Leavin' Trunk Blues (22 page)

Fannie smoothed the nape of Annie’s neck. “You okay, baby? You don’t look so good.”

“I’m fine. I’m fine. I just wish Willie was here.”

“I know, baby. I know. We’ll go to a pawn shop after this and get you one just like the one you had. We can call him Willie Two.”

“Won’t be Willie.”

“Be better than Willie.”

A teenage girl shot her a weird look.

“What are you looking at bee-itch?” Annie said.

The girl stared at the digital floor display, holding her breath.

Finally, the elevator slowed as they reached the moon or edge of the earth or wherever the fuck they were, and they all shot out of the elevator. On the top floor, a bunch of people gawked through tall glass windows and pointed at things. Annie had been here before but usually at night with her men. She would let them grope her as they looked down on the city like they were pissing on the world. What a time. Shit.

Fannie fluffed the rabbit fur on her coat and yawned. Fannie too cool for school. She wanted to get this over and go shopping. She had their whole route planned for Christmas Eve. Blow their whole damn load on the Magnificent Mile.

Annie looked down at thick clouds and fog and couldn’t see shit. Through a thick, dark haze she could just make out the thousands of crisscrossed honeycombed caverns of the city. Down at Navy Pier and the lighthouse. Snow falling like bad reception on a television. So much going on. So much she wanted.

Maybe there was a way.

Last night, after they dropped Fannie at Rosa’s, Peetie said they had options. He said he knew a way they could get out from under Stagger Lee and live. He said they had the talent and could take their show out of the projects. He said Stagger Lee was getting weak like an old dragon.

Then he sadly smiled inside the cold Volkswagen and said he knew a way to kill that dragon. He said, “Lay low and be cool and get ready to act when I say.”

Of course she fucked with him about that. What was little Peetie gonna do to Stagger Lee, bore him to death with his bullshit stories?

But it got her thinking. She walked over to a broad window and smushed her nose to the cold glass and thought about her future.

This is where she wanted to live someday. She would live all cooped up on the top floor and never have to leave. She’d have servants bring her Cocoa Puffs and Archie comics, and have Fannie as her gal pal to watch trash television and have pillow fights. Maybe she’d have a diving board that would reach outside where she could stand, squat, and piss on the city. Above it all. It would be like a heaven she’d created for herself. She’d piss on them all: on her whore mother, on their lazy-ass welfare daddy, and on Stagger Lee’s slick bald head.

She felt a grip like a meat hook on her arm.

Black-as-night fingers wrapped her white flesh. She and Fannie turned.

He wore a black leather trench coat, black cowboy boots with silver tips, and that dumb-ass spiked collar on his neck. Surfer sunglasses wrapped his head. Stagger Lee looked down at them and then rested his hand on the glass to look at Annie s view. Twon wandered behind them to discourage anyone interrupting their privacy.

They had the whole northern view to themselves.

“What happened?” he asked. His deep voice seemed to rattle the glass.

“He got away,” Fannie said, speaking up and tossing her hair toward Stagger Lee. Her black hair all loose and flowing like an Indian princess’s.

“What did I say?” Stagger Lee asked.

“We tried,” Fannie said.

“No. What did I say?”

“You wanted him dead,” Annie said, speaking up.

“This isn’t some kind of fucked-up game,” Stagger Lee said. The longer he’s out there, the more it spreads. You rub shit around and it’s just gonna stink more. I want him out. Wait … he see you two bitches?”

“Yeah,” Fannie said.

“Both of you?”

“He seen me real good,” Fannie said, making her eyes go soft. She licked her lips and fingers and rubbed her hand over the fluff of her coat. Her spit smoothed the fur.

“Girl, you can quit throwing your pussy around. I got socks I’d rather fuck.”

Fannie snorted air out of her nose and tossed her hair over her shoulder.

“White girl. He see you?”

“Yeah, but not like Fannie. It was dark, and I think he was drunk.”

“Take his ass out. You hear me?”

“You kill Lyons?” Fannie asked, unpeeling a piece of Bubblicious and putting her hands into her coat.

Stagger Lee shot her a look like a cornered street dog. A vein in his temple throbbed.

“This isn’t about killin’. Killin’ is like breathin’. I wouldn’t have you workin’ just to cover up a killin’. This is about the sweet smell of money. You ever smell a fresh dead president’s ass? Nothin’ like it.”

“A president’s ass?” Annie said, wrinkling up her nose.

Stagger Lee glanced around the floor like an animal protecting a kill. No one was around. He stood still with his eyes turned toward her.

He reached out, and grabbed Annie by the throat.

Annie felt her air cut off and the blood rush behind her eyes. Her feet left the ground as her back thudded against the glass. She caught her feet on the guardrails, gasping for a sip of air. She reached out, clawing at his hand, but it was like an iron vise around her neck. He shook her with his hand and rammed her against the glass again. She heard a cold crack behind her. Her legs tingled and her head swam, knowing she was an inch away from falling through the clouds.

The glass cracked again and she could hear Twon yelling at someone to stay back. She saw Fannie grabbing Stagger Lee’s arms and Peetie Wheatstraw smiling up at her. He tipped the edge of his hat as he chomped on a wet cigar.

“Killin’ that man can wait,” Peetie said, still grinning.

Stagger Lee grunted and dropped her to the ground. On her knees, she choked and gasped. That motherfucker.

Fannie helped her to her feet. Her left eye twitched as she stared up at Stagger Lee.

“Listen,” Peetie said in a low voice. “Dog, I’ve been around a long time. I seen you with Elmore King. I seen you meet with him. Even seen him come down to Robert Taylor like y’all old friends. Somethin’ to me just don’t jive, right? So ‘bout ten years ago I started thinkin’.”

Stagger Lee’s veins continued to throb in his head. Annie just knew any second he’d reach out and grab Peetie like a rag doll and toss him through the window. That cold December air would suck them out into the clouds.

Peetie slipped the cigar from his mouth and took off his bowler hat. He’d yet to take a breath. “I started thinkin’ y’all got some kind of thang bindin’ you together. And that thang got to be Billy Lyons. Do I lie?”

Stagger Lee folded his arms across his chest.

“Listen, dog, I know you ain’t no Uncle Tom. I know you don’t like cleanin’ the shit off King’s boots. So why do his work for him? I know business ain’t happenin’ down South. I see your world crackin’ down under your feet. How you like to make one last big thang? I know you been thinkin’ ‘bout it. And I ain’t talkin’ about a little payoff. I’m talkin’ about the whole thang. Let Billy, Leroy, and Franky make you what you deserve. You owe it to yourself, man. If the time ain’t more right, I’ll kiss my own ass.”

Stagger Lee uncrossed his arms and put his hand down on Peetie’s shoulder. Peetie finally exhaled. Stagger Lee screws over this King guy. Then Peetie screws over Stagger Lee. Seemed like leapfrog to Annie.

Stagger Lee said, “So what you got on your mind?”

Even on little sleep and a nauseous stomach, Lou Mitchell’s was a fine place to have breakfast in Chicago—the kind of diner JoJo would appreciate. Slouched old men in sweaters with hooded eyes. Cops with their checkerboard hats and thick jackets on booth posts. Lou’s had been open about eighty years, the waitress said, but it resonated with the fifties. A green-and-white awning covered a stainless steel counter where waitresses in creased shirts, black ties, and aprons worked feverishly to fill cups. Hardcore coffee from filtered water and Colombian beans served with a prune and an orange on the side.

Nick thought maybe he’d have some dry toast. JoJo always said that burned bacon or a warm Dr Pepper did the trick. Nick swallowed two more chalky aspirin and warmed his hands over the coffee waiting for Moses Jordan. He wished he was in bed sleeping off his terrible headache. Drapes closed. Heater cranked. But he’d promised Saturday, ten a.m.

Damn, Chicago was starting to make him feel like a whore at a Delta revival. Since he’d arrived on Thursday, he’d been in a fight with a couple of gang bangers and had wrestled for his life with two beautiful women.

This morning, he’d gotten back to the Palmer House about three a.m. and had a rough sleep for the next few hours. As he listened to the Hawk howl against his windows, he still saw the white girl’s face worked into a feral grin. Blood on her teeth, a butcher knife in her hand.

Nick wasn’t a true believer in bad luck and couldn’t sleep. So he took a steaming shower, decided not to shave, and slipped back into his two layers of clothing. The thermal underwear had become another layer of skin under his faded jeans and flannel shirt.

Last night had been a series of stupid mistakes. First, he’d put the moves on Kate, probably severing any chance of a reconciliation. Then he’d gone home with a strange woman.

He could still smell her sickening sweet scent all over him. Almost like wet sugar.

Jordan walked in the front door shaking his coat and greeting a dark-headed woman at the cash register. A couple waitresses waved and Jordan stopped to shake hands with several people. They all seemed pleased just to touch his hand.

The old man laughed at a comment Nick couldn’t hear and hung up his coat and houndstooth hat. He grunted as he slid into the vinyl booth and shook Nick’s hand. He watched Nick’s face and tightened his eyes.

“Man, you look like something bad.”

“Feel like shit.”

“You clubbin?”

“Yeah.”

“Man, that shit will kill you.”

Jordan’s broad face had small pockmarks across his forehead with small imperfections under his black eyes. He scanned the menu for about two seconds before snapping it shut. He had on a charcoal gray suit today with a tabbed collar and black knit tie. He grinned as he brushed the silver hair on the sides of his bald head with his hand and took in his surroundings.

“Best damned breakfast in Chicago,” he said.

“Smells like it.”

“So,” Jordan said. You get a chance to see our neighborhoods? I don’t want you going back to New Orleans saying bad things about our world.”

“Yes, sir, I did a little walking around.”

“What’d you think?”

“Well...” He decided not to mention his run-in with the two thugs on Forty-third Street. “A lot of potential.”

Outside it was so dark it looked like it was the middle of the night. Small flakes drifted down onto salt-corroded sedans already covered in snow. A waitress walked over and took their orders. Jordan ordered an omelette, a plate of bacon, Greek toast, orange juice, and more coffee. Nick ordered dry toast and more water.

“You know for us to succeed, strangers need to feel comfortable in our neighborhoods,” Jordan said. “Man, there are parts I still don’t want to drive through.”

“No different from New Orleans. We have our good and bad. Yin and Yang.”

“So, you’re headed back tomorrow?”

“Christmas. Taking the train Christmas morning.”

“You should be with your family,” Jordan said.

Nick nodded. “My only family is back in New Orleans. I’ll see them soon enough.”

The waitress laid down Nick’s toast and water and Jordan’s omelette and bacon plate. He had to admit it looked pretty damned good. Maybe he should force himself to eat.

“Mmmm,” Jordan said taking a mouthful of omelette. “Sure you don’t want anything else? It’s on me.”

“No, sir, I’m fine,” Nick said. “But I would like to ask you a question.”

Jordan looked up from his food.

“I talked to Jimmy Scott yesterday.”

Jordan smiled, unconcerned. He took another bite of the omelette mixed with some Greek toast. His fat chin shook beneath his jaw.

“He said you were with Billy the day he died.”

Jordan shook his head, averted his eyes, and brought the coffee mug to his lips. “No.”

“He said he was playing harp, with Franky Dawkins on bass, Leroy Williams on piano, Elmore King on guitar, and you on drums. He said you saw Lyons fight with Ruby that day.”

“Dirty Jimmy Scott is a drunk, senile old man,” Jordan said, raising his voice. His eyes hot. “He can’t remember the last time he changed his underwear. He used to collect venereal diseases the way some do trading cards. Used to brag about his collection. Don’t congratulate yourself on that find, son.”

“So, you were not at the last session at King Snake?”

“No, sir.”

“Who was? Did you keep the recording log? Who ran the equipment?”

Jordan laughed deep in his chest and added a wedge of omelette onto a slice of Greek toast. He had yet to look Nick in the eye.