Safe House

more players. I went through it slowly, Max making the new pieces as I talked. I took them from him, placed them on the table so it looked like this:

 CRYSTAL BETHVYRACRYSTAL BETHPRYCEPORKPIEMEMELOTHARHERCULESHERCULESLORRAINEDEAD MANPORKPIEVYRACRYSTAL BETHMARLAHARRIETLOTHARSCARED MANWOLFE

And then I started to see it.

Max took the sculptures for Vyra and Crystal Beth, moved them back and forth in his hands, eyebrows raised in question.

I told him I didn’t know. Didn’t know who came first, who started it, who was in charge.

He did the same with Lothar and Pryce. I gave him the same answer.

Finally he pulled the Pryce sculpture from the layout, placed it way off to the side. All by itself.

It was almost one the next morning when the phone rang.

“He called,” Crystal Beth said as soon as she heard my voice.

“And . . . ?”

“And I told him there was someone I . . . wanted him to meet.”

“That’s all you told him?”

“No.”

“What else?”

“Your name.”

“He didn’t ask any more questions?”

“No.”

“Didn’t ask who I was to you?”

“No.”

“Didn’t ask why you wanted me to meet him?”

“No. Nothing.” Her voice was . . . something. Sad maybe, I couldn’t tell.

“And he said . . . what?” I asked her.

“That it was okay. That he would do it. Tomorrow. At three-thirty.” Then she named a midtown deli on the East Side.

“All right,” I told her. “Let’s do it. You know the Barnes and Noble bookstore on Astor Place?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll meet you there at two, okay? In the coffee shop.”

“Vyra—”

“Isn’t coming,” I said.

I hung up on her silence.

I slept until almost ten the next morning. When I used the cellular to check with Mama, she told me Wolfe had called. There wasn’t any point calling back—when Wolfe went outlaw, she’d adopted a series of phone cutouts, same way all of us did. Pepper would catch the calls. And you could catch Pepper, if you could make the connections and move fast enough. But Wolfe would never be in that net. I decided to let it ride for now.

And do some riding myself.

I slammed a new tape into the cassette player, letting the blues take me to the Chicago stop on that deep dark tributary reverse-flowing out of the Mississippi Delta, carrying players and poets in its lush stream. Junior Wells doing Little Walter’s “Key to the Highway,” paying homage, father to son. Mighty Joe Young’s subdued, pain-seared version of “The Things I Used To Do.” Luther Allison and Otis Rush and J.B. Hutto chasing both Sonny Boys. Howlin’ Wolf and Muddy Waters. And the next wave. Dave Spector’s “That’s How Strong My Love Is” following the blood-spoor of Delbert McClinton as the Texas troubadour breached another border behind Lightnin’ Hopkins. Paul Butterfield lurking out-side “Yonders Wall.” Charlie Musselwhite barking out “Early in the Morning.” Buddy Guy coaxing witchfire from a slide guitar. Hoochie-coochie through the back doors. Jailhouses and graveyards. Part-time jobs and part-time women. Grown-upschoolgirls and black Cadillacs not every man could ride. All of them on Robert Johnson’s don’t-mind-dying hellhound trail.

When I’d had enough I switched to my girl. Judy Henske. Little Miss Magic, all six feet plus of her. Judy can bring it back from places the other torch singers couldn’t go at all.

I don’t share my music with citizens. They never get it. One time I was waiting in this joint for a guy who said he was a buyer to show up when I overheard some earnest dweeb talking about how “profound” the Beatles are . . . if you just listen to them. That’s when I started wishing bars had metal detectors.

That poor chump would never get it—you can’t get jellyroll from a white-bread bakery.

Just over the Brooklyn line, a guy in a red Jeep Cherokee cut me off. One of those deep- dish-overcooked fools who believed four-wheel drive would give you traction on ice. I tapped the brakes, let him slide by. He stuck a fist out the window, waving a kid’s baseball bat, screaming something I couldn’t hear before he sped away. I got a glimpse of his tags. Handicapped plates. I didn’t have to guess what his was.

Herk’s room was prison-clean. That’s one of the things you do Inside. Scrub every surface. Slow. Taking time the way the State took yours. And making some little space more your own. Inside, nobody calls it their cell. “My house” is what you say. And keeping it clean means keeping more than just the roaches and the mice at bay.

“Thanks for the books, brother,” he greeted me. “Sure helps.”

“It won’t be much longer,” I promised him.

“Burke, I could do . . . something, right? I don’t dig all this sitting around.”

“You got to lay in the cut until we scope what’s out there,” I told him.

“Yeah, I know. But I been reading the papers. Every day. And listening to this here radio. They ain’t got nothing on the . . . guy. I think I’m in the clear.”

“You could be,” I said. Thinking, if it wasn’t for the connect to Crystal Beth, he probably was. “But let’s play it this way for a bit longer, okay?”

“Your call,” he agreed. “But . . . if I’m gonna do more time here, you think you could get me some more books?”

“More of the same?” I asked him.

“Yeah. I heard about a new one too. Mercedes, it’s called. And Jonah Hex. Hell, anything by Joe Lansdale.”

“He’s a writer, right?” I said, into his rhythm.

“Oh yeah,” Herk said fervently.

“You cannot overdress for a first meeting,” Michelle informed me in her “don’t-argue-with-me” voice. “It’s so true what they say about first impressions.”

“You want me to rent a tux?” I asked her.

“What I want is for you to be quiet long enough for me to coordinate. And tell that heinous hound of yours to stop following me around—this place isn’t big enough for me to use an assistant.”

I made the silent command for “Place” and Pansy trotted obediently into her corner just to the side of the door, arranging herself on the thick sheepskin rug I’d gotten her to take the chill off the floor in the winter. “Good