Out of the Blues (9 page)

“Damn, I missed my big chance to arrest some musicians for smoking weed! At the blues festival!” she kidded the drummer.

“So would you lock me up for practicing my religion, smoking the sacred herb?” The young man raised his chin. He was wearing a Che Guevara T-shirt.

“And what religion would that be, Sweet Meat?' Goldie said, arriving back at the table. “You grew up Presbypalian or some shit in a suburb.”

“I'm into roots religion, voodoo, from the Islands.”

“Don't get him started, Goldie. Leave him alone,” Dan mediated.

Bailey began to sag, growing darker circles under his eyes. “Come on, kid. Help me and Pops get tucked in.” He threw back the last smack of whiskey and got up from the table. Mustafa rose with the old men. Before following them out of the bar, he pointed at Dan and lifted an eyebrow. “Don't wake the dog when you come in.”

Goldie, on his fourth whiskey, barked.

Blackbird stuck out his tongue and panted. After the old men and Mustafa were through the door, he pulled a cigar that matched his size from his jacket and lit it. “I think I'm gonna take this stogie over to the bar and have one more whiskey. Goldie, you might as well come with me. You wearing that waitress out.”

The two men moved across the room and left a space of silence between Dan and Salt. “How did you get to be the dog's guardian?” She leaned forward again.

“On every tour the guys find something they keep going, joking around. I like dogs, pet 'em when I see them. I wanted to adopt this old stray that showed up at the bus in Albuquerque. But, well—I'm not home much.” Dan looked sideways and lifted his shoulders, resigned.

Then, almost like after she was shot, Salt caught something in her peripheral vision. “I remember an imaginary dog. I hadn't thought of him since . . .”

“Since?”

She turned back to Dan. “Since I lost him,” she said, looking down, smoothing the coat across her lap. She cleared her throat. “So the band gave you a dog, of sorts, a dog-away-from-home dog. Home. We were just getting to Melissa when your guys came in. I saw some magazine pieces, some interviews. You and she have been together for a long time.”

“Look, I'm dead tired and I've got to make sure these guys turn in, and then I've got to get up tomorrow and oversee the setup for the gig.”

“Of course.”

He hesitated. “If you want you can come to the gig. We'll be at the Notelling tomorrow and Saturday.”

She stood and fished bills from a pocket of the coat. “See you then.” She put money under the candle, picked up her jacket, and folded the old coat over her arm.

She thought she heard Dan humming the theme music from an old TV cop show as he followed her out of the bar.

C
riminal Records was an anchor business in Little Five Points, a destination hang for suburban kids looking for edgy. They'd put a blue streak in their hair and come sit on the plaza with other suburban kids with streaks in their hair or a new nose ring or tat, shop at the vintage clothing boutique and the shoe place that carried the most current radical shoe styles. As Salt pushed the door inward, an over-the-door bell jangled but didn't seem to have much significance for the fortyish guy behind the counter, his elbow propped on one of the glass display cases. He was in conversation with his blond counterpart, who was wearing the same plaid knee shorts, except the blond guy's pants were torn at the right hem instead of the left. The store was wall to wall and floor to ceiling with bins of CDs, cassette tapes, and vinyl, and had a pleasant dry-vanilla and old-glue odor.

Eventually, the clerk glanced down the counter at Salt but continued his bent-arm talk with the dude. It seemed a little heavy-handed to have to display her badge just to get sales service. “Excuse me.” She held up a finger. The guy said something out of the side of his mouth
before he unpropped and ambled over. “I'm looking for some CDs of Mike Anderson.”

“Okay,” he said.

“Do you have any?”

“Maybe.” He nodded at the blond guy who was leaving. “Dude.”

“‘Maybe,'” she repeated. “Can you show me what you have of his?”

“Tapes, CDs, vinyl?”

“I'd like to take a look at them all.”

He motioned for her to follow him to the far-back counter. Along the way he slid out a foot-long box with cassette tapes. At the rear of the store he plopped the tapes down and then reached above his head and grabbed a handful of CDs. “Back in a minute,” he said, leaving from behind the counter and heading for the bigger bins: the center of the store. Salt took out her new notepad and began to make a list of the musicians Mike had worked with.

“You going to buy anything or just waste my time?” Record Store Dude was back, two LPs in hand.

“Your tax dollars at work.” She opened her badge case.

“Cool,” he said, standing up straighter. “CSI shit, right?”

“Right.” She slipped the badge back into a pocket. “It has listed on this CD a song with a vocalist, Pretty Pearl. You know anything about her?”

“Sure, she's kind of a Little Five fixture, or was. Homeless. She used to hang out around the benches, asking for handouts from the brats. Nastee, nastee, she hit bottom and was in bad shape last time I saw her.”

“What happened? How long has it been since you saw her?”

He tapped his forehead with one finger. “Screw loose. She was mental as far back as I can remember. Most people don't even know she was a singer. Last time I saw her was probably a month or so ago.”

Salt handed him two of the CDs. “I'll take these two.”

They moved back up to the front and the cash register. While the guy was ringing up her CDs, she studied the photos and illustrations on the covers of the LPs. One front cover had a photo of Mike bent over a guitar, his face hidden. The other cover was a stylized '60s-type black-and-blue silhouette.

“Fourteen dollars and thirty-two cents.”

“Anybody around here that might know where I can find Pearl?” She handed him the bills.

“Cops know her better than anybody, those homeless cops.”

“The HOPE Team?”

“Yeah, they been dealing with her.” Then, flipping a quarter, he said, “Heads or tails?”

“Tails.”

He gave her the change. “Tails it is.”

—

A
COUPLE
OF
BLOCKS
from Peachtree Street, at the corner of Auburn Avenue and Fort Street, Salt sat down on the curb beside the old blind man in a wheelchair, missing a leg since she'd last seen him.

“Officer Salt, last time I saw you, you know I'm sayin', you were in The Homes.”

She told him about being promoted and transferred to Homicide. “Why are you out here and not in The Homes?” she asked. Two ambulances, one with the siren full blast, screamed past over some of the old cobblestones, revealed beneath a torn place in the pavement. Salt leaned in closer to hear him. He smelled of urine and the metallic odor of crack.

“Had to go to the rehab center down there”—he pointed to a yellow brick high-rise a block away—“when they took my leg.” Then he grinned. “'Course you know I'm on the street to get my real medicine.” Someone had parked him on the sidewalk right across the street from
the Fort Street and Auburn Avenue viaduct, a concrete-and-iron structure so massive and thick that the traffic sounds from the fourteen lanes overhead barely registered and were only background for the street life of Sweet Auburn. Dark bundles of homeless men and women lay prone in the shadows against the fencing and pylons.

He planted his dark, gnarled fingers over his stump. “It's just as troublesome as when it was there. What's that you're hummin'? I almost recognize it.” His clouded blue-black eyes twitched.

“Something I heard recently,” she told him. “I'm looking for Pretty Pearl.”

“Yeah, that's ‘Hellhound.' Pearl do that song real right.”

“It's stuck in my head—an earworm. My dad had the Robert Johnson recording.”

“Long as the hellhound ain't stuck on your tail. You know what they say: you see a hellhound three times, you gonna die.” He turned his face up, eyes open to the sun. The air smelled of grease and sugar. The big churches, historic Ebenezer and Wheat Street Baptist, were each a block away in opposite directions, but their spires were too tall to be seen from the street where she and the old man were sitting.

S
alt was already at the Notelling Tavern sitting at the back bar closest to the rear entranceway. Thunder like a runaway boxcar accompanied Dan and Mustafa through the double doors at the back of the cinder-block building as they pushed the gear on a flat dolly. Lightning cracked just as they got inside.

An albino called Melody met them as they came out of the sparsely lit short hall from the back door. “Oh Danny Boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling.”

“Melody, how are you, dude?” Dan grabbed the little man's shoulder. In the humidity Dan's T-shirt stuck to his back and chest.

“From glen to glen and down the mountainside,” Melody sang, smiling and holding the doors as they pulled the gear dolly inside.

“Mustafa, this is Melody, the sound man. Melody, meet Mustafa, our new drummer.”

Melody cocked his head, taking the measure of Mustafa. “What's your name? What's your name? Young Blood,” he sang, arms thrown wide. Mustafa, puzzled, lifted an eyebrow. Dan glanced at Salt then,
quickly digging his legs back to get traction for the dolly, stumbling, causing the gear cart to veer off. “Shit.” They got it going and carted the load to the stage, where he then stopped and nodded to her from the distance, his hands on his hips.

Salt took a sip from the glass in front of her, set it down, and unhooked her heels from the stool. As she stood, Dan reached down to grab a guitar case and began setting the cases on a foot-high ubiquitous dirty gray-carpeted stage.

“Storm's coming.” She came up to his side. “You got here just in time.”

Melody floated close, singing Roy Orbison's “Pretty Woman.”

“I can't help you,” Dan said, aggressively unzipping a gear case.

“No one could look as good as you. Mercy.”

“Hey, Melody. How 'bout you help us out here.” Dan turned to Salt. “I've got a job to do.”

“Mercy,” repeated Melody.

“Of course,” she said. “When you take a break. I don't mind waiting.” She walked back to the bar, where beer signs flickered next to a wall-mounted TV, muted, words scrolling across the bottom of the screen.

The place was dim and had the same stale-beer smell of old bars everywhere. The Notelling was a typical blues bar: dingy, Plexiglas windows, burglar bars, interior supports of paint-chipped concrete. Even still, it was a famous venue for bluesmen. There were twenty or so badly done eighteen-by-twenty-four-inch chalk portraits hanging behind the stage, a who's who of the blues: B.B. King, Lightnin' Hopkins, Blind Willie McTell, Robert Johnson, Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, T-Bone Walker, and so on. A scratchy recording of Albert Collins on guitar, accompanied by a squawky sax, played through the ceiling speakers while Dan and Mustafa set up guitar stands, attached cymbals to drums, and tested the hookups and sound system.

Except for a couple of bartenders, one waitress, and Melody, this time of day the place was otherwise empty, at least that's what Salt thought until a man's voice came from the far back of the room. “Shh-up,” a guy, working on an early drunk or possibly a late one, slurred at the woman in the shadows beside him, who was leaning away from the light over their table in an otherwise dark corner.

Salt turned in the couple's direction.

“Ask me that one more time, bitch.” The man's voice got louder.

Dan was keeping busy hooking up the gear, doing what everyone else in the place was doing, averting their eyes and likely hoping they weren't going to hear what they were about to hear. Salt put her glass down on the bar and watched the room reflected in the bar mirror.

The woman stood up, but the drunk grabbed her by the arm and pulled her into the light. “You sit your ass down.” Her face was almost totally hidden by straight, thin hair that fell to her shoulders.

Salt got to her feet and turned again in their direction.

“I told you.” His hand cracked across the woman's face, whipping her hair around her head.

Salt moved quickly toward them.

“Oh no.” Dan dropped a cable and caught up to Salt. The bartender came from behind the bar. As she walked, Salt moved her jacket to expose the badge on her belt and pulled an ID case from a pocket.

At the table the tobacco-tan man looked at them with fuzzy eyes. “This ain't your business,” he said, stroking his mangy beard.

“Sir,” said Salt, “you are under arrest.” Blood dripped from the woman's mouth. “Ma'am, if you'll go to the bar I'm sure they'll give you some ice to keep that from swelling. Please go now.”

“Arrest? Just who you think's gonna arrest me?” He focused on Salt while the bartender moved toward the woman.

Salt opened the ID case. “I'm Detective Alt with the Atlanta Police
Department.” She held it up to the drunk and to the bartender. “Please help the lady to the bar.” She kept her eyes on the guy at the table but turned her face slightly to Dan. “You can help by calling 911 and telling them that an officer needs assistance, and make sure they have the right address.”

“I'm not leaving you to deal with this asshole by yourself,” he said.

“Cunt cop, you're not arresting me, and
she
”—he pointed to the woman still frozen to the chair—“ain't going nowhere.”

Salt slid her ID to a pocket and moved to the woman. “You'll need to stand up.” She put her right arm around the woman's shoulders and handed her to the bartender. The man shoved at the table and stumbled up, his chair scraping on the rough concrete floor.

Salt put her hand to her waist. “Sir, turn around, face the wall, and put your hands behind your back.”

In the otherwise silent blues club, wind blew through a high transom with a sound like a distant train whistle.

She asked the man again. “Sir, is there anything I can do or say to get you to comply with my lawful order?”

The boxcar thunder rattled the walls.

“You must be feeling lucky. Fuck you.” The light caught on a silver-colored chain that hung in a wide U from the drunk's leather belt. As he began to draw back his fist, Salt fluidly slid an expandable baton from her waist. The metal shaft clicked and briefly flashed overhead just before the thud that dropped the drunk to one knee, his left shoulder and arm dangling. He vomited on the floor.

“911, an ambulance,” she called out over her shoulder. “His collarbone's broken.” She pinned the man's good arm behind him, leveraging it with the baton. Dan moved forward. “Dude.”

Melody sang in the background, “You ain't goin' nowhere.”

“Get the knife off his belt,” she said, pulling the man to his back
as she reached into his pants pockets and pulled out a leather sap. “Take off his boots.” Dan got the knife and pulled at the boots. A small revolver clanked to the floor. Salt scooped it up and tucked it into her jeans.

“What else?” she asked the man, who just coughed and then moaned. She patted her palms all along his pant legs, up to his crotch, turning her hands so that she felt his groin with the backs of her hands.

There were distant sirens, then nearer, and then from the parking lot the sound of spraying gravel.

“I'm not going to press charges.” The lanky-haired woman was back, tears running down her face, holding ice in a bar towel to her lip. “You can't arrest him,” she pleaded.

“Ma'am, he committed an assault in front of me. You'll go to court. The judge will make him go to counseling.”

The woman cried louder.

The double entrance doors slammed into the walls as two uniforms rushed through with long strides. They homed in and were at her side in half seconds. “Salt, damn, are you okay?”

Dan expelled a laugh that was close to a yelp or a cry.

“Nice to see you, Sarge,” she said.

“Mercy.” Melody's voice echoed through the room.

—

T
HE
HOUSE
LIGHTS
went down on a full room; patrons of every hue stood against the walls, and every chair and table was taken. A wash of blue lit the stage, empty except for instruments catching the light on their corners and curves, like a promise. The noise in the room lowered as the owner of the Notelling, wearing a tie-dyed jacket, bounded to the stage under a spotlight at the mic, center stage. “True blues lovers, tonight is your night. Put your hands together and
welcome to the stage of the Notelling, where there's no telling what will happen and no telling what does, the Old Smoke Band.” Applause, whistles, and foot stomping vibrated up through the floor to the tables, where pitchers and glasses of beer splashed.

The crowd quieted as lone Mustafa came onstage, striking a beat hard and sharp with his hickory sticks. He carried the beat to his drum kit and another spotlight came on as he set into a blues shuffle. The audience clapped on his two and four beats. A second light opened to Pops on bass, laying heavy in the groove as Blackbird moved across the stage to the keyboard. The third light bloomed as his hands hit the keys. Women in the audience stood up and started moving their hips. Goldie and Dan came on unnoticed until Goldie blew a first skronky peal from the sax and all the stage lit up.

Dan stepped up to the center mic. “Ladies and gentlemen, we are the Old Smoke Band and here's our Boss of the Blues, Baileee Brown!”

A fifth and last spotlight followed Bailey as he hefted his bulk to the riser, ambled to his chair, and picked up the old Gibson Byrdland. The crowd, already on its feet, screamed when he hit the first fierce squawl. He leaned over the guitar, suit coat open, beads of sweat at his hairline already threatening to become glistening streams.

Young Mustafa's eyes watched Bailey with a reverential focus, barely suppressing his joy, doing better than best to push the band. Dan and Pops built a base with their groove. B-Bird made it full, and when Goldie and Bailey reached out to each other, the band brought both old-time believers and converts to the congregation of “Everyday I Have the Blues.”

—

T
HE
STAGE
HAD
EMPTIED
. Waiting for Dan, Salt swiped one finger down the condensation on the bottle of beer she was nursing.

He came up from behind and leaned close to the silver ring in her right ear. “Are you always this calm after beating the crap out of people?”

“You should see me after I've killed folks.” She turned her face up. “Do you have time now?”

“After seeing what you did to that guy, I guess I wouldn't want to obstruct anything you've set your mind to. I've got nothing to hide. Was I imagining things, or did you have some sort of magic wand you waved over that dude?”

She stood and they made their way to the front door. “Retractable baton, regulation issue—good when you don't want to use pepper spray, like in a club.”

Outside he said, “Sorry for earlier. It's just that going over this stuff about Mike, bringing it all back up—well, ‘Let sleeping dogs lie' has been my motto. I don't like to think about his death. You got any other ninja shit you do?”

“I'm working on my teleporting and time travel.” She stiffened her legs and crossed her fists in front of her chest, superhero-style.

A porch with broken-slat rockers and worn, wicker lemonade tables fronted the club. The rain had ended and the lights of the parking lot sparkled off the water beads on the cars.

“I didn't know cops could drink on duty.”

“I'm not on the clock. I've got to get something from my car. Be right back.” She sat her beer down.

“Again, I apologize for uncovering old wounds,” she said, coming up the steps carrying the envelope. She sat down with it in her lap, took up her beer, and rocked. “My dad had a love for the blues,” she said.

Dan scratched at his wrists. “This club must have gotten fleas since I was here last.”

“When was that?”

“I guess about two years or so ago when we came through Atlanta last. Even though it's on the blues highway, we just had gigs elsewhere. Scene hasn't changed much at all. Always struggling. The blues always struggling.”

“Struggling?”

“That's what Mike used to say. ‘Blues is like Atlanta,' he'd say, ‘struggling.' He loved this city, he said because it got no natural gifts—no coast, no bays or mountains or lakes. Just a crossroads. And he loved the old musicians here. He hated that people wanted to forget them and the hard times they sang about.”

“Speaking of hard times, do you remember a singer went by the name of Pretty Pearl?”

“She was terrific. But I lost track of her after Mike died. She was a friend of his.”

Bailey began a soft solo, opening the second set alone.

“Isn't that your cue?” She nodded toward the inside.

“Lots of times I sit out on the first numbers of the second set. I recheck the sound. And usually they open with numbers that don't have to have rhythm guitar.”

Salt closed her eyes, listening to the music, then asked, “Do you pay attention to your dreams?”

“I'm not sure what you mean.”

Her eyes were still closed. “Maybe that dog is talking to you.”

“Dog?”

“The one you and the band joke about. Maybe you got a hellhound on your trail. I think I had a dream about him.”

Dan started to scratch his leg but stopped himself.

She slipped eight-by-ten photos from the packet and held them out. “These are of Mike.”

“You mean the crime scene?” He shook his head.

She handed him the stack of pictures.

The top photo was a distance shot of the car, the old Pontiac wagon, cream and green. “‘Old Ironsides,' we called her.” Dan stared at the stark, overexposed picture. “It's his baby all right, but not like I remember. Last time I was in this car was that night. We played The Pub. I remember the chalkboard sandwich board—‘Avocado/sprouts sandwich special, $3.19, and a draft Michelob'—beside the open double doors and underneath the name of our band, Leaves of Great Grass. We were pretty good, played everything rock and roll, rhythm and blues, Motown, and, of course, the blues. Mike was like a god to us, our band. He was on the road a lot, but when he was home he hung out with us, me and the guys.