Jeep, totaled it, and put this silly orange thing on my arm. I feel like a tangerine."

  JoJo looked outside at the plants, over at Nick, then back outside.

  "I need to know who you called about Earl Snooks," Nick said.

  "I wrote down everyone I called at the bar. I'll call 'em back if you think it will help."

  "I dunno. You and Randy are the only ones who knew about Snooks. Besides Cracker."

  JoJo chewed on a nail as Loretta called from the kitchen. "Y'all get the table outside ready. I'll be done in a second."

  JoJo propped open the tall French doors and leaned four ice-cream-parlor chairs forward to drain off the dirty rainwater. Nick took a napkin and wiped off the seats before Loretta came out and set down a hot loaf of French bread in a basket and jam. Nick went back with her and helped bring out three plates of omelets and thick slabs of country bacon. He clubbed a jar of strawberry preserves in with his cast.

  As the food was passed around, Nick watched a van of retarded tourists unload. They were adults with the wonder of children who stared around the brick buildings so old they were turning to sediment, thick layers of compressed brick mashing hard with the street. For a moment, all the pressure that squeezed out of his mind seemed petty. As unimportant as the thin layer of dust on JoJo's knees.

  "You ain't hungry?" JoJo asked, with a mouth full of omelet.

  "A lot's been on my mind. Starting to have weird dreams about dead blues singers calling me up on the telephone."

  Loretta put a hand on Nick's arm. "Oh, son, you need to slow down some. You keep the weight of the world on those broad shoulders of yours. How's that Virginia treatin' you? Heard she's got the prettiest eyes you ever seen, JoJo. Blue as that neon sign we got out front."

  JoJo's face was blank. His food untouched. He looked like he was going to throw up but instead folded his arms across his chest. "I want you to stop lookin' for those records," he said. "It's my business. I'll take care of it."

  "JoJo, what the hell is going on?" Nick asked.

  JoJo just sighed and shook his head. "I'm sorry. I'm real sorry, Nick."

  "I don't believe this. Jesus Christ. I don't believe this. Who was that last night? You know him, don't you? That son of a bitch could have killed me. Did you know about Baker, too? Let me tell you, Baker wouldn't have sat down in your bar without wanting something. I've known you . . ." Nick stopped. "It doesn't matter."

  "I can't tell you," JoJo said. "I can't tell you nothin' about--"

  Nick pushed his plate away and walked inside, grabbing his jean jacket from the old sofa. He bounded down the steps, feeling his teeth grinding against each other and a muscle constricting tightly in his throat. One of his battered boots slid off the second-to-last stair and he had to grab the railing tightly to keep his balance.

  My enemies have betrayed me,

  have overtaken poor Bob at last

  And there's one thing certain,

  they have stones all in my path

  Chapter 37

  Cruz motioned Nick over to the lonely seat where he sat nursing an afternoon Jim Beam on ice. He looked like a blind beggar in the far corner of the Blues Shack bar, wearing his black suit and sunglasses. The blond hostess massaged his neck and looked at Nick with a startled indifference.

  "Mr. Travers, grab a seat," he said, gripping the woman's fingers. "Michelle, get us a couple of beers. Looks like my friend has had some bad luck."

  She turned obediently as Cruz gave her a gentle pat on the ass. Nick shook his head and sat down. His hand already starting to sweat and itch in the cast.

  "I think a black cat shit in my back pocket," Nick said. "Bad mojo."

  "Damn, son, what's your pleasure? We got it all. You want a bottle in a sack?"

  "A cold Dixie would hit the spot."

  "Blackened Voodoo in a chilled schooner."

  The girl pulled the tap forward as if milking a cow, her heavy breasts heaving forward in a halter top. Nick watched her and she turned her head away, the bobbed blond hair catching in her mouth. He wasn't in her league, apparently, not what she was shopping for--a graying man in a tattered jean jacket.

  Nick accepted the brownish beer.

  "Got in a car smash-'em-up last night," Nick said. "I'm still reeling. Feel like I'm in a bumper car."

  "How's that Jeep?"

  "Looks like a crushed aluminum can." How'd Cruz know what he drove?

  "You need a loaner?"

  "No. No. I'm fine. Let me ask you something. You've been around. Been in Memphis and all that, you told me. Ever hear of a bluesman named Earl Snooks?"

  "Have to say I have. Delta slide, popular in the late forties before disappearing. Yeah, I've heard of him."

  Cruz turned his head absolutely and completely in Nick's direction. Even though he wore the sunglasses, Nick knew he was listening. The way his neck set, the flared, reddened nostrils. It was like a dog salivating over meat. Pavlovian.

  "Ever met anyone who knew him?" Nick asked.

  "No. He was old-school. Why?"

  "I think he paid someone to hit me. Snooks, mad as hell."

  "You're kidding, right? You give him a bad write-up in an essay or something? Make him mad enough to come back from the dead?"

  The girl set down another round of beers at the table and smiled a coy grin at Cruz before leaving. A not-so-subtle secret between the two of them.

  "I've been reading some of your work," Cruz said. "Read an essay you wrote on the migration of the blues to Chicago. We could use a resident historian at the Blues Shack. Benefits, salary. Everything you need. You could play harp for the house band."

  "Thanks, but I'm okay where I'm at now."

  "Where's that?"

  "JoJo's, just down the street."

  "Oh yeah. JoJo's. Yeah. Never been there. Heard about that guy. Real showman, JoJo. Talks a good game for the tourists about the old days."

  "Yeah. JoJo's been a great friend."

  "Well, we'd take care of you here."

  "I appreciate that."

  The beer was the coldest he'd ever tasted.

  ?

  Jesse was told to take the old man past the levee on Lake Pontchartrain, shoot him in the back of the head, tie a concrete block to his leg, and kick him in the water. As Jesse was drivin' down the highway and lookin' at him in the rearview mirror, the more Jesse thought he was losing his edge. Ole pasty was just starin' at him, lookin' right through him.

  Made him feel real creepy, like the guy could read his mind or somethin'. He shrugged his shoulders, took one hand off the rusted station wagon's steering wheel, and rolled up the sleeves of his mechanic's shirt. It was striped cloth, real pressed and neat with Crown Electric patched on the breast pocket. Jesse had his hair slicked back today with a little Vitalis, a nice pompadour fixed on top of his head.

  "You just tell us where them Johnson records are at and we'll be done with all this shit," Jesse said.

  Ole man just kept starin' at the rearview mirror,
his lower lip poked out and quivering.

  "You are a goddamned baby, you ole fuck," Jesse said. "Now you hush on up and we'll be fine."

  The levee was a long, green hump, like the spine of a grassy dragon with no end. As he drove, the large houses he passed became smaller. High-life condominiums became crappy apartments until there was nothing but a few broken-down crab shacks and all-night bars. Jesse took a turn on a dirt road Cruz had told him about.

  "I did k-know him," the old man said.

  "Know who?"

  "Robert Johnson. I knew him real good."

  "I don't care, ole man. I never even heard of the guy till I started this mess."

  "Yore man Presley wasn't s-shit compared to him," the ole man said. He was crying now, water running down his white cheeks.

  Jesse stopped the car and rolled down the window. He spit outside, looked into the rearview mirror, and smiled. I'm gonna enjoy this one.

  A dry August wind ruffled grass as green as the fake kind Jesse had seen on a Putt-Putt course in Panama City, Florida. He parked the car and came around the side for Cracker, the old man's hands were tied in front with a thin plastic binder.

  "C'mon, let's get this over with. I let you escape me once. It ain't gonna happen again."

  The old man tried to squirm out of the car, but, with his hands tied, he just flopped around. Then he tried again to scoot outside with his butt. Jesse grabbed the plastic band tightly and twisted him outside. The old man fell out to his knees and his face slammed flush to the dirt road. A rusted, torn beer can ripped open his cheek.

  Jesse yanked him up again and nudged him forward with the Glock. Jesse smacked on gum as he pushed him forward. He could see where the road opened up toward Lake Pontchartrain. Not a damned thing around but some mosquitoes that started slurping out the blood on the man's face. The old man just squinted into the bright sunset ahead of him, too much to take without any shade.

  Didn't matter now.

  The clearing's grass was high and brown, and tiny waves rippled toward the shore, all the pebbles worn smooth from thousands of years of constant friction.

  "Get on your knees, ole man."

  He did without a word, just that blubbering comin' up.

  "You got nothin' to say?" Jesse asked.

  "Burn in hell, you shit."

  Jesse jammed the gun in the soft part of the old man's head and pulled the trigger.

  Click.

  Click.

  "Son of a bitch," Jesse kicked the old man hard in the back. "You stay down. You stay down."

  Ole man looked dead anyway, lying there with a look in his eyes like a deer thrown by a semi. There was drool runnin' down his chin, and he was coughin' from the loose brown dirt sucked into his lungs.

  Jesse turned and trotted back to the station wagon. Knew he had to have another magazine in the glove compartment, where he'd stuffed that Cajun beef jerky and a pack of condoms--extra ribbed for her pleasure.

  Must've used up all the bullets when he was shootin' at the passin' driftwood in the Mississippi. He slid into the car and opened the compartment. Yep, two fresh loads. He wondered if he could make it back in time to take Inga and Puka for some dinner. He had enough money to take them somewhere real nice. Like one of them real fancy restaurants in the Quarter where they clean the table before you sit down.

  The weeds were to his waist like a field of green wheat, and there were a few sailboats far out in the water. Too far to see what he was about to do. As he walked back down the path, three seagulls scattered and squawked away back over the lake. Shit.

  He picked up the pace, ran to the clearing near the lake, and turned all around in a scouting circle. Goddamn it. Goddamn it. Ole man was gone.

  Jesse started kicking all through the high grass that spread out for yards all around the lake, shrouding the ground. He started with a large circle and narrowed it with each pass. Shit. He widened the circle and followed it again.

  "Ole man, you better get your ass out here, or I'm gonna start firin' this gun into them weeds. Don't be no fool now. You're dead anyways. You can't make it nowhere. Let me put you out like an ole dog. I won't leave you for long. One shot and them lights'll go out."

  Jesse shot three times in sections of the weeded field, the smell of cordite mixed with the deep grass and sour smell of the water. He walked the grass dozens of times, ran through the nearby woods, and drove back and forth all along the highway.

  Hell with it, the ole man had to be dead. In his mind, Jesse could see him clutchin' his heart and fallin' out there somewhere. Man was as good as a dog dropped off outside town. That pasty blue-eyed fool was nothin' but roadkill.

  Chapter 38

  Nick left the French Quarter behind him and grabbed an old olive green streetcar Uptown. He sank into a hard wooden seat and closed his eyes. The rickety old box was soothing as it jumbled from stop to stop. He should've talked to JoJo, not just fled like an insolent teenager. JoJo had a reason. If he didn't, the world didn't make any sense. The one man he believed in more than all others, a common liar? It wouldn't happen. JoJo was a rock of dignity and old-school morals. Besides, he couldn't be tied directly to the records or have any firsthand knowledge about Johnson's death. He was too young. JoJo was born about the time Johnson died.

  However, he had known plenty of old-timers. As a kid, JoJo used to spend summers with an aunt in Helena. He'd travel down to KFFA radio station to listen to King Biscuit Time, a popular blues show in the forties and fifties. JoJo told Nick plenty of stories about how the greats like Sonny Boy Williamson and Robert Lockwood Jr. would send him on errands for whiskey or gathering women. He'd chuckle with an inward gleam in his eye, pleased with the past and proud of his witness to the greats. For JoJo, it made him seem more a part of owning a blues establishment and qualified to comment on what he now heard.

  Lockwood was Robert Johnson's stepson. But JoJo wouldn't have kept a secret for decades only to let it out to someone like Michael Baker. He had to be covering someone's ass. JoJo's word was a damned tight bond.

  It pissed Nick off that JoJo just shut his mouth and went silent. Didn't he understand how damned important this was? This wasn't about some man cheating with the preacher's wife or who's been sneaking out drinking. Someone tried to kill him last night, smacked into his Jeep like he was nothing. That same person probably shot Willie Brown in the head and dumped Cracker in the river. JoJo and Robert Johnson. Earl Snooks was that bridge.

  Why would someone kill for asking about Snooks? Nick tried to focus on the face from last night, but it was a blur except for the shoes and the gray eyes. The man was so damned familar, like a photograph not yet developed.

  Nick had no destination. No stop. He traveled way past Julia Street, just cat-napped in the seat as the streetcar pitched forward and slowed. Stop and move. Stop and move. Wheels screeched below on the worn rails. His eyes were closed tight when the car stopped longer than normal. A woman's voice yelled back to him.

  "Got to get out so they can reverse the seats. Sir, they gotta reverse. You don't want to ride backward, do ya?"

  Reverse.

  "Yeah, yeah."

  Nick got out and stretched his legs and watched the old wooden seats getting turned back around. He kicked a rock off the street, then lit another cigarette. A black kid, who looked about fourteen, asked him for a smoke. He gave him a couple but decided not to wait. He needed to walk, so he followed the streetcar tracks for about a mile, chain-smoking and thinking. The white paper burned to nubs at the filter tip.

  When he reached Tulane, his face and the front of his shirt were damp with sweat, his jean jacket tucked under his arm. He crossed St. Charles over into the university and walked into the Jazz and Blues Archives building. No one was in. Randy's office door was locked. He considered calling him at home but decided against it.

  Nick had been up too long and his brain felt too thick to recount the last few hours. He decided to go into the office, the one he once shared with Baker, and look around. But
it wasn't like the movies where a file was marked SECRET RECORDS or JOJO. The only files he found contained expenses or sheet music. But he went through them all anyway. Nothing.

  He also cross-referenced through the Blues Who's Who and Big Book of Blues and a few other biography sources and still couldn't find anything on Earl Snooks. It was Sunday and any calls to other universities would be futile.

  Maybe he'd come back tomorrow, call Ole Miss, and start with all of his back issues of Living Blues. Or call Jim O'Neal in Clarksdale.

  He walked back outside and crossed the street to Audubon Park, following the root-buckled path past the lagoon and under branches. At the zoo, he turned back around and walked past a gazebo where a bunch of hippies were banging voodoo rhythms on their drums. Back on St. Charles, he kept to the sidewalks shaded by the leafy canopy above. Absently, he would look high above and see shiny Mardi Gras beads stuck in the trees.

  Near the Columns Hotel, he stopped cold at the DeSoto Apartments building. His boots had traveled back to Kate's place in a serious subconscious move. He just stood there dumb and looked three floors up to her screened balcony. All the plants and black wrought-iron furniture were still there. She hadn't left. It was Sunday, so she was probably on cop duty for the paper. No lights were on in the windows, and he couldn't see far into the balcony.

  He imagined her up there with those eyes the color of sunlight hitting morning coffee. He started to whistle for her dog Bud, but didn't. Too much pride. Maybe he'd get a beer at the Columns and see if Cletus was working. See if he knew anything about Baker.