by Tim Bryant
"Don't forget," Alto said, "there's still that matter of the stolen Crystal Springs money, too."
I didn't say a thing, but a new thought entered my mind. What if Werner had taken the money to pay for an escape? Had Sam Cunningham already thought of that possibility? Had Slant Face or Alto? I hoped I was wrong, but was I wrong to even think it?
I ordered another Jack and Dr Pepper and scoured the jukebox for a song without a fiddle in it. There wasn't one.
"You need to add some Louis Jordan or Lester Young," I told Penny Bob. "Sometimes you want to hear a fiddle. Sometimes you goddamn well don't."
I still had five more people to talk to. Six if you counted Dewey. I told the guys I was going to pay Roosevelt Hughley a visit the next morning, reminding them that the good Dr. Moyers warned me that he might have cause to take desperate action. Slant was working night shift, so he volunteered to come along. I wondered when the guy planned to sleep, but I didn't try to talk him out of it.
7
Roosevelt Hughley lived in a one-room house with a dirt floor on the back side of Battercake Flats. Battercake was an angry place, so I knew what Dr. Moyers meant when he said Hughley might do anything out of desperation. Anybody who lived there might. But I also knew that some of the bravest, biggest hearted people you could meet called the area home.
If Roosevelt had taken the missing loot, it was hard to see any evidence of it. Everything I owned fit comfortably in a boarding room the size of the colored section of Dr. Moyers' waiting room, but my place on Sharon Road looked like Quality Hill in comparison.
"I'm a big fan of your singing," I said. Not a lie.
"You here to get an autograph?"
He set me on edge right off the bat. Not because he was built like a goddamn tank in an undershirt. It was more the way he looked at me like the whole day had just turned to shit and I was the shovel.
"No, sir. I was actually hoping you could help me out with an investigation," I said. "I'm working a case against a man named Samuel Cunningham. He's the owner of a dance hall here in town."
Hughley grinned so hard, he almost bit the end off his cigarette.
"I know that son of a bitch. Keep talking."
I told him what he already knew. Seemed there had been some money that come up missing. Seemed like Sam Cunningham was naming a lot of names, pointing a lot of fingers. Seemed like Hughley might have seen something or heard something that would clear this all up and keep the Crystal Springs in good running order.
"You telling me they're gonna shut the place down?"
I hadn't told him any such thing, but if that's the conclusion he wanted to draw, who was I to stop him. I said all of that was out of my hands. The only thing I had been asked to do was talk to a few people who might know more than I did.
"Be a damn shame if they closed it down, wouldn't it?" Hughley said.
He invited me inside, where I took the end of what appeared to be a church pew and he took a metal chair. We were by and large sitting in the kitchen, or rather the corner of the room that had the stove and a sink. Just past that was the bedroom, where a woman I presumed to be his wife lay staring at me.
"I would offer you a glass of wine, but we're fresh out," he said.
He rubbed his cigarette out on his palm and tossed it on the floor.
"I'm more of a beer man," I said.
All formalities out of the way, Hughley offered to tell me everything he knew. I was beginning to think I had him pegged all wrong. He was more like the guy who, once he senses you're on the up and up, wants to throw as much stuff your way as he can, in hopes that he can tell his friends he helped solve the case. Maybe even see his name in the papers.
"I expect you've heard Mr. Cunningham fired the Jazzbillies and the Richland Scramblers," he said.
The Scramblers were another one of the bands that Hughley sang with. It was the first I'd heard that they also got pink slips. It made me wonder why Sam had failed to mention them, but I didn't let on.
"Let's start with the Scramblers," I said. "You got any reason to think any of them could have robbed the till?"
The Scramblers were a small group, three not including Hughley. A piano player, a doghouse bass and a drummer. Specialized in Moon Mullican and Nat Cole.
"To tell the truth, them boys was probably scrambling to get at it before the others come along and took it," he said. "I wouldn't trust any one of 'em far as I could throw Frank's piano."
I didn't know any of the guys in the Scramblers.
"Frank?"
Hughley lit another cigarette.
"Frank Sifford. Older guy, lives over off Belknap. Play the eighty-eights like nobody I ever seen, but he ain't worth the bullet it would take to shoot him."
Hughley's wife was still staring at me. I couldn't make up my mind whether it was a stare or a glare. The more I tried not to look, the more my eyes kept betraying me. Hughley didn't seem to pay it any mind.
"What do you mean by that?"
"Everybody that knows Frank Sifford knows he ain't no good, unless he's sitting at a piano. His own damn momma will tell you that."
I started a list.
"Okay what about the other two?"
"You know Nicaragua? Nicaragua Tramell? That ain't his real name, it's just what everybody calls him. He plays the bass guitar. John Wolfshaut plays the drum kit."
"Wolf Shout?" I said.
"Wolfshaut."
I wrote it down wrong.
"He an Indian?"
Hughley laughed.
"No, sir, I don't believe so."
The problem with guys like Hughley is picking through all the information and finding the good stuff. He seemed to think everybody was guilty of the crime except for him. He wasn't making my job easier.
"So you know all the fellas in The Richland Scramblers. You know the Jazzbillies. They didn't all do it. Who do you think might have had the opportunity and the motivation?"
He looked over at the woman in the bed like it was the most natural thing in the world.
"Well, to tell the truth, everybody got motivation. Everybody in the world. But if I was a gambling man, I would split my chips between Frank Sifford and Jesse Moyers. That's what I would do."
Part of me felt like throwing my notebook across the room, if I wasn't afraid it would bounce off a wall and hit the woman. I was conflicted about that idea.
"Why Dr. Moyers?" I said.
Hughley shook his head.
"Ain't nobody in them bands got no money. Ain't never had no money. Wouldn't know what to do with it if they was to have any. Probably run off to town and spend it all on foolishness before anybody even knew they had it."
I knew lots of people like that. Me included.
"Moyers got lots of money, and, way I hear it, not much of it he got honest. He might act like he lives above everybody else, but he ain't above doing whatever the hell it takes to get there. You know what I mean?"
I thanked Roosevelt Hughley for his time and help and got up to go. I snuck one last look over at the woman on the bed, and, this time, Hughley caught me red-handed.
"Don't worry about her," he said. "She can't see a goddamn thing no more. Can't half hear neither. Dr. Moyers told me to bring her on over there to see him, he'd fix her up good as new."
He stopped and thought about it.
"I don't expect I'd like that," he said. "She was good as new, I couldn't catch up to her no more."
He never did sing anything for me. I left him standing in the door and her laying on that bed and drove out of Battercake Flats with more to think about and less to think about it, as I heard someone say one time. I had three more people on my list, and I was beginning to feel like a traveling Bible salesman. Only it wasn't the Good News I was delivering. I was bad news coming.
8
I didn't have a telephone. When anyone wanted to get in touch with me, they knew where to find me. And if they didn't want to make the effort, they could put a call in to Miss Sara who ran the boarding hou
se. That didn't happen often, so when I found the note on my door saying that she had taken a call and had a message for me, I was a little surprised.
I didn't have a television either, but I had a radio and an icebox, so I got a cold beer and sat down to hear the daily news on KNOK, the black station. Their news was as bad as any and the music was better than most, a statement which should have been their slogan. They were playing something by Duke Ellington, but cut in at the top of the hour with a roundup of local reports. The Athey murders were the last thing mentioned before the weather forecast.
"Tarrant County Sheriff Wiley King says no arrests are imminent in the murders of local musician Werner Athey's family. According to the Sheriff's Department, the investigation has expanded to include not only the disappearance of Werner Athey himself, but several pieces of evidence. Anyone with information on the case or anyone who believes they have seen Mr. Athey is asked to contact Sheriff King immediately."
I didn't like the feeling that King was ahead of me in the investigation. I wondered what he knew. I could ask him, but I knew he wouldn't tell. Lieutenant Mitchell might, if he thought he had nothing to lose. I decided to add him to my list of stops and maybe even move him up close to the top.
It intrigued me that no one had seen hide nor hair of Werner. A man who was normally seen around town almost as much as I was. I used to see him at the city library and in the market. Even if he was dead, he would be getting pretty ripe by now. Maybe he was in the Trinity River. God knows how many people were in there. Dumpers and jumpers. Werner could have been either.
I almost forgot about the phone call, but I went down and knocked on Miss Sara's door. She liked me, because I was as close to a law officer as she could get in the place, and having me there with my Colt .38 made her sleep better at night. It must have been true, because she seemed to sleep through all of my nights out at the dance hall or on Jacksboro Highway or at Peechie's.
"Somebody telephoned you from the newspaper," she said, fumbling through a stack of papers for the right one. "They asked me to have you return their call during hours."
I thought of Ruthie Nell Parker, but could come up with no reason she would have for calling me. I did know Melvin Chambers at the Fort Worth Press.
"Which paper was it?"
She stopped what she was doing.
"Is there more than one?"
She pulled a piece of paper from the stack and handed it over. I didn't recognize the number, but I knew the name. I folded the paper in half, so I wouldn't have to look at it and made my exit. I probably wouldn't need to use her telephone, I told her, but thanks anyway. I appreciated her going to the trouble.
I wondered why Ruthie would be calling me. Of course, she knew Miss Sara's number. She knew Miss Sara, too, and I was pretty sure Miss Sara knew exactly who she was talking to. I could make a stop by the newspaper office in the morning. It was just a block or two from Tootie's. Or I could drop by Peechie's and use Penny Bob's telephone.
I spent the rest of that night going over possible scenarios. Ruthie needed information on a possible suspect. Information on Werner himself. She was curious if I had discovered anything. She wondered if I knew what Wiley King was up to. She wanted company for a movie date.
Things had changed since I first met her. She had once been a young writer, fresh from small-town Texas and looking for her big break in the city. I had been the voice of experience. A tour guide through the darkest alleys and toughest neighborhoods. A rung on the ladder.
Later, the Assistant D.A., Mr. Crum, had been another rung. The one that lifted her up to the Star-Telegram. I had sworn I would never share membership in a club with an asshole like Crum. I had been hoodwinked.
That night I dreamed of Ruthie. First time I had done so in a good month. I was back on the Werner property, but the house was gone, in its place the old shed. I walked up to it and knocked on the door. When it opened, Roosevelt Hughley was standing there.
"You take my trap?" he said.
I shook my head, unable to make words.
"You take my trap, how you expect me and my wife to eat?"
I looked behind him, and laying there on the bed, staring at me with empty eyes, was her. Ruthie Nell Parker. I woke up with a start and looked at the clock. I had been asleep less than two hours. I tossed around for a while, then got up and had a couple beers. I figured if Slant Face Sanders could ride shotgun with me, straight off the night shift, I could do as much. I stayed up the rest of the night.
9
I spent most of the rest of that night trying to decide whether to pay the Star-Telegram office a visit before or after meeting Slant Face at Tootie's. Going before meant that whatever happened would stay with me. Public humiliation wasn't my strongest suit, so that factored highly. Going after meant that I had moral support. I finally decided moral support was overrated.
I had been to the Star-Telegram office before, but it had been a long time. Back before Ruthie came to town and got a job with the rival. During the time we were palling around, catching me in Amon Carter's establishment would have been certain death. If not mine, at least our friendship's. Now, Amon himself was dead and changes were coming to his empire. The least of them might have been Ruthie Nell. All the same, everything looked pretty much as I remembered it. At least everything up front did, which is as far as I got.
"I got a message that I needed to contact Ruthie Nell Parker," I said.
It was all the information the secretary needed to know, far as I could see.
"May I have your name?"
Well, almost.
"Alvis Curridge," I said.
Nobody calls me Alvis, but it is my name.
She fanned a set of envelopes out like a hand of cards and inspected them.
"Dutch?"
She pulled one out and waved it.
"Some people call me that."
She handed it to me.
"Ruthie won't be in until later today. She left this for you."
I thanked her and slid it into the breast pocket of my jacket. I looked around the place. For being ten times the size of the Fort Worth Press building, they didn't seem to have any more employees, although I suppose they must have all been scurrying around the city sniffing for news. I looked up at the words Amon Carter himself had added as the newspaper's catchphrase. Fort Worth...Where the West Begins.
"Sorry to hear about your boss," I said.
Out in the truck, I quickly tore the envelope open on one end and let a single business card fall into my lap. Ruthie Nell Parker: Writer/Reporter for The Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Her telephone number and extension. Call me, it seemed to be saying. Ruthie will be in later this afternoon.
Turning the card over, there were three words, blocked off in a handwriting style that I hadn't forgotten. Written in pencil, the message: Werner found alive. Underneath that, smaller: Peechie Keen's 5 PM. I turned it over in my hands, halfway expecting the words to be gone when I checked again.
I drove up Main Street, circling wide around Tootie's and trying to think everything through. I don't know which piece of news was more startling. The possibility that Werner Athey was alive or that Ruthie wanted me to meet her at Peechie Keen's. I looked at my plans for the day, and they suddenly seemed to pale. Should I follow through on them? If I didn't, what to tell Slant Face? Did I dare show him the card?
I wondered where Ruthie had heard the news. Wiley King was still playing dumb in the press. Did he know more than he was saying? Was she really out tracking down news leads? If she was, she had indeed become Miss Marple to my Sam Spade. It was enough to make me dizzy.
I decided to move forward with the day's plans. Slant Face was waiting at Tootie's, and I was hungry. We were paying visits to Ralph Kirkland and Frank Sifford. There was still the little matter of the missing Crystal Springs money.
Sifford lived off Belknap on Hampton and didn't seem to have any real job, although he did work as a bouncer at a couple of clubs on Jacksboro Highway. Kirkland was
n't too far away from him on Crump Street, having retired from the Bomber plant a couple of years earlier. I dreaded Sifford, but I knew I'd best hit him while I had Slant Face for back-up, and he seemed like somebody that needed hitting in the worst way.
Slant was sitting in the window at Tootie's, and Geneva was sitting across from him. It had never occurred to me until that moment that maybe it wasn't the food Slant liked there. He seemed to be enjoying his company, but he had the decency to at least smile and look like he was glad to see me. Geneva said she had to get back to work anyway. There were hungry people to be fed, and we were two of them.
I slid into my seat and tried to put as much out of my mind as I could.
"I was beginning to get worried," Slant Face said. "You oversleep?"
I nodded my head.
"That's exactly what I did."
I thought about the dream that had woken me and wondered if it had been some kind of sign, a premonition.
10
I heard Sifford before I got close to his front door. Soon as I killed the truck engine and stepped out.
"Down Yonder," I said.
Slant Face looked around.
"Where?"
I pointed at the little blue house in front of us, a garden of flowers neat and orderly along each side of the porch.
"Song he's playing," I said. "Old church song called 'Down Yonder.'"
I was no expert on hymns, but I had seen Moon Mullican play it before as a request. It was one of the happiest sounding things I'd ever heard in my life. I remember telling Ruthie that if they played it every Sunday, I might be convinced to go to church more often. Because I never go, she had answered, "How do you know they don't?"
One of many questions she asked that I had no answer for.
Sifford didn't hear us knocking for several verses, and I hated to interrupt him, but the song kept going, a little faster with each new pass at it, like he was doing his morning exercises. And maybe he was. Finally, there was enough of a break that he heard us and came running.
