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

  “Nothing. It’s just that…” He didn’t want to seem ungrateful for the hospitality. “You’ve really done enough for me already.”

  “And I ain’t gonna do no more,” she assured him, shaking her head with disappointment.

  “I appreciate everything,” Daniel hemmed and hawed. “But the supper was enough,” he caught himself. “Just getting out of your garage was enough.” He laughed weakly. “I just don’t need any…talents…right now.” He wanted to make clear, “It’s not that they’re not all beautiful. They are. It’s just that’s not really my thing. And, besides, I don’t have any money.”

  Ma Horton looked like she was considering sending him straight back to New Orleans—with the flat of her hand. “When I said I could see you was guilty of stupid, I didn’t realize your own case o’ stupid was a goddamn capital crime.”

  The look in her eyes made him wish he was back under the garage door.

  “Get your skinny, cracker ass back in there,” she ordered, pointing the way back to the kitchen. He stepped through the swinging door and once he was there, she told him, “Sit your motherfuckin’ ass down.”

  “I didn’t mean anything,” he started, but it was weak even for him.

  “You men never mean nuthin’,” she shot right back. “I know what you was thinkin’ ’bout my girls. My girrrrrrrrls!” She drew the word out to stress her point.

  “No, really,” he protested, but it was like trying to calm a momma grizzly while holding her cub.

  “Oh, I know what was goin’ on in your evil mind.” She was all kinds of crazy angry. “Man sees a woman taking care of some young girls and the first thing he thinks is she runnin’ a goddamn whorehouse. That’s what you was thinkin’!” She dared him to deny it.

  “I didn’ mean—”

  “Let me tell you somethin’, Mr. Daniel-I-got-myself-stuck-under-a-goddamn-garage-door-with-the-police-huntin’-my-dumb-ass-Erickson.” Her right index finger was just an inch away from his nose. “I pulled every one of those girls out of a home you wouldn’t raise a dog in. A home someone like you wouldn’t last a goddamn day in. And every one of those girls is just as good as gold. And they don’t need the likes of you makin’ assumptions ’bout them ’cause of your own lack of character and twisted pre-versions.”

  “I’m sorry.” She was right. There was no excuse, but he wanted to offer her one anyway. “It’s just, I’m in kind of a situation.”

  “What kind of situation?”

  “Someone took some money from me.” That was the easy part to explain. “And to get it back, they’ve forced me to follow this trail of musical clues from the blues—”

  “The blues?” she snorted. “I shoulda known.” She folded her arms across her chest and sat down, her head turned to the side like she was refusing to go where he was leading her.

  Her display of contempt surprised him. “You don’t like the blues?”

  “The blues? The blues ain’t nuthin’ but a bunch of men sittin’ round feelin’ sorry for themselves ’cause they think they been put down,” she scoffed bitterly. “But then how they go about treatin’ us ladies at the end of the day, huh? Their lives are hard, but we only good for two things. And neither one of ’em making music.”

  She was at the throttle of an angry train and even Daniel knew better than to step in front of it. “Bessie Smith was the best-selling recording artist of her time, but you ever hear name as the greatest blues singer?” She didn’t give him time to answer, but he shook his head anyway. “Shit, it’s all Robert Johnson this and Muddy Waters that, but they ever give credit to Ma Rainey for what she done? Big Mama Thornton?”

  He shook his head again but was smart enough to stay silent.

  “You think it was a hard life bein’ a bluesman? And just how goddamn hard you think it was doin’ it as a woman?” She’d made her point and she knew it.

  She sighed heavily and it was like all her fury had suddenly left her with nothing but weariness. “So you do yourself a favor, Mr. Erickson. Next time a woman treats you decent, why don’t you consider maybe she’s got more to offer you than what she can put on a plate in front of you at the table or what she give up to you in her bed.”

  “I’m sorry.” He was, but she wasn’t having any of it.

  “Sorry? Well, you can take your sorry and your nasty-thought-thinking ass outta my house and sleep in the goddamn garage till morning.” Her voice was even colder than he knew his makeshift bunk would be. “’Cause there’s no way in hell I’d let you under the same roof as my angel-girls.”

  He understood. And was ashamed. “Thank you.”

  She shook her head one last time. “Now who gots the motherfuckin’ blues?”

  Memphis had warmed with the morning sun, but Ma Horton’s disposition hadn’t thawed at all. She came to the garage with cold biscuits and burnt bacon wrapped in brown paper and asked Daniel where he was headed. When he answered, “Nashville,” she offered him a ride to the Greyhound but nothing else.

  Though she was clearly hoping he’d refuse her kind offer, he wasn’t in any position to let go of a helping hand. He took the silent ride downtown and left her with a “Thank you.” And another apology.

  She left him on the curb and drove away without accepting either one.

  Down the street from the bus station was a pawn shop. He couldn’t bear the idea of parting with his Panerai watch and so he tried to convince the clerk with the toupee that the silver ring he was offering had been given to him by Stevie Nicks and was worth at least ten grand in sentimental value alone. He got a lecture on the nature of commerce and two hundred bucks in cash.

  Daniel walked back down the block, bought his ticket, and climbed on board a Motor Coach D40 bound for Nashville.

  Halfway down the aisle, a young woman was sitting alone. She was attractive in a Southern beauty pageant contestant sort of way: pretty enough to have contended for Miss Jackson County or Miss Kudzu, although she probably couldn’t have walked away with the crown.

  “Excuse me.” Daniel gestured at the empty seat beside her.

  Her low-cut sweater was a size too small and showed off her ample bosom and sizable muffin-top. Daniel made a point of averting his eyes from both as she looked up and asked innocently, “Uh-huh?”

  “Do you mind if I sit here?”

  She looked down at the items she’d set on the empty seat: her purse, the latest issue of US, and the letterman’s jacket of some hometown boy whose heart she’d just broken—or was about to.

  She didn’t say anything at all for a moment, hoping her silence would communicate the “You ain’t sittin’ here, asshole!” she was thinking, but which her mama had raised her to not say out loud. When her prolonged silence didn’t work, she moved her stuff and gave him a halfhearted “Sure,” every bit as forced as the smile that accompanied it.

  He took the seat. “Thanks.”

  “No problem.”

  She’d assumed the creep had been looking for a two- hundred-mile opportunity to hit on her, but Daniel had absolutely no interest in joining the “welcoming committee” he was sure would find her once she got to Nashville. He hadn’t chosen her as a seatmate based on her appearance, but because she had the one thing he needed: a portable CD player, something of a rarity in the digital age.

  “I haven’t seen one of those in a while,” he commented casually, pointing to the school-bus-yellow Sony Discman, so retro it looked almost futuristic.

  She offered an embarrassed smile. “I’m saving up for an iPod,” she assured him.

  “No. I think those are great.”

  “I use it for my music,” she volunteered enthusiastically. The Southern twang in her voice was as deep as tire tracks in a dirt road after a rainstorm. “My backing tracks and all.”

  “You’re a vocalist?” he asked.

  The folks back home—none of whom had ever understood her talent, especially Tommy Ray—always called her a singer, but she liked what the stranger said better. “Mm-hmm.” It wasn�
��t the sort of thing she would’ve expected to hear from a rumpled bus-rider, but his easy use of the term intrigued her.

  “I heard you singing along there.” Daniel pointed back to the device he needed. “You’ve got a very strong vocal instrument,” he told her—not exactly a lie—but a compliment motivated solely by need.

  Vocal instrument? She blushed and revealed a smile that could’ve won her Miss Jackson County. First Runner-Up, at least. “Ya think so?”

  “Yeah, I do.” Necessity made him more emphatic. “Really strong.”

  “Gosh.” A deeper blush, a wider smile. “Y’all in the Business?”

  Under different circumstances he might have had pity for a girl who said things like “gosh” and “the Business,” but he needed her Walkman. “Yes. Yes, I am.”

  “Oh, wow!”

  “Daniel—” he announced, before realizing he was a wanted man. “Danielson. Eric Danielson.”

  If she found something amiss with his fumbled introduction, it didn’t stop her from taking his offered hand. “Honey Amber Wills.”

  “It’s a pleasure.”

  She was excited by the opportunity that had taken a seat beside her, but she’d heard stories. “Y’all reeeeeally in the business?”

  “Really. In fact, I tell you what.” She was ready and waiting. “I just got this new CD.” He took the envelope out of his jacket and showed her the Nashville postmark. She was suitably impressed. “It’s a demo from a band I’ve been working with.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.” It was close enough to the truth.

  “What band?”

  “Dockery Plantation,” he said without a quarter note of hesitation.

  “Never heard of ’em.”

  “You will,” he assured her. “And if I could just borrow your disc player—”

  Her face fell just a bit.

  “Just for a moment,” he assured her. “I think this track might be stronger as a duet.” She was interested again. “And I think, maybe, just maybe, your voice might work perfectly.”

  She was very interested. “Really?”

  “Really.” He flashed a deal-sealing smile.

  “Well, sure.” She handed him the unit. “Here.”

  It took him a moment to remember how a Discman worked, but when he pressed play and slid on the headphones, he heard a drummer counting time. It was a familiar beat, but it wasn’t the blues. A steel guitar whined out a classic (or clichéd) country intro as the drummer kept time with brushes on some toms and a snare. Someone started plucking an upright bass and an acoustic guitar began to strum a countrified version of a classic twelve-bar blues.

  And then the now-familiar voice sang out.

  Well, they break my heart

  You steal my soul

  They take what they can

  You’ve taken control

  They want what I got

  You won’t give me release

  But in between

  The two of you

  I’ve found six feet of peace

  Six feet of peace

  Is all that I know

  Where the summer rain falls

  And the winter winds blow

  Where the only stars shine

  High up in the sky

  Six feet of peace

  Is all I’ll know

  Till I die

  The young woman looked expectantly at Daniel, eager for his opinion of what she couldn’t help thinking might be her big break. He gave her a thumbs-up but didn’t say anything for fear of missing something in the track.

  Trying to pay off

  All the debts that I owed

  Hiram and Luke, they

  Went out on the road

  In a Cadillac rag-top

  With a pain that wouldn’t cease

  Drifting like cowboys

  They found

  Six feet of peace

  He’d always thought of blues and country as musical antitheses. Listening to the haunting track made him realize for the first time that they were more like kissing cousins from different sides of the same holler. It was the same basic E-A-B chord change and lyric progressions. Certainly they both conveyed a similar sentiment. They were just a different way of voicing the same song.

  Six feet of peace is all that I know

  Where the summer rain falls

  And the winter winds blow

  Where the only stars shine

  High up in the sky

  Six feet of peace

  Is all I’ll know

  Till I die

  Danny, you lost your love

  He hated how the songs each called him out by name. Particularly how they all called him “Danny.” No one had called him that since his dad, wanting to make him feel small, and as soon as he left home, he’d always been Daniel.

  Now your money’s gone too

  But they saved your life from

  What you wanted to do

  You get a new start

  You get a new lease

  If from your head to your toes

  You find six feet of peace

  Six feet of peace

  What you need to find

  Lose the pain in your heart

  Quiet the war

  In your mind

  Six feet of peace

  It’s yours to give

  Six feet of peace

  Every day that you live

  The band played the tune as the singer hummed his way through another chorus. And then with the strum of an acoustic guitar the song came to an end.

  Like the other two, there was nothing on the disc besides that one song. He listened to it again. And then a third time.

  His seatmate stared at him intensely, trying to read his every reaction to a song she couldn’t hear. When he finally slipped the yellow headphones off, she asked, “So whacha y’all think?”

  It took him a minute to place her question in the context of his half lie. “Oh, right.” The ongoing mystery left him tired, too tired to continue the game he’d begun with her. “Here. Take a listen,” he handed her back her Discman. What could it hurt?

  With a youthful exuberance usually reserved for Christmas mornings and trips to Disneyland, she put on the headphones. “This is sooooo great,” she told him as she adjusted the ear buds. “Last week I lost my job at Shear Insanity. It’s a beauty salon in Beaumont,” she filled in for him. “I left the foil on Miss Beulah a little too long—like anyone would really believe that cranky old bitch wasn’t as gray as a porch cat on a foggy morning—so I just took it as a sign from Jesus I should take up my music.” She looked at him expectantly.

  He did not disappoint. “I think that’s probably right.”

  She pressed play and the song came up. And then the music he’d just heard clearly came back as sonic fuzz, overflowing from her cheap headphones. She smiled at him, a broad, way-too-big-for-her-face smile.

  “I liked it,” she said when the song was done. “But I don’t understand what it’s about,” she confessed.

  He just let out a little puff of a laugh. “Join the club.”

  “Is it about an alien or something?”

  “An alien?”

  “Yeah,” she responded defensively. “What else has six feet apiece?”

  He laughed to himself but patted her hand so she wouldn’t think it was mean-spirited. “You’re going to do fine in Nashville.”

  She flashed him her pageant smile. “I know so too.”

  Nashville is a capital city.

  Just what it’s the capital of depends entirely on your interests.

  If you have a legal focus, Nashville is the capital of the state of Tennessee. Its capitol—a striking example of Greek Revival architecture—is just off Charlotte Avenue, majestically perched at the top of a hill overlooking the city.

  If your interests are more pious than a politician’s or a lawyer’s—and how could they not be?—Nashville is also known as the Protestant Vatican City. Its St. Peter’s Basilica is t
he Southern Baptist Convention, a squat, modern structure of red brick and tinted glass located—perhaps ironically—on Commerce Street.

  If your interests are neither legal nor religious, then the Nashville you are looking for is the capital of country music. And in that case, her capitol is a lilac-painted saloon on Broadway, just down from Fifth. Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge is where country music happened, happens, and will continue to happen until folks get tired of songs about falling in love, broken hearts, and raising hell.

  Daniel walked through Tootsie’s purple door late on a Wednesday afternoon, but there was already—or still—a healthy crowd at the bar. On a small stage set up by the front window, a young woman who looked like she might have aced poor Honey Amber Wills out of that Miss Jackson County crown was trying her best with “Don’t Ever Leave Me Again.” It wasn’t close to the original, but if Patsy’s spirit was present, she was pleased.

  Not wanting to interrupt her show, Daniel walked quickly past and headed straight for the bar. Before he could make it to a stool, however, the man tending the bar held up a calloused, been-broken-but-not-set-right ham of a hand to stop him. “Whoa! Hold it up there, Chief!”

  The bartender wasn’t muscular in an over-developed, Ah-nold sort of way. He seemed more suited for lifting hay bales than iron, but he was solid from head to toe with roughly hewn features like he’d been carved from wood by some hill-country craftsman.

  Daniel stopped in his tracks.

  “This here is a cash-fueled establishment.” The bartender put a country-sausage-size finger on the bar to emphasize his point. “The shelter is up on Eighth.” The finger pointed the way.

  Daniel was taken aback by such a hostile reception, but only until he caught a glimpse of the tattered, soiled, disheveled character reflected in the back bar mirror. He hardly recognized himself. But he understood the reaction he’d received.

  “Oh, no. I have money.” He dug into his pockets and pulled out a crumpled twenty. “Will this do?” he asked, placing the bill on the bar and smoothing it out.

  “If the ink on that bill don’t smear, it’ll do just fine.” A smile replaced the bartender’s stern scowl. “I’m sorry, mister. It’s just that we get more than our share of bums drifting in here thinking they’re going to drink for a song.”