Leavin' Trunk Blues (36 page)

The door opens again and the room remains silent.

KING:
“Who the hell are you?”

JORDAN:
“Get gone.”

KING:
“Goddamn, you a hoss.”

JORDAN:
“Go.”

The door creaks open and bangs shut. Some loose jazz-style drumming starts for about thirty seconds. Someone coughs and the door to the studio opens again.

LYONS:
“Jordan, it’s ten o’clock. Get out here. Hey, you—”

The studio fills with thuds and crashes.

LYONS:
“You motherfuckers, you motherfuckers ...”

Piano keys clank.

Cymbals turn over.

The microphone topples over and buzzes with feedback.

The sound of what seems like bloody flesh being torn apart. Over and over.

Then in the vibrating, electric silence caught on skinny brown tape over forty years ago came the final violent sound. A sharp gunshot and a high-pitched scream. Sounded almost like a child in the magnetic hiss.

The tormented moans match a desperate writhing somewhere near the microphone. Heavy footsteps thud across the floor, a door slams, and one man’s breath soaks the final few moments of the tape.

The door opens again.

KING:
“Sweet Jesus, what have you—”

The tape reached its end, flipping its tail over and over on the reel. Doyle’s face had turned white and the cigarette had burned to a nub in his fingers. Kate watched Nick.

“We need more?” Nick asked.

Kate shook her head.

“Kind of makes Sonny Boy’s ‘Little Village’ session seem like a PTA meeting,” Doyle said. “Always thought that fifty-fifty was a hell of a split.”

“Doyle, can you drive Kate to the State’s Attorney’s Office?” Nick asked. “It’s down on Randolph.”

“I know,” Doyle said, still in shock. “Be glad to.”

“What about you?” Kate asked.

“I’m going to grab Jimmy,” Nick said. “Make sure he’s all right. We also need Peetie, I bet he can put the rest together with Dawkins and Williams.”

“South Side?”

“No, I heard he’s down at Maxwell Street.”

--

A pinkish blue light leaked from the end of the State Street corridor that morning, as Moses Jordan’s Mercedes rolled through the Robert Taylor Homes. He passed dead trees, rusting playgrounds, and huge trash bins filled with burning rubble. Made him sick to see all the filth and the cancer that plagued the dream. He couldn’t wait to see it all cut from the South Side, so the healthy areas could thrive and grow once again.

He remembered when they built the towers and demolished neighborhoods, failed self-respect, and lies that followed. For a few years the plan worked, until unemployment and drugs began to twist at the people. The children who were born here never knew anything else but poverty and pain.

Just one more thing he needed and he’d be done with Robert Taylor. Forever.

Jordan’s Mercedes slowed at the end of the corridor. 5326 South State Street. The Hole. Jordan took a deep breath and walked into the dead city towering above him. He’d be fine with Stagger Lee, Jordan thought, smelling the piss-soaked hallways. The man knew where the money came from.

He should have never sent Elmore to do his work last night. But Elmore understood Jordan could never be seen with Stagger Lee. He knew the hope of the South Side meant the world and made the effort to take the cash.

But Stagger Lee said Elmore had never shown.

Jordan would go in, find out what Stagger Lee wanted now, and leave this mess.

An old woman cried in a corner, talking to a mangy cat. Jordan walked around her and put his hand over his nose to filter out the smell. Damn. He pushed the elevator button. Nothing. No electricity.

Jordan opened the door with his foot, walked around the crap on the bottom step and up the emergency steps over piles of garbage in the halls. Garbage bags of old food had frozen into bricks. Icicles hung from ceiling tiles and entire doors were coated in clear ice. Down the hall, a fluorescent bulb buzzed on and off and he could hear the motor on a gas generator.

Felt colder in here than on the street. Stagger Lee must’ve tapped into some power upstairs or something. No way you could live in this shit unless you were a polar bear. Surprised he’d stayed on. Guess he was still working a few more of them nickel- and-dime crack deals to make sure he gets rid of the product. Crack, Stagger Lee’s legacy.

For years, Jordan had combed the South looking for talent. He’d gone all over the southern states with promises of records and Chicago. He’d brought hundreds to the big city from little old country towns. But if he could just go back and change that meeting in Memphis in ‘59, he’d do it in a second.

A white record promoter he knew had used Stagger Lee before and told Jordan he was the man to take care of any troubles. So on a hot August afternoon, Jordan sat in Handy Park and watched a slide player work out on a Son House song. The biggest man he’d ever seen took a seat on the green park bench by him.

Jordan remembered feeling the man’s heavy breath. Stagger Lee, just a young man then, didn’t talk. He just listened to what was to be done, took the money, and left. Never saw him again until after Billy was killed.

But Stagger Lee never left Chicago. That piece of shit stayed and picked off each part of Billy’s old territory. He became the new leader of the South Side, and when Robert Taylor was built, the man really went for the throat of the people.

If he’d just never gone to Handy Park that day. Maybe. Maybe. But you can’t change the past. Dwelling on mistakes wouldn’t make change come any faster. Today was all that mattered. Today would make the difference.

When he reached Stagger Lee’s floor, a fat little black boy with a shotgun waved at the end of the hall. The fat boy opened the door and Jordan saw Stagger Lee standing by an open window in a bare room. He had on a long, black leather jacket, black jeans, and cowboy boots. No shirt and a dog collar. He held a bloody towel to his side.

The door slammed behind them. A whole mess of locks clamping shut. Jordan took off his checkered hat, listening to generators whirl.

“Stagger Lee,” Jordan said. “How you doin’, man?”

Stagger Lee whipped out a .44 from his jacket and stuck it right in the middle of Jordan’s forehead. Jordan’s legs felt like a broken guitar string and he dropped to his knees.

Jordan swallowed.

“Tell me what you need,” Jordan pleaded. “What do you need?”

“What do you have?”

“Money, man. I’ll get you all the money you want.”

“Money didn’t help your friend Elmore King,” Stagger Lee said. “It’s gonna be a cold, cold Christmas for that dead motherfucker.”

Jordan ground his teeth, staring down the long barrel of the gun. He swallowed again. Slowly.

“You talk to a man name Travers?” Stagger Lee asked.

“He came to see me, but I didn’t say anything,” he said, hearing the slow twirl of the gun’s cylinder. “I’m not stupid.”

Stagger Lee breathed in his ear as his hands shook and throat constricted. He couldn’t breathe, everything was so tight. His eyes watered and tears splatted against his cheeks.

“Please, please.”

Stagger Lee pulled the trigger and the hammer fell on an empty cylinder. He pulled the gun back and stuck it into his coat. Jordan looked up into Stagger Lee’s eyes covered in bug-shaped sunglasses. There was a smear of blood on his stomach and bloody holes on the arm of his jacket.

“What’s it worth to you to make all your problems go away?” Stagger Lee asked in the empty room. “What’s it worth to you to make all the questions about Billy Lyons and Ruby Walker fade out?”

“Everything,” Jordan quivered and felt the warm piss spread down his thigh.

The Maxwell Street Market buzzed with a nervous energy that Christmas Eve. Vendors in worn tents and dented vans hawked used tires, flannel shirts, cheap jewelry, and tools splotched with rust. Mexicans huddled by heaters with their dried peppers, cactus paddies, and cockfighting videos. The whole street smelled of corn tortillas and cheap leather as a few hardcore musicians played raunchy blues. Their weathered fingers worked over frets through cut gloves as their music fuzzed from torn speakers.

The market was the old gateway to the blues. The place where Little Walter first blew his harp in Chicago. The spot where Robert Johnson’s old traveling partner, Honeyboy Edwards, came to establish himself after the legend’s death. This was the proving ground for Hound Dog Taylor, Snooky Pryor, and Jimmy Rogers. The tales of a day’s rewards were legendary. Bathtubs overflowing with dollar bills for country musicians fresh from the Mississippi Delta. One of Nick’s favorite stories was about a guy who made money with a performing chicken. The guy could command the chicken to sit, speak, and roll over like a dog. Only on Maxwell Street.

Even though the century-old market had moved near the railroad yard off Canal, there was still a lot of character left. Some complained it was a little too clean but there was plenty of chaos and mounds of junk to buy.

Dirty Jimmy stood talking to an older black couple who sold velvet paintings of flowers. He asked them a couple of questions, they shook their heads, and then wandered back to Nick.

“They ain’t seen him,” Jimmy said, his ski hat pulled so low on his old head Nick could barely see his eyes. “Man, that jive-ass huckster is gone.”

When Nick had stopped by Kate’s place to check on him, the old man said he wanted to go with him. Nick tried to talk him out of it, but Jimmy said he knew the market like the back of his own ass. How do you argue with that?

So after Nick took a long, hot shower to clean off the blood, he finally agreed. He was in no condition to fight it. His head and ribs throbbed. His hands shook. He hadn’t slept in twenty-four hours and was afraid he would be out if he blinked.

Jimmy looked down the endless rows of vendors, tents thudding in the brittle wind, and took a deep whiff of the pungent smells as if he were a bird dog. The sky was hard and flat. A blackening gray. Somewhere, a cheap cassette player played Burl Ives’s “Holly Jolly Christmas.” What Nick wouldn’t give for just one of those humid summer nights back home where your T- shirt sticks to your skin.

It was late in the afternoon and most of the vendors were starting to pack up. Nick and Jimmy walked the market for a final time. They crossed over Roosevelt Road past an old diner. He was sure Peetie was gone.

They walked past an old man selling pirated movies on video, a man that specialized in risqué belt buckles and another that sold nothing but singing Christmas trees. Nick was about to pack up the expedition and head back to Kate’s for a warm drink when he happened to glance in the weathered diner facing Roosevelt and saw Peetie’s face halfway into a cheeseburger.

“What’s up, man?” Jimmy asked, his face looking hard and frozen in the streetlights.

Nick nodded to the diner and smiled.

“That dipshit better bend over,” Jimmy said.

“Why’s that?”

“He ‘bout to get the ass kickin’ of his life.”

--

The White Palace Grill was a twenty-four-hour diner with orange vinyl booths that smelled of decades of hamburger grease. Nick stared at a hand-painted menu above as two workers hunkered over donuts and meatloaf at the counter. He watched a tired waitress with hair the color of copper wiring walk over a faded red and white floor chomping on gum. Bacon and eggs sizzled on the open grill.

“Hey, man, how you doin?” Peetie said, offering his hand and putting down his cheeseburger. “Listen, just about to call you and see how thangs went. Hey Jimmy, what’s up, brother? Good to see you, dawg.”

Jimmy and Nick stood back from the booth and Peetie pulled back his hand. He had on a green suit and green hat. Reminded Nick of a leprechaun.

“What’s up, man?” Peetie asked. “Look like somebody just pissed on your Christmas tree. Let me buy y’all a burger with extra cheese. Jimmy, I know you’re a cheese man.”

Jimmy looked at Peetie like he was something he had found on the bottom of his shoe.

“How ‘bout you tell me about Moses Jordan and Stagger Lee,” Nick said. “And I won’t kick your narrow little ass.”

Jimmy laughed and looked down at Nick’s feet.

“What size you wear?”

“Eleven,” Nick said.

“Eleven lots bigger than yore rectum, Wheatstraw.”

“What? Stagger Lee?” Peetie pulled out an unlit cigar from his green suit jacket and twisted it into his puckered mouth. “Y’all drunk?”

“King’s dead,” Nick said.

“Yeah, man, I heard that on the news. Shit, everybody ‘round here been talkin’ about it. Takin’ it real hard. Killed out on Navy Pier or somethin’. Who would want to kill such a sweet, sweet man?”

Peetie took off his green hat and held it over his heart.

“King told me you set him up,” Nick said. Jimmy stood beside him nodding. “Thought we were friends, Peetie. You been playin’ me?”