Boogie House: A Rolson McKane Mystery

by T. Blake Braddy

  Winston jumped, knocking aside one of his neatly arranged stacks of money. "Who's there?" he asked, reaching underneath the bar, presumably for a weapon.

  A deafening crack resounded in the open room, ricocheting twice off the walls before lodging in some part of the building. "I wouldn't get any crazy ideas," the voice continued. "You might end up getting blood all over your money, and wouldn't that be a shame? What banker wants to go through with that? Money with blood all over it?"

  “Wouldn’t be the first time, I think,” Winston said.

  I recognized the voice. This, too, was Jarrell Clements. A pillar of the community. An old friend of my father's. The man charged with defending me in court.

  "What do you want?" Winston asked.

  At this, Jarrell laughed. It was an oddly tinny sound. "You and your mojo man partner are no longer welcome in this town. We’re plum tired of your act. Folks are getting hurt - good, white, Christian people - and it's all your fault."

  "I don't-"

  The gun erupted again. This time, the bullet skimmed the top of the bar and lodged in the wall behind Winston. Jarrell stepped out of the darkness and into the light, brandishing a firearm, flanked on either side by two men. Not the two men who later accompanied Jarrell to harass Devereaux.

  One of them was my father, no older than sixteen or seventeen. He had a length of rope in one hand and a sawed-off shotgun in the other. His eyes were frightened and his posture wooden, but he stood his ground. "Do we have to do this?" my father whispered. "Can't we just-"

  "Gotta be done," said the third man, who then stepped in behind Jarrell's other shoulder. It was then I started to be dragged out of this drunken half-dream, but I managed to get a look at the third man, whose face, though less wrinkled and wrecked by age, was still recognizable. It was Jarvis Garvey, the old timer who had lent me a car not even a week ago.

  And then there was only darkness for a while.

  * * *

  When the light of the morning made me open my eyes, my hand immediately went to my forehead. Elephants were doing the Buffalo Two Step on my temples. I cannot even begin to describe how my stomach felt, but if I had to wager, I’d say it was somewhere between toxic spill and volcanic eruption.

  It was early and cold. I was lying not in, but near, a puddle of my own vomit, somewhere out in the woods. My clothes were covered in dew and a weird smell, something fiery and electric and sweaty, like nothing I had ever been exposed to before.

  The Boogie House was nearby - I was drunk enough to still feel its presence - but I wasn’t near it. I made my way to my feet, which was a longer trip than you’d expect, and then made my way home.

  I stopped at the end of the treeline and knelt down, watching. No cruisers in the front yard, but I couldn't be too careful, not now.

  Ten minutes later, an officer stepped into the doorway and then disappeared again. He’d flicked a cigarette into the yard and then gone back to whatever work he was doing.

  Eventually, he left when a cruiser dropped by to pick him up. I staggered unevenly and checked the entire house before relaxing.

  I slunk into the shower and sat down for a while, letting the warm water cascade all over me. An exaggerated sense of loss and regret intensified my hangover. I tried not to think about my dreams or Vanessa, but I failed on both accounts.

  These things happen, I thought. It’ll get better.

  What probably wouldn’t get better was my personal relationship with Jarrell Clements. The revelation of his past, well, I had to think about that, and I was in no condition to think.

  As I was leaving again, I found a clear plastic bag tied off with a nice red bow sitting on the stoop. Inside was a complimentary, “special edition” of the paper. Above the fold was a very telling headline.

  NEW EVIDENCE SURFACES IN MURDER INVESTIGATION

  SENATOR’S SON KNEW MURDER VICTIM, PICTURE VERIFIES

  I read the article, which was mostly conjecture, and then re-inserted the paper into the bag and made my way across the road and into the woods.

  This time, there was no music at the Boogie House. No spirits. Just the quiet sobs of a heartbroken and lost man. I found him standing over the spot where Emmitt Laveau had died, his back to me.

  "You loved him, didn't you?"

  He jumped, startled, and turned to face me. He looked to be on the verge of bolting the other direction when he saw it was me. Wiping his eyes with the sleeves of his shirt, he said, "Yes. Very much."

  There was an intense amount of hurt in his voice.

  I put both hands in my pockets. "Why didn't you just say that from the beginning? You think I’d resort to schoolyard talk, call you names? Accuse you of murder? Something like that?"

  Fresh tears made their way down his cheeks. "My father," he said simply, as if in explanation.

  I nodded, staring at a bit of chipped wood at his feet.

  Jeffrey said, "But now I don't care. Not about his political campaign. Not about the company. I'll help you bring them all down, my father and the Bullens. They deserve it, and it's the only thing I could do to pay them back for what they did to Emmitt."

  My heart sank. "What about the Bullens?"

  "You didn't figure that out?”

  “No.”

  He stared down at the ground, thinking through how exactly to lay it all out for me. Then he said, “The Bullens, they, well, they kidnapped Emmitt, threatening to do all sorts of bad things to him if my father didn't drop out of politics and sell them what used to be their land."

  "And your father balked at it?"

  "He tried to bribe them, said he'd do anything for this to go away. He was getting ready to give them the land, make it look like a sale, and throw some money on top to sweeten the deal. He wasn’t about to give up politics. Apparently Ronald and his brother got impatient. And." He snorted, choking on his tears. "They killed him. My father thought it would look like a cover-up, and in trying that, he ended up creating a cover-up."

  "Would you be willing to say that to the police?"

  He looked me right in the eyes. "Anything to put those monsters away."

  * * *

  Something about Jeffrey’s sudden admission didn't make sense, but sometimes the truth doesn't. I went to Nana's Kitchen for breakfast. I figured the police force might be a little distracted this morning to be tracking me down.

  After I ordered, I tried calling the pulpwooders. There had been only silence from them since they had first told me where to find H.W. Bullen. All I got was Red's answering machine.

  I sat down to eat. My breakfast consisted of a platter, with two fried eggs, two slices of butter toast, thickly-cut slabs of fried ham, and grits with butter and cheddar cheese. Nana's grits are legendary around here. People three towns over stop by to have them.

  And as good as the food is, I thought I’d only be able to stare at it, rather than eat it. My stomach was on the other side of fucked-up, and the smell of all that fat was off-putting for a while. Once I finally mustered the courage to start eating, though, I was able to push through. It probably wouldn’t sit well with me, but I’d at least be full and on my way to recovery.

  Once this was all over, I was thinking about making the no-drinking policy somewhat permanent. Until then, I’d sit on the fence while the fields burned around me.

  Halfway through, as I scooped up some grits on a piece of ham, the bell on the door jingled and in walked a sorry sight. "Rolson," Bodean said, limping over and taking up a chair across from me.

  I opened my mouth to protest, but he took a seat without asking. His face was bruised and slack with exhaustion. He looked like he hadn't slept in days. "I ain't here to make trouble," he said. "I want to talk to you, for real."

  I turned and saw Nana slip into the back of the restaurant. She was the only person working today and had to keep up with cooking, serving, and running the register. She wouldn't have time to peek in on us.

  Chewing a mouthful of eggs, I said, "Okay. Shoot. Tell me what you kn
ow."

  "I know that I'm getting the fuck out of town," he said. "Bossman's losing it bad. He's on the verge of tipping the boat all the way over, and I don't want to go into the drink when he does."

  "Awfully loyal of you."

  "Give it a rest. I got family in Texas I'm going to stay with. I'm digging a hole, and I ain't going to look out of it until this whole thing blows over, and I certainly ain't going back out there to the Brickmeyer place. Them people's got shit for brains, and I’ve had enough of trying to gloss it over."

  "Be more specific."

  Bodean watched me scrape a spoonful of grits on top of a piece of ham. He said, "Leland's not used to pressure like this. Politics keeps him at arm's length of reality. All the arguing and insinuations and shit are not real in that arena, and now that he's caught up in something genuine, he doesn't know what to do. Like that newspaper. I suspect you had something to do with that, didn’t you?"

  "What is his level of involvement, Bo?" I asked.

  "I ain't real clear on that," he replied. "But I do know that he's willing to give me up to the cops, throw me under the bus, if it saves his ass."

  "If you didn't do anything, wouldn't they be forced to let you go?"

  "I knew you listened to blind bluesmen; I didn't know you'd become one. You should've realized by now that whatever officers Brickmeyer doesn't have in his pocket Bullen's got in his. If I go in that police station, I ain't coming out. If I'm suspected, the case'll die with me. They'll make sure of that."

  I considered this. "What else do you know about the murder, specifically?"

  He cleared his throat but did not speak for a long time. I finished off my eggs and grits and left a corner of meat on the plate. "I know Leland's been phoning Ronald Bullen at odd hours, having frantic conversations with him. If not for Jeffrey being so calm, sumbitch might have already gone off the deep end. Man can't handle this kind of pressure."

  "What were the conversations about?"

  He shrugged. "Always went in another room to take 'em. I tend not t'ask questions, but I can't help but think all the calls began around the time that Laveau boy went missing."

  "Nobody really knows when he went missing."

  "Brickmeyer started talking to Ronald the week before Laveau showed up at that old nigger joint. At first, you could hear Leland screaming through the walls. Couldn't tell what he was saying, but you could tell he was saying it with some force.”

  I peered at him. “And you’re not just playing me here? Just to give the run-around?”

  “I’m protecting myself now. It ain’t tough for me to roll over on the dude, but he’s gotten himself into some bad shit. There’s this guy, up near Atlanta, and he’s not in the mafia, but he’s not that far from it, either.

  “Huh.” It was the sort of line that a dude would give to somebody to lead him into a trap, so I didn’t bite on it the way I guess he thought I should.

  He sighed. “I don’t know the dude’s name, but his hammer is a madman. Evil as all fuck. Limber. Limmer. Something like that. You hear that guy’s name, you get the hell out of the way. He’s nobody to be taken lightly.”

  “I don’t have anything to worry about,” I said. “It’s Brickmeyer who’s up to his elbows in this guy’s business. Not me.”

  “Yeah, but your name is not completely out of the conversation,” he replied. “And your old lady, she’s got a lot of shadows in the corners. Don’t forget that. They might try to - I don’t know - use that against you. The boss has gotten frantic, and he keeps the waters smooth as glass on the surface, but he’s hurting.”

  “Good. I hope he keeps on hurtin’. I’m going to make sure he hurts until he gives up the truth. I’m afraid I won’t get a wink of sleep until that happens.”

  He smiled. “I bet you don’t even know why you’re helping at this point.”

  Well, he had me there. “It’s the right thing to do?” It was the answer that stood out but was not by any stretch of the imagination the truth. The entire truth.

  “I don’t think it’s so selfless as that. You’ve had it pretty rough in your life, like me. We’ve both had dry runs of shitty luck, but the difference between you and me is that I was smart enough to work for the people who made me jealous, rather than try to drag them down into the briars with me.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “Maybe you’re right, and I’ve been dreaming all this up to kick Leland Brickmeyer in the nuts for having money. But maybe - and this is something I’ve had to think about a lot - there is no meaning to it, or else I’ll never find it. Most likely I’ll just stagger from this fuck-up to the next one without an inkling of how I should have gone about it.”

  “And I reckon that’s what I’m trying to avoid by getting out now, while there’s still time for me.”

  “All the blood that needed to be on your hands is still there. You’re just trying to scrub it off so you don’t see it. Doesn’t mean nobody else won’t.”

  He tapped one of his enormous fingers on the table, watching it. “I guess that’s something I’m going to figure out how to live with.”

  “You could always turn over, face the right direction. Hell, you could probably do some good. There’s this detective-”

  “Listen, man, I got to go. I was on my way out of town when I saw you parking, and I had to stop in and tell you. You don’t have to believe me, and I reckon it wouldn’t make sense for you to, but you won’t have a chance to follow-up with me to find out if it’s all true or not."

  "But why? You’re the hard case. Brickmeyer paid you to be his muscle. You’re not supposed to think about what’s happening."

  "If you can figure out which of these shadowy sumbitches killed Emmitt Laveau, then I ain't got nothing to worry about. Good luck."

  Without another word, the behemoth sauntered out of the restaurant and disappeared down the street, favoring the leg I had nearly broken.

  * * *

  I drove down a winding road made of hard Georgia clay, listening to the shocks squeak beneath me. The sky was as silvery-gray as the side of a dull blade. Trees rushed by and disappeared at intervals, like silent, ever-present guards.

  I found the man I was looking for on the screened-in porch of his impressive two-story cabin, drinking a cocktail that made the entire room smell like rum. "How you doin', sport?" he said. "Come on in and have a seat."

  I drew up the chair next to him and leaned back, looking over the orange sunlight reflecting off the man-made pond just on the other side of the yard. A small dock jutted out into the water, a ten foot aluminum boat tied up tight on one side.

  He was in repose in a way I had never witnessed, and if not for the warmth he exuded in those moments, I might have thought he knew why I was out there. I told him as much - at least about the calmness - and he replied, “Even clowns wash off the make-up after a show.”

  The rocking chair squeaked amiably as Jarrell swayed back and forth. "I need to log these hours?"

  "Actually, this is a social call," I replied.

  "You're lucky I used to bum around with your father. I don't normally dispense with complimentary counsel. Go ahead, I'm listening."

  "You know the politics around here," I continued.

  "I wish I didn't. Cocktail?"

  I shook my head.

  "Good boy," he said, swirling his own concoction, the ice tinkling in the glass. He was either drunk or sedated. "You need to stay away from this shit until everything passes."

  I didn't answer him. Across the pond, one kind of fish or another splashed, creating a mild ripple across the water’s surface. Jarrell's smile widened, and the lines in his old face deepened.

  "You read the paper today?"

  He grimaced. "Oh, hell, if it doesn't have anything to do with keeping you out of jail, I don't give a rat's furry ass about it. But I can tell something's working. Little Leland walks around like that stick up his behind has been jammed in a bit deeper."

  "'Little' Leland?"

  He stared at me for a m
oment, his eyes looking into me for something. He used one hand to rub the scar on his cheek. The other swirled the glass, causing the ice in it to tinkle amiably. "Shoot, I can remember that boy soiling his britches in the first grade. Like I said, young man, I am ancient. You know how old dirt is?"

  "No."

  "Well, I'm a day older'n that, so go figure. He ain't quite got the swagger he used to. Something's got him down."

  "Good," I said.

  "Leland, he ain't tough like his daddy. His daddy was a mean sumbitch, I tell you what. Leland is soft, more like his mother. It's amazing he's made it as far as he has. Jeffrey’s just like him. Life doesn’t always go in cycles. Neither one of them's got the nerve of a shelter dog. I remember back when Leland went to high school. Walked around like he was real hot shit. You know the type. Not much different than he does now. But he had something going against him."

  I was suddenly interested in what the uncouth old man had to say. "What's that?"

  "Haven't you been listening? Gumption. Leland had no gumption. Tried out for baseball. Couldn't make it. Tried to run track. Couldn't even do that. Lord, I remember the time he actually tried to play football. Somebody broke his collarbone during practice and he passed out. No kidding.”

  “What has that got to do with anything?” I asked.

  “Some people round here thought he was queer when he was younger. Once he got to college, though, he started whoring around, had a pretty public meltdown when he moved back. But he married a fine woman, which shut most everybody up."

  My hands were sweating. I clasped them in my lap, trying to pretend that I was staring out across the pond. "Hey, bud, what's got you all juiced up?" Jarrell asked. "You look like something deadly's crawling around your boxer briefs."

  "What do you know about the night my father killed...that man?" The fucking guy’s name had even gone hazy in my mind, after all these years.

  Both bushy eyebrows raised up in a look of surprise. He seemed to stumble over a thought before saying, "Why, just what he told me. Strung him up and beat him to death. Bout all there is to tell, Rol."