Blues Highway Blues (A Crossroads Thriller Book 1) Page 22

  “Yeah, he is,” the big man agreed.

  “Let’s go get him!” Rabidoso shouted excitedly. “Get him!”

  “I know what to do,” Moog declared defiantly. He grabbed number six and put his big foot down on the accelerator. The engine whined as the Caddie sped off.

  “Hurry, man, those cops are going to grab him before we get there!”

  “Watch this.” The big man stored number six in his mouth and gripped the wheel with both hands.

  Daniel, exhausted and defeated, slowed to a stop. One of the pursuing police officers reached out to take hold of his arm. He was just inches away.

  The whole scene was suddenly lit up in the Caddie’s headlights. When it seemed certain that Moog would run down all three men, he stomped on the brake and turned the wheel as far right as it would go without snapping off in his oversized hands. The tires squealed and the sedan spun around.

  With number six still securely in his mouth, Moog leaned over the seat and threw open the car’s back door. Daniel was standing there, out of breath and wide-eyed. Moog yelled to him, “Gef en da ca’!”

  To anyone whose lungs are already bursting and about to go down for the third time, it doesn’t matter who’s rowing the lifeboat. When plummeting to earth at terminal velocity, it’s impossible to care who’s wearing the tandem harness. And Daniel never gave a good goddamn who was offering him a way out of his inescapable situation. The door opened and he jumped in.

  By the time Daniel realized who was behind the wheel and who was sitting in the shotgun, the Cadillac was already speeding off into the night. As soon as he made the connection, he reached for the door handle—jump, tuck, and roll!—but that gesture was met with the distinct sound of a semiautomatic’s slide being worked to chamber a round. Daniel looked up and straight into the single, unflinching eye of Rabidoso’s 9mm.

  “I’m going to kill you,” the little guy snarled. “Then I’m gonna make an offering to Santa Muerte that she raises you from the dead just so I can kill you all over again.” He pointed his pistol at Daniel’s forehead.

  For maybe the first time in his life, Daniel didn’t flinch. Not an inch.

  Gently, but firmly, Moog reached over and pushed Rabidoso back into his seat. “How many times do I have to tell you? We need the guy alive.”

  “You need me more than alive,” Daniel asserted boldly.

  “Man,” Moog shook his head at Daniel’s bold assertion. “Don’t stir his shit up like that.”

  But Daniel couldn’t be quieted. “You need my money too.” He looked right down the barrel Rabidoso was still aiming at him from over the seat. “So, go ahead. Do what you’re going to do. You’d have to tell Filat that he wasn’t going to get to kill me—and that you lost his money. So I’d die happy, knowing he’d make you pay for every dollar he’d assume you’d stolen. And all three of us know that’d be a hell of a lot worse for you two than a bullet in the head right here and now.”

  “You want me shoot you?” The Mexican’s voice quivered with emotion. “You think I won’t fucking—”

  “Enough,” Moog shouted. “Put the piece away or I will.”

  Rabidoso looked at the big man as if he’d betrayed him in some way, his brown eyes burning with an unspoken promise that someday soon he’d answer and repay the treachery. Sullenly and reluctantly, he put the pistol away.

  “So then,” Moog adjusted the rearview mirror to get a better look at his passenger. “Tell me about the money.”

  Daniel stared right back. “I was trying to tell you when you started shooting back in Malibu.”

  “You pulled a piece,” Rabidoso shot back defensively.

  “I had a jewel box,” Daniel corrected.

  “A jeweled what-now?” Moog wondered.

  “You just turned around,” Rabidoso corrected, “with a piece in your hand.”

  “It was a fucking CD,” Daniel objected. “How can you not know the difference between a gun and—”

  “It doesn’t matter what happened in Malibu.” Moog cut them both off. “Right now the only thing that matters to any of us is where the money’s at.”

  “And that’s what I’m telling you,” Daniel repeated. “I don’t know where it is.”

  “Wait a minute,” Moog said, unconvinced. “You’re telling me a million dollars in cash just disappeared out your secret safe?”

  “It was all gone when we got there. Someone—I don’t know who—took it, and the only thing they left behind was this,” Daniel reached for the collection of discs he had in his coat pocket.

  Without stopping the car, the big man stretched back over the seat to stop him. “Don’t go in pockets like that. Makes me nervous.” He let go of Daniel. “Now get what you got there. Take it out real slow.”

  Daniel pulled out the discs, found the one marked “Blues Highway Blues,” and held it up. “This was the only thing in the safe.”

  Moog snatched it from him and looked at it curiously. “What is it?”

  Daniel shook his head. “It’s a CD.”

  “I know it’s a motherfuckin’ CD!” Moog snapped angrily. “What’s on it?”

  “A song.”

  “A song?” Moog slid the shiny disc into the Cadillac’s dash player and three seconds later the car was filled with the bluesy intro to the track Daniel knew by heart.

  The big man let “The Blues Highway Blues” play all the way through, but when it was finished he was only more confused. “What was that about?”

  “It was a clue,” Daniel answered. “A musical clue.”

  “A clue to what?”

  “A location. The crossroads where Robert Johnson sold his soul in order to become the greatest guitar player.”

  “You’re shittin’ me.” The big man was still unconvinced.

  “About Robert Johnson selling his soul or the clue on the disc?”

  And losing patience. “If I don’t give a damn about my own soul, I sure as hell don’t care about no one else’s.”

  “Well, I went there and sure enough there was another disc waiting for me.” Daniel handed the second disc over. “This one had a clue to go to New Orleans.” He thought about his time there. About the friend he’d left behind. “You didn’t let him hurt the old man, did you?” Daniel asked as he disdainfully pointed at Rabidoso.

  If it was possible, Moog seemed even more confused. “What old man?”

  “The old man—” Daniel started, and then thought better of it. He wasn’t sure what Moog’s lack of memory meant, but he felt relieved and figured the best thing to do was let the subject die.

  “In New Orleans,” Daniel continued. “I heard a song that led me to Memphis, where I got a disc that led me to Nashville.” He gave up that one. “And Nashville led me to Chicago.” Daniel completed the collection.

  Moog looked at the discs in his hand. “So they just keep sending you—”

  “To someplace else.” Daniel nodded. “Mostly they just focus on a musician and give a clue telling me where I can find the next clue to a final place where supposedly I can find my money.”

  “Who does this?” Moog wondered aloud. “Who makes off with a cool million and then plays a game like this?”

  “I don’t know.” Daniel shook his head. “I’ve spent the last twenty-five hundred miles trying to figure it out and I’ve come up with nothing. Maybe one of the bands I used to work with. Maybe an old business partner.” He was beyond guessing anymore. “I don’t know. I just keep following the clues, figuring that sooner or later—”

  “Something will turn up.” Moog knew the mind-set only too well.

  “Yeah.”

  Moog looked at the discs. “So now where? You got the Chicago clue?”

  “Not yet.”

  The big man had a hunch. “But you know where it is.”

  “I think I do.”

  “And where’s that?”

  “Twenty-one twenty South Michigan Avenue.”

  The address didn’t ring any bells for Moog. “What’
s there?”

  “Twenty-one twenty South Michigan Avenue,” Daniel repeated. “You know, like the Rolling Stones song?” It was clear the reference did nothing to help, so Daniel just gave him the answer. “It’s the address of Chess Records.” He thought better of the description. “Or, at least, it’s where Chess used to be before…everything changed.”

  Moog nodded his understanding. And offered a word of caution. “You better be telling the truth about all this shit. ’Cause it turn out to be just one of your motherfucking leather-pants-lies, you don’t have nuthin’ to ever put in any kinda pants.”

  “Understood.”

  Moog gave Daniel one last look to underscore his murderous intent. “Better be understood.” And then he went back to finishing off the box of Big Dats.

  Other than the children’s garden next door, there is nothing in its plain edifice to distinguish the modest storefront at 2120 from any of the other small businesses and “Available for Development” properties that line South Michigan Avenue. There is little to alert the casual passerby that this address was once the epicenter of a distinctly American musical and cultural revolution.

  Like its Southern sister, Stax, the former offices and recording studios of Chess Records were left to fall victim to the harsh economic realities of urban America in the early 1970s. After the music business moved west, the building that once played home to musical giants like Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley, Howlin’ Wolf and Muddy Waters, gradually deteriorated like so much real estate of unappreciated historical significance.

  Ultimately the property was purchased, preserved, and restored as a private museum by the Blues Heaven Foundation, a charity founded by Willie Dixon. Willie’s importance in the annals of American music has been lost somewhat in the shifting sands of time, but his contribution is undeniable and he belongs on the short list in any discussion of America’s most important songwriters.

  Being a musicians’ museum, however, the renovated Chess Records keeps musicians’ hours. So by the time the simple glass door was unlocked for another day of visiting tourists at eleven o’clock, the trio had already put the morning to good use.

  Moog had taken Daniel to a men’s store and bought him a black wool overcoat. “You attract attention we don’t need with you looking like a goddamn hobo,” he said, offering him the garment as a present. “I put a pack of cigs in the pocket. Just in case.”

  Daniel didn’t mean to sound ungrateful, but said, “I don’t smoke.”

  “I don’t smoke either,” the big man answered. “But there’s things a pack of cigarettes can get you in this world that not even cash will buy. Trust me.”

  While they were waiting for Chess to open, Rabidoso had been tasked with “cleaning” the stolen Caddie. He’d driven off with the promise of wiping it down thoroughly but without the intention of making good on his word. Instead, he left it parked on the street with the keys dangling from the ignition, confident it would be gone before the morning frost had cleared.

  Rabidoso’s other assignment had been stealing the Caddie’s replacement. Once that was accomplished, he returned to their designated meeting spot, particularly proud of his selection.

  “Are you shittin’ me?” Moog exclaimed when it pulled up to the curb.

  “What?” The little man sat proudly behind the wheel, determined not to relinquish what he thought of as a position of authority. “She’s a beauty.”

  Moog was speechless.

  Daniel wasn’t. “You stole a purple pickup truck? We’re on the run from the cops and you stole a purple pickup pimpmobile?”

  “It’s a Sierra Crew Cab, pendejo,” Rabidoso spat defensively, leaning out of the driver’s window to admire the truck’s seventeen-inch, chromed spinner rims.

  “It’s purple!” Daniel circled around the truck. “It’s got a mural of two skeletons in a gun fight and the name Ramirez stenciled on the back window.”

  “Cool, huh?”

  Moog sighed and watched his frustration float skyward as crystalline smoke. “Get in.”

  It was Daniel who was speechless now. Almost. “Get in? In that thing?”

  “We don’t have time to argue about it now. Let’s just go.”

  Twenty minutes later, Rabidoso parked the stolen truck on South Michigan Avenue. He volunteered to stay with his ride as Moog and Daniel went into what had once been home of Chicago’s electrified blues and the maternity ward for rock and roll.

  There was a modest gift shop in the studio’s old offices, though truthfully it appeared as if the proprietors had merely scattered some T-shirts and souvenirs around and left the old office otherwise unchanged. At the far end of the room, a middle-aged woman sat behind a desk, working over a pile of papers. She raised her head when the two men entered and offered them a “Good morning.”

  Neither made any intelligible response.

  “May I help you?”

  Moog looked at Daniel as if he should know what to do, but Daniel wasn’t so confident. “I’m not sure.”

  The woman began to look vaguely concerned, worried the morning’s only visitors—a giant and a nine-fingered man—didn’t look much like music lovers.

  “I’m looking for something,” Daniel began, before hesitating again. “I’m just not sure what it is.” He began having a Sun Records flashback.

  The woman behind the desk began to look very worried.

  Sensing where things were headed, Moog flashed a bright smile he hoped might disarm her. “What my friend here is trying to say—” He turned to Daniel and whispered as discretely as the situation would allow, “What the hell are you trying to say?”

  “I don’t know,” he confessed in a whisper.

  “Well, how’d you get the other discs?”

  Daniel shrugged his shoulders. “Something just always turned up.”

  “Well, then turn something up!”

  Daniel slowly approached the woman’s desk as she let her hand drop discretely beneath it. He took a deep breath. “You see, I think someone might have left something for me here, but I’m not sure what it is.”

  She looked hard at him and in that lingering moment, Daniel wondered whether her hand was on an alarm or a gun. He wasn’t quite sure which one he hoped it was.

  She cocked her head a bit and then asked directly, “Are you Danny Erickson?”

  Her question was simple enough, but he wasn’t sure how to answer. He was, of course. But that man was also wanted by police. On the other hand, if he didn’t admit who he was, he’d miss out on the next clue. He weighed his options. “Yes. Yes, I am.”

  The woman burst out of her seat and ran to him, shrieking and throwing her arms around him. “Oh, Mr. Erickson, when we got your gift—” She stopped and placed her hand on her chest to calm herself and take a badly needed breath. “I just can’t tell you how much we appreciate your contribution.”

  “You found it generous?” Daniel asked, uncomfortably looking around the museum he apparently had a hand in funding.

  “Oh, yes, sir. Very generous.”

  “The contribution. Can you tell me who brought it in?”

  “Brought it in?” She thought on it for a moment. “It just came in the mail.”

  “Of course it did.” He wasn’t surprised. “Well, when it came in the mail, did anything come with it?”

  “Just the disc you asked us about.” She returned to her desk and pulled an envelope out of the top drawer. “I gave it to several of the folks who volunteer here but none of them could identify it.” She seemed disappointed for him. “But they’re all certain it’s not one of Mr. Dixon’s works.”

  “May I?” He held out his hand.

  She gave him the envelope with the disc. “I’m sorry to tell you that they think you may have been…” She clearly didn’t want to say it out loud. “Well, the victim of a fraud. Or of a joke,” she added quickly, eager to put a sunny spin on it.

  “Oh, I’m the victim of a joke, all right.” If he was certain of nothing else, he was certain o
f that.

  As soon as they climbed into Rabidoso’s stolen brothel on wheels, Moog checked over the package they’d received and asked, “Now what?”

  “Now we listen.” Daniel pointed to the in-dash stereo that was pumping out someone rapping over a Tejano tune with a throbbing bass line at a window-rattling volume.

  Moog silenced it and slid in the new disc.

  “Hey, man!” Rabidoso objected. “I was listening to—”

  “Shut up,” the big man said without taking his eyes from the complicated stereo unit he was trying to operate. “We gotta listen to this.”

  “Don’t tell me to shut up.”

  “It’s less painful if I tell you.” Moog pressed play. “We gotta listen to this.”

  Rabidoso grumbled something under his breath, but it was drowned out by a swelling blast of solid brass. Behind the horns, there was an electric bass line that was as melodic as it was rhythmic. Right alongside it, a pair of funked-out guitars shared a part that was as rhythmic as it was melodic. Backing it all up was a layered percussion line that Daniel’s ears heard as multiple tracks that had been overdubbed but might have been two actual drums, with a tambourine hitting all the back beats.

  “You turned my joint off for this shit?” Rabidoso griped.

  Moog meant to pause the track but the button he pushed ejected the disc, which only heightened his growing frustration. “I’ve been riding with your psychotic ass for the last six days.” He spoke in measured tones, as if his growing anger was something even he was barely strong enough to control. “We need to listen to this and figure out where we find the money. And right now the shit you say is getting in the way of that.”

  The little man began to answer, but Moog held up his hand to stop him. “I don’t want to hear it. I don’t want to hear anything except this damn song. And if I hear anything else, I’m going to silence it.”

  “But—”

  “Silence. It.”

  “Fuck you,” Rabidoso spat. He hopped out of the truck’s cab, slammed the door, and walked angrily down the sidewalk headed south.

  And then it was silent. Moog pushed the disc back into the stereo and the same funky bass and driving rhythm resumed. The same vocalist, his voice smoother and higher, started to sing.