Out of the Blues

by Trudy Nan Boyce

  Among the waving weeds, sunlight glinted on long bladed grass, off bottles and broken glass. The cry morphed to indistinguishable sounds, words. “Water—awa, waa . . .” The woman Salt now knew was Pearl moved out from the stack of tires, flinging herself to the ground, her full skirt spreading, the iridescence catching the light. “Gas-o-leen,” she sang.

  Salt walked closer. This was definitely the voice from her father’s tapes. “Pearl, let’s talk.”

  Her age could have been anything between forty and seventy. She put up a hand to stop Salt.

  “What can I get for you? Water?”

  “I ask you for water, gave me gasoline,” Pearl sang.

  “I need your help, Pearl. I’m trying to find out what really happened to Mike Anderson. Maybe we can help each other.” Certain though she was that this was Pearl, anyone would have been hard-pressed to match her face to the mug shot in the flyer. Expression animated and changed her features. Her color was very different, wrinkled and darker from the sun and elements. Salt searched her pockets and found a business card and some cash. “Here is a little money and my card. How can I find you?”

  Pearl sat up, wiping her nose with the back of her hand. Salt walked within reaching distance and squatted down next to Pearl, who leaned back on stiffened arms but inclined forward to accept the offered five and card.

  “My phone number is on the card. I’d like to be able to talk when you’re ready.”

  “Church.”

  “Which one? Where?”

  “Red door.”

  SECOND NIGHT OF THE GIG

  AT THE NOTELLING

  Smiling, she met his eyes from a few yards away.

  “You seem in a good mood.” Dan greeted Salt as she came up the steps of the Notelling.

  “I’m happy to get to listen to your music again, and lucky to get to talk to Melissa. Thanks for calling—letting me know she was going to be here.”

  “She’s backstage. She had a couple of days between gigs, decided to surprise me and do a guest appearance with us.”

  Smoking a cigarette, Dan leaned against the porch rail. A big, fat moon rose large between two tall buildings in the downtown city skyline, giving the warm night a natural glow. “Atlanta. Mike loved this fucking city, always going to some back street or alley lookin’ for the blues.” Light streamed on the nearby freeway where a brightly lit green highway sign pointed to the Freedom Parkway and Auburn Avenue exits. Lights: headlights, the bar marquee, parking lot pole lights, streetlights, string lights, and fireflies under the trees. “From the beginning, around the first firelight when someone sat down on a log and turned it into a drum and then somebody blew through a reed, conch shell, or bone, we’ve been connecting.” Dan tossed his cigarette.

  Salt cocked her head, listening. “The band’s playing. Why aren’t you onstage?”

  Cars and trucks rolled in, tires crunching in the gravel parking lot in front of the Notelling. People poured into the bar.

  “Melissa asks me to lay out sometimes, to watch. On some numbers she’d rather not have a rhythm guitar.”

  They followed the crowd, singles, couples, men, women, all dressed in good jeans, lucky blouses, or favorite shirts. The people fairly ran up the front steps of the Notelling, rushing into their Saturday night and hurrying to take their place in rituals as old as music.

  Mustafa, dreads spinning, bent over the kick drum, laying down a backbeat on the snare, left foot pumping the hi-hat, working the crash cymbal, and sizzling on the ride. Goldie alternated fat honks, sterling squeals, and snake charming. The fingers of Pops’ left hand, shiny and gnarly, lifted and pressed over the fret board while his right hand plucked a pulse, digging a deep groove. Blackbird swayed over the keyboard and laid into a boogie-woogie romp. Bailey stood up, signaling for the band to take the volume down. When they got real quiet, the beat low and steady behind him, he began a rumbly growl. “Ah um, ah um, catfish . . . ah um, ah um, honeybee.”

  They kicked it up again. Melody threw the switch for the rotating pin lights that flew over the crowd, over their bodies and back and forth. The floor of the Notelling bent and gave to the foot pounding, butt bouncing, body rockin’ that accompanied the jump blues.

  Dan and Salt stood against the wall with another standing-room-only crowd. The music vibrated the room. Salt tapped her toe, recognizing the song as one she’d danced to with her dad. “Play the boogie, Daddy.”

  Dan leaned over so he could be heard above the music and raucous audience. “I can’t dance.”

  She blinked, realizing she’d lost track of the room focusing on the memory. “Oh. Me either.”

  Bailey went to humming while the band went low again, the jump beat ready, anticipating. “And now, ladies and gentlemen, a real treat for you tonight. Making a surprise guest appearance, all the way from West Texas and her current tour across this great country, Miss Melissa Primrose.” Bailey’s voice rose in a crescendo.

  The band exploded again. The audience clapped, whistled, yelled, stomped, and the band played louder. Then just when it began to feel like she’d missed her intro, Melissa came prancing on—all of about five foot two, in a red dress with a flouncy skirt and high-heeled cowboy boots, her long, wavy red hair flying. She bounded around the stage and presented her pale-white cheek to each band member, then “sashayed”—it was the only word to describe her skip-kicking march—to the center mic and lit into “Jambalaya.”

  Jambalaya and a crawfish pie and filé gumbo

  ’Cause tonight I’m gonna see my ma cher amio

  Pick guitar, fill fruit jar and be gay-o.

  Salt, applauding along with the crowd, looked at Dan. “Ma cher amio?” she mimed the question, widening her eyes at him.

  He shrugged his “I guess.”

  Melissa danced while she sang. The crowd swayed in front of her and joined in on the chorus.

  Cupping her hands to her mouth, Salt said, “She’s a wonderful performer.”

  “How come you never learned to dance?” Dan asked.

  —

  “SO THIS IS your detective. You old nut.” She batted at Dan’s shoulder. “You didn’t say she was pretty. Now I find you been hanging out with a long, tall beauty.” She pecked Dan’s cheek and held on to his arm.

  Salt put her hand out to the singer. “I really enjoyed your performance,” she complimented Melissa, feeling large and awkward, her hand a paw over the singer’s small fingers.

  “Goodness, I’m all sweaty. Honey”—she pulled some bills out of a skirt pocket—“could you get me a wine spritzer?” She held the money out to Dan, who looked for an uncomfortable moment like he wasn’t going to respond.

  “Hey, guys, why don’t you let me buy,” Salt said.

  “Detective,” Dan drawled, “our drinks are comped. Miss—” He held up his hand for the waitress.

  Salt didn’t want to let whatever was going on between Dan and Melissa interfere with getting some answers. She turned to Melissa. “Dan has told you that I’ve been assigned to follow up on some new information we received on Mike’s death. Can we talk outside?”

  “I can’t tell you any more than I told the cops ten years ago. Maybe less. I’ve tried to forget a lot of the stuff that went on then. He didn’t kill himself—that’s one thing I can tell you for sure. But, of course, the cops didn’t care then. I’m surprised they care now.” Melissa turned and walked toward the front doors.

  The band hit the final notes of the set. The house lights came up on the dingy room. People milled around and sat down at the worn tables. A little shabbiness seeped into the atmosphere.

  Stiffly, Salt and Dan waited for the drinks. “I ordered a whiskey for you.” His voice sounded flat.

  “That’s fine. I’d like to talk to Melissa alone.”

  “Sure. I’ll warn you, though, she’s never gotten over it. Mike has become godlike to her. I ce
rtainly loved him, but he invited some bad people into his life.”

  Their drinks came. Salt picked up her whiskey and the spritzer. “You guys hitting the road tomorrow?” She looked away toward the stage when she asked.

  “No, Goldie’s lined up something off the books for day after tomorrow, some juke joint he says is on the south side.”

  “Can you ask him the name of the place? There aren’t many upright clubs down that way.”

  “Knowing Goldie, upright wasn’t a consideration in his decision to play there.”

  “Let me know, okay? After I finish talking with Melissa?” She headed toward the porch, threading her way through the people waiting for the music to start back up.

  A group of fans, mostly men, was gathered around the singer. Salt lifted the drinks to catch her eye.

  “That’s it, honey. See that pretty lady,” she explained to her admirers. “She’s a cop. Wants to talk to me about Mike Anderson’s death. After all these years. You come find me later, sweetie, and I’ll autograph anything you want.” She patted arms as she passed by on her way to Salt. “Whew,” she said, taking her spritzer. “Life on the road’s not all it’s cracked up to be.”

  “You and Dan ever think about a life without touring?” Salt led them to the far end of the porch.

  “Honey, I got a career to think about. Dan isn’t exactly getting rich playing rhythm guitar, basically a backup player.”

  “Was Mike getting rich?”

  Melissa took a long pull on the drink. “Nope. He had no sense about money, but he would have been rich someday. Seems like it’s my lot in life to hook up with men who don’t have money. So here I am, out on the circuit, singin’ and shakin’ my bootie.” She gathered her hair at the back of her neck, let it go, then looked at Salt. “You got a husband or boyfriend? He don’t mind you hanging around honky-tonks?”

  “Yes. No, he’s a cop.”

  “Well, there you go. You know how it is to have to make a living.”

  Salt took a sip of her whiskey. “Melissa, did you know who Mike got his drugs from?”

  “I told all that to the cops right after he died. Why didn’t they do something then?”

  “His death was ruled accidental. There was no murder to investigate.”

  “I told them it was murder.” She flung back the hem of her skirt and sat down.

  “There were no first-person statements in the file. I need whatever you and Dan can remember. Do you know anyone that might have wanted Mike dead? Why did you think it wasn’t accidental?” Salt sat in one of the rocking chairs.

  “Look, I was twenty-three years old ten years ago. Mike was thirty-five. He was teaching me about the blues. We all did cocaine back then, but Mike had started using heroin. A lot of the bluesmen had heroin connections. I think that’s why he tried it, because the old guys had or did.” Melissa looked over the people on the porch, and lowered her voice. “And he said he only got his H from one guy he said was reliable. I didn’t know who exactly, but from time to time I saw him with a guy everyone said sold heroin, and I saw him cop from the guy. I only knew his first name: John.”

  “Did Mike seem worried? Did he say anything about this John? What about the last time you were with Mike?”

  “There was an impromptu after-hours party at Mike’s the night before he was found. I don’t remember if he was worried, and I don’t remember much of what went on that night. Some of his band had dropped by, me, a couple of other women, girlfriends of the band were there, somebody’s kids. At one point I’d gotten way high. I was drinking and doing cocaine. There was a lot of cocaine. Mike walked me two houses down to Dan’s place so that Dan could take me home. I never saw Mike again.”

  Salt handed Melissa a bar napkin. “Was John there that night? Band members? Names of the girlfriends? What about a singer called Pretty Pearl?”

  “I don’t know if John was there. I was too fucked-up to know who came and went. I didn’t know the women. I’m pretty sure Red Saylor and Tiny Peterson were there. I’m not sure who else.” She wiped the corner of her eye and blotted her eyelashes. “Pearl was kind of special to Mike. She’d come out of Mississippi pretty raw, natural, an original. She wouldn’t have been at the party. He was very protective, tried to keep the predators off her, maybe because she was somewhat lost in the big city. I don’t know what happened to her either.”

  “Where are Saylor and Peterson now?”

  “Saylor went on to play with B.B. King’s tour band. I lost track of Tiny.”

  “What about Mike’s life outside of music? Church? His parents?”

  Melissa dropped her eyes and bit her lip. When she looked up, it was out into the night, and light reflected off a wet streak on her cheek. “Back then, even just ten years ago, there was the whole black-and-white thing, especially with his folks. I had two strikes against me as far as they were concerned, me being white and a blues singer. He said his mother and father were old-school, wanted him to marry a nice black Spelman girl. I never met them.”

  “Was he religious? Did he go to church?”

  “A couple of times he ranted about some preacher his parents sicced on him, but I don’t remember a name.” Melissa dabbed at her eyes again with the bar napkin.

  Salt gave her a minute and then asked, “Dan didn’t take you home that night, did he?”

  Melissa stood up with her back to Salt. “No.”

  The band was back on, starting out the set low and slow.

  Melissa turned, patting her face with the napkin. “Mike was the love of my life.”

  “Dan has been with you for ten years. He seems pretty loyal.”

  “Loyal—well, I guess. Loyal.” She dropped the napkin and walked away back into the bar.

  Salt sat there. A train whistle blew in the distance. Atlanta was still a town where a single whistle could sound lonely.

  Then Dan was standing beside her. They were both quiet.

  Finally he said, “Goldie says the name of the place is Sam’s Chicken Shack and Blue Room.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding, right?”

  “That’s the name he gave me.”

  “Why would Bailey Brown’s band play a low-down place like that? It’s in one of the worst neighborhoods in the city. It’s practically in the projects.” Salt knew it well. Sam’s was the center of social activity for The Homes, as well as where a lot of drug dealing took place.

  “Apparently Goldie has some ties there. It’s a one-off for the band—off the books. But the blues has always thrived in tough places.”

  “You know, when I talked to Mike’s parents, they really believed that the blues, ‘juke’ music they called it, was what caused Mike’s downfall.”

  “People been saying that about all kinds of music.”

  “Did he ever mention Midas Prince? He was the family’s preacher. They asked him to intervene with Mike.”

  “Hmm?” Dan looked off in the distance. “That I don’t remember.”

  “Was he religious?”

  “It’s a cliché, but music really was his religion. He’d stopped going to church. His folks had gotten all judgmental.” Dan paused. “I did remember, last night, I remembered that Mike’s H dealer was a guy named John. White guy, tall. In fact, they called him ‘Tall John.’”

  “Last name?”

  “I don’t think I ever knew it.”

  “Would Bailey, Pops, or Goldie know? Can you get me the names of the guys who were in Mike’s own band?”

  “I’ll ask the guys and I’ll get you a list of anybody I can remember who played with Mike then. You gonna hang around till we finish tonight?”

  Salt set her glass down. “How about I just see you guys one more time, down on the south side.”

  “I’d hoped to get to talk to you again.” Dan looked at her plainly. “And worried I would.” He covered his upp
er lip with his lower.

  “You’re a good man, Mr. Pyne.”

  “And you, Detective Alt, are an interesting woman.” Dan reached and touched his index finger to the knuckles of her hand on the porch rail.

  WORKOUT

  Over the double doors to the church gym was a sign in script bordered by flowers and vines: “Your Body, Your Temple.” Little black girls in pink T-shirts and boys in blue leapt from the last step of the church bus onto the parking lot and filed drop-shouldered and slow through the doors. Other kids got out of cars, quite a few of which were older models, some beaters. The kids arriving in the cars were handed T-shirts at the door by an older boy who dipped into a cardboard box for the shirts. Some of the children hadn’t had a comb or brush through their hair, or they looked dusty, wearing less-than-clean pants or jeans.

  According to the church’s website and other sources on the Internet, Midas Prince had come to Big Calling Church more than fifteen years ago when the nondenominational congregation was only three hundred souls. The church had grown into a megachurch of more than ten thousand. Prince had come from nowhere, literally. His hometown was listed as Nowhere, a tiny crossroads in rural South Carolina. He had degrees from nonaccredited colleges and an honorary doctorate in preaching. Salt had run his name through the department databases and had come up with only a couple of traffic tickets over the ten years that were covered by computerized records. She’d called the church office for an appointment and hadn’t received a return call. Madison seemed irritated when she’d pressed him over the phone. “He’s a busy man, Salt,” he said, his voice rising like he was mad at her for putting him on the spot. “His secretary will call you.”

  The church website had a schedule that listed something called “Youth Health,” led by Reverend and Mrs. Prince for this Saturday afternoon. Salt leaned forward against the steering wheel, slipped her arms out of the shoulder holster, removed the 9mm, and tucked it inside a belt holster at her back. She got out, grabbed her jacket off the backseat, and followed the children through the doors.