Tishomingo Blues (2002)

  Now he had the man staring at him, mouth not quite open but almost. Robert believed he could fuck him up some more, tell Mr. Kirkbride he was the Nile, the Tower of Pisa. He was the smile, on the Mona Lisa.

  But the man still wouldn't get it.

  So he said, "What you do is hide the money for him. Put it to work." He said, "I'm telling you this for two reasons. One, so you'll know I know what you're doing. And two, so you'll be ready to make a decision when the time comes."

  The man was doing all right, listening and keeping himself in control. He said, "You want to tell me what you're talking about?"

  "Look at it," Robert said, "like you're coming to a crossroads and you know you have to make a turn. You don't decide quick enough, what happens? You end up in the ditch."

  Robert stepped to his car and opened the door. "I have to make a decision about what?"

  The man wanting an answer. Robert turned to him.

  `Where you want to be," Robert said, "when Arlen goes down.

  Chapter 17

  AS SOON AS ROBERT GOT BACK to his suite he called room service and asked for Xavier. He waited, punched the remote to turn the TV on and said, "My man Xavier. Dos margaritas. Ten dollars for every minute you get 'em here under fifteen. You sabe what I'm saying? ... Then go." He laid a fifty-dollar bill on the table and took a quick shower. Robert came out in the hotel robe to see two margaritas on the table and the fifty gone. Robert had Xavier going through his Basics with incentives, getting the waiter in the right frame of mind to deliver meals from the hotel to the campsite. There was no way they'd get Anne to cook. She had never in her life slept in a tent and knew she'd hate it. Jerry told her she was gonna sleep in the fuckin tent, so forget it. Robert didn't believe in sleeping in tents either; he believed people who camped out must be as serious as people who put on uniforms and became Civil War soldiers, and here these people were doing both.

  He watched TV as he called Jerry's suite, knowing Anne would pick up.

  "I have two ice-cold margaritas sitting here."

  "He's taking a nap."

  "I thought he was going down to roll the dice."

  "He changed his mind. He'd rather play at night."

  "Wake him up. Tell him that Australian, the one fucks with poisonous snakes, is on TVJerry likes that show."

  "You ever wake him up?"

  "Doesn't like it, huh?"

  "Even when he wakes up himself, in the morning? You can't talk to him for a couple of hours."

  "I'll come by later."

  He watched the Aussie fuckin with the poisonous snake, his chin down on the ground talking to it in a nice tone of voice, the snake hissing, the snake trying to tell the man, get the fuck away from me, fool.

  Robert could picture Anne right now looking down at Jerry sleeping with his mouth open, zoo noises coming from him, Anne wondering if what she got out of being his wife was worth it.

  Jerry had picked her out of an auto show, Anne on the carousel with a car she said was all new from its high-concept styling to its heart-stopping performance, Anne dealing out adjectives with a dreamy smile. Robert was there. He watched Jerry walk up and ask the standard question auto show models got a hundred times a night, "Do you come with the car?" He did, and she said, "You can't afford me, with or without the car." She told Robert, after Jerry had put her into a high-rise on the DetroitRiver, "You're supposed to smile and act coy, but I knew this guy was real and I made the first move to get him. I thought he looked like a gangster."

  Robert said to her that time, "Not many girls wish for a gangster and get one. You challenged the man and he stepped up."

  Even dumped his wife, left her behind with three kids in college. It cost him, but must've been worth it. Germano attentive at first, acting like he was in love. Was he still in love? It was hard to tell with a gangster. Robert believed he loved her the way he loved a pair of good-looking alligator shoes he'd never let go of. Anne said, "Of course he loves me, don't you?" Saying it with the same high opinion of herself she had when she told Jerry he couldn't afford her, even though her modeling career hadn't left Detroit and there she was working an auto show.

  Robert admired girls who were determined and worked hard on getting what they wanted. It didn't take nothing but a look to get her to slide over.

  Anne's situation, once she had it, she didn't want it. But couldn't walk out on account of the prenuptial agreement gave her zero if she left during the first five years. But Jerry's personality was even more threatening than the agreement. Would he let her walk even if she decided to?

  They were kidding around one time and she said to Robert, "But when Jerry dies, like if he got popped? Which could happen, right? That's different, I get what I deserve." Robert thinking that was a funny way to put it. She mentioned it another time in bed saying, "I worry about Jerry getting popped." Robert thinking, Women that worry about it don't say it that way. Robert having heard a number of women, not even counting his mother, express this kind of worry about him but using much softer words.

  Still another time after being intimate and still bare naked, when she talked the most, Anne said, "Robert, I'm gonna be honest with you. If something happens to Jerry and we can be together? I won't ever marry you."

  Like he'd ask her.

  "How come?"

  "I wouldn't be able to handle the racial thing." Robert gave her his puzzled look that time.

  "Why? I can take you to black clubs, nobody'll say nothing. You'll be safe."

  She said, "I don't mean that."

  See, she didn't get it.

  Anne had style and was mostly with it, but not all the way on the same level of cool as he was. Those three-quarters of white girl in her held her back. Like being seen out in public with him would jeopardize her having passed. It was the reason she told Dennis she wasn't into having kids. Careful not to. A child with black features was to emerge, Jerry would throw both of them out on the street. Her dressing as a quadroon whore for the reenactment wasn't a risk. Robert saw it as showing off for him, something between them, no chance of Jerry catching on. Robert told her one time, "You want Jerry to let you go? Tell him your grandma was high yella." She told him he wasn't funny.

  He wasn't trying to be. Robert looked at situations straight on, didn't color them in his mind or change his personality to meet the occasion. He liked to look around, believed he could get something going with Carla, but would have to meet her in New York. Carla, without you realizing it, would run you like a company and you wouldn't own yourself no more. He liked to grade women, see how they'd measure up as wives, but without seeing any need to ever marry. He didn't need kids. He was still a Young Boy.

  Robert punched his way through channels with the remote and came to a movie he liked and could see anytime, All That jazz, a behind-the-scenes movie, Robert's favorite kind, this one taking you backstage to show what putting on a musical was like, Roy Scheider playing the choreographer based on Bob Fosse, Roy smoking all the way through the picture, smoking while a doctor examines him, has a heart attack and the cute nurse is in bed with him in the hospital, the man living every minute of his life till the way he's living kills him. Beautiful.

  Watching the movie Robert twisted one to smoke along with Roy, and somewhere before it ended he fell asleep.

  When he opened his eyes he clicked the set off, he sat low in the chair staring at the dark screen, staring for maybe a minute before he reached for the phone and called the hotel operator.

  "Helene, how you doing? You know the number for Junebug's? I don't have a phone book, somebody stole it." He said, "I'd appreciate it, dear, thank you." He waited ten rings before a voice came on. "Wesley, how you doing? Listen, this is Robert. Is WalterKirkbride there? ... Well, can you take a peek, see if his car's in back?"

  "He don't use his car," Wesley said, "he uses one of Arlen's."

  "I forgot. Wesley, is it Traci he sees or the other one?"

  "I think Traci. Yeah, the little bitty one."

  "You s
ee Walter, tell him I called, okay?"

  Wesley said, "Who's this again?"

  At nine, Robert got dressed and stepped two doors down the hall to Jerry's suite. Anne let him in and went in the bedroom. Jerry was standing in front of the TV watching a baseball game. He turned the set off saying, "Braves and the Cards-who gives a shit."

  Robert said, "I talked to Kirkbride. Told him we know what he's doing."

  "You're sure about this?"

  "Five to one I'm right."

  "You told him-what'd he say?"

  "Nothing. But he listened. You know what I'm saying? The man listened to every word. Took it in. Almost seemed to nod his head like he was saying yeah, that's how it works."

  Jerry had his hand on the doorknob.

  "Can we use him?"

  "Have to wait and see."

  "For what?"

  "My man Dennis."

  Jerry shook his head as he opened the door.

  Robert said, "Walter wants to stage a fight in the woods, dying to."

  It caught Jerry before he could walk out.

  "But we won't be able to do it and still have the spectators watching us. See, they did fight in the woods at Brice's Cross Roads and Walter likes to do it right, make it look authentic."

  Jerry waited, holding the door open.

  "Or he wants to get me and you and Dennis in the woods and take us out with nobody seeing it. I don't mean make it look like an accident. I told you, they inspect the weapons before you take the field. It can still happen-there was a man shot during a reenactment one time, but it was a strange situation, not one you can pull any time you want. So they'd have to set it up some other way, get us out of sight of the crowd, the people watching."

  Jerry looked like he was thinking again, concentrating this time. He said, "You tell this guy what we know, him and the redneck, Arlen, and give 'em a reason to want to take us out."

  Robert nodded, the man catching on.

  "So instead of us thinking of a way to get them in the woods," Jerry said, "you have them thinking of how to get us in the fuckin woods."

  "And chase us," Robert said, "all the way to a levee road back there-I checked it out-where we put the truck."

  "I forgot about that part, the truck."

  "Doesn't work without it, Jerry."

  He looked like he was thinking again, but about what? It was hard to tell. All he did then was shrug. He said, "Okay," and raised his voice toward the bedroom. "Annabanana, I'm going now."

  Robert wondered was she gonna come out to kiss him goodbye. Uh-unh. Her voice came back, "See you later."

  "One other thing," Robert said. "The CIB man, John Rau? He lives for this reenacting. He's gonna be on your side, with you the whole time, and he won't leave till it's over. You hear what I'm saying? We don't want him anywhere near when we start shooting people. And we sure don't want to shoot him."

  Jerry said, "Whack a cop-only if your life depends on it."

  "We want him far away when it goes down."

  Jerry said, "How do we work that?"

  "I'll have to think about it."

  Jerry said, "I'll leave it up to you," the way he left everything, and was gone to roll dice.

  Robert glanced toward the bedroom as he walked to the balcony. He opened the doors and heard a woman's voice coming over the speakers, the TV woman, Diane-what was her name?calling the dives again, Diane telling the crowd they'd have to clap real loud if they wanted world champion Dennis Lenahan to hear them way up on that eighty-foot perch.

  There he was in the spotlight climbing to the top.

  Robert moved to the railing to watch him: Dennis looking down at the crowd looking up at him, mostly white people from around here, small groups of teenagers, the older crowd in their lawn chairs. How many, a hundred? Close to it. Dennis deciding what to show them. Or thinking about his crossroads, way up there alone in the night. Thinking about money. Thinking about years to come and where he'd be. No, right now he was cool, he was haughty seeing himself in the air. Come on, flying reverse pike.

  Anne's voice came from the bedroom. "What're you doing?"

  "Watching my man."

  "Are you coming?"

  "In a minute. He's about to go off."

  Every day honest people got into dealing drugs, it wasn't so unusual. Dennis wouldn't even be dealing, strictly speaking.

  He had his arms raised, ready to go. Then lowered his arms and held on to the ladder with one hand as he leaned out and yelled down something and now Charlie was looking up at him. Now Charlie picked up a pole, the skimmer they took bugs out of the tank with, and mounted the ladder to the narrow walk that went around the tank and now Charlie was waving the skimmer over the surface of the water to make waves. Robert decided it was so Dennis could judge where he would enter the water, the man not taking any more risk than he had to. Good.

  Anne's voice said, "Are you coming or not?" sounding closer.

  He stepped toward the doorway, quick, to see her coming out of the bedroom in her kimono, open, nothing on under it. He thought, The Open Kimono by Seymour Hare, and said, "Wait. Don't move." And turned back in time to see Dennis go off twisting and somersaulting to slice the water and come up with his hair slicked back in the spotlight. Hey, shit. How'd he know to make all those moves in two seconds? Maybe even less.

  He felt Anne's hand slip under his shirt and move up his spine. He said, "I love to watch people who make what they do look easy. No flaws, nothing sticking out."

  "God, I hope you're not queer for him. Are you?"

  "No, I never tried that. Like I never tried the opera. Or never roller-skated. I've ice-skated and I've skied. SteveAllen says to JoseJimenez standing there with a pair of skis, `So, you're a skier. Is that right?' And JoseJimenez says, `Yes,' with his accent, `I'm a skeer to go down the hill.' "

  He felt her hand slide down his back and out from under his shirt. Her voice, off in the room now, said, "You want a glass of wine?"

  "I'm trying to think ... Yes, I would, please. I'm trying to think of what else I haven't done that people do. One comes to mind-haven't camped out."

  Anne said, "So you've never gotten laid in a tent," coming out with a glass of white in each hand.

  "I have other strange places."

  "Movie theater?"

  "Many times, in my youth."

  "Airplane?"

  "Once, on a red-eye. How about you? What's the strangest place you ever did it?"

  "You mean straight fucking?"

  "What else we talking about?"

  "You don't count a blow job."

  "Blow job, you get that anywhere."

  She said, "Let me think ... How about on the floor?"

  "Everybody does it on the floor now and then. You think that's a strange place?"

  She said, "I don't want to play this anymore."

  Like that. Like when she and Jerry argued ... Robert picking them up to go to some function, a wedding, and Jerry's yelling at her for never in her fuckin life being ready on time and Anne would say, "I don't want to talk about it." Jerry would look ready to smack her, but never did. He'd cool off and later on be calling her Queenie.

  She said she didn't want to play anymore and Robert said, "That's cool," not caring one way or the other. He looked down at the crowd breaking up and Dennis, out of the tank now, talking to Diane Corrigan-Cochrane-that was her name-the Eyes and Ears of the North Delta, Robert thinking Dennis should have him some of that. Cute woman in her little shorts.

  Anne said something.

  "What?"

  "I said is this going to work? What we're doing?"

  "Gonna work fine."

  "Jerry thinks you're crazy."

  "He's told me that. But he's here."

  She said, "I have a bad feeling about it."

  Robert said, "Want me to hold you? Tell you everything's gonna be all right?"

  "I'm serious, and you make fun of me."

  He could tell her she was easy to make fun of, any time she became seri
ous like that, having the bad feeling. But he didn't. No, he showed her he was as sensitive as he had to be, saying, "What's wrong, baby? What you worried about?"

  "I keep thinking," Anne said, "something's going to happen to Jerry."

  What she meant was hoping. Robert said, "Like he could get popped?"

  "It's possible, isn't it?"

  "You play the grieving widow till the lawyer cuts you a check?"

  "You're not funny."

  "Wear a black thong bikini around the pool?"

  She walked away from him.

  Robert said after her, "My sensitivity stretches so far and it snaps back on me."

  Dennis asked the TV lady if she'd have a drink with him, the least he could do, telling Diane she was the best dive-caller he'd ever had, and the bestlooking-as she followed him around behind the tank. He said he had to change first and she said, "Go ahead, I won't look." He watched her bend her head back to gaze straight up the ladder, then at the ground beneath the scaffolding where Floyd was shot, and then at him as he stood naked stepping into his underwear.

  "I thought you weren't gonna look."

  She said, "I lied."

  They brought chairs from the patio bar out to the edge of the lawn, away from loud voices, a party going on, and sat next to each other with summer drinks, in the dark, Dennis' gaze on his ladder that rose against the sky and stopped, not going anywhere.

  Her voice, close to him, quiet, said, "How long have you been hauling it around?" "Four years."

  "Are you tired of it?"

  "I'm getting there."

  "Then what?"

  "I don't know."

  "Where're you staying?"

  He turned his head to see the soft expression in her eyes, waiting.

  "I have a landlady who stays up late."

  "You want to go to Memphis?"

  "Is that where you live?"

  She nodded. "After I do the news?"

  He said, "There's nothing I'd rather do than go to Memphis," and let it hang.

  She said, "But there's a lot you have to think about."

  "If I told you, you wouldn't believe it."

  She said, "You were on the ladder that night, weren't you?"

  He nodded, their eyes still holding.

  "Arlen and the Bug?"