Blues Highway Blues (A Crossroads Thriller Book 1) Read online

  “I gots the walking blues.” Daniel only looked back blankly. “My dogs are barking,” Mr. Atibon tried again and this time he tapped his work boots with the tip of the black walking stick. Still nothing. “I could use a damn ride.”

  “Right.”

  “Now, what the hell is this?” the old man asked, looking suspiciously at the little Korean coupe.

  “It’s my car.” He thought that over for a minute. “Well, it’s a car.”

  “Son, this ain’t no car.” The dark stranger shook his head with a mixture of contempt and dismay. “Now, there was a day I had me a car. A Rocket 88. V-8 motor. Black convertible.”

  “Well, then maybe you’d rather drive,” Daniel quipped from behind the wheel.

  “No need to be like that,” the man grumbled as he moved around to the Kia’s passenger side. “I made a deal wit’ you, didn’t I?”

  Daniel flipped the lock and Mr. Atibon slid into the passenger seat, which was not intended to accommodate a man of his height. He closed the door and awkwardly tried to adjust himself to the confines while finding a suitable resting place for his walking stick. “All right, let’s go get me my money,” he said after he finally settled on the fact there was no way to get comfortable in a subcompact.

  Daniel, however, was focused on the envelope. By the light of the car’s dash, he could see there was nothing written on either side. No clues at all. He opened it carefully, but it only contained the jewel box he’d been expecting—and half fearing.

  “What that?” Mr. Atibon asked.

  “A CD.”

  “I ain’t Amish, boy,” the old man snapped. “An I already take a peek when I snatched it from the Handy kid, so I know it’s a goddamn CD. What I’s askin’ is what make it worth a thousand dollars?”

  It was Daniel’s turn to smile. “Let’s find out.” He slid it into the car’s stereo.

  Where the original mystery track had been all acoustic guitars, the second one featured a boogie-woogie piano line that laid down a melody but kept its own rhythm with an incorporated rumba beat. After a twelve-bar vamp, the same vocalist who’d sung “The Blues Highway Blues” broke in:

  Everyone of us has lost face, and we’ve all lost our faith too

  Measure of a soul is “Whatcha gonna do?”

  Ain’t no sin in sinning in a moment of doubt

  No shame in an eight count if you don’t go count you out

  You may suck the sour sponge or drink that loving cup

  But when you get beat-down-stomped-on, just you get back on up

  “What this?” the old man asked.

  Daniel waved him off, anticipating the next verse, and turned up the volume.

  Now they say that they warned them, “Get on out ’fore it’s too late!”

  But if you ain’t got the “whatfor” then you can’t evacuate

  Georgie said, “I got this!” But his Brownie dropped the ball

  And as soon as them skies cleared up, ah, there came a water wall

  Well, you can’t hold back the river with just a paper cup

  But when you get beat-down-stomped-on, just you get back on up

  There was a little piano boogie-woogie interlude. Not the smoothest of solos, but a passionate pounding of the ivories.

  Well he played on sixty-eight, what most folks can’t play on twenty more

  He was the King of Mardi Gras but he wound up scrubbing floor

  Still you could not stop the Bald Man or his Shuffling Hungarians

  And the Fess ruled the Fest as a sexagenarian

  And at the entry to his altar is where you’ll find your next cut

  You been beat-down-stomped-on, Danny, just you get back on up

  The piano led a raucous parade for a joyous minute or two before coming to a rumbling stop and a quick run up and down the keys.

  When it was over, silence resumed its hold on the night.

  The old man turned, not understanding how what he’d just heard could possibly be worth a thousand bucks. “What the hell was that?”

  “I’m not sure.” Daniel was focused on running through the lyrics in his head. “Something about New Orleans, I think.”

  “Of course, it’s ’bout Nawlins, you damned fool, but—”

  “I didn’t get that last part though.” Daniel reached for the rewind.

  “It’s the Professor,” Mr. Atibon said gruffly.

  Daniel was lost in thought. “What?”

  “I didn’ make a deal with a dummy,” Atibon mumbled to himself. “I made a deal with the king o’ the dummies. Gonna call you King Dummy from now on.”

  The new title didn’t matter to Daniel. “What professor?”

  “Fess? The Bald Man?” The old man offered clues, but they meant nothing to Daniel. “They talkin’ ’bout Professor Longhair,” he finally exploded, exasperated that he needed to explain it all.

  Still distracted with his own analysis, Daniel only repeated the key points he’d heard. “Professor Longhair. New Orleans. Right.”

  “That’s who they trying to play like on that song of yours,” the old man scoffed with more than a note of contempt in his voice. “Only no one play like the Professor.” He smiled like he had a secret—and it was one he was willing to spill. “Nobody ever play like the Professor on account he learnt on a broken piano. Had to play ’round all them broken keys. That’s how he learnt to play like that.”

  “He could play on sixty-eight—” Daniel eagerly inserted.

  “What the hell you talkin’ ’bout, son?”

  “All right.” There was a note of hope in his voice. “I think I got this.”

  “You got what?”

  “It’s a long story,” Daniel said as a polite way of dismissing an explanation.

  “You gots the time,” Mr. Atibon assured him.

  Daniel hesitated, trying to decide just what and how much to share with the stranger. “I had some money,” he began.

  “I gots me some money right now,” the old man boasted as he patted his pocket. “How much money you talking about?” His question reflected more than a glimmer of self-interest in his eyes.

  “A little,” Daniel answered self-consciously.

  “You lyin’ like hell.” The old man laughed, amused by Daniel’s sorry effort. “If you give a man a thousand dollars ’cause he ask for it, then we talkin’ more than a lil’.” He considered the possibilities. “Or maybe my lil’ is a lil’ different from your lil’.” He laughed again.

  “It doesn’t really matter.” Daniel tried to shake off the subject.

  “To you,” the old man objected.

  “It’s just someone took some money from me and they left a song in its place.”

  Confusion lifted the old man’s growl an octave higher. “A song? Stole money and left a song?”

  Daniel nodded instead of answering. “And the lyrics of that first song led me out here. To you.” He pointed at the dashboard where he’d inserted the disc. “And the lyrics of this second song seem to be leading to—”

  The old man understood. “Nawlins.”

  “Right.”

  “So, it’s like a treasure map.” The thought of it made the old man smile.

  “What?”

  “Your songs,” he said plainly. “They like singin’ treasure maps.”

  “I guess so.” Daniel hadn’t thought about it quite like that. “But, yeah, I guess so. They’re supposed to lead me to get my money back.”

  Mr. Atibon shook his head, a gesture of equal parts amusement and exasperation. Then he pointed at the road ahead. “Well, let’s get goin’, then.”

  It was only then that Daniel remembered his predicament. “Goddamn it!”

  “What?”

  Daniel slapped the steering wheel. “I’ve got myself stuck in the mud there. I’m not going anywhere until I get a tow truck down here.”

  “Tow truck?” The old man’s frustration continued to grow. “You ain’t stuck. The only man who’s stuck is the one won’t see
the truth. You see the truth?”

  “What truth?”

  “The truth, son. There ain’t but one.”

  “I’m not—”

  “Start the car.” The old man seemed confident, like he was aware of something that had long evaded Daniel.

  “I told you, I’m stuck.”

  “Start the car.” Mr. Atibon’s voice was low and firm, like the command a well-trained owner might give to a dog.

  Daniel did what he was told and the engine came to life.

  “Now let’s go.” The old man nodded forward.

  “I told you,” Daniel protested. “I’m stuck.”

  “You got some place to go?” Mr. Atibon demanded. “A treasure to find?”

  “Yes. But I’m—”

  “You ain’t never gonna gets nowhere bitchin’ ’bout all the reasons why you can’t. You need to stop that shit and just drive.” The old man’s gnarled finger pointed the way.

  Daniel pressed down hard on the accelerator, for no other reason than to convince his unwanted passenger there was no point in it. The tires spun, whined…and then somehow found traction. They rocketed forward so fast that Daniel had to stomp on the brakes to keep from shooting past the stop sign at the highway’s edge.

  Flustered and flummoxed, Daniel looked over to his companion for an explanation he knew couldn’t exist. “How—”

  “That’s the truth.” The old man grinned. “And the truth will set you free.”

  The service station was there, just off the highway, exactly as the old man had said. Daniel pulled into a spot outside the station’s convenience store and turned the engine off. “You gonna come in?”

  Mr. Atibon shook his head. “Don’ need no one knowin’ I come into money.” His voice was uncharacteristically quiet, like he was worried someone in the store might overhear. “Jes’ go in and get me mine,” he instructed, then added, “We got a deal.”

  Daniel was good to his word and five minutes later, he counted the rest of the money out into Mr. Atibon’s hand. “And that makes a thousand. So we’re good?”

  “We’re jake,” the old man said with a satisfied smile.

  There was an awkward silence, during which Mr. Atibon didn’t do anything except put the folded bills into the front pocket of his pants and then settle on back into the passenger seat.

  Daniel was eager to get on with his trip, but he didn’t want to leave the old man stranded. He felt obliged to offer, “Can I take you somewhere? Give you a ride home?”

  “Home?” Mr. Atibon laughed out loud. “Son, I got a thousand dollars cash money in my pants. How the hell I’m gonna spend all that in Ruleville, Mississippi?” He shook his head in a way that Daniel had already become familiar with—and oddly fond of. “You need to learn to use your head, son.”

  Daniel hadn’t quite put all the pieces together. “But if you’re not going home—”

  “I got a thousand dollars and a good friend goin’ to Nawlins with a goddamn singing treasure map.” Mr. Atibon grinned. “Now start using your head and tell me where I’m goin’ to.”

  Daniel got it. “New Orleans?”

  “Goddamn! Now you usin’ your head,” the old man declared proudly, like he’d just taught Daniel an important life lesson. “If you don’ set here gabbin’ all night, we can make the Crescent by daybreak and you can buy me pecan waffles at the Camellia Grill.”

  Route 61, as it runs through the Mississippi Delta, is one of the longest straightaway of any highway in the world. It would be logical to assume this makes it the easiest highway to drive, but it’s actually a deceptively dangerous stretch of roadway. Over the years more than a few drivers—drunk, tired, or distracted—have been hypnotized by the seemingly endless asphalt.

  A pickup truck passed the Kia more closely than it should have and then shot on ahead. Its red taillights burned in the night like the devil’s own eyes staring back at them mile after mile. They unnerved Daniel at first, and then hypnotized him. A tossed cigarette sparked as it hit the road and sprayed the night like Satan’s sneeze.

  “Whoa!” the old man yelped.

  The strange sound he made was more startling than the foot or two Daniel had begun to drift toward the embankment. “What?”

  “Your mind and the goddamn car,” Mr. Atibon scolded. “Ya gotta keep ’em both on the road.”

  “I am,” Daniel answered defensively, although he realized he had absolutely no memory of the miles he’d just driven.

  “Bessie Smith died right along this stretch of road.” The old man looked off into the impenetrable darkness like he was searching for the exact spot. “Car wreck.”

  Daniel scanned the passing darkness like there might still be wreckage to rubberneck. “She did?”

  “Isn’t that what I jes’ said?” Mr. Atibon shook his head. “You gonna have to listen up if you’re gonna make it through this world. Sometimes it’s the chords ain’t played that ring truest.”

  Although he wasn’t sure exactly what the old man had meant, Daniel nodded eagerly, like a mop-headed pop star who’d been given an audience with a yogi.

  The old man didn’t seem to notice. Or care. “Voice of an angel.” The depth of the heartbreak in the old man’s growl suggested he was something more than a fan. “They let her die at the side of the road like a dog in a ditch.” If he had more to say on the subject, he didn’t share it with Daniel. He fell silent and turned back to the window like he was searching for something he knew should be there but wasn’t.

  “I’m sorry.” It was all Daniel could think of to say.

  “Why?” The old man turned. “You didn’t drive past her, did ya?”

  They drove on in silence, with one mile bleeding into another, until after a while Mr. Atibon began to absentmindedly drum on the dashboard with his long, gnarled fingers. Tap-tap-tap. Tap. Tap. The same steady, driving beat over and over. Tap-tap-tap. Tap. Tap.

  Daniel thought he recognized the rhythm and began to sing along as a well-intended gesture to generate some common ground, “Bo Diddley. Bo Diddley.”

  The old man stopped tapping and gave Daniel a disapproving look that didn’t need to be translated.

  “That’s the Bo Diddley beat, right?” Daniel asked innocently, as he drummed it out on the dashboard himself. Tap-tap-tap. Tap. Tap.

  “That ain’t no Bo Diddley beat,” the old man declared, and then paused almost immediately to reconsider. “Well, Bo mighta claimed it, but he didn’ come up with it.”

  “No?” Daniel had always thought that rock’s seminal rhythm—Boom-boom-boom. Boom. Boom.—was created by the great Bo Diddley. “Well, who—”

  “You know what that beat is?” Mr. Atibon interrupted impatiently as he began to tap it out again. Tap-tap-tap. Tap. Tap. “That’s the heartbeat of a woman just got herself some good lovin’.” Tap-tap-tap. Tap. Tap. “That’s how you can tell you put some sugar in her bowl. Her heart be beatin’ just like that.” Tap-tap-tap. Tap. Tap.

  There was a note of boyish wonderment in Daniel’s voice. “Really?”

  “Listen to you, ‘Really?’” The old man laughed to himself. “I’m talking ’bout the blues, son. Truth don’t never stand in the way a’ good story.” Then he turned back to the window and laughed to himself as if he was hearing his own joke for the first time. “Used to give ol’ Bo fits when I tol’ that story on him. I just laugh an’ laugh.”

  Daniel had another “Really?” ready to drop, but he was too sheepish to step into another of the old man’s traps so soon. Instead, he drove on through the last vestiges of night with nothing but the car radio to keep him from falling asleep.

  Somewhere between Blind Willie Johnson’s “Motherless Children” and Big Joe Williams’s “Shake ’Em On Down,” Daniel’s traveling companion sat up and announced, “Now that’s the real stuff. Blues needs to be played by a man don’t got nuthin’. Nuth-in’ but six strings.” He considered that and laughed. “Most times those six strings don’ belong to him neither.”

  Danie
l only nodded.

  “Now that other stuff you had there.” Mr. Atibon pointed toward the stereo’s disc port. “That’s just playin’ at the blues.”

  Daniel didn’t necessarily disagree, but he didn’t say anything at all.

  It was clear Mr. Atibon was disturbed by the silence that followed, though Daniel had no idea why. The old man fidgeted in his seat, moved his walking stick, adjusted his hat, and then finally, after a dozen more miles, just asked what was on his mind, “How that work?”

  “The CD player?” Daniel asked innocently enough.

  “I know how the goddamn CD player works,” he snapped, although he really didn’t. “That song there. The treasure an’ all. How it all work?”

  Daniel thought about it. “I don’t know.” He was surprised to hear the admission aloud, but it was the truth. “Someone stole some money from me and left a CD. That’s all I know for sure. The lyrics of the song, they seemed to point me to that crossroads where I met you.”

  “Crossroads,” the old man repeated with a scoff. “You know, mos’ folk end up in Clarksdale. They got a whole big thing up there.”

  “Yeah. I know.” Daniel had learned enough not to let on how he knew.

  “Maybe you ain’t such a dummy after all.” Mr. Atibon didn’t allow Daniel an opportunity to respond and prove him wrong. “And that song there?”

  “Don’t know,” Daniel admitted. “Guess I’ll find out when I get to New Orleans.”

  “Don’ seem like much of a plan.”

  “It’s not.”

  “And you think these people jus’ gonna give your money back?”

  “It doesn’t make any sense, I know,” Daniel conceded, but then shrugged. “I just have to take the chance.”

  “Have to?” The note of desperation piqued the old man’s curiosity. “Why’s that?”

  “Because there’s some guys after me and—”

  “Whoa! Just pull the handbrake, son.” Mr. Atibon sat up straighter than he had during the whole trip. “You said you was after a treasure, you never said nuthin’ ’bout nobody being after you.”

  “There’s bad guys,” Daniel said plainly.

  The old man finally felt free to comment on what he’d observed when they first met. “Bad enough to take a man’s finger from his fretting hand?”