Dark End Of The Street

Chapter 39

We found Bobby Lee cook in a back booth at the Golden Lotus playing Boggle with three strippers. A little girl, looking about fourteen and wearing a gold bikini, shook the bubble and plunked down the game removing the plastic lid. A black woman, who looked as if she’d been stripping since Earl Long’s days on Bourbon Street, was the first to yell out a word from the dice-like letters, “There it is: Cooch.”

The other two girls, identical blondes with bobbed hair and rhinestone-studded halter tops, squealed with laughter. The young one in the gold bikini protested, “That’s bullshit, Tiki. That ain’t no word.”

Always seemed strange to me when such beautiful people can have such guttural accents. The little girl looked like she should be shopping at some midtown mall with her daddy’s credit card, but instead talked like a featured part of an Appalachian documentary, the kind with snake handlers, brother-sister marriages, and kids who thought toothpaste was a rare but tasty treat.

“Sure it is, cooch,” the black woman said. “Like as in coochie.”

“Yeah, but you spellin’ it with a K, ain’t that right, Bobby Lee? Look. K-O-O-C-C-H-I.” The little girl thrust the game in front of him for closer inspection. “That ain’t no word. It’s some kind of furrin country.”

Cook hadn’t seen us yet, even though we’d slid into a booth right next to him and his girls. As we waited, Loretta didn’t take off her coat, her gaze wandering over the cinder block walls and concrete floor. A half-dozen girls thrust and ground their hips to some Huey Lewis and the News relic on mini stages around the bar.

I kept listening to the women, shaking off a waitress who came over to take our order. A few seconds later, Loretta nodded and I tapped Cook on his shoulder. He was wearing a black muscle T-shirt, the nape of his neck coated in black-and-white hair. Even over the booth he emitted an odor of vinegar and talc.

I stared over his shoulder at the game. “Oh, there’s one more,” I said. “A-S-S, and on the other side there is a big ole hole.”

He turned.

“Hey, get the fuck out of here, Travers,” he said, pinching the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger when he saw me, being surprisingly cool. “You ruined my shirt. It was Calvin Klein.”

He scooted out of the booth, the little girl pulling the game close to her and reading different words she saw. I think she was really looking for asshole.

I remained seated, smiling up at him. But his eyes moved right over me to Loretta, his face softening. All that hard light in his eyes gone as he moved in beside her. “Holy shit. Loretta. Good God. I thought this boy was kidding.”

He hugged her tight and Loretta hugged him back. Her thick hands covered in gold rings, patted his shoulder. He motioned quickly over to the waitress and asked us what we wanted.

“Where’s the pooch?” I asked.

“Vet.”

“What happened?”

“Diarrhea. Got into my protein powder the other day. Shit all over the D.J. booth.”

His teeth looked yellow in the low light and I had to bend my ear toward him to make out what he was saying over the pumping music.

“Too bad. Nice dog.”

Loretta said something and he nodded. “You want something, buddy?”

“Beer,” I said. “Just a beer.”

He shrugged, told the waitress, and off she went. The girls remained at the next booth, its vinyl sealed in places with duct tape, laughing and shaking the Boggle bubble. I heard one of them make up another dirty word that I’d never heard but thought I understood from the way it sounded.

Loretta folded her hands before her and leaned in close to Cook. “Bobby, I known you for thirty-five years and I need help. Where’s Clyde?”

He looked at me and I could tell he was grinding the hell out of his teeth. The waitress came back and handed me a beer. Miller Lite. The worst.

“Clyde’s dead, Loretta,” he said in a soft graveled voice. “I’m sorry.”

I started absently peeling the label from the beer – much better than drinking it – and watched the neon light flash across Cook’s craggy face and blue eyes. I could tell he was holding his breath, his eyes staring straight into Loretta’s.

“He’s alive,” I said, looking at the table. I held my gaze for a few seconds and then stared up at Cook. “I know. I have witnesses. We just want to know where.”

“You don’t want-”

“To what? Let this woman that you like so much find her only brother? Yeah, that’d be a real shame. Listen, I know you guys were into some pretty fucked-up shit back then. Using the label as a wash for your buddies from Biloxi.”

Cook kept his head down and nodded along with a wide grin. He started laughing when I mentioned the name Levi Ransom and said that I believed Ransom had sent two men to hassle Loretta in New Orleans.

“You want to tell me what all that means?” I asked.

He just kept laughing. “Man, you have a hell of an imagination, Travers. Loretta, this boy really your friend?”

She smiled. “We just want to find Clyde. We don’t want to get you in no kind of trouble.” I felt her hand tightly grip my knee under the table.

“I do that to your head?” Cook asked, motioning at my bruised temple.

“Yeah,” I said. “Cook, you are the toughest.”

“Loretta,” he said, grabbing her hand and massaging her fingers. “Clyde is dead. All right? You understand? He’s not been with us for a long time. You remember how he used to get? He left us when all that stuff happened with Mary. Those blackouts and the fits. It got so much worse. Be glad you were in New Orleans. We all tried to help.”

I watched Loretta’s face tighten and eyes wander to an old jukebox in the corner, lights flashing and neon pumping with music that was a relic from another age.

“If he’s alive,” she said, “I want to know.”

The music faded out and the jukebox started playing Otis Clay’s “Tryin’ to Live Without You.” That driving Willie Mitchell beat and Hi horn section unmistakable. Pure Memphis.

Cook ran his fingers over his biceps with pride and nodded slowly to himself until the black girl stood before us and tossed the Boggle on the table. “That little bitch broke it,” she said. “Redneck can’t spell and blame me. She spell tootsie like in Tootsie Pop with a U: T-U-T-S-I. You hire some trips, Bobby.”

The woman left and Otis Clay kept singing. Loretta watched his face while I looked away. This was her move. Anything he would tell us would come to her, not to me. He probably just wanted to move our scuffle over to a Winn-Dixie.

“You remember when we first started?” he asked. “You remember how I got that little movie theater over in Soulsville and me and Eddie Porter spent two weeks in July cutting up old mattresses and hanging them on the walls? I thought I was going to be a failure. Thought I’d never have enough money to pay my aunt back, thought I’d have to go back to driving trucks. But you changed it. Those first singles you put out made me. We bought new equipment. Hired a secretary. You remember Mae? Made me. You know?”

“So where is he?” she asked.

Cook ground his teeth some more and softly pounded his fist onto the table. “This is all show, you know? The girls. This isn’t me, Loretta. This is money. Got to make that money.”

She smiled at him and moved her hand over his, his fingers delicate and manicured.

“Y’all know the Harahan Bridge?” he asked.

Loretta nodded.

“He may still be there. It’s been a few years. Little camp where people live on the Tennessee side. I just didn’t want you to see what he’d become.”