'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.'
'Tells 'em you won't say nothing, but you not sure they believe it. They know if you point 'em out they gone.'
'That's where I am,' Dennis said.
'Saying to yourself, what the fuck am I doing here? Thinking it might be best to take off.'
He watched Dennis frown and shake his head saying he wasn't going anywhere, he had his show set up.
Good. He was cool, gonna face whatever, ride it out.
'Let's me and you,' Robert said, 'stay close. You know what I'm saying? Help each other out. Like I wouldn't mind you coming with me to see Mr. Kirkbride.' It got Dennis frowning again. 'For fun. Watch the man's face when I show him the picture. Watch how I play him.'
'You want an audience,' Dennis said, getting up from the sofa. 'I have to go.'
'I watch you perform, you watch me. Listen, I phoned, the man's over at his Southern Living place today.'
'And you know who works there?' Dennis said, wandering over to the balcony. 'The Lone Ranger.'
'I heard that,' Robert said. 'Understand he did some time, too. See, the security brother still has friends on the Memphis Police. They look up sheets, tell him, and he tells me what I need to know.'
'You pay him, huh?'
'Way more than he earns making people feel secure.' Robert watched Dennis step out to the balcony and remembered he wanted to play a CD for him. He heard Dennis say Billy Darwin was down there. Talking to the hotel electrician.
'What's he doing? I told him I'd set the spots tonight.'
Robert was up now shuffling through his stack of CDs, telling Dennis, 'I arrive, check in, I give the cashier ten thousand in cash, so they know I'm here.'
'You said you don't gamble.'
'I put on a show, play some baccarat like James Bond. I'm using the cashier as a bank for my tip money I don't have to carry around. Understand? I get the suite comped, I get tickets to the shows in the Tom Tom Room, and I get to meet Mr. Billy Darwin, shake his hand. Mr. Billy Darwin is cool. He looks you in the eye and you know he's reading you. Mr. Billy Darwin can tell in five seconds if you for real or you by ciditty. You know what I'm saying?'
Dennis turned from the balcony. 'I don't have any idea.'
'From that Shemekia Copeland song ` Miss Hy Ciditty '? Means a person puts on airs, fakes it.' He found the CD he wanted and replaced John Lee Hooker with it.
Dennis said, 'So how'd you come out with Darwin?'
But the CD came on, a dirge beat, and Robert said, 'Listen, see if you can name who this is.'
Dennis heard a baritone male voice half singing half speaking the words:
I got a bone for you.
I got a bone for you.
I got a little bone for you.
I got a bone for you 'cause I'm a doggy
And I'm naked almost all the time.
'The harmonica could be Little Walter,' Dennis said, 'but I don't know.'
'Little Walter, shit. Man, that's Marvin Pontiac and his hit song `I'm a Doggy.' '
'I never heard of him.'
'Shame on you. Marvin's my man. Marvin Pontiac, part of him came out of Muddy Waters. Another part was stolen
'Yeah, I see what you mean. Iggy's `I Want to Be Your Dog' must've come from… yeah, `I'm a Doggy.'
Marvin Pontiac 's voice saying, singing:
I'm a doggy.
I stink when I'm wet 'cause I'm a doggy.
'Some of his music,' Robert said, 'he calls Afro-Judaic blues. Marvin always wore white robes and a turban like Erykah Badu 's before she went baldheaded. Had his own ways. Lived by himself… Listen to this. A producer begged him to cut a record? Marvin Pontiac said yeah, all right, he'd do it-if the producer would cut his grass.'
'His lawn?'
'Yeah, his grass, his lawn, the man did it to get Marvin in the studio. That's what you listening to,
`Pancakes' is on there. `Bring Me Rocks' is on there. It's the one has the line `My penis has a face and it likes to bark at Germans.' That's funny 'cause Marvin Pontiac's face was never photographed. There shots of him taken from far away, you see him in his white robes and the turban? But there's not any up close.'
'He still around?'
'Died in '77 in Detroit. Got run over by a bus and they picked his bones, Iggy and some others, David Bowie. But listen, you better get ready, do your dive. You know what one you gonna do?'
'Not till I'm up on the perch. This afternoon's a warm-up.'
'Look over the house. Big crowd, give 'em the triple somersault with some twists and shit. Small crowd-'
'Flying reverse pike. I gotta go,' Dennis said, 'meet the CIB guy.'
Robert said, 'Wait,' and edged toward the balcony. 'Remember I was telling you about the famous crossroads?'
He saw Dennis shake his head.
'Last night in the car, driving you to Tunica.' Robert paused but didn't get a reaction. 'I'm telling you about the great Robert Johnson the bluesman and the cop cars go flying past?'
'Yeah, I remember.'
Robert pointed out at the sky. 'That way thirty miles down the road, where Highway 49 crosses Old 61.'
'Yeah?'
'That's the famous crossroads. Where the great
Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil. You understand what I'm saying to you?'
No, he didn't.
He didn't understand half of what Robert said to him.
Was Robert here because this was where some serious blues got started? The way tourists visit Elvis' house in Tupelo with the bed in the living room? Robert was too cool to be a tourist. Robert wouldn't visit a site, Robert was the site. Was he here looking for talent? Some forgotten bluesman missing link, another Marvin Pontiac, and take him back to Motown?
Or was that a side deal while he set up Mr. Kirkbride?
Why would he show Kirkbride the photograph of a man hanging from a bridge unless he expected to get something out of it? Restitution. Play on Kirkbride's sympathy. Hope the man is a rich bleeding heart. Willing to contribute to… what? Some kind of appeal, the Robert Taylor scholarship fund for the heirs of a man who was lynched. Robert drives up in his cool S-Type Jaguar looking legit, Robert soft-spoken… and the man hanging from the bridge isn't even his great-granddaddy.
This is what Dennis was thinking in the elevator, cutting across the lobby and down the hallway past the rest rooms, the beauty shop, the workout room and sauna toward the patio bar.
Robert had the confidence to be a confidence man. You believed him. He said in the car last night, 'That man gives you any shit, tell me.' Dennis believed him as he said it and still believed he was the guy he could go to. Robert knew what was going on here. He knew Arlen Novis had been to prison and worked for Mr. Kirkbride, because Robert had looked into Mr. Kirkbride, he must have, to see if the man was worth going after.
Dennis pushed through the glass door to the patio.
