Leavin' Trunk Blues (17 page)

“Jimmy Scott?” Nick asked, placing his elbow on the Formica counter.

The woman looked over at him like a lizard and returned her eyes to the TV. She mumbled something that could have been Chinese, her eyes glued to the television.

“Does he live here?”

“Huh?”

“Is Jimmy in?”

“Three-oh-nine,” she said in a breath laced with the smell of the Cheetos and cigarettes.

He smiled. Maybe he’d spent that money on the right man after all.

Nick followed a dark hallway to a caged elevator littered with crushed beer cans and cigarette butts. He could hear someone playing an old hillbilly record and coughing in spasms as he pulled the cage closed and pressed the third floor. The old contraption shook upward with the floors rolling past. It was like an ascension into purgatory.

The elevator stopped with all the ease of a truck into a brick wall. Nick caught his balance and rolled back the gate.

Down the hall, he knocked on the wood door, thick with cracks that broke around the handle. The knob was glass and the lock was rusted. Nick smelled burning toast inside as he removed his watch cap.

He stomped the snow from his boots and the bottom of his jeans.

Finally, a gnomelike black man with jug ears opened the door and walked back into the room. He left the door ajar and Nick followed. The man hovered over a hotplate and turned over a piece of bread with a pen.

“Mr. Scott?” Nick asked.

“Jimmy’s fine.”

“Came a long way to find you, sir.”

“You want some grilled cheese?” he asked, flipping his tongue around an upper row of dentures. His face bristled with white stubble. “Got that good government cheese.”

“No thanks,” Nick said. “Came here to talk to you about King Snake Records.”

Jimmy continued to cook, his eyes intent on the work.

“Am I imposing?”

Jimmy looked over his room, bare except for a metal bed, a suitcase, and the hotplate. He shook his head and rolled his eyes. “Oh, I guess I’ll have to postpone my dinner with Mayor Daley.”

“Not going so good?”

“Been better,” he said.

Nick introduced himself and shook the old man’s hand. He told him what he did and what he wanted. Jimmy nodded as if it was something he was used to by now.

“Some English guys came over a few years ago asking me all kinds of questions too. Treated me like I was some kind of royalty. They took a couple of pictures and bought my record collection ‘fore leaving me with a bottle a whiskey and one of them Playboy magazines.”

Nick pulled out the bottle of Jack Daniel’s he bought at the corner store and smiled.

“God bless your white ass,” Jimmy said.

Nick offered him a cigarette and he accepted. Outside, the El train rattled by, shaking the wooden floor where they sat. But Jimmy was unaffected as he poured two generous measures of aged whiskey into plastic cups decorated with superheroes. The snow melted on the top of Nick’s work boots.

“You saw the fight with Ruby?”

“Hold on,” Jimmy said, turning up the cup and draining the whiskey. He put a hand to his head like he was having a migraine and then took a long drag of the cigarette. He smiled and rocked back into a ladder back chair with a view of a tenement building behind him.

The old building had two chimneys pumping long, thin lines of smoke. El train tracks twisted away before reaching the building’s third floor.

Jimmy’s eyes narrowed. “Yeah, I saw it. I was there as a favor to Elmore King. Playin’ backup. We were recordin’ that night, but she was mighty drunk and mighty mad ‘fore we even started.”

“That was King’s session?”

“Oh yeah, man. That was King. Let’s see,” Jimmy said, looking up at the ceiling and patting his knee with his hands. “Yeah, guess that’d be about fifty-nine, ‘cause I know Billy weren’t with us in sixty. Yeah, ‘round then. Billy was broke as hell.”

“I thought Lyons was rich.”

“Sometimes. But that man gambled away every cent, a real crap-shootin’ fool. Not just dice, man, but with bars that didn’t draw no crowd. Or sinkin’ a lot into the blues business. He lost some kind of money on King Snake. His time runnin’ whores and numbers on the South Side ‘bout gone.”

“You think Ruby killed him?”

“Ain’t for me to decide.” He shrugged his shoulders. “That’s between her and God.”

“Could it have been the gambling? Someone he owed money?”

Jimmy leaned forward in his chair and reached for the bottle.

“Could be,” Jimmy said. “That man owed everybody he knew and some he didn’t. You don’t pay yore debts to some folks and they gonna get yore ass. Yeah, I ‘spect so. All I say in that courtroom is I saw them fightin’.”

“Who did he owe money to?”

“Man, I cain’t remember. Here and there. You know … just some men. Let’s see, there was this guy he hang with name Fat Tony. Man, he so fat they had to special-make him these ugly pin-striped suits. He was some kind of criminal. I seen him and Billy in business.”

“What happened to Fat Tony?”

“Died in sixty I think. Got kilt while holdin’ up a bank. Dumbass too fat and slow to run away.”

“Anybody else?”

“Not that I recall. Nope.”

“So, how’d you meet Billy?” Nick asked.

“Jewtown. I’d just moved from Biloxi and was doin’ some record work. Had me a part-time job at a paper factory. But I worked cheap and I was good. That’s what Billy wanted.”

Nick hadn’t heard Maxwell Street called Jewtown in a while. Years ago, it was a place where Jewish merchants set up shop. Now, it was mainly blacks and Hispanics selling everything from food to jewelry off Roosevelt.

“Ruby and I used to play there together.”

“She didn’t tell me that.”

“Shit, I’m the one got her off the streets.”

Jimmy stretched his legs before him. One tattered sock was red and the other bright green. The hair on his head looked like the soft dust on a bookshelf. He poured Nick another drink and what looked like a triple for himself.

“Why you care about Billy Lyons?” Jimmy asked.

“Some say Ruby Walker is innocent.”

“Ruby? Man, I don’t know if I’d trust that woman.”

“But you said she could be innocent.”

“Could be. I’m just sayin’ I don’t trust her.”

“Why not?” Nick asked. He watched Jimmy squirm in his chair and try to evade eye contact. The man was holding back, but Nick knew pushing him would just make him more suspicious.

“Ruby changed after she got known, man,” Jimmy said. “I took care of that woman for a long time. She lived on the street like some kind of animal. Didn’t need to give her a place, but I did. Shared my bucket with her, but she never shared her bucket with me.”

“Who else was around that night? Who was recording the night Billy died?”

“Same ole, same ole. King. Moses Jordan. All them dudes.”

“Wait, I thought Jordan had left about a year before?”

“No, he was still around. He’d switch back from Diamond to King Snake all the time. Just like a bitch, cain’t make up his mind. All the rest of ‘em dead ‘cept Moses Jordan and King and me. Dawkins dead. Leroy Williams dead.”

“Dawkins and Williams were murdered,” Nick said. “You know anything about that?”

Jimmy took another sip.

“Yeah, I heard those stories. Some folks say it was Billy come back from the dead to take their ass out. Ain’t nothin’ but ghost stories. Hey man, you got another one of them cigarettes?”

Nick handed him a Marlboro.

“Thanks. Mmmm hmm. Some folks even say Billy’s soul still burns out on the lake. They say you can go out to Navy Pier and you’ll see him ridin’ them cold waves. That old green glow.” Jimmy shook his head. “I don’t believe it. Billy’s dead and so are them other folks. Don’t let no one fool you with stories about the King Snake curse and all that shit.”

“You think their deaths are connected with Billy’s?”

“Not unless Ruby escaped.”

“What time you guys finish up that night?” Nick asked.

“ “Bout ten. Hot as shit. Man, I’d been blowin’ so hard all day my mouth felt like cotton. My lips and tongue all fuzzy. But we cut some good blues, man. King just hittin’ his stride with that rock sound. Real mean guitar. Billy kept turning me down, said harp didn’t mix. Me and Elmore knew that was a bunch of shit. But I got paid the same, left, and went down to get some drinks at the Palm. Ruby was there.”

“How late?”

“ ‘Bout midnight I guess. I don’t remember a lot. We was all drunk. Guess she went back and killed him that night.”

“You remember her friend Florida?”

“Shit yeah, man. Good ole gal. Florida could cut up. Funny gal, drove Ruby around wearin’ one of them ... what do you call ‘em?”

Nick shrugged.

“French name for a driver?”

“Chauffeur.”

“Yeah, she’d just cut up wearin’ one of them chauffeur hats. Good ole gal.”

“You know what happened to her after Billy died?”

“Naw, man, you know I was lookin’ for her too. But I think she just got out of town. She was real tight with Billy and Ruby. Tore her up pretty good.”

“You remember her last name.”

“Mmmm. Thomas. I think. Yeah, that’s it. Florida Thomas.”

“You know what time Ruby left the Palm?”

Jimmy shook his head. “Damn, I was fucked up as a goat myself.”

“Was she upset?”

“Oh yeah, she was cussin’ all about Billy, but seemed just like man trouble to me. Not killin’ trouble.”

He looked over at a blank wall and took another drink. Nick handed him one more cigarette and they both waited for a while in silence.

“Man, I used to travel all ‘round this country,” Jimmy said. “When I was just out the service, I’d hop these big ole freight cars out of town and jump off when I got tired. I’d make a little money. Lose a little money. Sometimes hungry.” He shrugged with his palms up. “Sometimes broke. Didn’t matter, always had a ride. Man, I miss those old trains. Make me feel strong every time I hear one pass. That whistle blowin’ in the night … shiiit.”

Nick stayed until he couldn’t see the El tracks or the blackened tenement building. The old El rattled past every fifteen minutes in the darkness until Jimmy became incoherent. He’d told Nick about the ratty garage they’d converted into a recording studio and the way Lyons would deliver most of the records himself in an old mail truck he’d won from a butcher off Maxwell Street. He told a great story about Lyons tapping him on the shoulder for the rhythm he wanted and another gem about Lyons keeping a stray crow in his office that ate out of his hands.

Jimmy played a few licks on his harp and Nick repeated them back with the Hohner he always carried with him. The playing seemed to soothe the old man. His licks were still razor-sharp.

“Goddamn, that was a sad story about Billy,” Jimmy said as a light snow began to coat the base of the thick windowpane.

“So what do you think happened to Dawkins and Williams?”

“Bad luck,” Jimmy said. “I don’t know shit. Why don’t you ask Leroy’s son? He runnin’ some kind of junk store a few blocks from here. Remind me of that cat Fred Sanford livin’ with all that shit ‘round him.”

“Where can I find him?”

Jimmy told him, speaking his final words for the night. He leaned far to the right and his eyelids half closed. He rolled straight back in the chair. His eyes got big and he pointed his finger at Nick’s chest like he was about to make a grand point. Then he started rolling with cackling laughter.

The old man rolled out of the chair and fell to the floor. Deep snores came from his nose.

Nick finished his drink and looked at the apartment. A bed with a dirty mattress, a piece of luggage in the corner filled with crumpled clothes next to a folding card table. No phone. No room service. Nothing to show for years of work and years of honing their art. The end for so many musicians. Musicians who once had made enough to eat from day to day, but when they got too old to perform, they were discarded like useless tools. Many get bitter. Most die in obscurity, too proud to ask for help.

Nick scooped Jimmy in his arms and helped him off the floor. He was light, just thin flesh and brittle bones. He placed him on the bed and pulled a musty blanket over his withered body. The El rattled by again as Nick turned off the light by the door.

He left Jimmy in the darkness on a forgotten shelf.

Annie waited outside the old hotel in the passenger seat of Peetie’s candy apple red Volkswagen Beetle. The car had one of those after-market hoods made to resemble a Rolls-Royce—like anyone would be confused with this piece of shit—and shiny gold hubcaps. She laughed as she lit up a joint and stared at the winged ornament. Fannie was asleep in the small backseat and Peetie was humming a song to himself like a moron.

That Travers guy had been in there more than an hour.

She took a long draw on the joint and stared down the empty row of warehouses and burning streetlamps then back to the latest copy of Betty and Veronica Digest. It was kind of a collection of their greatest adventures. This one had Mr. Lodge trying to fake out Veronica, who was running up his credit card bills. He told her to spend whatever she liked. The punch line in the last box was that Veronica was so confused she had to go shopping. Annie made a cough and gagging noise as Veronica, with her blue-black hair, smiled, clutching a bunch of shopping bags.