Tishomingo Blues Read online

  “What’s Alvin do now?”

  “Arlen. Walks around in his cowboy hat like he’s a country-music star, Dwight Yoakam or somebody. Ask him what he does, he’s head of security at Southern Living Village they’re putting up over here. Mr. Kirkbride hires a criminal to see none of his building supplies get stolen.”

  Dennis said, “Yeah . . .?” knowing there was more.

  “But what he really is, Arlen’s a gangster. He got into disorganized crime with the Dixie Mafia and pretty soon he’s in charge. Some call it the Cornbread Cosa Nostra, making it sound cute, but they’re all dirty dogs.”

  “You get this from Charlie?”

  “The talker.”

  “What’s Arlen’s name?”

  “Arlen Novis. There was another Tunica deputy at Parchman the same time as Arlen. Jim Rein, he was in there for assaulting prisoners. He’d beat ’em with a nightstick for no reason other’n they were colored. You’d never think Jim Rein to look at him would do that. He’s a good-looking young man with quite a nice physique on him. They call him Big Fish or just Fish, but I don’t know why.”

  “He’s in the Dixie Mafia, too?”

  “Works for Arlen. They took over from the ones had the drug business. Charlie says just like in the regular Mafia. Arlen had Jim Rein shoot some of ’em and the rest they run off.”

  “That’s where you get your speed?”

  “Crystal meth—I told you, it was just for a while. They sell it to the casino crowd, people that stay up all night trying to win their money back. There’s a honky-tonk called Junebug’s? Down by Dubbs, just south of here. Arlen took it over along with the drug business. You go to Junebug’s you can get all the uppers or downers you want. Speed, crack cocaine, marijuana. They have illegal gambling there, prostitutes, girls in trailers out back of the place.”

  “Why hasn’t it been shut down?”

  “Well, you know they’re paying off somebody. There’s a raid, Arlen gets word of it and they close for alterations. Honey, people come to Tunica for fun, all kinds of it, and spend their money. Like I read a billion dollars a year right in this county. That’s what it’s all about, money. Drugs are sold, casinos are robbed, people are shot . . . Last year a waitress from Harrah’s was stabbed to death in her trailer, up in Robinsonville. I’ve thought seriously of moving back to Atlanta, but you know what? I love it here, something always going on.”

  Vernice took time to smoke. Dennis sipped his drink seeing Arlen Novis by the tank, looking up at him on the perch. He wondered who the other guy was.

  “Has a nice taste, doesn’t it?”

  Dennis said yeah, looked at the glass and took another sip.

  “I don’t put sugar in mine no more, it’s still a treat.”

  “Vernice, why would Kirkbride hire a guy for security who’s a known criminal?”

  “Arlen told Mr. Kirkbride it takes one to know one. Says he can spot anybody hanging around the property who’s up to no good.”

  “According to Charlie?”

  “Who else. He has the ear for all the dirty stuff that’s going on. He talks and people talk to him. He says Arlen told Mr. Kirkbride he had been cleansed of his sins by his conscience beating on him and time served.”

  “He talks like that?”

  “Arlen’s a bullshitter.”

  “And Kirkbride believes him?”

  “Not ’cause of anything Arlen has to offer, like drugs. The reason they’re close, they both love to dress up and take part in those Civil War battle reenactments. They been doing it for years. I mean you wouldn’t believe how serious they are. Mr. Kirkbride’s always the general. Arlen’s under him and brings along his boys, Jim Rein, Junebug, all these gangsters in Confederate uniforms.”

  It reminded Dennis of the posters he had seen in the hotel and around town, big ones in color that announced the TUNICA CIVIL WAR MUSTER, the dates and the name of a battle they’d reenact.

  He mentioned it to Vernice and she said, “Yeah, they’re thinking of making it an annual affair. This year they’re doing the Battle of Brice’s Cross Roads. Not on the site, but just east of here a few miles. The actual site’s way over by Tishomingo County. Charlie says Mr. Kirkbride’s grown a beard so he can be Nathan Bedford Forrest. He’s the general won the battle.”

  “Charlie’s not into dressing up, is he?”

  “You betcha he is. It’s why Arlen was here to see him. He said he heard Charlie’s gonna be a Yankee this time. Arlen comes by to threaten him out of it. Charlie says he’s tired of that Confederate gray. It reminds him too much of the road uniforms he wore playing baseball. Charlie says they always look dirty.”

  He came home right as Dennis finished his shower and was in his bedroom getting dressed, putting on a fresh T-shirt and jeans from the clothes Vernice had laundered for him and laid folded on the chenille bedspread—Vernice doing for him what she didn’t do for Charlie, which Dennis liked to think told him something. By the time he had dressed and walked across the hall to the kitchen he could see Charlie had told Vernice what happened. They both sat at the table with their drinks, not talking, Vernice looking up with worry on her face. She said, “Dennis . . .?” And Charlie said, “I’ll tell him.” So now he had to get ready to act surprised and then say . . .

  What he said was, “Why would anyone want to shoot Floyd? . . . Jesus, the poor guy,” and felt it, he did, seeing that pathetic figure in that mangy suitcoat too big for him.

  “You called the cops?”

  This was the part he wanted to hear, what happened after.

  Charlie said he called nine-eleven. Sheriff’s deputies came in about twenty minutes. Then a couple of detectives, also from the Sheriff’s Department. Then the crime-scene people arrived and the medics. They took pictures, fooled around. The medics were ready to haul Floyd away, but were told to wait. One of the detectives was chewing out a deputy for calling the state police on his own. A new guy, Charlie said, one he hadn’t seen around before. They waited over an hour for the guy from the CIB—that’s the Criminal Investigation Bureau of the Mississippi Department of Public Safety—to come from Batesville, the closest district office, fifty-two miles away.

  “The investigator arrives,” Charlie said. “He tells me he’s John Rau and starts asking the same questions the local guys asked me. How it was I found the body, all that. What Floyd was doing here. He looks over the crime scene and asks if they lifted Floyd’s prints. One of the sheriff’s detectives says, ‘We know who he is. Jesus Christ, don’t you? It’s Floyd Showers. He ratted somebody out and got fuckin popped for it.’ This John Rau has a suit and tie on, a nice way of handling himself. He’s reserved, never raised his voice once. He said he wanted the prints sent to Jackson. Meaning the Criminal Information Center. John Rau told me later they have a method of handling prints now—like you put ’em in a machine and the guy’s sheet comes out.”

  Vernice said, “How do you remember all that?”

  Charlie said, “You remember what you want to remember,” turning his head to look at Dennis. “One of the local dicks says, ‘We can tell you anything you want to know about this piece of dog shit.’ John Rau looks at him and says, ‘I want him printed.’ What I’m getting at,” Charlie said to Dennis, “John Rau wasn’t taking the word of the Tunica sheriff’s people for what happened. He didn’t act superior to them. As I said, he never raised his voice or even said much. But you knew he was taking over the investigation and they better do what they were told. He’s a low-key type of person and smart, the kind you better watch.”

  Vernice said, “What’re you telling him that for?”

  Charlie was wearing a sportshirt hanging open over his T-shirt. He took a business card from the pocket and handed it to Dennis. “This is the guy. He wanted to come out and talk to you this evening. I said why not wait till tomorrow? I told him you were beat from working twelve hours getting ready for your show, and you didn’t know anything anyway. I told him I was the one hired Floyd Showers for you.” He turned to
Vernice. “Man’s name was Showers and looked like he never took one in his life. Floyd was a miserable sight, years beyond saving.”

  Dennis looked up from the business card. “Where do I meet him?”

  “At the hotel. He’ll come by some time in the morning. I said come in the afternoon and see the show.”

  “What’d he say?”

  “It’ll most likely be around eleven.” Charlie squinted then. “I ran into this colored guy staying at the hotel? Robert Taylor, doesn’t have a bad arm. He’s in seven-twenty. Wants you to call him tomorrow. You know this guy?”

  “He saw me dive,” Dennis said, his eyes holding on to Charlie. “He was looking out his window and saw me dive.”

  Vernice subscribed to the National Enquirer, preferring it over other supermarket tabloids because “they get deeper into the stories and’re better written.” She kept back issues she hadn’t had time to read on the screened porch, saying, “They come every week, but it seems like near every day.”

  Dennis had a couple of microwaved Lean Cuisines for supper, both chicken but different, and came out on the porch to look through a few Enquirers. He sat by a lamp reading, not sure if the sound he heard was the hissing in his ears from diving—a constant sound when he thought about it—or insects out in the yard. Sometimes he thought it sounded like steam from a radiator. He had read a few stories, finished “Jennifer Lopez Warned: Leave My Puff Daddy Alone,” and was starting on “Jane Fonda Finds God” when Charlie came out to the porch.

  “This Robert Taylor saw you dive, huh? What else?”

  “He saw Arlen Novis and the other guy . . . What’s his name?”

  Charlie hesitated but then told him, “Junior Owens. They call him Junebug.”

  Dennis said, “The guy that runs the honky-tonk, but it’s really Arlen’s?”

  “Jesus Christ—she tell you everything’s going on? That woman sure likes the sound of her own voice.”

  “Charlie, all Robert saw were two guys talking to me up on the perch. He wasn’t watching when Floyd was shot.”

  “But he was in the crowd come out to the crime scene.” Charlie sounding hoarse keeping his voice down. “He knows what happened now and he can put you there.”

  “He won’t,” Dennis said.

  “How do you know?”

  “Robert’s got his own agenda.”

  “The hell does that mean?”

  “Take my word,” Dennis said, not wanting to get into Kirkbride and the granddaddies. “Robert isn’t the kind’s gonna volunteer information. We’re talking, I must’ve seemed nervous. You know, after what I saw. He said, ‘Come on, I’m not looking into your business.’”

  Charlie seemed to give it some thought before he said, “You saw Arlen. You sure he didn’t see you, in Robert’s car?”

  “He couldn’t have.”

  “But you recognized him?”

  “I see the Lone Ranger coming out of the house—shit yeah, I recognized him. Vernice told you, didn’t she? He wanted to talk to you about uniforms? Doesn’t like you going Yankee on him.”

  “That’s what he told her.”

  “You dress up and play war with those guys? Pretend to shoot each other? It’s hard for me to imagine.”

  “’Cause you don’t know anything about it.”

  “I remember you saying—I told you I thought the one looked like a deputy or a state trooper? And you said, ‘You oughta see him with his sword’? I didn’t know what you were talking about. Then Vernice tells me Arlen and his gang all get into it, playing war.” He could tell Charlie didn’t like the way he was talking, but didn’t care. He said, “You gonna let him talk you out of being a Yankee?”

  Charlie said, “You’re sure a lot spunkier’n the last time I saw you.”

  “I’m trying to forget what happened. Since I wasn’t there.”

  “That’s good, ’cause Arlen just phoned.”

  “About the uniform?”

  “Will you forget the goddamn uniform?” Charlie’s voice rising now, irritated. “He wanted me to know they killed Floyd because he might talk, not ’cause he did. Arlen says we ever put him at that scene we’d end up in a ditch.”

  “What did you say?”

  “I told him to stay away from us. And had another drink.”

  “What’re you gonna do?”

  “Watch my goddamn back. What you think I’m gonna do?”

  Dennis thought of Robert Taylor, Robert’s voice in the dark saying, “That man gives you any shit, tell me.” Dennis hesitated but kept looking at Charlie before he said, “I think of what happened . . . I’m up on the ladder . . . Could they have walked out from the hotel and not seen me?”

  “They couldn’t miss seeing you.”

  “So they don’t care I’m a witness. It wasn’t gonna stop ’em from shooting Floyd.”

  Charlie said, “You’re just some squirt stuck up there on the ladder. They might’ve wished they brought a rifle.”

  Dennis said, “They were having fun talking about it—making a bet whether the one could hit me or not, Junebug, with the slicked-back hair. He said, ‘Shit, I’ll hit him on the fly.’”

  “I heard ’em,” Charlie said, “but couldn’t tell what they were saying.”

  “I think about it now,” Dennis said, “it pisses me off. They didn’t see me as any kind of problem. Who’s the guy in the red trunks? Where? Up on the ladder. That’s nobody—fuck him. You know what I mean? When Arlen threatened you, on the phone, didn’t it piss you off?”

  “Sure it did.”

  Dennis watched Charlie looking down at his big hands, the left one that years ago could throw a baseball ninety-nine miles an hour.

  “You bet I was pissed.”

  Dennis said, “You’re bigger than he is.”

  “Yes, I am,” Charlie said, looking up. “I use to buy him cheap when he was a two-bit deputy and I was running liquor.”

  Dennis sat in the lawn chair, National Enquirers on his lap. “Did you know Tom and Nicole fell out of love way before Tom pulled the plug?”

  “I suspected it,” Charlie said, “but wasn’t ever sure. You want a beer?”

  6

  ROBERT OPENED THE DOOR IN a hotel terry-cloth robe smoking weed, knowing who it was and what happened, curious to see how Dennis was handling himself this morning. One to ten—ten being all the way cool—Dennis was about a seven, up from the five he was last night; though before he got out of the car at Vernice’s he might’ve inched up to a six. It surprised Robert Dennis wasn’t tighter strung, Dennis looking around the suite now. Robert offered the joint and Dennis took it saying, “One hit, I have to dive.” Robert watched him take it in deep and let it work inside him before blowing it out. He took another quick one saying, “I have to see a state cop from the CIB in about ten minutes. You know what CIB stands for?”

  “What it means every place they have it,” Robert said, watching Dennis again looking around the suite, still holding on to the joint, pinching it, looking at the balcony open to blue sky and around to the table by the sofa, looking at Robert’s stack of CDs now and the jam box, where John Lee Hooker was coming from.

  Dennis said it. “John Lee Hooker.”

  Robert said, “You got the ear.” Dennis told him he used to have the CD, “King of Boogie,” and Robert said, “I’ll try another one on you. See how good you are.”

  He watched Dennis take his third hit. This time he handed back the joint saying, “That’s good stuff.”

  “It’s all right. I scored it last night.”

  “After you dropped me off?”

  “Way after, with my friend the security brother use to be a Memphis policeman? He took me to a place called Junebug’s, a white man’s idea of a juke joint, full of ugly people giving us dirty looks, except some young ladies and the management. The young ladies wanted to show us their trailers and the management wanted to sell us uppers. I said I go the other way, chief, and scored a bag, three bills the local rate for a half. We leave, some
of the uglies come outside, their intention I’m feeling to kick our heads in. But they see the gleaming black Jag-u-ar and their minds go, shit, who is this nigga owns a car like that? We drive off I give ’em a toot.”

  He could see Dennis was anxious to tell him something and there were things Robert would like to know, but wanted Dennis sitting down first, at ease—on the sofa, good—and a cool drink? Uh-unh.

  Dennis said, “The two guys, the ones looking up at me on the ladder . . .?”

  “The ones shot your man Floyd.”

  “They own Junebug’s.”

  “Hey, shit, you don’t mean to tell me.” It brought a grin. “The one being Junebug himself and the other one was Arlen . . . Novis?”

  “The one we thought was the Lone Ranger,” Dennis said, looser than when he walked in, up from a seven to eight, grinning back, Dennis saying, “But how do you know that?”

  “I told you, I do my homework. And Junebug and Mr. Novis musta done Floyd before I started watching, huh?” Dennis looked toward the balcony and Robert said, “Not out there, the bedroom window. I was getting dressed.”

  He offered Dennis the joint but he shook his head.

  “Don’t want to go off the perch baked.”

  “I have. It’s not a good idea.”

  “So they saw you and they know you saw them.”

  “I have to meet the CIB guy,” Dennis said, looking at his watch. “You were me, what would you tell him?”

  “Tell him I wasn’t there. Tell him I’m just a dumb white boy dives offa eighty-foot ladders. Why didn’t they shoot you?”

  “Charlie came out.”

  “That’s right. Why didn’t they shoot him, too?”

  “He knows those guys. Charlie use to run whiskey.”

  “They friends of his?”

  “He knows ’em, that’s all.”