`Pancakes' is on there. `Bring Me Rocks' is on there. It's the one has the line `My penis has a face and it likes to bark at Germans.' That's funny 'cause Marvin Pontiac's face was never photographed. There shots of him taken from far away, you see him in his white robes and the turban? But there's not any up close."
"He still around?"
"Died in '77 in Detroit. Got run over by a bus and they picked his bones, Iggy and some others, David Bowie. But listen, you better get ready, do your dive. You know what one you gonna do?"
"Not till I'm up on the perch. This afternoon's a warm-up."
"Look over the house. Big crowd, give 'em the triple somersault with some twists and shit. Small crowd-"
"Flying reverse pike. I gotta go," Dennis said, "meet the CIB guy."
Robert said, "Wait," and edged toward the balcony. "Remember I was telling you about the famous crossroads?"
He saw Dennis shake his head.
"Last night in the car, driving you to Tunica." Robert paused but didn't get a reaction. "I'm telling you about the great Robert Johnson the bluesman and the cop cars go flying past?"
"Yeah, I remember."
Robert pointed out at the sky. "That way thirty miles down the road, where Highway 49 crosses Old 61."
"Yeah?"
"That's the famous crossroads. Where the great
Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil. You understand what I'm saying to you?"
No, he didn't.
He didn't understand half of what Robert said to him.
Was Robert here because this was where some serious blues got started? The way tourists visit Elvis' house in Tupelo with the bed in the living room? Robert was too cool to be a tourist. Robert wouldn't visit a site, Robert was the site. Was he here looking for talent? Some forgotten bluesman missing link, another Marvin Pontiac, and take him back to Motown?
Or was that a side deal while he set up Mr. Kirkbride?
Why would he show Kirkbride the photograph of a man hanging from a bridge unless he expected to get something out of it? Restitution. Play on Kirkbride's sympathy. Hope the man is a rich bleeding heart. Willing to contribute to… what? Some kind of appeal, the Robert Taylor scholarship fund for the heirs of a man who was lynched. Robert drives up in his cool S-Type Jaguar looking legit, Robert soft-spoken… and the man hanging from the bridge isn't even his great-granddaddy.
This is what Dennis was thinking in the elevator, cutting across the lobby and down the hallway past the rest rooms, the beauty shop, the workout room and sauna toward the patio bar.
Robert had the confidence to be a confidence man. You believed him. He said in the car last night, "That man gives you any shit, tell me." Dennis believed him as he said it and still believed he was the guy he could go to. Robert knew what was going on here. He knew Arlen Novis had been to prison and worked for Mr. Kirkbride, because Robert had looked into Mr. Kirkbride, he must have, to see if the man was worth going after.
Dennis pushed through the glass door to the patio.
“Mr Lenahan?”
It was the CIB man, John Rau, it had to be, getting up from a table, his hand extended. Dennis walked over and they shook hands. John Rau, in his shirtsleeves but wearing a tie, his navy-blue suitcoat on the back of his chair, gave Dennis his card and asked in a pleasant voice if he'd like a cold beverage. Dennis said no thanks, feeling the grass laying him back now just enough. Good stuff.
John Rau had a Coca-Cola and a dish of mixed nuts on the table. They sat down and Dennis let him explain who he was and what he was investigating, John Rau saying it shouldn't take too long, he understood Dennis was getting ready to do a show.
Dennis was staring at John Rau 's tie, blue, with an American flag in the center of it. He said, "It's more of a warm-up than a show. I haven't gone off the top in more than a month." He looked at the mixed nuts now and wanted some. "Of course anybody who'd like to watch is more than welcome." He said, "Do you mind?" reaching for the nuts.
"Help yourself." John Rau gestured and looked out at Dennis' setup. "I was telling Mr. Darwin the investigation could help your show."
Now Dennis turned enough to look over his shoulder. Billy Darwin was still out there with the electrician.
"He seemed to agree. He sees the local people as your main audience." He waited for Dennis to turn to the table again. "What time was it you left here last night?"
"Going on seven."
"Showers was still working."
"Checking the pressure on the guy wires."
"You trusted him to do that? Wasn't Showers a rummy?"
"He knew what he was doing," Dennis said, looking at the American flag on John Rau 's necktie. There was something wrong with it.
"He tell you he was a confidential informant?"
"No, he didn't. He barely spoke to me."
Dennis reached for the mixed nuts and John Rau pushed the dish closer. He looked in it to see cashews, peanuts, almonds, one pecan… Dennis came away with a fistful of nuts.
John Rau saying, "You know about his background?"
"I know he was in prison. And from what I've heard, talking to people, Floyd was in the Dixie
Mafia and they didn't trust him."
"Who were you talking to?" " Charlie Hoke and our landlady." "They said he was in the Dixie Mafia?"
Dennis watched John Rau pick out a single nut, the pecan, and put it in his mouth. "I guess I just assumed it."
"What do you know about this Dixie Mafia?"
"Nothing. The first time I heard of them was in Panama City, Florida. Maybe a couple years ago."
John Rau took a little round hazelnut. "They're not like the organized crime families. There's a bunch right here that deals drugs. There's a bunch that hijack trucks and commit armed robberies. A bunch in prison who extort money from homosexuals on the outside. There're moonshiners, bootleggers, methamphetamine manufacturers… they're not associated with each other. The only thing they have in common, they're all violent criminals."
"Was Floyd one of them?"
"You saw the type of person he was. Can you see him pulling any kind of rough stuff? Showers said if we'd reduce his sentence to time served he'd work for us, keep us informed."
Dennis said, "I wouldn't think he was that smart."
"He wasn't. I had him down as an idiot. It turned out he wasn't even close to what was going on. He'd tell us things were already common knowledge, in the newspaper, or he'd make something up. I don't know why they shot him. Five times, as a matter of fact. The medical examiner said, `This man was harder to kill than a cockroach.' "
Dennis was staring at John Rau 's tie again. He said, "I think there's something wrong with your flag but I don't know what it is."
John Rau smiled. "You count the stars?"
"I tried, they're too small."
John Rau picked up the wide part of the tie and looked down at it. "There are only thirty-five stars, the number of states in the Union by 1863. Even though we were now at war with the states that seceded, Lincoln would not allow the stars representing those states to be removed."
There was something wrong with that, too.
Dennis scooped another handful of nuts, craving them, but held off stuffing them in his mouth. "You said the states we were at war with, sounding like a Yankee."
John Rau said, "You know what it is? Whenever a reenactment's coming up I begin to assume the attitude of the side I'll be on. This first Tunica Muster won't be a major one, Yankees'll be in short supply. Since I can go either way, I'll wear Federal blue this time. Probably represent the Second New Jersey Mounted Infantry. They were at Brice's."
"Brice's Cross Roads," Dennis said.
And John Rau 's eyebrows raised. "You're taking part?"
"No, but Charlie Hoke is, and I hear Mr. Kirkbride 's gonna be Nathan Bedford Forrest."
John Rau was smiling again. "Walter loves old Bedford. Yeah, it was Walter and I put this one together. I happened to mention there's terrain east of here reminds me of Brice's, full of that scrub oak they call blackjack. I'd see it driving up from Batesville. Walter) umped on it. He said, `You want to do Brice's?' I hesitated because we have the Battle of Corinth coming up in September, one we do over there. Usually we feature the assault of Battery Robinett, which most every Southerner knows about. You've heard of it?"