Buffalo Bayou Blues Read online

  “Lyle,” Jake Weller said, “write down the license plate of this...Ford Expedition. It may be needed in case any damage is done on the property.”

  Jessica laughed and stepped forward, her hands on her hips. “You two have no clue who you’re dealing with.”

  Jake crossed his arms and propped the heel of his hand underneath his chin. “Well why don’t you tell us?” he said.

  Jessica turned and looked at me. “Dad? You want to, or should I?”

  I nodded. “I’ll do it.”

  I stepped forward and fished my wallet out of my back pocket and flipped it open. I walked up to Jake Weller and held it up for him to see.

  “Texas...Rangers?” he whispered.

  “Huh?” Lyle asked.

  “Well don’t that beat everything,” Weller said, then turned to Lyle and said, “Never mind.”

  I nodded. “It’s sort of a trump card,” I said. “Why don’t you boys turn around. And as for writing down the license plate number, I’d prefer you didn’t.”

  Jake shook his head, backed up two paces, pivoted and walked hurriedly back to the truck. He got inside and slammed the door. Lyle still stood there with the notepad and pen in his hand.

  “What’s happening?” Lyle asked.

  “Get in here, Lyle. Now!” Jake shouted.

  Within ten seconds the truck was headed away in a cloud of dust.

  “I don’t believe it,” Jimmy Atwell said. “What just occurred here, Willard?”

  “My dad,” Jennifer said, “is a Texas Ranger.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Why would you bring a Texas Ranger, Willard?” Jimmy Atwell asked. “To arrest me?”

  “Not exactly,” Cottonmouth said. “I think you ought to listen to what he has to say.”

  “Well, let’s get out of the hot sun. There’s not enough room for everybody in my travel trailer, so let’s go down to the Nite Wing. Rick is probably just opening up. We can sit at a table and the grownups can have a beer—the kids can have a coke, I suppose.”

  “If you don’t mind me asking,” I said, “how did you lose your legs?”

  “One at a time, to diabetes,” Atwell said.

  “Then you’d probably better not have a beer.”

  “I do have a beer on occasion. It’s a near-beer, though. You’re right. I can’t drink anymore, unless I’m ready to commit suicide. My kidneys and my liver are shot, I don’t have much of a pancreas left. This is what I’m down to. I’m seventy pounds, and losing. I guess I’m not long for this world.”

  “A beer at your blues bar sounds fine,” I said. “What about it, Jess?”

  She nodded. “Yeah. I could use one about now.”

  “What are we going to talk about?” Atwell asked me.

  “About your son-in-law. What the problem with him is, and what can be done about it.”

  Atwell nodded slowly.“Okay. I’ll drive Willard down in my truck. I guess the rest of you can follow.”

  “Give Jessica the address,” I said. “In case you roll through a red light or something, we’ll be able to still get there.”

  “Bubba,” Cottonmouth said, “you ride with Jennifer. She’s taken a shine to you.”

  Bubba nodded.

  “He don’t say much, does he?” Atwell asked Cottonmouth.

  “Never did.”

  Atwell gave Jessica the address, then moved his golf cart over beside the door to his pickup. The whole while I wondered how he could drive either of the vehicles without any legs, but as he shifted over to the opposite side of the car, I took a quick look at the controls, and noted that both throttle and brake had been wired to knobs beside the steering wheel, and clearly labeled. I was willing to bet that his pickup was all hand controls as well.

  “Don’t worry, Mr. Travis,” Cottonmouth said. “He’s driven me all over God’s creation in that thing. It’s as safe as anything else.”

  I nodded and with a gesture got the rest of the troop moving back to the Expedition.

  Within a minute we were headed back out of the dismal wrecking yard that was Atwell, Inc., and I was glad of that fact.

  *****

  The Nite Wing was right on Buffalo Bayou, north of the heart of downtown Houston near the corner of Milam and something else, I couldn’t see what. Most of the streets of the downtown area are one way, so we were able to pull in front of the building facing south and directly into the lowering sun, and park on a meter. As we did, I began assessing the place.

  To my pleasant surprise, it was not a run-down back street bar, but instead a historic building complete with its own Texas State Historical placard. In front of us, the driver’s door opened and a wheelchair slid out and down onto the street. Atwell’s right arm, sagging skin and all, put in an appearance and deftly popped the wheelchair open. His torso pivoted about, as if he were a carnival acrobat, and he nimbly lowered himself down into it and wheeled back towards us and on past.

  Jessica turned to me and said, “He sure gets around, doesn’t he?”

  I nodded.

  We got out. Atwell wheeled himself up onto the sidewalk via a side driveway, and Cottonmouth trudged along behind him. Jessica, Jennifer, Bubba and I stepped up the two brick steps and onto the sidewalk and beneath the flat-topped first story roof that jutted out from the building to the street. I noted that along the side of the four-story building was an old-fashioned fire escape that looked out over Buffalo Bayou. I smelled the river-scent—that not unpleasant odor of silted brown water and water-logged vegetation, and thought about catfish.

  The front door was unlocked and Cottonmouth opened it for Atwell, and the man wheeled himself in. The rest of us followed.

  The place, first of all, was not dark inside, as I had imagined it. The old, turn-of-the-20th- Century dark windows from out front were instead tinted on the inside, and let in enough light to see by clearly enough. Added to this were evenly-spaced antique wall sconces which shed clear yellow light throughout the establishment. In the center of the place was the bar, a rectangular affair from which subtended rows of wine glasses, bottoms up.

  “Nice place,” I said.

  “When it gets dark and people start coming in here, it gets to hopping,” Atwell said.

  “Hey boss,” the man behind the bar said. He was a young tough, or at least did his best to appear so. He wore a skin-tight black tee shirt and had a bar towel over one shoulder. A mop of curly, light brown hair framed his face, which to my mind was unremarkable. Jessica, however, appraised him and smirked.

  “Rick, set up three beers,” Atwell replied. “Whatever you have ready on draft. A near beer for me, and a couple of cokes for the two minors.”

  “Sure thing. Have a seat and I’ll bring it all over.”

  Atwell wheeled himself to a long table not far from a small stage—no more than a single step upwards—upon which was some sound equipment complete with speakers and a couple of microphone stands. Wires went this way and that, and plugged into power strips that were nailed to the sides of the stage.

  We all took a seat, Cottonmouth sitting at Atwell’s right elbow and me across from him. Bubba took the chair next to his grandfather.

  “This place is my pride and joy, my home away from home,” Atwell said.

  “Speaking of your home,” I said, “it appears to me that Atwell, Incorporated has seen better days. Sorry to be so critical.”

  “Oh, the plant? Well, that’s true. Dale, my son-in-law, has very nearly destroyed it over the last ten years. I was going to retire, move to Hollywood Beach, Florida, and live out the rest of my days in one of those beach cabanas, comb the beach and play gin rummy with a bunch of other retirees. But less than a month after Dale took over, things started going south. He laid off about a third of the work force—all the best men and women, some of them had been with me for twenty, thirty years and more. I knew then that I couldn’t move. Didn’t dare move.”

  About that time the phone started ringing at the bar, and Rick answered it. I saw him nod and
put the phone against his chest and look our way. I was about to let Atwell know that he might have a phone call to handle, when Rick put the phone back to his ear, said a few words, then hung up.

  I watched as Rick then loaded up a tray with cokes and beers, then brought them over.

  “Who was that on the phone?” Atwell asked him.

  “Deuteronomy.”

  “What did Jones want?”

  “He says he can’t make it tonight.”

  “Did he give you a reason why?”

  “No sir. Just told me to let you know.”

  “Hmph,” Atwell said, and took the near beer that Rick put in front of him and pulled hard on it, like it was a real beer or something.

  “Who’s Deuteronomy Jones?” I asked.

  Cottonmouth chimed in, “One of the best bluesmen west of the Mississippi.”

  “Funny name,” Jennifer said. “Isn’t that from...the Bible?”

  “It is,” Cottonmouth replied. “You might think that’s just a made up name, too, but it ain’t. His real name is Dexter Deuteronomy Jones. His father was a preacher. I guess the old man preferred the Old Testament. Deuteronomy makes a better stage name than Dexter, too, so why not use it?”

  “Oh, I like it,” Jennifer said.

  Cottonmouth took his beer and clinked it against the coke in Jennifer’s hand, which made her smile.

  “I love this place,” Jennifer said. “My dad never takes me to places like this. Never in a million years.”

  “That’s because I’m a good father,” I reminded her.

  She shrugged.

  “Dute was my headliner tonight,” Atwell said. “Don’t get me wrong, Willard is good and all, and the crowds love him. But Dute is much younger, and he’s got stamina.”

  “What are you talkin’ about, Jimmy?” Cottonmouth said. “I figured you’ve just been fostering him so that he’ll keep coming back, but I made this place you’ve got here. I was playing here for months when you couldn’t get anybody else. Now that you got a lot of the boys coming through here, I can take it easy, and I sure don’t mind doing that. But Dute? I can stomp that boy into the ground any night, on stage or off it.”

  Atwell looked at Cottonmouth, disbelieving. He turned to me. “What was it we were talking about before?”

  “The condition of Atwell, Inc.,” I said.

  “Oh. Well, you know, when I bought the place back in ‘75, it was still called Merchant’s Pass. That’s what it says on the old maps. That little bend in the river cost me a pretty penny. I leveraged it by taking out a loan on the original Nite Wing, plus I called in a few markers from the old days.”

  “I’ll bet,” I said.

  “We were a real operation back then. I had all the docks loading and unloading and the ships coming and going, day and night. For awhile it was mostly stuff coming in from Taiwan and Hong Kong and Singapore, and later it was Mexico and Malaysia. The trucks would take everything over to the wholesalers over on Harwin Street and I could have a shipment sold by telephone before it was all unloaded, which is itself a special skill. You know, know who needs or will sell what. I had a fine old time, and built the operation up to the hundreds of millions. Then we went through a big downturn in the 90s. Mostly it was because of NAFTA, and I couldn’t any longer compete with the big outfits. I had to start supplying some of the gas refineries with parts, and I got heavily into the East Texas oil patch for awhile, but mostly as a pipe supplier. Then that went south too. Still, I kept things afloat pretty well. I knew how to stick and move, like Ali used to say. Stick and move. Float like a butterfly, sting like a... Well, you know. Long story short, the place was still going, but I was getting older and I had let my health go. So, I decided it was time, and turned it all over to Dale. Ever since that day, he’s not only tried to run the place into the ground, he’s tried to run me into it as well.”

  A long silence ensued, and Atwell took the opportunity to sip at his not-quite-beer. I thought he was done, but then he put the bottle down and started again.

  “The real trouble started about six months ago when Dale bought the Blues Palace.”

  “He’s your competition now?” I asked, and then realized that Cottonmouth was staring at me. I looked at him and his eyes seemed to want to convey something.

  “He is,” Atwell admitted. “At first I thought that maybe he had seen the light, and wanted a piece of what I had for his own. The Blues Palace used to be a real fine place. I wouldn’t mind owning it myself. In fact, I approached Rutherford about buying him out years ago, but he just laughed at me. All of a sudden, Dale is in there and he’s running things, and let me tell you, the place isn’t so all-fired nice anymore.”

  “And why’s that?” Jessica asked.

  “Well, there’s always been a little dope peddled through places like this. Sometimes it’s the musicians, just needing a little something to keep them going, or it’s the wait staff, taking advantage of the clientele and making a little extra on the side. But no, that’s not what’s going on there now. There was this kid used to work over there named Felix La Paz. The boy was originally from New Orleans, but moved here as a refugee from Hurricane Katrina. I hired him for a few months, and then one day he bugged out. Something about going back to The Big Easy. But not before telling me about the cocaine and heroin shipments going through the place. And my son-in-law is not only involved, he’s running the operation.”

  “Can’t make any money through Atwell, Inc.,” Jessica said, “then make it somewhere else. Stands to reason.”

  The phone at the bar rang again. We all turned to look and Rick looked back at us.

  “I’m getting it,” he said. “Geez.”

  We waited.

  “Nite Wing,” he said. Then, “Just a minute.” Rick cradled the phone against his chest. “It’s Phonebooth.”

  “What does he want?” Atwell asked.

  “He’s canceling tonight, too,” Cottonmouth said, just above a whisper.

  “What do you want to tell him, Phonebooth?” Rick asked.

  A moment passed.

  “Uh huh,” Rick said. Then again, “Uh huh. Okay, I’ll relay the message. Yeah, see you later.” He hung up.

  “Well?” Atwell asked.

  “He says he can’t come tonight. Or any night. He’s got a real contract now.”

  “A real contract?”

  “Yeah. Didn’t say where.”

  “Do you think,” I began, “that there’s a chance he’s gone to work for your son-in-law?”

  Atwell’s face changed before our eyes. It slowly took on the aspect of one of those rough rock formations hanging over the highway up in the Smokey Mountains, or perhaps some place in the Black Hills of South Dakota. As it grew stonier, it reddened.

  Atwell’s right hand abruptly swept the bottle of fake beer in front of him from the table. It smacked down hard onto the stained and polished concrete and shattered.

  “What’d you do that for, boss?” Rick asked. “Now I’ve got to clean it up.”

  “That son of a bitch,” Atwell said.

  “Easy there,” Cottonmouth said. “Just breathe for a minute, Jimmy.”

  “I’m breathing,” Atwell said. “I’m breathing just fine! Willard, the man is trying to destroy me. He’s destroyed my company, and now he’s trying to destroy the last thing I have of any value—this place.”

  “I think,” I said, “that you’d better tell me the one thing you haven’t mentioned at all.”

  “What the hell is that?” Atwell asked.

  “The story. By which I mean, the whole story.”

  “What story?” the man asked. He was far from recovered, as yet.

  “The story of you and your daughter,” I said.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Wait!” Jennifer said. “Time out. I have to know who the hell Phonebooth is!”

  “Hey,” I said. “Language.”

  “Hell isn’t language.”

  “She’s got a point, dad,” Jessica stated. “I want
to know, too.”

  Cottonmouth supplied the answer. “Blaine ‘Phonebooth’ Thomas. He got the name Phonebooth because he was always rapping with the ladies. One night after a set, when everybody was heading home for the night, he was in the phone booth around the corner playing his saxophone to some girl.”

  “That’s perfect!” Jennifer said, and slapped the table.

  Bubba raised his hand and made a fist, and grinned. Jennifer copied him, mirror image-wise, and they bumped fists.

  “Kids,” I said.

  “Willard,” Atwell said, “you can’t go on by yourself tonight. It was going to be Deuteronomy, then Phonebooth. You can’t sing and play for four hours.”

  “Watch me,” Cottonmouth said.

  “Okay.”

  All the while they were talking, I felt a prickly sensation on the back of my neck. There was definitely danger here, but I wasn’t sure from what quarter. Suddenly I had become aware of everything in the place—the position of each person, the distance to the front door and the positions of the intervening support columns. Where the side exit was positioned with its red EXIT sign hanging slightly skewed above it. Everything was there, in a twinkling.

  “What is it, Mr. Travis?” Cottonmouth asked.

  I breathed. “I don’t know. Bad things usually come in threes. First there was Deuteronomy calling to cancel. Then Phonebooth. I guess I’m...”

  “Waiting for the other shoe to drop,” Cottonmouth finished for me.

  “Yeah.”

  “I think—” Jessica began, but her words were cut short by the explosion of glass from the front of the building.

  “Everybody down!” I shouted, and watched the incredible seeming slowness with which my daughters moved from their chairs and to the floor. Bubba Dalton, however, moved even more slowly than his old man. Jimmy Atwell seemed frozen in place, as solid as a two-by-four.

  I felt the air from one bullet pass me and noted, absently, how it seemed to flatten itself into the side of the bar. Ricky was gone, probably somewhere on the floor behind the bar.

  The glass continued to shatter twenty feet away from us, but I was already on my feet and moving toward the front door.