The Sound of Building Coffins Page 15

  The boys strolled casually through the front door of the Eagle Saloon—a few heads turning warily in their direction before nodding with recognition—and proceeded to climb the straight, narrow stairwell located at the rear of the bar and leading upwards to Odd Fellows. Upon reaching the top platform, Jim gave Black Benny a nod. Benny was a truly frightening individual who acted as doorman, bouncer and occasional house drummer. Jim greased the big man’s palm with a five-dollar bill before sticking his head through the entranceway for a quick survey of the crowd.

  “Easy pickins tonight,” grunted Benny. “We’ll call this fiver a down payment depending on the take at the end.” This was not a suggestion but a statement of fact.

  Even Jim knew better than to dicker with Black Benny. “Of course, my good man. Just a hint of greater things to come, this humble fiver.”

  Jim yanked his head back into the stairwell and presented his partner with a broad smile. “Dropsy, my friend, I believe Mr. Benny is dead-on correct in his summation. If I’m not mistaken, I’ve spotted a party of five been awaitin’ on our arrival. Probably ruin their good time if we failed to give ’em a good goin’ over. Let us not disappoint, old pal. Shall we?”

  Dropsy couldn’t help but give up a grin. “Well then, let’s have at ’em, Jim Jam Jump, Amazin’ Champeen Ratboy of Orleans Parish and Surroundin’ Terri-trees.”

  A switch flicked on in Jim’s brain that lit his face with instant agony. Faux-misery in place, Jim pushed past Black Benny:

  “Oooh—my leg! Somebody get a doctor! That dog done got me! Mad dog is what! Foamin’ and snappin’ and done got me good! Saved by this fine gentleman here, the bravest niggra I ever knowed! Ooohhh! The pain! The pain!”

  The air of the hall was a heady residue of things consumed, a living thing shaped by the racket produced by King Bolden’s Band. Supporting Jim from around the shoulders (as recently instructed during the duo’s Perdido Street stroll), Dropsy tugged his dramatically limping cohort through the crowded hall.

  “Stand aside, gentleman! Sick youngster comin’ through here! Bit by a rabid animal and needin’ of medical ’tention!” And then louder: “Is there a doctor in the house? Jesus please, is there a doctor in this house?” Dropsy’s heart-rending performance was enhanced nicely by his authentically rattled nerves and genuinely throbbing head.

  The band charged furiously through Buddy’s signature tune, Buddy himself standing authoritatively at the edge of a six inch platform serving as stage. Holding the cornet in his left hand, King Bolden belted out the lyrics with the passion of a back-o’town street preacher:

  Way down, way down low

  So I can hear them whores

  Drag their feets across that floor…

  Buddy interrupted himself with a quick, nasty phrase from the cornet, blinking hard in mid-verse at the commotion stirred by Jim’s wailing. Annoyance transformed quickly to amusement as Buddy recognized the boys—and with a wink in their direction he lowered the cornet once more to resume verse:

  Oh, you bitches, shake your asses

  Funky butt, funky butt

  Take it away!

  Dropsy pulled Jim through the sorry looking throng of lowlifes and slicks; an unlikely mixture of race and class—from black to white and from high to low—that Buddy’s unique style of playing managed to draw together in the district with astonishing regularity. Despite the diversity, the locals and out-of-towners were easy enough to tell apart—nearly as easy as telling cats from mice.

  With steadily escalating imagined agony, Jim knocked his genuinely dog-injured calf hard against an empty stool to coax out a few additional drops of blood, just for show.

  “The pain! The pain!”

  “Somebody please help this poor boy!” Dropsy was now so anxious that his eyes produced genuine tears. Nice touch, that—but his concern was well founded. The out-of-town element in Odd Fellows tonight had a distinctly hardened air about them, clearly not the type accustomed to playing mouse. This was often a good thing; the more worldly the prospect, the more likely the prospect would consider himself immune to tricks perpetrated by under-aged white kids and slow-minded coloreds—which meant a lowered guard. But also: one misstep with this bunch could prove disastrous or deadly. Not that the locals wouldn’t bail the boys out in a crisis scenario, but some of these tourists carried pistols—and there wasn’t enough Southern Loyalty in the whole of God’s green earth to stop a bullet.

  Dropsy pushed onward towards the bar until Jim signaled with calculated resistance. He led Dropsy leftwards with a staged shudder and low-pitched moan—mere preamble to an artful backwards fall. The cards and drinks of Jim’s chosen party took the intended tumble, causing ten droopy, alcohol-fogged eyes to widen with surprise.

  To Dropsy, the five out-of-towners looked like a postcard straight out of the Wild, Wild West: a crew of red-faced, hardened outlaws dressed in their Sunday best. As drinks splashed into laps and glasses chimed then tinkled musically to the floor, two of the men cursed and jumped up, while two others just sat looking confused. The fifth man looked only mildly startled—and somewhat concerned. This least perturbed member of the party stood up soberly, giving Jim a hand up from the ground and offering him his chair.

  “You all right, boy?” said the man, crouching down to meet Jim’s eyes.

  Paydirt, thought Jim Jam Jump.

  “Thank you, thank you so much for the kindness, sir. I’ll be all right. It’s just that it hurts…so…aaahhh!” A dazzling demonstration of sobs sprang from Jim’s throat. His aim was to melt the hearts of the remaining four, but the immediate results were mixed at best.

  The two who’d remained seated—one as fat as the other was skinny—got to their feet just long enough to right the table, then quickly reseated themselves with narrowing eyes. The two who’d jumped up wore put-out expressions—but were already on a slow cool, both standing with hands on hips as if awaiting formal invitation to rejoin their own party. The Good Samaritan who’d given up his seat had already full-out taken the bait, now placing an arm around Jim’s shoulder while the boy responded with meek, artificial gratitude; trembling and fighting to hold back fake tears.

  “There now, you’ll be okay, son,” said the Good Samaritan. Then to Dropsy, “Well, don’t just stand there, ya stupid nigger, go find a doctor!” Dropsy scrambled off, hardly able to conceal his relief.

  “I’ll pay fer them drinks I done knocked over, sir. I got some money…” But the act of reaching into his own pocket caused Jim a freshly imagined stab of pain. “Aahhhh…ow! ow! oweeee!”

  “Nonsense,” said the Good Samaritan. “Don’t you worry ’bout that, son. Tell me yer name, now.”

  “Nick Clay, sir.” Jim’s spur of the moment identity for the night.

  “Well, Nick, you can call me Walter. Now, tell me what happened.”

  “Well, Mr. Walter…this rabid dog roamin’ the street done cornered me. I tried ta git away, but he came up fast and bit me on the leg—wouldn’t let go, just shakin’ and growlin’. That niggra came out of nowhere and kilt that dog with his bare hands. Bravest thing I ever seen.”

  “Well, I’ll be damned, is that a fact?” Then, after a beat: “What happened to the niggra’s face? He get bit too?” The question revealed an angle Jim had neglected to work out in advance. Walter’s question was a trap—Dropsy’s head injuries bore no resemblance whatsoever to a dog bite, and Jim knew it.

  “No, sir,” Jim improvised. “In the struggle…ya see, uh…the dog tripped him up and knocked him on his head. Hit the ground hard but kept on fightin’. That niggra saved my life, I tell ya!”

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” the Samaritan repeated with apparent satisfaction, as he pulled a clean white hanky from his breast pocket to wrap around Jim’s bleeding calf. “Anything I can do for you, son?”

  Jim hesitated expertly. “Well…ah, nevermind. You already been way too kind, sir…” Jim squinted in actual pain as Walter wrapped the hanky too tight.

  “Out with it, s
on. This ain’t no time fer shyness.”

  “Well, maybe if I could get a little snort…for the pain, I mean.”

  “Well, of course! Sure thing, little fella!” Walter was clearly delighted at the prospect of reintroducing liquor to the table. “You betcha! Waitress!”

  Dropsy had already shoved his way through the crowd to the far end of the bar, beyond easy visibility of Jim’s table of marks. From across the bar he made brief eye contact with Malaria, who gave him a scolding glance but hurried herself in the direction of Jim’s table of marks just the same. She didn’t approve of the boys’ thieving shenanigans, but neither did she wish them harm and so intended to keep a close eye. Dropsy wedged himself against the wall near the back end of the stage in just the right way, finding a good vantage point from which he could catch Jim’s eventual signal indicating the commencement of phase two.

  Buddy’s horn was awfully harsh at such close range, but Dropsy decided it would be rude to jam a finger in for relief so close to the stage where people could see. And just then, with a quick motion of Buddy’s hand, the band stopped all at once—the sudden absence of sound leaving a tinny whine in Dropsy’s ears. Buddy took the opportunity to berate the crowd, imploring them to “not be so dern cheap and how about a tip for the band and nevermind the dern waitresses, they make good enough money around the block when they whorin’.” Finally stepping down from the low platform, Buddy took two quick strides before throwing an arm around Dropsy’s shoulder.

  “How’s my favorite cuz tonight?”

  Buddy’s grin made Dropsy flinch.

  “Not yer cousin, Buddy. Just a plain old brother-in-law.”

  “Such a stickler for detail, cuz. Impressive talk coming from an idjit.”

  Dropsy knew good and well Buddy awarded no favoritism in this world whether brother, cousin, or casual acquaintance. “Doin’ just fine, Buddy. Yerself?”

  “Looks like you boys gotcher selves a little tat on, eh?”

  “Tryin’ to keep low here, Buddy” It’s hard to be invisible when the bandleader is chatting you up. “If you don’t mind.”

  “Ah, no, I don’t mind a’tall, Dropsy.” Of course Buddy not minding was no indicator as to whether he might do a fellow a favor by shutting up and moving on. “How’s that pretty little sister of your’n, cuz?”

  “Got two pretty sisters, Buddy,” Dropsy said with a sniff and a glance in Malaria’s direction, not liking the direction of Buddy’s banter, smelling the whiskey on his breath and knowing how whiskey made him ugly.

  “You know the one I’m talking about, cuz. Not the barmaid. The whore. The one I married. The one bore me a son.”

  Before Dropsy’s brain could formulate a response, two attractive working gals—both light-skinned but only one with light-skinned features—surrounded Buddy from either side.

  “Well, ladies!” Buddy’s patented lady-killer glow poked sparkling pinpricks through the red of his eyes.

  “Hi, Buddy!” the two chirped in giggly unison.

  “Such beauty in this ugly world. Almost makes life worth livin’, knowin’ such creatures as your fine selves exist.” Café au lait cheeks flushed rosy pink, giggles fluttering onward and upward with rising pitch.

  Giggling whore #1: “Want I should hold yer horn fer ya, Buddy?”

  Giggling whore #2: “Want sumpin’ ta drink, Buddy?”

  “Well, you ladies shore are kind to a working man. I’ll just hang onto my little baby,” stroking his horn, “but I admit to bein’ mighty dry. My usual, if you please.”

  The girls scampered off competitively for the right to retrieve Buddy’s famous poison of choice, a double shot of Raleigh Rye. Dropsy’s eyes rolled—Raleigh was also Jim’s drink, as a direct result of Buddy’s example.

  “Yer little cracker pal seems to be giving those gents a mighty good show, cuz. If they don’t pay out on the tat, they oughta pay him for sheer entertainment value.”

  Dropsy was fully aware that Jim’s adulation for Buddy failed to dilute the musician’s contempt for him.

  “I ’spect there’s still a little bit of that devil left in him yet.”

  “Jim’s the smoothest tat operator ever was,” Dropsy monotoned in proud defense of his friend.

  “Still ain’t answered mah first question, boy.” Buddy’s lips had flattened, the red of his eyes regaining control. It could chill a person’s blood when Buddy’s mood dropped like that—and Dropsy gave a shiver to prove it.

  “Diphtheria just fine, Buddy. Just fine.”

  “Look me in the eye when you talk to me, boy.”

  Dropsy kept his gaze in place. “Watching for a signal, Buddy. You know that. Gotta keep lookin’ at Jim. Got a tat on.”

  Buddy grabbed him by the bicep and spun him around till Dropsy’s eyes left Jim and locked with his own.

  “You lippin’ me, boy?” Buddy low-toned through clenched teeth.

  “Nah, Buddy. I’s just workin’. You know that.” Buddy bore into Dropsy’s eyes five seconds more before releasing his grip and coughing up a particularly ugly laugh. Dropsy brushed his arm as if ridding himself of ants before directing the compass of his nose back to the night’s True North. He wasn’t completely sure he hadn’t missed the signal. Dropsy felt his heart thump with worry: Damn that drunken, horn-blowing fool.

  Buddy whinnied some more at the sight of Dropsy’s newly flared nostrils, “Just funnin’ with ya, cuz. Don’t get all excited now.”

  “I ain’t excited, Buddy,” Still steaming, but in control.

  “I tell ya, cuz,” Buddy switched gears from plainly mean to transparently tender, “If you see that pretty sister of your’n? The whore, I mean.” Grinning like a Cheshire cat now. “You tell her I’m pinin’ hard. Tell her I long for her sweet touch. Tell her I can’t rightly live without her. Tell her I could use a good fuck.”

  Dropsy struggled to keep his rage in check. There was business at hand; he had to keep a cool head and an eye on his partner.

  “You need to get yerself a sense of humor, cuz! Lord o’me you do, indeedy-do. Ha!”

  “I’ll keep that in mind, Buddy.”

  “Looks like my lucky night, cuz.” The two pretty octoroon hookers were making their way back to Buddy, each holding a double shot. Buddy placed a hand on Dropsy’s shoulder, noting its tremble. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, cuz. These fine ladies require my immediate and undivided attention.” With a girl on each arm, Buddy crossed the hall, past Black Benny, and down the stairs to the Eagle Saloon—presumably to go around the block for some quick crib-time before the next set. Dropsy silently conceded that, all things considered, it really wasn’t hard to see why Jim looked up to Buddy.

  Newly undistracted, Dropsy re-sharpened his focus on the business at hand—just as Malaria reached Jim’s table with a small circular tray balanced expertly on three fingers.

  “Sir?” she addressed Walter, avoiding eye contact with Jim.

  “Yes…um, another round of your fine red ale for my companions and I. And a shot of scotch for the youngster. And clean up this mess if you would, pretty darlin’.”

  “Rye, if you please,” corrected Jim weakly. “Raleigh Rye if you got some.”

  The Samaritan seemed unfazed by the youngster’s specific taste in liquor, saying only, “Raleigh Rye it is then.”

  Malaria’s eyebrows narrowed in Jim’s direction, her expression causing Walter to add, with measured indignance: “It’s for medicinal purposes only, young lady. So don’t give me no huff about his age. As you can see, our young guest has suffered injury and is in great pain.”

  “Of course, sir. Pardon.” Malaria gave the table a quick wipe with a rag before disappearing back into the crowd.

  One of the marks, a large bellied man with an unkempt black beard, peeled several alcohol-soaked playing cards from the floor. “Well, Walter, it looks like we’re done with cards for the night.”

  Good Samaritan Walter shot the fat man a scolding glance: “I just bought you another round, Tommy. All you
got is complaints? Well, ain’t that just fine.”

  Cautious laughter crept up the throats of the other three but was swallowed back, leaving residual twinkles in six bleary eyes. “Sorry, Walter. Thank you, Walter,” said Fat Tommy, with a sudden rosiness at the cheeks. Jim noted that Walter held some authority over the others. This was useful information, as it indicated they might have a tendency to follow Walter’s lead.

  After a few minutes Malaria returned, bending down to expose maximum cleavage as she laid out drinks. Walter paid, then tipped a nickel. She thanked him with a gracious smile then spun around quickly, her shoulder accidentally connecting hard with the bony chest of an old man with white hair and no nose.

  “I got my eye on you, devil.” Marcus Nobody Special stood on trembling legs, extending his right index finger in the direction of Jim Jam Jump. “Sent here by that Voodoo witch to make my life a hell. I know you.” The noise level around the table dropped to a murmur. “Listen, devil. I got my eye on you. Don’t think I don’t. I watch yer every move.” Jim stared at him blankly.

  “What in the name of Pete…” Walter looked at Jim suspiciously. “Do you know this man, son?”

  “No sir, never seen him. Sure is giving me the willies, though.”

  “Clear out, old timer,” said Walter, clearly rattled. “Take yer drunken nonsense elsewhere.”

  “Look at his eyes,” Marcus went on. “Don’t you see? Red as summer cherries!”

  “Look blue enough to me,” Fat Tommy offered after a cursory examination of Jim’s eyes.

  Malaria put a hand on Marcus’ shoulder but addressed Walter and Tommy. “Don’t mind Mr. Marcus. He’s just been drinking more than his share tonight. C’mon now, Mr. Marcus. Let’s take us a little walk and get some fresh air.”

  “Ain’t drunk,” Marcus protested weakly. “Not too drunk, anyways.”