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"You pay him, huh?"
"Way more than he earns making people feel secure." Robert watched De
"What's he doing? I told him I'd set the spots tonight."
Robert was up now shuffling through his stack of CDs, telling De
"You said you don't gamble."
"I put on a show, play some baccarat like James Bond. I'm using the cashier as a bank for my tip money I don't have to carry around. Understand? I get the suite comped, I get tickets to the shows in the Tom Tom Room, and I get to meet Mr. Billy Darwin, shake his hand. Mr. Billy Darwin is cool. He looks you in the eye and you know he's reading you. Mr. Billy Darwin can tell in five seconds if you for real or you by ciditty. You know what I'm saying?"
De
"From that Shemekia Copeland song ` Miss Hy Ciditty '? Means a person puts on airs, fakes it." He found the CD he wanted and replaced John Lee Hooker with it.
De
But the CD came on, a dirge beat, and Robert said, "Listen, see if you can name who this is."
De
I got a bone for you.
I got a bone for you.
I got a little bone for you.
I got a bone for you 'cause I'm a doggy
And I'm naked almost all the time.
"The harmonica could be Little Walter," De
"Little Walter, shit. Man, that's Marvin Pontiac and his hit song `I'm a Doggy.' "
"I never heard of him."
"Shame on you. Marvin's my man. Marvin Pontiac, part of him came out of Muddy Waters. Another part was stolen from him by Iggy Pop. You know Iggy?"
"Yeah, I see what you mean. Iggy's `I Want to Be Your Dog' must've come from… yeah, `I'm a Doggy.'
Marvin Pontiac 's voice saying, singing:
I'm a doggy.
I stink when I'm wet 'cause I'm a doggy.
"Some of his music," Robert said, "he calls Afro-Judaic blues. Marvin always wore white robes and a turban like Erykah Badu 's before she went baldheaded. Had his own ways. Lived by himself… Listen to this. A producer begged him to cut a record? Marvin Pontiac said yeah, all right, he'd do it-if the producer would cut his grass."
"His lawn?"
"Yeah, his grass, his lawn, the man did it to get Marvin in the studio. That's what you listening to, The Legendary Marvin Pontiac Greatest Hits.
`Pancakes' is on there. `Bring Me Rocks' is on there. It's the one has the line `My penis has a face and it likes to bark at Germans.' That's fu
"He still around?"
"Died in '77 in Detroit. Got run over by a bus and they picked his bones, Iggy and some others, David Bowie. But listen, you better get ready, do your dive. You know what one you go
"Not till I'm up on the perch. This afternoon's a warm-up."
"Look over the house. Big crowd, give 'em the triple somersault with some twists and shit. Small crowd-"
"Flying reverse pike. I gotta go," De
Robert said, "Wait," and edged toward the balcony. "Remember I was telling you about the famous crossroads?"
He saw De
"Last night in the car, driving you to Tunica." Robert paused but didn't get a reaction. "I'm telling you about the great Robert Johnson the bluesman and the cop cars go flying past?"
"Yeah, I remember."
Robert pointed out at the sky. "That way thirty miles down the road, where Highway 49 crosses Old 61."
"Yeah?"
"That's the famous crossroads. Where the great
Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil. You understand what I'm saying to you?"
No, he didn't.
He didn't understand half of what Robert said to him.
Was Robert here because this was where some serious blues got started? The way tourists visit Elvis' house in Tupelo with the bed in the living room? Robert was too cool to be a tourist. Robert wouldn't visit a site, Robert was the site. Was he here looking for talent? Some forgotten bluesman missing link, another Marvin Pontiac, and take him back to Motown?
Or was that a side deal while he set up Mr. Kirkbride?
Why would he show Kirkbride the photograph of a man hanging from a bridge unless he expected to get something out of it? Restitution. Play on Kirkbride's sympathy. Hope the man is a rich bleeding heart. Willing to contribute to… what? Some kind of appeal, the Robert Taylor scholarship fund for the heirs of a man who was lynched. Robert drives up in his cool S-Type Jaguar looking legit, Robert soft-spoken… and the man hanging from the bridge isn't even his great-granddaddy.
This is what De
Robert had the confidence to be a confidence man. You believed him. He said in the car last night, "That man gives you any shit, tell me." De
De
“Mr Lenahan?”
It was the CIB man, John Rau, it had to be, getting up from a table, his hand extended. De
John Rau had a Coca-Cola and a dish of mixed nuts on the table. They sat down and De
De
"Help yourself." John Rau gestured and looked out at De
Now De
"He seemed to agree. He sees the local people as your main audience." He waited for De
"Going on seven."
"Showers was still working."
"Checking the pressure on the guy wires."
"You trusted him to do that? Wasn't Showers a rummy?"
"He knew what he was doing," De
"He tell you he was a confidential informant?"
"No, he didn't. He barely spoke to me."
De
John Rau saying, "You know about his background?"
"I know he was in prison. And from what I've heard, talking to people, Floyd was in the Dixie