The Devil's Music

by Stephen Mertz

  I said, “We are just trying to determine if there are loose ends before we get too far into this.”

  “Well, there ain’t,” snapped Jenna, “so why don’t you hush this fuss and get to work finding my niece?”

  12

  I gave Leon a call before driving over to see him.

  Taking on a street tough named Libra, and bringing home a runaway in trouble named Chantel, would likely prove easier than finding a needle in a haystack, thanks to the leads Jenna had supplied me with. But well as I knew Five Points, the secret of success is quite often knowing someone who knows more than you do.

  In this case, that would be Leon. I liked the guy well enough and figured I could trust him if our past encounters were any indication. And you can’t run a club like the one he ran without becoming, at the very least, well aware of the, shall we say, less savory aspects of neighborhood life.

  Look at it this way. On a Saturday night at 2 AM, a joint like Leon’s is rowdy and packed. And yet, folks who have to show up for work or church on Sunday morning are likely already safely tucked in no later than 1 AM. So, who are these denizens of the night populating such places as Leon’s? Well, there might be a sprinkling of respectable types here and there, playing hooky or slumming, but mostly you’ll find those whose life is a hustle after the sun goes down. Hustlers. Players. Gamblers. Hookers. Those looking to sell dope and those looking to score it. Generally speaking, then: street-level riffraff of every type.

  It’s a place where musical artists like Stomper Crawford and Muddy Waters and BB King create their art.

  The street fronting Leon’s had a completely different feel from last night. Then it had throbbed with the excitement of a night scene. Now, pleasant mid-day Colorado sunshine warmed the scene. There was sparse pedestrian traffic on the sidewalks and few vehicles passing by on the street.

  I parked the Lancia at the curb and fed the requisite small change into a meter. When I walked into the club, the house lights were up but did little to dissuade the shadows and the close, stale atmosphere any nighttime bar takes on during daylight hours. A deliveryman was noisily busy with a dolly, coming in and out of a back entrance behind the bar, overseen by a bartender supervising the delivery. There were no customers. Leon’s wouldn’t be happening until after the sun went down.

  Leon sat at the table where the light was good. There was an open cashbox, a pocket calculator and organized stacks of receipts arrayed before him on the table.

  Isaac Crawford also sat at the table.

  Isaac reminded me of a restive panther. Slouched down in his chair, he wore either the same or an identical black T-shirt and cuffed blue jeans as the night before when he had stormed out of his own apartment. Even in repose, before he noticed me, while he sat there watching Leon attend to his accounting, his face was a carved black mask of simmering hostility. He registered no response when I reached the table. Didn’t even straighten in his chair, the slouch insolent with unspoken menace.

  Meanwhile, Leon’s broad face was splitting into a wide smile. He set the calculator aside, atop of a stack of receipts to keep them in place.

  He said, “Well, all right. I told Isaac you’d be dropping by. Pull up a chair, Kilroy. Have a drink on the house.”

  Easy enough to pick up the nuance here. These two were relaxed and comfortable in each other’s presence. I had the feeling Isaac had been lounging at this table for a while.

  I said to him in as sociable a tone as I could muster, “Didn’t mean to chase you out of your own place last night, Isaac. I stayed over with your dad last night.”

  Isaac’s response came with a sneer.

  “I know what you did. I know what you did every step of the way. Called one of my posse to fall in and keep an eye on my crib after I split. My pop is safe long as I’m breathing. And dig this, honkey. No one chases me anywhere, dig? No one. I stand and fight.”

  I said, “Yeah, that’s great, but you don’t have to prove it to me. How are you doing, Leon? I should’ve figured you two were tight. This is where Isaac intercepted me last night when I came around looking for his old man.”

  Isaac’s eyes narrowed and his mouth stayed a tight line when he said, “Tighter than you know, offay.”

  He was about to say more, but he bit his tongue and held back when Leon made the slightest gesture with his left hand. Isaac eased back in his chair but lost none of the intensity in those narrowed eyes that burned at me like lasers.

  Leon was saying, “What Isaac is trying to say is I’ve been tight with his whole family for years, going back to when Stomper first split and hit the road. My wife and I stepped in and befriended Florence and the kids.”

  Isaac added in a terse voice, “Leon here, he’s been a second father to me and my sister. Even she don’t have a bad thing to say about Leon.” He turned to the older man and the intensity in his eyes became affection. “You were there for us when mama died. I’ll always owe you for that. Even Pop didn’t come back when she took sick, but I forgave him for that and for everything else just like you taught me, Leon. You was always there for me and my family. You the man.”

  Leon said, “I’m proud of you, boy. Wouldn’t have done no good to drop the hammer on your old man. I wish I could have made your sister see that before she moved back east. Your father, he saw a man killed. They tried to kill him. He thought he was running for his life, and I reckon he was. Thought he was drawing the danger away from his family, and maybe he was. Anyway, it don’t do no good trying to talk a man out of his deepest fears. That kind of fear what Stomper had, it eats up a man’s insides until he can’t take it no more, and then there ain’t no way to rid it save to cut it out of your craw your own self. I knew that time would come with Stomper and when it did, we was ready to take him back when he hit town.”

  Isaac glared in my direction.

  “And then you had to come along and mess things up. I never should’ve carried you over to meet my dad.”

  Another subtle, pacifying gesture from Leon.

  “Dial that back, Isaac. What’s done is done. I’ve been thinking on this and I reckon it would be in your dad’s best interest if you and me was to throw in with Mr. Kilroy.”

  I said, “I appreciate that, Leon. Isaac, what’s your beef with me? Be a man. Lay it on the table in front of us. Give it a name.”

  The glare in those narrowed eyes intensified.

  “What the hell do you think is my beef? Look in the mirror, man. You’re white. It’s the white man that’s been giving my people the blues for hundreds of years. Ain’t going to be me trusting no white man this late in the damn game.”

  I said, “Leon, how much history of the blues do you know?”

  Leon’s warm chuckle was nostalgic.

  “I started in Mississippi,” he said. “Muddy, B.B., the Wolf... shoot, I knew ‘em all. Played their records when I was a DJ and I booked them when I got into the club business. That’s why I always dug Stomper so damn much. His guitar playing and his singing, why, they take me back to them good old days, they sure enough do. What do you want to make of that, Kilroy?”

  I said, “Only that every step of the way it was white entrepreneurs who just happened to love the blues who first commercially produced and recorded those artists you’re talking about. The Chess brothers in Chicago. Sam Phillips in Memphis, recording Howlin’ Wolf years before he got around to recording Elvis. There are plenty more such cases and you know it.” I concluded my remarks directly to Isaac. “We’re not exactly reinventing the wheel here. You need to reassess that racial thing so we can move forward and help your father.”

  Isaac growled something unintelligible under his breath, and I thought I detected the hint of a softening in his attitude. Or maybe not.

  I said, “I intend to help your father, and I’m not about to stop or go anywhere unless he asks or tells me to. Leon’s right. There’s no reason for us not to work together.”

  If Isaac had an answer for that, he didn’t share it with us. Mayb
e later, but not now. No telling what was going on in the sharp mind behind those lasering eyes.

  Leon cleared his throat.

  “Enough of that. Let’s rap some, Kilroy. See where we can take this thing with Stomper, what do you say?”

  I said, “That’s a big part of why I’m here. If you two have done any strategizing, let’s hear what you’ve come up with.”

  Leon said, “We need to get Stomper into the studio and cut some new tunes, first off. Then naturally we’re going to need us promos and representation. I’d be willing to supply that, but I want to guarantee it’s time and money well spent and that my investment is protected. My wife, she always does my bookkeeping. But first things first. Where is Stomper? I mean, as of right now?”

  “Out and about,” I said, casually as I could. “He and a friend of mine are trying to track down Shorty Long.”

  Leon nodded with a satisfied smile.

  “The bass player. Good. See? First things first, right? Stomper, he needs him in his band. What about TJ and Olga?”

  Isaac offered, “Miss James, she’s gone uptown. Ain’t no blues coming out of her.”

  Leon said, “What about that, Kilroy?”

  “She’s thinking about it,” I told them. I thought of hearing her caress the ivories on Stomper’s Groove. I added, “I think she’s in.”

  “And TJ? Word I heard was he’s done with music altogether. Done found himself religion, ain’t that right?”

  “Worse,” said Isaac without losing his sullen demeanor. “His old lady got religion. Ain’t nothing more religious than reformed whore.”

  Leon sighed again.

  “That’s little Jenna we’re talking about, ain’t it? Son, we’ve all got to find our path in life and that child was headed for a bad end back in the day before she found God. I reckon religion’s been good for her. You seen her and TJ yet, Kilroy?”

  “I have,” and I related my visit to the Travelers’ Rest and the terms I’d been handed before TJ would agree to participate in rejoining the band.

  Leon sent a direct glance of his own at Isaac.

  “There, you see! Appears to me Kilroy here has bit off a big enough chunk of this mess to earn our respect. He’s right. If we want the best for your Pop, working together with Kilroy is the way to go.”

  While I couldn’t make out what Isaac was thinking behind those narrowed eyes, I knew the wheels would be churning, the gears meshing, during the lengthy pause before he said, “Maybe so.” The glare finally softened in his eyes but he never blinked. “So what do you want from us?”

  “I’m looking for a crack house,” I said, “and a hard case named Libra...”

  13

  The address of the crack house, which Isaac provided with a scowl of distaste, was in the low-income neighborhood near West 35th and Federal, crosstown from Leon’s. I made the drive, listening to classic BB King on the Lancia’s eight-track dash tape player.

  Not the smooth, commercial material B. took to recording after his crossover hit, The Thrill Is Gone. What came out of the Lancia’s speakers was hard as nails, soulful, driving boogie that had a real swing to it. We’re talking Memphis, 1953. The so-called chitlin circuit. Songs like Everyday I Have the Blues, How Blue Can You Get, and Rock Me, Baby. Some of the best blues ever recorded, intended in my case to soothe my troubled brain while negotiating Denver’s heavy crosstown traffic.

  There was a lot to process.

  The intervening hours had not been dull since I’d left Carl Hensman’s apartment last night in search of an elusive blues singer. Not twenty-four hours had elapsed and here I was, helping Stomper Crawford put together his band by rescuing a drug-addled teenage runaway from the grasp of a street tough.

  Leon had warned me before I left his club.

  “You watch yourself and don’t turn your back on that boy, Libra. I don’t allow him or his friends in my place no more. He’s a bad acting cat, Kilroy. Real bad.”

  “So am I,” was my parting shot.

  I was itching to get this thing done.

  What had begun as successfully locating a fine, forgotten bluesman had turned into a morass of evolving personal lives, the bluesman’s son who was more of a potential hindrance than he was a blessing (though that showed some indication of changing) and shots being fired at me and by me on a public street. The obvious answer seemed to be that this was somehow tied into a back-alley murder nine years earlier. Or was that too pat? Were other factors involved? Stomper returns and bullets start flying. No, that was no coincidence. My problem was not knowing how Stomper’s past connected with his present.

  It would’ve helped if BB King’s blues had spurred me to a realization, an understanding, an epiphany that would enlighten me as to what the heck I’d gotten myself into. But that didn’t happen. BB King sounded great as ever, but his singing and playing couldn’t keep my mind from looping back to Isaac Crawford’s basic reason for not liking or trusting me.

  He and his father were black. I was white. Simple as that. Except it wasn’t simple. Few things are, once we get up close and dig in.

  Race and music are no exception.

  BB King was just beginning to repeat on the Lancia’s eight-track when I braked to a stop at the curb, a block away from the address I’d been looking for, a two-story brownstone set close to the sidewalk behind an innocent-looking white picket fence. Someone had tossed a pair of battered sneakers up onto overhead wires that crossed the street at this point. The shoes dangled from high above the street, an urban tipoff indicating that hard drugs like crack could be purchased in that house.

  I switched off the car’s ignition. BB King abruptly stopped playing.

  I checked the looseness of the .44 in my shoulder holster. Satisfied, I locked the Lancia.

  The sparkling, unkempt brown lawn bordering the narrow walkway that led from the sidewalk to the front porch of the house was the first indication that I had the right address.

  Sparkling?

  It could have been handfuls of diamonds sprinkled across that mostly dead lawn and twinkling in the bright sunshine, but it wasn’t. It was the little glass vials that chunks of crack cocaine come in. The vials caught and reflected the sunlight like early morning dew. There were more of those vile vials than you could count, scattered all across the front yard.

  Easy to figure, really. Junkies came to the house to make their score, maybe after dark or maybe in broad daylight, and broke into their vials and toked up right there in the front yard, needing to catch their high before they even hit the street.

  I stepped onto the porch.

  There was no indication of anyone about. No sounds except for the constant traffic noise that carried over from Federal Boulevard. There was a doorbell button beside the door. I thumbed it. If it chimed inside the house, I didn’t hear it. I pressed it a few more times, just to be sure. No response.

  Okay. No one home?

  Unlikely if my intel was correct and this was a place of illegal enterprise. This tree-lined residential street would have been a respectable, lower middle-class neighborhood until maybe thirty years ago, which was probably about when unsavory elements began encroaching. There would likely be any number of respectable folks living up and down this street, trying their best to hold the line. I silently wished them luck.

  There was a glass pane in the door. A wisp of curtain across it on the inside prevented me from seeing in. I rapped my knuckles against the glass with enough persistence to gain the notice of anyone inside, at least on the ground floor.

  Again, no response.

  Well, hell.

  I gave the front doorknob a twist. I inched the door open halfway.

  “Hello?” I called, and when there was still no response, “Anybody home?”

  The interior of the house had a vacant feel about it. No sounds of physical presence. No music. No movement. No conversations. Empty.

  I stepped inside, leaving the front door open behind me. I hailed the interior of the house again with a
nother “Hello” and “Anybody home?” My voice bounced back at me from the emptiness.

  The place was a mess. The furniture, which was unmatched Goodwill, was littered with newspapers, paper plates with half-finished meals and other unidentifiable debris. There were empty crack vials everywhere.

  I went from room to room on the ground floor. Kitchen and a bedroom, the bedroom unfurnished except for mattresses scattered on the floor. Someone had cleared out in a hurry.

  A narrow stairway led from the kitchen up to the second floor. Just to be on the careful side, I called again up that stairway, hailing anyone who might be home. As expected, there was no response.

  It was time to be careful.

  I drew the .44 and started up the stairs.

  Was I expecting a firefight in that quiet house on 35th Ave.? No, I was not. But that’s got nothing to do with it. I don’t expect to be in a car accident every time I drive, but I fastened my seatbelt. And I’d be willing to bet that anyone who’s ever been killed in an ambush was not expecting what happened to them. And then there’s the old adage that covers everything from traveling with a spare tire to packing a piece when you foresee even the possibility of bad trouble: Better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it.

  I moved slowly up that narrow stairway with the pistol pointing before me in a two-handed grip... just in case.

  The second level of the house exhibited the same messy, hurriedly vacated look as the floor below. Another bedroom with mattresses on the floor. Discarded clothing, drug paraphernalia, and those damn little vials scattered everywhere. The door to the bathroom was closed but unlatched. I toed the door open all the way.