Dixie City Jam

I turned off the set and went into the kitchen. The moon was down, and I could hear the tree limbs outside the window knocking together in the wind. When the phone rang on the-counter, I knew who it would be. I almost looked forward to the encounter, like a man who has formed a comfortable intimacy with his bete noire.

His voice was indolent and ropy with saliva when he spoke. In the background I could hear the flat, tinny sound of Bix Beiderbecke's 'In a Mist.'

'I never saw tracks on your arm, Will. Do you shoot up in the thighs?'

'You never know.'

'How'd you get my number?' I said.

'People like to please. Not too much gets denied me, Dave.'

'It sounds like you might have done a good load of China pearl. Not a good sign for a guy who likes control.'

'Why did you do it?'

'What?'

'You spit in my face. When I tried to create a tender moment inside our pain.'

'I guess you're just that kind of guy. Besides that, you're probably insane.'

The phonograph stopped and started over again. Beiderbecke's trumpet rose off the record like sound ringing through crystal. Buchalter swallowed wetly, his mouth close to the receiver.

'It's not too late for us,' he said.

'It is for you, partner. Your threads are unraveling. We've got a make on you from Toronto and Interpol; we know about the asylum you broke out of in Australia. You're about to slide down the big ceramic bowl, Will.'

'You don't understand power. I can caress you in ways that'll make you beg for death. The auto garage was nothing.'

'Get off it, Buchalter. You're a hype. You're one day away any time your connection wants you.'

I heard his throat working again, words forming, then sticking unintelligibly in his mouth. Someone pulled the receiver from his hand.

'The wifey plowed again, Dave?' she said. Her voice was sweaty and hoarse, like a person high on her own glandular energies. 'You should have taken me up on my invitation. It'd give you something to fantasize about.'

'Your boyfriend's tracked shit over two continents, Marie,' I said. 'It looks like you're going to take the bounce with him.'

'Can she have orgasms while she's on the grog?'

'Save the comic book dialogue for after your trial. There's an amateur theatrical group at the women's prison in St. Gabriel. You'll fit right in.'

'I keep having this dream. There's a pump handle in it. It feels hard in my hand, and it has moisture dripping off it. I wake up all hot, thinking of a big dark policeman. I get hot even talking about it. What's my dream mean, Dave?'

'I'll say adios now, Marie. Then I'll unplug the phones. Enjoy the time you have left with Buchalter. I bet he really knows how to capture a lady's, heart.'

There was a pause, then I heard a match strike against an abrasive surface, the match head hissing, and her breath exhaling.

'Run the coordinates in the personals of The Times-Picayune,' she said. 'If you don't, we reach out and touch someone. No, not the sow or the little girl. Maybe the boogie and her son; maybe your uncontrollable friend, Purcel. Will would love to spend a few hours alone with Mr. Purcel.'

'Be careful what you pray for.'

'You're so clever. And the wifey so sweet. I'm glad you're in the tropics where the sheep don't freeze up.'

I eased the receiver down in the cradle, then unplugged the phone jacks in both the kitchen and living room.

I undressed down to my skivvies and sat on the bed next to Bootsie in the dark. She was sleeping on her stomach, and I ran my hand down the smooth taper of her back and over her rump and bare thighs. Her skin felt hot, almost feverish, but she did not respond to my touch. Outside the window, the trees thrashed and swelled in the dry wind. I lay on top of the sheets and stared upward into the darkness, the backs of my fingers resting against Bootsie's leg, the words of the woman named Marie Guilbeaux like an obscene tongue in my ear.

The next morning I got up early and drove back to New Orleans. I stopped first at the library, or morgue, of The Times-Picayune, then drove down St. Charles and found Hippo Bimstine working behind the candy counter at one of his drugstores in the Garden District. He wore a starched gray apron over his white shirt and tie and rotund stomach, and his hair was oiled and combed as tight as wire, his thick neck talcumed, his face cheerful and bright.

Hippo had the confident and jolly appearance of a man who could charm a snake into a lawn mower.

'Another nice day,' he said.

'It sure is,' I said.

'So why the dark look? You dump some money at the track?' His smile was inquisitive and full of play.

'I guess I get down when I find out a friend has tried to blindside me.'

'What are you talking here?' He tried to look me steadily in the eyes.

'Max Calucci's been saying peculiar things about you, Hippo.'

'Consider the source.'

'I am. He's got no reason to lie. He says Tommy Lonighan told him you removed some stuff about the Nazi U- boat from the public library.'

'I'm under arrest for library theft?'

'Buchalter and his buttwipes used up my sense of humor, partner.'

'We're talking in hieroglyphics here. You're mystifying me, Dave.'

'I found a nineteen fifty-six States-Item story on Jon Matthew Buchalter's death in the files at The Times-Picayune. When The States-Item folded, all its records were kept by The Picayune. But I was careless and missed the story the first time around. I have a feeling it's the one you took from the public library.'

'So you tripped over some big revelation from a rag of thirty-five years ago?'

'Not really. Jon Buchalter was raving on his deathbed about a large gold swastika on board a downed U-boat. Is that the secret you've been keeping from me?'

He considered for a moment and scratched at his neck with one finger. 'Yeah, that's about it. You satisfied?'

'No.'

'It's supposed to weigh forty-two pounds. It's got a gold wreath around it, and the wreath is set with jewels. Big fucking deal, huh?'

'You were willing to let me get involved with Nazis so you could salvage the gold in a World War II wreck?'

'You got some kind of malfunction with your thought processes, Dave. You keep forgetting it was you tried to squeeze every spendolie you could from a finder's fee.'

'I don't let my friends hang their butts in the breeze for money, either, Hippo.' I picked up a roll of mints from the counter and set a half-dollar down on the glass. 'Thanks for your time. See you around.'

I turned to go. Outside, the streetcar rattled down the neutral ground in the sunshine.

'You righteous cocksucker,' he said behind me. A woman with a magazine cupped in her hand replaced it on the rack and walked away.

'Excuse me?' I said.

'When you guys got nothing to support your own argument against a Jew, you always take your shot about money. It takes a while, but you always get to it.'

'You set me up, Hippo.'

'Fuck you I did.' He came around the edge of the counter. He touched his finger against my breastbone. 'You want the rest-of the story? The gold in that swastika was pried out of the mouths of Polish Jews. It was a gift from Heinrich Himmler himself. You know what else's supposed to be in that sub? Hitler's plan for the United States. I