False Allegations

wop. 'Herman?' the Prof mocked. 'Man, Herman didn't have no bottom. Herman's bass was Mosley's falsetto, chump!'

The music took over. The Mystics blending on 'You're Driving Me Crazy,' Son Seals wailing his pain about the loss of his spot–labor job, the Coasters with Doc Pomus' immortal 'Young Blood,' a crew calling themselves the Magic Touch doing all a capella stuff from the fifties, a nice soft blend. Charley Musselwhite's 'Early in the Morning,' Ronnie Hawkins and the Nighthawks with 'Mary Lou,' Koko B. Taylor, Marcia Ball, Elmore James, Janis, Big Mama…

Boot didn't just hold yesterday's treasures, he carried tomorrow's crop too. A back–country hard–edged band with a lead singer who knew all about pain pounded over the speakers. 'That's Paw,' a busty young woman in a white T–shirt with 'DON'T! BUY! THAI!' blazed across the front in red letters said to me. 'Mark Hennessy's singing. Don't you think he's amazing? That's where I got this shirt—at one of his concerts.'

I nodded my head in agreement with whatever the hell she was saying, watching her chest hyper– pneumatize the 'DON'T! BUY! THAI!' message every time she took a breath. Somebody called her name and she turned in that direction. On the back of her T–shirt, in the same red letters, it said 'ASK ME WHY!' I was planning to do just that when a ska–blues singer I didn't recognize came on, singing about someone named Ghost, a Badger Game man tracking a woman he called Shella. 'Who's that?' I asked Boot.

'Kid named Bazza,' Boot said. Works with a crew called the Portland Robins. 'I pirated it off Miss Roberta's show in Seattle. Pretty fine, huh?'

'Sure is,' I said, handing over some cash—the only way you vote in Boot's country.

'If he's any good, he'll be on the charts,' a black guy in a khaki jumpsuit and a blue cut–down fez said. 'Sooner or later, cream comes to the top.'

The guy with the Jewish Afro lunged forward, but the Prof arm–barred him, saying, 'Let me have this one, brother,' like they'd both been challenged to a bar–fight. 'Boot!' the little man commanded in a tone a maestro would use to his orchestra, 'put on Number One.'

Boot was too reverent to interrupt the Fascinators' version of 'Chapel Bells.' He waited until the last chord vibrated, then hit some switches and threw the place into silence. He rifled through his shelves, found the tape the Prof wanted, and slammed it into a slot.

'Give me some silence now, people,' the Prof commanded.

A high–tension guitar opened it—just a few perfect, fluid notes. A soft, throbbing sax line came up underneath, a tenor with a baritone counterpoint. Then Little Richard walked on. But he wasn't playing this time— no shrieking and shouting: he stood on the Vegas–gospel borderland, a deep blues taproot anchoring him to the ground. Richard used the girl singers' background vocals like a trampoline, peacocking his way through his whole catalog: a pure–sweet lusty tenor, climbing the scale at will, comfortable inside himself only because he had no limits. The recipe was a rich gumbo: chain gang chants, church hallelujah, the gunfighter bars where nothing lasts long. He capped the upper–octave waves with his stylized hiccups, surrounding a talking centerpiece of blood poetry woven around sax riffs and that masterful muted guitar, driving off the black girls' storefront–choir voices, lifted by the organ. Sad enough to make you cry. Beautiful enough to do the same thing.

Ah, maybe the lunatic was right—maybe Elvis did steal it all from him.

The last sounds faded to the stone silence of abject worship. Nobody in that room had ever heard better.

'Now who was that, Solly?' the Prof asked the guy with the Jewish Afro, setting up his pitch.

'Little Richard,' the guy answered, like he was in school. 'I Don't Know What You Got.'

'He was alive in Sixty–five, Lord!' the Prof intoned. 'Open the door. Tell me more. Who's that on guitar.'

'Jimi Hendrix,' the young guy said. 'Sixteen years old. Before he—'

'It was a big hit?' the Prof asked, setting up his speech.

'No, not really. Made the Top Twenty on the Rhythm and Blues chart, but…'

The Prof turned to his audience. 'You all just heard it. The best song ever done. And never made it to Number One. Even if you escape with your life, the shark always leaves his mark. Case fucking closed.'

We all bowed our heads, even the black guy in the fez.

'Where's Clarence?' I asked the Prof. We were standing on the curb outside of Boot's joint—the Prof high–fiving a goodbye to Solly, me waiting patiently so I could talk to him alone.

'He'll be along,' the Prof said. 'What's on your mind, 'home?'

'Weird stuff. A girl. Client, I was told. She made a pitch, but I don't—'

'Danger stranger?' the Prof interrupted.

'That's just it,' I said. 'I don't know. And I don't know if it's worth a look to find out.'

'Run it,' the little man said, lighting a smoke.

The Prof listened close the way he always does. The way he taught me to. It only took a few minutes.

'Schoolboy, you know how some fighters, they just wave the right hand at you? Like they loading up, gonna drop the hammer? And all the time it's the left hook that's coming, okay?'

'Yeah.'

'Some of them, the real good ones, it's the right hand that's coming. They one step ahead of where you think they gonna be, understand? Sugar Ray—I mean the real Sugar Ray now—he could do that, double–fake quicker'n a snake. Bite you twice as deep too.'

'So you mean…'

'Yeah. Whoever's in it—and no way it's just the broad—they got to be smarter than they showing. They got to figure you gonna come looking for answers.'

'Only place I can go is back to this Bondi girl.'

'The ho' don't know, bro. And a trick can't play it slick.'

'Then who?'

'This accountant, right? Michelle's pal?'

'He doesn't know anything about me, Prof.'

'You believe that, you might just be as big a chump as that broad's playing you for. You scan the plan, you know he's the man. It don't play no other way.'

Michelle was a vision as she walked purposefully past the stanchion with the tasteful lettering saying: ALL VISITORS MUST BE ANNOUNCED. The uniformed guy sitting behind a counter had been watching a propped–up little TV, but he snapped to attention when he heard the click of Michelle's spike heels across the black–and–white tiles. And one look at Michelle was all that he needed—he was skewered. Michelle doesn't do that swing–the–whole–thing, pelvis–out model's walk—she moves like the sorceress she is, with that muted tick–tock that tells you the motor's heavy on horsepower but not every key fits the ignition. I was a step behind, standing just to her right, but far as the uniformed guy was concerned, I wasn't in the lobby at all.

'Can I help you?' he asked her hopefully, his eyes wobbling between Michelle's perfect face and her slashed– silk pink blouse with its little white Peter Pan collar.

'I know you can, honey,' she purred at him, red–lacquered talons splayed on the countertop, big azure eyes holding his. Just in case he decided to look anywhere else, she took a deep breath, let it out in a faint shudder.

'Uh…I mean, you wanna see somebody?'

'That's right, handsome. Can you just ring twenty–one G for me?'

'Sure! I mean, who should I say—?'

'My name's Michelle, baby. What's yours?'

'Manny.'

'Manny? I know that's not it. That's a nickname, isn't it? What's your real name?'

'Emanuel. It's a family name, like. But I don't—'

'Oh you should,' Michelle assured him. 'It's a very strong name. Suits you much better than 'Manny,' don't you think?'

'Well…Yeah, I guess I do. But the tenants here, they like—'

'Emanuel is a man's name,' Michelle cooed at him. 'Maybe you should just save it for grown–ups.'