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

  “Exactly, sir.” Feller cleared his throat. “In Chicago, the suspect again evaded apprehension and, in so doing, endangered the lives of numerous law enforcement officers.”

  “Right.” The incident rang a bell with the old man. “Regional Director Buckley told me about what happened there.” He shook his head. “He’s still trying to sort out all the goddamn paperwork on that one.”

  Feller uncomfortably shifted in his seat and tried to move on. “Later that morning, Erickson was involved in a shoot-out on Michigan Avenue. Six dead. This is surveillance footage we have of him making his escape through the McCormick Place.” There was a pixilated black-and-white image of Daniel running through a lobby and dashing up an escalator.

  “Who’s that with him?” Casey asked, pointing out the two men running right behind him.

  “Here’s where it starts to get a little weird, sir.”

  “Jesus Christ,” Casey exclaimed. “It wasn’t weird before?”

  “Well, the larger man, the African American, is Vernon ‘Moog’ Turner.” Feller put a mug shot of Moog in front of Casey. It was a youthful shadow of the man he’d become, but the tombstone eyes were still set in his face. “He’s an enforcer. A hired killer. Started in Kansas City. Branched out. We believe he was a contract killer under the tutelage of Harrison ‘Bumper’ Marcus until he, in turn, killed Mr. Marcus. We last heard of him as the main muscle for Filat Preezrakevich, former Russian Mafia.”

  “Russian Mafia? I don’t get it. What’s a psycho killer like Erickson doing in the company of muscle for a Russian mobster?”

  “As I said, sir—weird. And it gets weirder. The smaller man, the Mexican there, is Señor Jesus Arturo Castillo del Savacar. He was an asesino from Cártel del Golfo.”

  Casey scratched his bald head. “So, what are a psycho killer, Russian mafia muscle, and a Mexican cartel killer doing on the lam together?”

  “Raising hell, sir. They were at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Where another riot broke out. And then tonight they surfaced in Philadelphia. Four men were shot to death.”

  “Jesus Christ.” The regional director shook his head with one final display of disgust. “What does it all mean, Feller?”

  “I’m not sure. We know the Russians and the Mexicans have been working together to expand the cartels. This may be proof positive of that cooperation.”

  “And the psycho killer?”

  “Apparently he served to launder money for Preezrakevich on some crazy, harebrained television swindle. My guess right now is that the Russians are financing Mexican cartel expansion into the US and Erickson is a part of moving the money. My guess is that he got greedy and jumped the track. The other two have been ordered to bring him back.”

  “Bring him back? Back where?”

  “That’s just the thing, sir. I know where Erickson’s going. I’m certain of it.”

  Casey thought about it for moment. “Then go get him.”

  Agent Feller thought a smile would be perceived as unprofessional or—worse yet—unmanly, so he suppressed his. “Yes, sir.”

  “You’ve done some real fine work here, Feller.”

  “Thank you, sir.” A real career maker.

  “But don’t fuck up like you did in Chicago. You won’t survive another fuckup like that.” It wasn’t a threat, just a statement of fact.

  “Yes, sir.” Or breaker.

  Vicki Bean wasn’t the first woman Daniel had slept with since his wife left him for another man.

  To be sure, in the weeks and months that followed Connie leaving him, the only thing Daniel’s quest for vengeance (and reaffirmation) lacked was a funkadelic ’70s bass line for a soundtrack. There were all sorts of women, all sorts of arrangements, and all sorts of situations. None of them ever made him forget Connie for more than an hour at a time. And maybe because of that, none of it had ever made Daniel feel the slightest bit guilty.

  This night was different. He hovered between waking thoughts and sleep’s deep dreams, momentarily bothered by some gnawing feeling of betrayal—his. It wasn’t that he felt guilty about having had sex with Vicki Bean, it was that they were sleeping together. Really sleeping.

  He felt culpable for the way her body seemed to melt into his or how she pulled his arms around her to hold her closer as she dreamed. He felt guilty for feeling all the things he hadn’t felt since Connie: Satisfied. Happy. At peace.

  He felt guilty—and grateful—all at once.

  This night was wonderfully different. And he did not want to waste it fretting that it would end soon. Or wondering how it was that he could have found something he’d lost in himself in a stranger. It was what it was and all he wanted to do was to live that moment. There, beneath her crinkly down comforter, with Vicki Bean in his arms, Daniel was playing Today music.

  It could have been hours or maybe just minutes, but Daniel woke, relieved to find she was still in his arms.

  “Everything all right?” she asked when she felt him stir, her voice soft and sleepy.

  He pulled her closer. “I’m great. How about you?”

  She turned in his arms to face him. “All things considered, I’m doing much better than I expected.”

  “That’s encouraging.”

  “What do you want me to say?” She propped herself on her arm. “You come staggering into the bar after-hours looking like you just fell off a fish truck, with a fake name and a long story—that you’re still keeping a secret.”

  He was embarrassed she’d caught him in the lie he hadn’t told her. “I thought women loved a mysterious man.”

  “Obviously we do.” She moved against him. “I saw you and said to myself, ‘There’s a guy with real problems.’”

  “Now you’re just trying to flatter me.” She laughed but didn’t saying anything more. When he couldn’t bear her silence anymore, he asked, “Why me, then?”

  She didn’t answer at first, but when she was ready she said, “I finally admitted to myself that my chooser’s broken.”

  “Your what?”

  “My chooser.” He liked the way she smiled when she was trying not to let on she was embarrassed. “You know, whatever it is that makes you choose one person over another. One opportunity over another.”

  “Oh, that.”

  “Yeah. So when you shambled into the bar looking like you’d just gone twelve rounds with the world, I said to myself, ‘Now here is a guy who’s an absolute mess.’”

  “Thank you very much.”

  “Seriously,” she giggled. “Here’s a guy who’s nothing but trouble.” She wondered if that was putting it too strongly and then decided it wasn’t. “I mean really just a complete train wreck.”

  “I understand.”

  “No,” she laughed, suggesting it wasn’t nearly as horrible as she made it all sound. “You walked in and my chooser was screaming this is the absolutely worst guy you could ever be with. Ever. And I have been with some guys like you can’t believe.”

  He smiled uncomfortably. “You’re making me feel so much better.”

  “Good.” She kissed him. “See…my plan is working.”

  He thought he might actually have understood. “Choose against the chooser?”

  “Choose against the chooser,” she confirmed.

  “Suppose for once in your life your chooser was dead on the money?” he wanted to know.

  “What do you mean?” She sounded somewhere between cautious and curious.

  “I am trouble,” he admitted. “Well, I’m not trouble, but I’m in trouble. Some pretty serious trouble.”

  “Zack?” she asked.

  The question alarmed him. “How did you—”

  “You kept calling the name out in your sleep.”

  The look in his eyes answered before his words could. “He’s my son. And I’m in a situation—” How to explain it? “There are some very bad people who may go looking for my son if I don’t—”

  “What?”

  He wasn’t sure. “There’s some money
that’s been stolen from me.”

  She wasn’t surprised. “You looked like trouble—but moneyed trouble.”

  “It’s just that the men who stole the money, they’ve been leading me on this wild goose chase, setting up these musical clues.”

  “Musical clues?”

  “I know it sounds strange.” He was in the middle of it all and it still seemed strange to him. “See, I was in the music business for—”

  She sat up, now clearly alarmed. “No wonder my chooser hated you.”

  “Hated?” The word seemed kind of harsh.

  “I can totally see you as some label suit.” She laughed to herself. Or maybe she was laughing at herself. “I’m tending bar as a kinda rehab after wasting the last fifteen years.”

  He furrowed his brow. “You were in music?”

  She seemed hurt that he couldn’t picture her that way. “Don’t look so surprised.”

  “No, it’s just you don’t look like—”

  “I wasn’t a suit,” she said, as if the suggestion was insulting. “You ever hear of the band The Bitch You Miss?”

  He wanted to have heard of them, but had to admit, “No.”

  She wasn’t disappointed—or surprised. “We had our fans,” she told him, suggesting the band hadn’t missed his support. She reached to her nightstand, pulled out a relapse cigarette, lit it, and took a drag. “We never cracked that big commercial market, but it’s not like punk has a big commercial market to crack.”

  “What?” Daniel looked like he’d been struck with a jolt of 220 volts.

  “What do you mean what?” She took another puff. “You’re not one of those dinosaurs who thinks the only opportunity for a woman in rock is on her knees in front of some douche bag with a mullet?”

  “No,” he assured her, though he was paying more attention to the thoughts in his head than he was to anything she was saying.

  “That’s the only reason I treat George Beamer the way I do. He walks around like he’s rock and roll’s saving grace and I should be lucky to catch a bone from him.” She took a puff and watched it drift to the ceiling. “The truth of it is that I could play him off-stage any night of the week.”

  “Punk,” he repeated.

  “Yes. Punk.” She ran her fingers through her long red hair. “I’m a punk rocker,” she said, making it clear that was something he was going to have to deal with.

  “No, not like that,” he dismissed her concerns, while still trying to fit his thoughts into place. “Punk. That’s the last clue.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  He sat up and explained, “All the clues led me from city to city tracing the evolution of rock and roll.”

  “OK.” She didn’t understand what he was saying or the enthusiasm with which he was saying it, but she was willing to listen.

  He collected his thoughts. “But I was explaining to Moog—”

  “Who’s Moog?”

  “One of the bad guys.”

  “Of course.”

  “I was explaining that once that mixture of blues and rhythm and country, once it all hit Cleveland, rock and roll just sort of exploded. It went everywhere and when it did it just fragmented. It went a thousand different places and there wasn’t really another major movement until—”

  She was willing to take a guess. “Punk?”

  “Until the punks hit New York, yeah. The Ramones. The Dolls. Hell, the Pistols fell apart there.” He felt euphoric. “I don’t need the last clue, because I know where the music goes.”

  She thought he was cute when he got all excited, even if his enthusiasm was a little scary. “Well, that’s good I guess. Right?”

  “It’s awesome.” It meant he still had a chance.

  “Well, all right.”

  “Listen.” He grabbed her gently by the shoulders and looked deeply into her mischievous eyes. “I know I don’t have any right to ask anything of you.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  “But I’m going to anyway.”

  “I figured.” She braced herself with a puff of her cigarette. “Go ahead.”

  “The first thing, maybe the most important thing, is that I need you to believe me.”

  She was worried. It had just been one night; usually she had to invest in a week or two before men started telling her they needed her to believe them. “About what?”

  “About everything.” He took a moment. “There’s going to be some things that you’re going to hear about me—”

  “What kind of things?” She’d already given up on her decision to quit smoking and she was having serious reservations about the whole “choose against the chooser” thing too.

  There was no way around it. “Bad things,” he admitted. He thought he saw her make that “Here-we-go-again” face. “No. None of it’s true,” he assured her. “You have to believe me.”

  “Well, my chooser is saying you’re completely crazy and I’d have to be crazier to trust you, so let’s just say for the time being that I do. What else do you need from me?”

  “I need you not to say anything about me. Not to anyone.”

  She mulled it over. “All right. Anything else?”

  “I need you to let me steal your car.”

  This request alarmed her. “What?”

  “I need to get into Manhattan.”

  A simple enough request to fulfill. “Well, I’ll take you,” she said.

  “No. I told you, there are some very bad people after me—”

  She thought she’d caught him. “I thought you said they were after your son?”

  “They’re after us both, OK? That’s why I can’t have you anywhere near me. It’s just too dangerous.”

  She thought it over for a second. Took a deep breath and decided to disregard everything her chooser—and common sense—was telling her to do. “Well, then just take it. Go into the city and do what you have to do and then—”

  “I can’t take that chance. If I get caught and they trace the car back to you—”

  “I’d be in danger?”

  “No.” He wasn’t as confident as his denial sounded. “But I don’t want to take that chance. Just give me an hour and then call the police and report it as stolen. Then, whatever happens, no one will ever be able to trace me back to you.”

  “Gee,” she scoffed. “Fuck me. Leave me. Steal my car. What girl could resist?”

  “It’s not like that.” His voice conveyed the depths of his desperation for her to have a little faith in him. Of all the men she’d had in her life, she wasn’t sure if any of them had ever needed her to have faith in them. None of them until now. “I know.”

  It was either very fitting or very ironic that the revolutionary response to rock and roll’s bloated excess began in a small club in New York’s Bowery section called Country Bluegrass Blues and Other Music for Uplifting Gormandizers. CBGB & OMFUG, to its friends.

  Like so much of America’s musical heritage, however, the original CBGB has disappeared. The space at 315 Bowery at Bleecker Street—once the staging ground for punk’s counter-assault on rock’s establishment—had been turned into a boutique for a high-end men’s fashion designer.

  Daniel parked Vicki’s Monte Carlo, which he figured she’d be reporting as stolen just about then, and went inside.

  “May I help you?” a young man in gray slacks and a brown turtleneck asked.

  “I was wondering if anybody left anything for me here.” Daniel had become comfortable asking the question.

  “I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean.”

  Daniel ignored the unpleasant tone. “A package? Maybe a manila envelope? For Daniel Erickson?”

  “I’m afraid we sell men’s clothes,” the clerk snapped snarkily. “We’re not actually a drop.” He put the word with air quotes. “But there’s an alley out back, you might want to check there.”

  Daniel left the shop, disappointed but undeterred.

  Although CBGB was certainly the seminal punk club, there we
re other venues that played significant roles in punk’s development. He could head over to Max’s Kansas City—although that too, had disappeared only to be replaced by a Korean deli. And there was the Mudd Club in Tribeca—now a bagel place.

  Daniel stood on the sidewalk, not sure where to go next. Should he continue his search for the money or concede that it had eluded him? Should he go straight to Vegas and accept whatever punishment the mad Russian might mete out? Would it be so bad if he just went back to Vicki and tried to run?

  And then, with all of these questions swirling around his brain, he found that the answer was right in front of him. There on a light post outside of the ghost of CBGB’s was a flyer for a band that had recently played a show in New York.

  They were called Dockery Plantation, an homage to the place where Charlie Patton had started it all. But unlike their flyer in Nashville, this one had a picture of all six members of the band. Five of them he’d never seen before, but he recognized the one holding the Gibson ES-335. And there was one more show on their tour.

  There are almost three thousand miles between Manhattan and Seattle. An average driver in a reasonable automobile can make the trip in just over forty hours. A desperate man in a battered, old Monte Carlo can do it even quicker.

  Over the years Daniel had amassed a collection of twelve charge cards. No longer worried now about maintaining his credit score, he financed the trip to Seattle by selling them off one by one to whatever shady truck-stop characters had ready cash. The genius of his plan was that not only did it provide the necessary gas money, but those who bought the cards went on outlandish spending sprees that created an impenetrable cover. Whoever might have been monitoring his transaction activity in hopes of locating him would have had to follow up on an electronics shop-a-palooza in Columbus, a new wardrobe of women’s wear in St. Paul, and even a junket to Vegas.

  The Central Tavern is a Seattle institution. Not only because it’s the city’s oldest drinking establishment, but because it served as the first venue for a local band that took the small stage under the name Nirvana.

  When Daniel finally pulled up in front of the place, the band on the marquis was called Dockery Plantation.