Leavin' Trunk Blues (37 page)

“No, man, we’re cool. We’re cool.” Peetie held out the palms of his hands and bobbed his head. “You know I’m a peace-lovin’ man. Don’t want no trouble.”

Nick stood with his arms crossed, watching him.

--

Nick finished his second cup of coffee and could feel the caffeine pumping its magic into his tired limbs. Sleep deprivation wasn’t so bad after the first twenty-four hours, he thought. It was actually like running a marathon, as if your body went back to the caveman instincts.

“This won’t take long?” Peetie asked. “Right?”

A nub of a cigarette burned in a flat metal ashtray before him.

“Depends on what you have to say,” Nick said.

Peetie tipped his bowler back on his head. “My auntie said she wanted me to take her to service tonight. Real important to the old woman. Candlelight and all that. Me? I just want to get drunk and watch that
Ain’t It a Wonderful Life
. Man, that George Bailey a trip, runnin’ through his hometown when it’s filled with cathouses and honkytonks. But shit, man, to me Pottersville looked better than that other world where he livin’.”

Peetie laughed and laughed as Nick stared out the window into the blackness. On Canal, a few vendors were still packing up and heading out for Christmas. A wino in a Santa’s hat walked in the diner and asked if anyone wanted to hump for a quarter.

No one responded and the old man left rejected.

‘Tell me about Stagger Lee,” Nick said.

“I don’t know no Stagger Lee. What y’all talkin’ about?”

“Peetie, you gots the intelligence of fly shit,” Jimmy said. “The man knows. So get your head out yo’ ass and tell this man the truth. Quit wastin’ his time.”

Peetie straightened his coat and dropped the green bowler back in his lap. A sprig of holly in its brim. He clicked his tongue and sighed before looking Nick in the eye. His cockiness fell as he laced his hand before him.

“Ooh, well well.”

“You work with Stagger Lee?”

“Aw, man,” Peetie started to move out of his seat. “Y’all talk about your dreams together.”

“Listen, you little bastard. I almost got killed this morning. You want to hold out? That’s cool. I’ll call the cops right now and you can tell them all about the con job you worked on Elmore King. I don’t have time to fuck with you anymore.”

Peetie’s face froze and his eyes shifted.

“He tole me he’d kill me, man,” Peetie said. “He just asked me to take a message to King. That’s it. I didn’t have a choice. That was Stagger Lee’s deal, I didn’t want no part of it.”

“Where is he now?” Nick asked.

“Dead,” Peetie said. “Word has it, he got killed by one of his own folks.”

“Man,” Jimmy said, “that dude don’t die.”

Nick lit another cigarette and took a sip of the coffee. He wanted to reach over and choke Peetie’s skinny neck. The old man’s Adam’s apple bobbed up and down as he spun more webs of shit.

“I know a man who seen his body,” Peetie said. “Guess he crawled back to Robert Taylor like an old dawg and just fell out. I say hallelujah. I hated that motherfucker.”

“What about Moses Jordan?” Nick asked.

“What?”

“Why did he hire Stagger Lee to kill Billy?”

“Shiiit. You got to be kiddin’ me, man. Jordan killed Billy Lyons? That man act like his shit made out of gold.”

Jimmy glared at Peetie, but Peetie just ignored the hard glances.

“I wasn’t there, Jimmy,” Peetie said, pointing his finger at Jimmy. “You the one at that session, so don’t look at me like you a saint.”

“Peetie, you so greasy they could use your sweat to cook chicken.”

Peetie leaned back in his seat and tried to relight the wet cigar. He ordered a donut from the waitress and kept trying with the match. The wet, burning smell of cherries and vanilla made Nick want to puke.

“Dawkins and Williams?” Nick asked.

“Hey, man, King can say what he wanted about me, but I didn’t have nothin’ to do with any of that killin’. But if Jordan had Billy killed . . . man, I don’t know.”

“You fuckin’with me, Peet?” Nick asked. “Please don’t be.”

“No, man, I ain’t fuckin’ with ya,” Peetie said. “That piece of news about Jordan just jumped up and bit me in my ass. C’mon, let me go, quit tryin’ to stick my head in the toilet. It’s Christmas. Got to be with my family.”

“Elmore ain’t having Christmas,” Nick said.

“Sounds like he the one who started all this shit. If he let Jordan swim in his own shit we wouldn’t be here right now. But I guess King figured he got to take care of the man who made him the deal. Right? Can I please call my auntie, man? She got to be twistin’ in her panty hose right now. I suppose to be back ‘bout now.”

“You’re not going anywhere, man,” Nick said slowly. He leaned against the cold glass and was hypnotized by the loops his cigarette made in the ashtray. He yawned and felt in his coat for his leather gloves.

Just as he was about to ask Jimmy to let him out of the booth, Peetie shot out of his seat, sprinting to the front door.

Nick bolted over Jimmy’s lap and ran after Peetie as the cook yelled for him to pay the tab.

Out on Roosevelt, a cab swerved and skidded to avoid hitting Peetie as he darted across the street toward a bridge in the darkness. Nick waited in the center yellow line for a semi with a blaring horn to pass before following the old man down a grass embankment and into a gravel valley filled with rusting railroad cars.

Stagger Lee killed Fannie as soon as they had gotten back to Robert Taylor. The woman had no pride. She’d tried to put the move on him, tried to make his dick hard. So he took her to the top floor of The Hole and let her get through her act. They sat up there in the black cold as the wind ripped through broken windows. She cried with her teeth chattering as she stripped for him. She was naked in below zero air trying to get his pants down when she died. She kept on saying it was going to be all right. And so he let her put her head between his legs and stuck the ice pick through her brain. Guess she was upset about the white girl. Kept repeating Annie’s name as her eyes crossed.

He didn’t play.

That was his only rule.

He didn’t play.

That man Travers had brought this world of pain on himself. He was the one who really killed Elmore King. He was the one who killed Annie. And even Fannie. This was Travers’ final moment, Stagger Lee thought, watching through the slit in the railcar door. He looked to the gravel littered with snow and listened. He moved the bag of cash to a far corner and pulled the bloody ice pick from the dead man in the Santa hat.

He watched his breath in the cold, the flesh around his knuckles turning gray as the heat came again to the bloody wound at his side. Stagger Lee kept a knee on the rusted floor as he pulled out his .44 and waited to finish his business.

The South Side way.

--

Nick loosely held a cigarette in his mouth as he kicked the stones in front of him. He’d found Jimmy wandering down the lonely tracks five minutes ago and Peetie had to be long gone. But he kept searching as Jimmy rattled on about the old days. He could name all the lines: Frisco, Illinois Central, L&N, Sante Fe, and Union Pacific. Jimmy knew them all. Each of them part of the old highway. A unique world of freedom without bounds.

“Used to live in places like this,” Jimmy said, a slight shuffle in his step as he walked through the railroad yard. “Just ole hobo camps. In Mississippi, we had little villages of ‘em. Have about five men to an ole railcar. Man, we went all over the place from Helena to St. Louis over to Chicago then back to the Delta. We’d play cards, play a little harp. Traveled a little bit with Honeyboy, some with Little Walter.”

“You never told me that.”

“I ain’t one of those people who makes themselves known by sayin’ I knew so-and-so. You know? If you played the blues one time or another you ran into some other player. You a professor, right? Don’t you hang out with other professors?”

“I try to avoid it,” Nick said, walking through the forgotten monoliths. Be a good way to start his story about Ruby Walker and King Snake. Dirty Jimmy Scott, forgotten bluesman/hobo walking through an old railroad yard on Christmas Eve. Where the hell was Peetie?

“Yeah, but you know what I’m sayin’,” Jimmy said. “We had a time. Never felt so free in my life. I got married and got respectable and that kind of ended thangs. A wife with child won’t put up with all that mess.”

“When did you stop ramblin’?” Nick asked.

“I guess the word home just started meanin’ somethin’ to me. I like the way it sounded. Meanin’ a warm place to sleep, some stew ready fer you when you get home. Sometimes even tomcats want to be loved.”

Nick tossed away his cigarette and reached in his coat for a couple more smokes.

He lit both and handed one to Jimmy. The men stopped in the middle of the dozens of rusted-out railcars. It was like being in a museum, watching the decay on an important part of history. All the railcars full of the sweat of Chicago now left to rust.

The moon was an unreachable gold coin above them.

“You ever regret it?” Nick asked.

“What?” Jimmy asked.

“Way you spent your life?”

“Not a minute, man,” Jimmy said. “Not a minute.”

“Don’t blame you. C’mon. I’ll buy you a steak dinner and a few beers. Peetie’s gone.”

“How ‘bout some Irish whiskey?” Jimmy asked.

“Whatever you want, man,” Nick said, trudging toward the narrow road behind the Maxwell Street Market. The cold air buzzed his fatigued mind, each step crunching in his ears.

A blur of green flashed across his eyes.

“Goddamn!” Jimmy yelled. “Catch his ass.”

--

Stagger Lee could hear steps. Some men talking. His fingers wrapped the cold steel of the .44. Every nerve was ready to leap from the old car and take out Travers. Then he’d take care of Peetie. Little shit all scared, trying to pretend like he didn’t know what Annie was up to. Peetie thought he was clear of this mess. Thought he could go back to his jive-ass shop, but he’d be dead before Christmas morning, too. It was time to bury all the past.

He coughed out some blood and spit onto the ground, the red twirl of blood and saliva dripping to the gravel below.

Stagger Lee had all he needed with him. The money from Jordan and King by his side in the old leather bag. All of it. Maybe he’d come back to Chicago. Maybe he’d disappear. Not much left. He’d sucked everything he could from the projects. Besides, the city wanted to shift the poor people all around Chicago now. His world would be gone by the end of the year. The State Street city nothing but a memory.

He watched Travers share a smoke with Jimmy Scott who was just hobbling along. The smiles on their faces made Stagger Lee want to howl. Then they started to run.

One hand felt for the huge sliding door while the other held the heavy gun.

--

Peetie dipped through another long row of boxcars and then disappeared again. Nick slowed his run to a fast walk, his Browning out in his hand. Somewhere in the distance a train whistle blew. Nick stopped and listened. The whistle blew again and the tracks and old trains shook with its approach.

“Peetie?” Nick yelled.

Nothing. Industrial powerlines stretched overhead like a web.

“I’m not going to hurt you. C’mon, man. Let’s talk.”

The ground shook more and all the loose rusted parts of the train rattled. He yelled again.

About ten yards away, Peetie emerged from the shadows with his hands raised above his head. His shoulders were hunched and his teeth clamped tight. One eye was shut.

“Man, I’m not going to hurt you.”

Peetie shook his head and looked away.

Just as Nick turned, Stagger Lee flew from the doors of the railcar, his black overcoat whipping around him like wings. He looked like a huge raven descending to the earth as he slammed Nick to the ground. His gun skittered across the gravel.

Nick felt the air force from his lungs and his vision dim as he reached for his lost gun, but Stagger Lee found it first. Stagger Lee threw the Browning over his shoulder and struck Nick in the face with the butt of his .44.

“Hold on,” Peetie yelled.

Stagger Lee quickly aimed the long barrel at Peetie and fired off two quick shots, nailing the old man in the chest. Peetie toppled over.

Nick tried to roll free, but the weight above him flattened him to the ground. Stagger Lee twisted the gun into Nick’s side.

He connected his fist into Stagger Lee’s throat.

The hammer edged back and Nick closed his eyes.

Stagger Lee grunted as Jimmy slammed a red brick into the big man’s head.

Nick heard a booming gun shot and pain exploded through his thigh.

Stagger Lee knocked Jimmy away with one hand as Nick drew up his leg and reached into his boot for his knife. The pain, a throbbing pulse of his heart. He grabbed his Tom Mix special, flipped open the blade, and stabbed Stagger Lee in the gut. He felt the weight roll off of him as Stagger Lee made an animal groan that echoed off the railcars.