"Angel," said Louis patiently, "nobody ever hung no brother to a Johnny Cash record."
There was nothing for it but to head down to the Roadside. We went back to the motel and I got my car keys. When I came out of my room, Louis had added a black cowboy hat with a band of silver suns to his ensemble. Angel put his hands on his head and swore loudly.
"You got the rest of the Village People in there too?" I asked. I couldn't help but smile. "You know, you and Charley Pride are plowing a pretty lonely furrow with that black country-and-western routine. The brothers see you dressed like that and they may have words to say."
"Brothers helped to build this great country, and that 'country-and-western routine,' as you put it, was the soundtrack to generations of workers. Wasn't all Negro spirituals and Paul Robeson, y'know. Plus, I like this hat." He gave the brim a little flick with his fingers.
"I was kind of hoping you two could maintain a low profile while we were here, unless it's absolutely necessary that you do otherwise," I said, as we got into the Mustang.
Louis sighed loudly. "Bird, I'm the only brother from here to Toronto. Less I contract vitiligo between this motel and the high school band scam, ain't no way that I can be low profile. So shut up and drive."
"Yeah, Bird, drive," said Angel from the backseat, "'else Cleavon Little here will get his posse on your ass. The Cowpokes with Attitude, maybe, or Prairie Enemy…"
"Angel," came the voice from the passenger seat. "Shut up."
The Roadside was a big old place done in dark wood. It was long, windowed and single storied at the front with a gabled entrance in the center that rose up above the rest like the steeple of a church. There were plenty of cars parked in the lot, with more around the sides stacked up almost to the woods. The Roadside was at the western edge of town; beyond it was dark forest.
We paid our five-dollar cover charge at the door-"Five dollars!" hissed Angel. "This a mob place?"-and made our way into the bar itself. It was a long cavernous room, almost as dark inside as it was outside. Weak lights hung on the walls and the bar was lit sufficiently so that drinkers could see the labels on the bottles, but not the sell-by date. The Roadside was a lot bigger than it looked from the outside and the light died just beyond the limits of the bar and the center of the dance floor. It stretched maybe three hundred feet from the door to the stage at the far end, with the bar on a raised platform at the center. Tables radiated from it into the dimness at the walls, which were lined in turn by booths. At the edges, the Roadside was so dark that only pale moon faces were visible, and then only when their owners stepped into a pool of light. Otherwise, they were only vague shapes moving against the walls, like wraiths.
"It's a Stevie Wonder bar," said Angel. "The menu's probably in braille."
"It's pretty dark," I agreed. "Drop a quarter here, it'll be worth ten cents by the time you find it."
"Yeah, like Reaganomics in miniature," said Angel.
"Don't say nothing bad about Reagan," warned Louis. "I have good memories of Ron."
"Which is probably more than Ron has," smirked Angel.
Louis led the way to a booth over by the right-hand wall, close to one of the emergency doors that stood halfway down each of the Roadside's walls. There was probably at least one other door at the back, behind the stage. At present, that stage was occupied by what seemed to be Larry Fulcher and the Gamblers. Louis was already tapping his feet and nodding his head in time to the music.
In fact, Larry Fulcher and his band were pretty good. There were six of them, Fulcher leading on the mandolin, guitar and banjo. They played "Bonaparte's Retreat" and a couple of Bob Wills songs, "Get With It" and "Texas Playboy Rag." They moved on to the Carter Family with "Wabash Cannonball" and "Worried Man Blues," "You're Learning" by the Louvin Brothers and then did a neat version of "One Piece at a Time" by Johnny Cash. It was an eclectic selection, but they played well and with obvious enthusiasm.
We ordered burgers and fries. They came in red plastic baskets with a liner on the bottom to hold in the grease. I felt my arteries hardening as soon as I smelled the food. Angel and Louis drank some Pete's Wicked. I had bottled water.
The band took a break and people flooded toward the bar and the bathrooms. I sipped some water and scanned the crowd. There was no sign of Rand Jennings, or his wife, which was probably a good thing.
"We should be out at Meade Payne's place now," said Louis. "Billy Purdue arrives, he ain't gonna do it in a parade float in daylight."
"If you were out there now, you'd be freezing and you wouldn't be able to see a thing," I said. "We do what we can." I felt like the whole situation was slipping away from me. Maybe it had always been slipping away, right from the time I took five hundred dollars from Billy Purdue without ever questioning where he might have found it. I still felt certain that Billy would make his way to Dark Hollow, sooner or later. Without Meade Payne's cooperation there was always the chance that he could slip past us, but my guess was that Billy would hole up with Meade for a time, maybe even try to make for Canada with his help. Billy's arrival would disturb the routine out at the Payne place, and I had faith in the ability of Angel and Louis to spot any such disturbance.
But Billy was still a comparatively minor concern next to Ellen Cole although, in some way that I hadn't yet figured out, there had to be a connection between them. An old man had guided them up here, perhaps the same old man who had shadowed Rita Ferris in the days before her death, maybe even the same old man who had once been known as Caleb Brewster by the people of a small Texas town. Dark Hollow was just too small a place for those kinds of occurrences to take place randomly.
As if on cue, a woman pushed her way through the throng at the bar and ordered a drink. It was Lorna Jennings, her bright red sweater like a beacon in the crowd. Beside her stood two other women, a slim brunette in a green shirt and an older woman with black hair, wearing a white cotton top decorated with pink roses. It seemed to be a girls' night out. Lorna didn't see me, or didn't want to see me.
There was a burst of applause and Larry Fulcher and his band came back onstage. They burst into "Blue Moon of Kentucky" and the dance floor instantly became a mass of movement, couples swinging each other across the floor, smiles on their faces, the women spinning on their toes, the men twisting them expertly. There was laughter in the air. Groups of friends and neighbors stood talking, beers in hand, enjoying a night of community and kinship. Above the bar, a banner thanked everyone for supporting the Dark Hollow High School Band. In the shadows, younger couples kissed discreetly while their parents practiced foreplay on the dance floor. The music seemed to grow in volume. The crowd began to move faster. The sound of glass breaking came from the bar, accompanied by a burst of embarrassed laughter. Lorna stood beside a pillar, the two women on either side silent now as they listened to the music. In the shadows at the walls, figures moved, some barely more than indistinct shapes: couples talking, young people joshing, a community relaxing. Here and there, I heard talk of the discovery of Gary Chute's body but it wasn't personal and it didn't interfere with the night's festivities. I watched a man and woman seated at the bar across from Lorna as they kissed hard, their tongues visible where their mouths met, the woman's hand snaking down her partner's side, down, down…
Down to where a child stood before them, lit by a circle of light that seemed to come from nowhere but within himself. While couples moved close by, and groups of men walked through the crowds carrying trays of beer, the child still held a space to itself and no one came close or broke the shell of light that surrounded him. It lit his blond hair, brought up the color of his purple rompers, made the nails of his tiny hands shine as he raised his left hand and pointed into the shadows.