by Tim Bryant
"Every way I look at this, something doesn't fit," I said. "This works out better than just about anything."
Slant Face looked skeptical.
"So you've solved the case. Let's go celebrate."
We were back at Peechie's on a weekday afternoon, mostly because I couldn't talk Slant Face into an afternoon matinee. The Deal was playing the new Robert Mitchum. It was getting poor reviews, but even bad Mitchum was pretty damn good, far as I was concerned. Slant didn't agree.
"You think I'm off base," I said.
Not only was he making me miss the movie, he was adding insult to injury by forcing me to watch him eat a pig's foot. I was not happy.
"I'm just saying, basing conclusions on whatever doesn't not make sense may not be as conclusive as you think. Isn't it a bit like pointing a gun at your head and pulling the trigger because you haven't not survived foolishness in the past?"
I needed a diagram and a Funk & Wagnall Dictionary to follow that line of logic.
"All I know," he said, "is my mum always told me, follow your heart and not your head."
I tried to imagine Slant Face's momma. I couldn't do it without giving her the same lopsided appearance, even though I knew I bore no resemblance at all to my own mother.
"Was your mum a gumshoe?" I said.
I'd rarely seen Slant Face take anything badly, but I could tell right off that he wasn't amused. He pushed the pig's knuckle away.
"Maybe Werner set the trap himself. Maybe he was trying to catch the fella that shot up his family. And if my mum was a gumshoe, she'd be a damn sight better at it than you. If that doesn't not make sense to you."
Slant paid his tab and hit the road, saying he had to get ready to swing a double shift, and left me to sit and look at his lunch. After a while and a couple of drinks, I got hungry enough to finish it off. I told myself that Slant Face's account of things didn't add up any better than mine, but maybe it did. Maybe it had been set for someone else. Someone who hadn't had the bad luck to stumble into it. Maybe the blood was Werner's. Maybe he had accidentally hit the pan and released it on himself while he was setting it up. More likely, he'd tried it out on some wild animal or something, just to make sure it worked. A simple enough explanation that let Werner back off the hook again. If nothing else, Slant Face was right about one thing. I was still trying to solve a puzzle with too many pieces missing. I needed to quit trying to figure it out, get back out there and find a few more pieces.
One thing did occur to me. If Werner had indeed set the trap himself, maybe— just maybe— he had tried it out by setting it for the killer. Maybe he had captured the person who murdered his wife and children. Maybe he had captured one of them and was now going after another. If that was true, I decided I should take a closer look around the shed and the surrounding woods. Maybe— just maybe— other pieces of the puzzle were waiting to be found.
19
Ballard Runion played banjo for The Jazzbillies. He worked at a guns and ammo store on Roberts Cutoff, just off Jacksboro Highway. Being in such a profession, I might have nudged Ballard up the list of suspects except for the fact that he was legally blind. Ballard went everywhere on the arm of his girlfriend, a full-blooded Cherokee Indian named Fawn Tillman. Unless Fawn had been there to help point the gun, I knew Ballard wouldn't have been much use in such an enterprise. I did think it possible that he'd overheard something, either at the Crystal Springs Dance Hall or at the store, known by many as Roberts Cutoff Shotguns, even though its real name was just Roberts Guns & Ammo. He made a paycheck breaking down guns, cleaning and reassembling them in a town where few blind people worked at all. He might have been blind, but Ballard was neither deaf nor notably dumb.
He lived in an apartment on White Settlement, where I found him and Fawn watching Gunsmoke on a Motorola television set. The irony wasn't lost on me that that one of the only people I knew with a television was a blind man. The fact that someone had traded it for a hunting rifle and a box of shells only made the story better.
It was a Saturday night, which normally meant Ballard would have been playing somewhere with the band. With the Crystal Springs gig down the drain and their fiddle player missing in action, that wasn't happening. Looking around the dingy room, I saw no banjo. Nothing to tell anybody that a fairly good clawhammer player was here. Slant Face was still on a long weekend shift and was probably too sore at me to ride along anyway, so things were out of whack all around. I couldn't wait to tell him that I had watched Gunsmoke, though. A thing that was probably just going to make things worse.
"You here about Werner Athey?" he said.
Fawn Tillman watched me like she was doing the work of two people. She didn't offer me a chair, so I stood in the corner, close enough to the door to not appear to be intruding any further than necessary but far enough in that I could see the television screen.
"I am," I said.
I was no longer making any bones about it. The misdirection had become a distraction, and I had lost interest. I didn't believe any of The Jazzbillies had done anything except play their music on Cunningham's bandstand and maybe drink a little of his booze.
"You guys heard anything from him at all?" Ballard said.
On the screen, Marshall Dillon was saving the town from a medicine man with a deadly cure-all. I had listened to the Gunsmoke radio show for years, so just watching Marshall Dillon do anything was like seeing Jesus come walking across Lake Worth.
"Not a peep," I said. "He seems to have vanished into thin air."
Fawn was still watching me intently and seemed to be having an entirely different kind of conversation with her eyes. I had seen the same kind of thing from the girls working Jacksboro. I smiled at her. Maybe not a smart thing.
"Word is, he showed up at the Long Gone Miles gig the other night," Ballard said. "A friend of mine walked right past him. Can you imagine that?"
Not really, I couldn't.
"There anybody can confirm that?"
"Long Gone Miles was playing the 2222. Back room. After hours. Werner showed up at the end with his fiddle. Least that's what I was told. You heard of Long Gone Miles, haven't you?"
I was a fan of Long Gone Miles. I had first seen him at a Juneteenth picnic in Rock Island Bottom, playing with Lightnin' Hopkins and Gatemouth Brown. The idea of Werner showing up to play fiddle with him seemed preposterous, even under normal conditions. Now, it seemed completely out of bounds.
"I've heard of a whole lot of things," I said. "One thing I never heard of is a man killing his wife and kids and then hitting Jacksboro Highway to play a little fiddle."
Marshall Dillon kept things under control in Dodge City. No matter what happened, you could count on him to wrap things up nicely before his half hour was up. I wondered what he'd have thought about a town like Fort Worth.
It was just a hop, skip and a jump up to 2222, conveniently located at 2222 Jacksboro Highway, so I decided to mosey on up the road. I knew Pappy Kirkwood, who ran the place, and the bartenders liked me. And, as crazy as it seemed, I didn't know if I would be able to sleep if I didn't run down this Werner sighting.
I excused myself, and Fawn quickly volunteered to help me find my truck.
"I believe I can manage just fine, ma'am."
"I'll just walk you to the door," she said.
I left Ballard alone with his television and made my way out, Fawn nipping at my heels. Maybe she saw me as an easy mark. Maybe she was just desperate for a little dough. I knew what she was about, knew plenty of girls like her around that area. The fact that she was full blood Cherokee made her a little sadder and me a little weaker.
"Where is Ballard's banjo?" I said.
You could hear the rip and roar of the highway, but Roberts Cutoff seemed separated. The wrong side of the lights.
"He just put it in pawn for a little money," she said. "I told him not to do it, I swear."
I walked toward my truck and she kept right along.
"He's not my man or anything, you know. He's
just giving me a place to stay."
I knew that wasn't true. They'd been together longer than Bing Crosby and Bob Hope. Crosby and Hopeless. She still looked young, probably younger than Ruthie. I wondered if she had come to town on a bus, looking for a better life in the city.
"He's got a television set, but he's got no banjo," I said.
She told me what she could do for me and how much it would set me back. She even promised that she'd put the money toward getting his banjo out of hock. I wanted to believe her, but I knew better. I gave her a fiver and told her I'd see her again sometime. I hoped I was wasn't lying.
People like Fawn Tillman die in Fort Worth every day. They die in ditches, in beds, in parking lots and back alleys. They rarely make the news. There are people who miss them, but usually not the right people. Nobody files past their caskets and sheds a tear, nobody compliments their preacher on a job well done. People wonder why they don't come back around after a little while, but they don't ask questions, and pretty soon somebody else takes their place and it all starts over again.
I didn't know what Ballard Runion hocked his banjo for. A little cash to pay a light bill or maybe to buy a bag of dope for a weekend without any engagements. It didn't really make no difference. It was easy enough for me to pull away, and, in no time at all, I was on a road full of lights and music and people too full of life to sleep at night. Either road could get you out of Dodge easy enough, but you had to want to go.
20
The 2222 Club was up Jacksboro a little ways. Probably my favorite of all the clubs, bars and gambling houses dotting the wildest way out of the city. From the food to the drinks to the music to the patrons, everything was a little better at 2222, and Saturday nights were the best and busiest of them all.
I knew I was in luck soon as I pulled into the lot. Pappy Kirkwood had pulled out the big yellow sign advertising one more night of live blues from the one and only Long Gone Miles. It wasn't unusual for Pappy to bring a musician in for a three night run, especially when it was someone from out of town. Still, it wasn't a sure-fire thing, and I was happy to see him on the bill.
Inside, the joint was hopping. Long Gone Miles was on the stage with a pick-up band from Dallas, a trio I'd seen on Elm Street with Guitar Slim and Johnny Watson. Miles was sitting on a stool, tearing into Lightnin's "Late Night Blues" with a relish and power I'd never heard from Lightnin' himself, and the crowd was doing their level best not to notice.
I got my usual Jack and Dr Pepper and found a seat at the end of the bar. The bartender was a guy named Williams. I never did find out the rest of his name. Some called him William and some Williams. Maybe his name was William Williams but I don't think so. I rather think half of us were just wrong about it. Williams was one of my favorites in town, and not just because he had a mustache that would make Wyatt Earp jealous. He seemed to be one of those rare men who was born for the job, as he, ironically, never forgot a name and, nine times out of ten, could even match it to your favorite drink. He was also easy to talk to.
Williams was as busy as usual on a Saturday night, but I mentioned to him that if he took a break, I'd like to have a word with him. He looked slightly concerned, as he knew a word in my line of work usually spelled trouble. Over the next hour, Williams kept the drinks coming and Long Gone Miles kept the songs coming, and I was happy to sit there and hold that end of the bar down.
The Jazzbillies had played 2222. In fact, it was in the clubs along Jacksboro that they'd put themselves together and become one of the more well-known bands in the area. Roosevelt hadn't been with them then, only joining once they started at Crystal Springs, but all of the other members had fallen into place along the strip.
Jesse Moyers and Ralph Kirkland had been playing together as Kirkland Moyers for a year or so, Kirkland switching off between steel and regular guitar. Ballard had been leading the Ballard Runion Rag & Bone Band at that point and everybody thought he was going to be the next big thing. Sometimes things just don't work out, but he lit a fire under The Jazzbillies when he joined up with them. The Rag & Bone band just kind of died from neglect after a while, but I missed them.
Long Gone Miles was off the bandstand and pacing the floor, shouting out "Gotta Find My Baby" like somebody whose life depended on tracking her down. Williams came over with a new drink.
"I got a few minutes before he takes his next break."
The 2222 had several hidden rooms, most of them stocked with roulette wheels and poker tables. You got back in those rooms, there was no telling who you might run into. Business owners. Politicians. City officials. Some called it Club Amnesia. There was an unstated rule that you didn't recognize anybody, didn't know nothing from nothing when you left. Word got out that you broke trust, your privileges were permanently revoked, usually with some considerable force.
I had been to four of the hidden rooms. I had heard rumors that there were six, all total. All I knew for sure was that if I had heard rumors of six rooms, you could bet your boots that Wiley Kings and his boys knew of at least some of them. Hell, the Sheriff's Department knew about the hidden rooms at the old Top O' The Hill Terrace, and those even had tunnels running from the place in three different directions.
We escaped to the one room Williams was aware that I knew about and sat at the same table we'd sat at once before, on a night when we talked about Jesse James and Doc Holliday. The hidden room had its own barhop who made sure our glasses were never dry.
"So I'm afraid to ask, Dutch," Williams said. "What ya got this time?"
The room was about half full, and I was checking the tables for familiar faces.
"I heard a crazy story, and I'm just crazy enough to run it down," I said. "Ballard Runion claims that Werner Athey was seen here in the club on Thursday night. Said he got up and tried to play with Long Gone Miles."
I understood that Williams, like lots of folks on the strip, lived a day-to-day life that didn't afford time and opportunity to keep up with minute-by-minute news updates, but he had to have heard about the Athey murders.
"Dutch, you know unless somebody brings trouble through the door with them, we let people alone here," he said. "We don't try to do your job. If we did, we'd be out of business tomorrow."
True, local law tried to give most of the places on Jacksboro a wide berth. If they came into an establishment, it was more likely that they were off duty and looking for a drink than looking for any kind of trouble. The way most in the Sheriff's Department looked at it, if there were trouble makers inside who needed their attention, they would have to come out sooner or later. This made things easier for everybody. The bar owners didn't feel like they were being hassled, neither did patrons, and the law guys could come in, have a drink, play some poker, and be on their way.
"I'm not trying to cause trouble," I said. "I'm not here to bring anybody in. I'm just trying to find out if the rumors are true."
I could see that he was struggling with his options.
"You tell me what I want to hear," I said, "and I'll tell Sheriff King what you want him to hear."
I was giving him as good a deal as I could muster.
"Fair enough," he said. "Run the question by me again."
I asked again.
"Simple question. Yes or no. Was Werner Athey in here on Thursday night?"
I looked him dead in the eye. I was pretty confident I could tell if he was conning me.
"Yes. Athey was here. Just for a little while."
I felt like Perry Mason saving an innocent man from Old Sparky.
"You sure of that?"
He drained his glass and pushed it away.
"You asking whether I'll stand up in a court of law and say so, no," he said. "But yeah, I was working the bar. It was Athey."
I could see no evidence or reason he was lying.
"Anyone with him?" I said.
New glasses arrived, the barhop disappearing as suddenly as she appeared. In the back rooms, they didn't go for tips or small talk. In fact, for all
their service, they made it look as much as possible like they weren't even there.
"He sat in with the band for a song or two," Williams said. "That's all. He left as soon as it was over."
I left a little bigger tip than I was accustomed to on the table. I didn't stay to see if Williams pocketed it or left it for the girl.
"I won't tell King anything," I said. "If he asks, I'll tell him I checked it out and there was nothing to it."
Funny thing. There was nothing to it. It was a code some of the deputies used to use when we were really saying we just stopped in for a drink and maybe a game or two. It's always easy to stop by and just check on things. Most of the time, there's nothing to it at all.
21
Walking back into the main room at the 2222 Club, the crowd was picking up, but the band was on break. I spied the drummer standing at the bar smoking a cigarette. I told him I'd seen them play at the Empire Room in Dallas, and he seemed startled. I asked if I could buy him a drink, and he reminded me that the musicians got free drinks in between sets.
"I would take another cigarette if you got one," he said.
I gave him one, and he tucked it behind his ear for safekeeping.
"So where do y'all hide Long Gone in the breaks?" I said.
He ordered a whiskey straight up and pointed toward the front entrance.
"He's probably out in the parking lot getting some air."
There were almost as many people in the lot as there were inside, and I thought I might have to either wait around a while or leave without seeing Mr. Miles, but I found him in a circle of people right next to the sign bearing his name. He had a bottle of whiskey in his hand and was telling some kid who didn't look drinking age that if he had a harp in the right key, he was welcome to sit in on the next set.
"First blues that ever got to me was a dude named Sonny Boy Williamson," Miles said. "Motherfucker could blow your brains out with that thing."
