The Dying Crapshooter's Blues (6 page)

Weston Nash was a familiar character in the rougher parts of town. Well educated and from a good family, he had fallen under the sway of the powders he prescribed to his patients, then lost his medical license after a botched surgery resulted in a death. When he wasn't answering a call to stitch a razor cut, take care of a hussy's trick baby, or tend to a crapshooter with a police bullet in his gut, he spent most of his time holed up in quarter-a-night rooms around downtown with his solutions and syringes.

On this Sunday, it had taken the better part of the morning for a couple of the rounders to locate him in a George Street flophouse and drag him out.

He now came stumping up the back stairs and into the bedroom, muttering foul curses. Though he was a tallish man, he appeared bent and deflated by his addiction, like a furtive buzzard lurking near something foul. He wore an old suit that was rumpled and dusty and splotched with stains, a shirt that was yellowing at the collar, and a loud tie that hung askew. His face, florid pink with exertion, featured eyes webbed red behind tarnished spectacles and, in spite of the morning chill, his few remaining strands of hair were plastered with sweat to his pink skull. He came in huffing and snorting through his nose like a horse that had been run too hard. When he stopped in the kitchen and opened his black bag, Martha stepped forward and offered to boil the implements.

Willie caught Dr. Nash's odor before he even reached the room: a small cloud of sweat, old cologne, and something ranker. Who knew into what sort of fluids those unsteady hands had plunged lately?

The doctor dropped his bag on the mattress and pulled down the bedsheet to examine the bandage that Martha had fashioned. With a nod of bleary approval, he pulled it away from the wound. Little Jesse grunted over the rough treatment.

Nash pushed his spectacles up his nose, peered close for a few seconds, then straightened. “All right, now,” he said. “All of y'all get on out and leave us be.”

Jesse said, “Joe and Willie can stay,” and the two of them sat back down while the others shuffled out into the kitchen to drink and smoke until they could come back and resume the watch.

Nash eyed Jesse. “Guess you want a shot,” he said.

“Hell, yes, I want a shot!” Jesse said. Joe and Willie laughed.

The doctor fished in his bag for a brass syringe and a vial. As Joe watched and Willie listened, he opened the bottle and used the syringe to draw off half the liquid, then jabbed it into Jesse's thigh without bothering to disinfect the spot. He hesitated before putting the solution back in the bag, as if thinking about helping himself.

Within a few seconds, Jesse's eyes went dim again and a lazy smile curved his lips. “That's better,” he said. “And you can leave the rest.” He closed his eyes and dropped into a black well.

“All right, I'm ready in here!” Nash called out.

Martha brought the shining implements on a dish towel that looked none too clean. Nash nodded for her to lay it out at the foot of the bed. Martha stared in dismay at Jesse's exposed wound before backing away.

“Now what?” Joe asked.

“Now I'm going to go in and see if I can get the damn slug out,” the doctor groused as he selected a scalpel. “Ain't that what I'm here for?”

“What if you can't?” Joe asked him.

“Then I can't,” he said. He wiggled the blade in Joe's direction. “You want to give it a try?”

“Just don't make him worse,” Joe told him.

The doctor gave him a cold glance. “Or what?”

Joe smiled without humor. “Or I'll throw you down the fucking steps,
doctor.
”

“Another hard case,” Nash said, and bent to his work.

Willie was just as glad he couldn't see what was going on. He heard Joe grunt in revulsion, the sound of a knife insulting flesh and the suck and slurp of visceral fluids. Nash's huffs of exertion weren't a good sign; the man was working too hard. Presently, he felt someone's gaze resting on his face as Joe, unable to watch anymore, turned away. After several more minutes of this butchery, the doctor let out a blunt curse.

“It's too deep,” he muttered. “Can't get at it without cutting him to pieces. He wouldn't last the afternoon. Ain't worth it.”

“So?” Joe said.

“So now I'll patch him up. S'all I can do.” Nash dug out a needle and suture and went to sewing Jesse's gut. Joe watched for a few seconds, then looked away again. He'd seen Christmas turkeys get better treatment. The sound of their voices brought Martha into the doorway. She crossed her thin arms, insulted by the messes men made.

“What's going to happen now?” Willie said.

“He'll either live with that bullet in him or he won't,” Nash said. He finished in silence, taking minimum care in fashioning the bandage as Martha looked on with disapproval. As soon as he left, she'd do it right. The doctor tossed his implements back into his bag and snapped it closed.

Glancing between Joe and Willie, he said, “All right, then. Who's paying?”

Joe wanted to say,
paying for what?
Instead, he said, “How much?”

“Three dollars.”

Joe went into his pocket, took three bills, and held them up. “You sure you can't do anything else for him?”

Nash didn't bother to answer. He snatched the money, grabbed his bag, and stalked out of the room as if he had another appointment, which if he did would be with a needle or pipe. Joe got up to catch him just as he reached the kitchen door. One gambler he knew slightly and another of Jesse's whores were at the table drinking coffee laced with whiskey and studiously ignoring the two men.

Before Joe could say anything, Nash jerked his head toward the bedroom and said, “That boy's bound to die. There's infection setting in. It's just a matter of time 'fore it kills him.”

“And you can't stop it?”

“No, it's too far gone,” Nash said. “Go ahead, carry him somewhere else if you want. I say he's finished.”

“How long?”

“He might last a week. Not much more, though.”

Joe grabbed him by the arm. “Don't tell anybody about this,” he said. “You understand? Nobody.”

“Who the hell am I gonna tell?” the doctor said. “Who the hell cares?” With a rude shrug, he walked out, closing the door behind him.

When Joe stepped back into the bedroom, he found that Willie now had his guitar in his lap and was strumming soft chords on the twelve strings. Jesse had dropped off again.

“You flush these days, Joe?” the blind man said.

Joe stopped, then shook his head, bemused. Willie had heard him fan his roll and could likely tell him how much was there. The blind man went back to his guitar. Joe sat down to listen, and after hearing a few bars, picked up a pattern that sounded sort of familiar. He thought Willie was about to play “The St. James Infirmary” or maybe “The Streets of Laredo,” tunes everyone knew.

It wasn't either one. With a small smile, Willie half sang a line. “Little Jesse was a gambler, night and day . . .” Hearing the
words, the man on the bed stirred and opened his eyes. Willie played the chords over another time and sang, “Yes, he used crooked cards and dice.”

Jesse's pained face broke open as Willie went to humming a melody without lyrics. At the sound of the guitar, the couple who had been at the kitchen table got up and stepped into the doorway to listen. Willie had a sweet voice, especially when he sang a lament in a minor key, the kind of dirge played for the dead.

 

Over the next hour, Jesse went in and out of his stupor three times. The last time, he came up and gazed around blearily to see Willie in the corner with a woman and a man and some character he didn't know. Joe slouched in the chair next to the head of the bed.

Jesse listened to Willie playing and singing little snatches of lyrics for a few moments, then looked down at the bandage that swathed his midsection. He tamped it gently with the fingers of his right hand. “Sonofabitch didn't fix me, did he?”

Joe shook his head. “He said it would have killed you, Jesse.”

“Well, I'm going to die anyway, ain't I?” His voice was bitter.

Willie was busy with his guitar, and the others in the room weren't paying attention. Joe leaned close to Jesse's sickly face.

“Why the hell did that copper shoot you?” he whispered. “What'd you do?”

“Didn't do nothin'.” Jesse sounded sulky as he gazed past Joe to something on the wall. “I never had no business with him at all.”

“You didn't get on his wife, did you?”

That brought a short, pained laugh. “If he got one . . . you know . . . she'd be a damn cow.”

“He ever roust you?”

Jesse said, “Not that I recall.” He heaved another breath. “I just seen him around . . . he's a drunk . . . never harmed nobody . . . not that I know . . .”

“What happened, then?”

“I was . . . at the crap game,” Jesse stuttered, pulling a breath between every few words. “You know we got us . . . a regular game. Every Saturday night . . . over on Fort Street. Took my money . . . and left out.” He made himself smile. “Gonna go see a woman I know . . . in a house downtown. I was on Courtland . . . corner at Edgewood and he . . . he come up behind me.”

“Logue.”

“That's right. Logue.” He stared, drifting off again.

Joe prompted him. “Jesse?”

Jesse blinked like a lizard. “Then he say, ‘Hey, nigger! Your name Jesse Williams?' Then he said . . . somethin' I didn't catch . . . and he . . . he snapped his pistol.”

“That's all?”

“He jes . . . walked away. Let me there to die.” His eyes found Joe's. “And that's just what I'm 'bout to do, ain't it?” The question came off on a failing breath.

He was struggling with his answers, so Joe let him rest as he pondered. There was something wrong about it. Whether Jesse was lying or evading or suffering the effects of the wound, there were pieces missing from his story.

Before Joe could question him any further, Little Jesse raised his head an inch or so. “Listen to me,” he said, gritting his teeth. “I didn't no way have this comin'. You understand?” He caught a hard breath. “You know . . . I done plenty wrong in my life. I likely should have been . . . been dead long time ago. But I . . . I for damn sure don't want to go like this.” He raised up a little more, straining. “That fucker shot me . . . for
nothin'.
” His voice broke and he sank back on the pillow. His eyes got wet. A moment passed and he said, “You got to help me, Joe.”

Joe said, “Do what?”

“Don't wan' die . . . for nothin'.” The words went into a slur.

“Jesse?”

“You got to . . . to help me . . .”

Joe started to protest, then stopped. Jesse had gone out again. For a second, Joe wondered if he had just passed over. Then he heard him sigh, long and low. It wasn't done yet.

Joe looked in Willie's direction and saw the blind man tilting his head their way, listening to every word.

 

Rather than drive back to his house, the Captain asked Lieutenant Collins to drop him off at police headquarters. The lieutenant was dismayed, thinking Jackson was now going to order him to work through the Sunday afternoon. But when they pulled up to the building on the west end of Decatur Street, the Captain told him to take care of one piece of business before he went home. Once he had related the details, he got out of the car and, with a wave that was almost sprightly for that dour man, sent him on his way.

Collins watched the Captain amble across the sidewalk, up the steps, and through the doors, thinking it was odd that he seemed so unconcerned about all the trouble over the theft of the jewelry from the Payne mansion. But of course, the man had a reputation for closing his cases, one way or another.

 

To please Jesse, Willie spent time toying with more words to the song he had begun. To the first couplet, he had added,

 

A sinful guy, black-hearted, he had no soul

Yes, his heart was hard and cold like ice

 

Jesse was delighted, even as his mind wandered away and back again. His spirits lifted some, and so Willie switched to playing songs at his request. The blind man was a walking music book, with what seemed an endless store of vaudeville tunes, hillbilly cants, blues laments, rags, spirituals, and popular songs of the day swimming around in his head. Not one of the people
drifting in and out of the room could stump him. With his keening voice and the brassy sweep of the Stella's twelve strings, he filled the next two hours, aided by the glass of whiskey that was topped for him regularly and the appreciative murmurs from those gathered at Jesse's bedside.

At one point in the middle of the afternoon, Joe happened to overhear a couple of rounders whispering about a jewel heist but couldn't catch any of the specifics over all the chatter, and then was distracted by Jesse muttering something he couldn't understand any better.

Not too long after that, Robert Clark appeared in the bedroom doorway. He didn't come inside once he saw the crowd that had gathered, instead lingering only to stare at Jesse with guilt-stricken eyes.

Joe was surprised to see him and when their gazes met, Robert looked startled and faded back. By the time Joe got up and worked his way through the crowd to the kitchen, he was gone. Joe stood on the landing, looking up and down a deserted alley.

Back inside, he puzzled over the hurried flight of the one other person who had been on the scene the night before. Willie said it was Robert who had found Little Jesse. Apparently, the man didn't want to talk about it.

Jesse weakened as afternoon crept toward evening. Just after the sun went down, Martha walked in with a bowl of hot chicken broth and told them all it was time to leave. Joe and Willie remained behind.