Dixie City Jam

'You remember that man you told me about, the one wanted you to record, the fellow you said bothered you the way he looked at you?' Brother Oswald said.

'Yeah, dude was up to no good,' he said.

'Why did you think that?' I asked. I smiled.

'Some people got their sign hanging out,' he answered. He pulled at the soft flesh under his chin and looked out at the bayou.

'Why was he up to no good, Jesse?' I said.

'Dude didn't say nothing mean. He was polite. But it was like there was heat in his face,' Viator said. 'Like a dry pan been setting on the gas burner.'

I showed him the composite drawing of Buchalter. He held it in the light from his trailer and studied it. His grizzled pate shone like tan wax.

'You do them composites with a machine, right? So a lot of them look alike,' he said.

'Who's the worst guy you ever met inside?' I said.

'They only get so bad. Then they all about the same. They end up in Camp J.'

'The guy I'm looking for is worse than anybody in Camp J. Do you believe me when I say that?'

He took the drawing back from my hand and tilted it to catch the light from the trailer. He tapped on the edges of the face. 'What's that?' he said.

'You tell me,' I said.

'Dude had dirt in his skin, what d' you call 'em, blackheads or something, made him look like he was wearing a mask around his eyes. Look, it was t'ree, four mont's back. I stopped thinking about it.'

'Tell him the rest of hit, Jesse,' Oswald Flat said.

'There ain't no rest,' he said. 'Dude say he give me a hundred dollars to record. I tole him I ain't interested. That's it. I don't want to talk about it no more.'

'Are you scared of this man?' I said, and kept my eyes on his.

He took a breath that was between anger and exasperation.

'You know the feeling that dude give me? It was like when a guy get made a slave up at Angola. When somebody turn out a kid, rape him, then tell him, Haul your lil ass down the Walk. In a half hour come back with ten dollars. In another half hour, I want ten dollars more, then I want ten dollars more after that, or the next thing go in your mouth got a sharp point on it and it don't come out. That's what that dude's eyes made me think of.'

He became morose and sullen and would say little more. The moon was up, and road dust and a sheen of diesel oil floated on the dead current close under the willows. The air was cool and humid and smelled of bait shrimp someone had left in a bucket. I asked the reverend to wait for me out front.

'What'd you fall for, Jesse?' I said.

'Guy tried to joog me at a dance. I didn't want to, but I put him down. Lawyer tole me to plea to manslaughter.'

'You have a family?'

'My wife's at the Charity. She got heart trouble. Our two daughters is growed up and married, in California.'

'The man I want molested my wife. I'll show you what he does when he gets his hands on people.' I stood up from my chair.

'What you doing, man? Hey, you taking off your-'

'Buchalter used an electrical generator on me, Jesse. That's where he attached the terminals. It's quite an experience.'

He propped his hands on his thighs, twisted in his chair, and focused his eyes on a cane pole that was stuck deep in the roots of a cypress tree.

'Man, I'm serious, I don't want no more to do with this,' he said.

'You had this guy made from the jump. You've got to help me, Jesse.'

He wiped at his face as though insects were in his eyes.

'Dude comes up to me on Royal, right after the gig, offers me a hundred bucks to play a half hour of my slide at his studio. I say, A hundred bucks don't cut making a tape. He says it's a demo, he's gonna offer it around, he's doing me a favor, usually a guy's got to pay for his own demo.

'I'm looking into that cat's face, I'm thinking he ain't ever gonna use the word nigger, he ain't gonna call me boon or tree climber or spear chucker, that ain't his way. He got that lil smile playing around the corner of his mouth, just like them guys in the AB look at you up at the farm. They'll hoe next to you in the soybean row, won't say nothing to you, chopping all the time like their mind is full of cool thoughts. That night you go in the shower and that same dude waiting for you with a shank in his hand.'

'You've got to give me something, Jesse.'

'He say his studio was one hour away. One hour there, one hour back. He winked at me when he said it.'

'I think you're holding back on me.' I kept my eyes locked on his.

'I ain't. He called once, man, right here at the trailer. I tole him I still ain't interested. It sound like he was outdoors, pay phone maybe. I could hear waves flopping, like on a beach.'

'He never mentioned a place? How about Grand Isle?'

'Not unless they moved Grand Isle over to Miss'sippi.'

'I'm not with you.'

'That day on Royal. I didn't pay the car no mind, but the plates was from Miss'sippi. That good enough? 'Cause that's all there is.'

I gave him my business card and picked up my coat from the chair. He looked out into space while his hand closed and opened on the card. Then he pressed it back into my palm.

'My wife deserve a trip after all the sickness she been having. I think we going out to visit our children in California. Be gone quite a while. You understand what I'm saying?'

The next afternoon, which was Friday afternoon, Ben Motley called me from New Orleans.

'Max Calucci dropped the charges against Purcel for destroying his house,' he said.

'Quite a change of heart.'

'What's your take on it?'

'He probably started sweating marbles when he heard Lonighan's Indian was in custody. That is, if he's mixed up in the vigilante killings. The last thing he needs now is legal involvement with the prosecutor's office. What's the insurance carrier, State Farm, going to do?'

'They're out of luck if they want to put it on Purcel. The witnesses now say they don't remember what the guy on the grader looked like. But they're sure it wasn't Purcel. I left a message on his recorder, but he didn't call back.'

'He's holed up in a fish camp someplace.'

'I went by his office. A secretary, a temp, was in there. She said he retrieved the message off the machine. Why doesn't he answer his calls?'

'I don't know, he's a little irresponsible sometimes. What's the status on Manuel Ruiz?'

'No bond. We're holding him for the INS. By the way, tell Purcel it's all right he doesn't call me back. Since he's already got such good friends in the department. Like Nate Baxter.'

I left a message for Clete at both his office and his apartment.

That evening I put on my gym shorts and running shoes and did three sets of dead lifts, bench presses, and curls in the backyard. My neighbor was burning a pile of dried honeysuckle, and the air was hazy and sweet with the smoke.

Tie it down, think, I told myself. What were the ongoing connections in the Buchalter case?

Music, and now geography.

Two of Buchalter's hired meltdowns, Jack Pelley and Charles Sitwell, had been in the rock 'n' roll band in the Block at Angola. Buchalter evidently prowled stores that handled old records, like Jimmie Ryan's, and had tried to make a studio recording of the slide guitarist Jesse Viator.