A Song to Die For (17 page)

“Well, do you hate it, or like it?”

“I think I like the hell out of it.”

“Me, too. But we'll let it set for now and see if it stands up tomorrow. Might be the dumbest dirge in history for all we know. You can't tell when you're in love with the creativity of it all.” He put the guitar down and picked up his beer can. “What's the diagnosis down there, doc?”

Creed shimmied out from under the Silver Eagle, stood and dusted himself off, then climbed into the bus. He sat in the driver's seat, stomped on the clutch, and tested the gearshift. It seemed jammed, but he didn't want to force it.

“What are you doing?” Luster asked, peeking inside.

“Trying to get the gears to shift.”

“Jiggle it a little in the middle, it'll go.”

Creed grinned. “Write that down.” He took Luster's advice, jiggling the shift knob. The gearshift fell magically into place. He ran through all four forward gears and reverse. “Feels like we have a transmission, Boss. We need to get some new tires on this thing and flush that fuel tank out. We'll put some fresh diesel in it and some new oil in the motor and crank it. Then we can figure out what else it needs. I think I might actually be able to fix this behemoth.”

Feeling a sudden need to relieve himself after having consumed four beers between Luster's ranch and here, he turned and marched toward the back of the bus.

Luster followed him. “I was afraid you might say that. How are we going to explain this thing? We'll have to claim we chose it on purpose in a fit of nostalgia or something.”

Once around the back of the bus, out of sight of the highway, Creed unbuttoned his Levi jeans to relieve the pressure of four beers in his bladder. Angling away, for some semblance of privacy, Luster followed Creed's example. It was a little awkward, but they both knew that two guys in the same band were going to have to learn to urinate together at some point.

“You know,” Creed said. “In my wildest dreams, I never thought I'd be pissin' shoulder-to-shoulder with Luster Burnett.”

“If this is your wildest dream, you need to set your sights a little higher.”

“I'll take that to heart,” Creed promised, buttoning up. “I've been wondering…”

“You sure wonder a lot, Hoss.” Luster began the stroll back to the other side of the bus.

“Why now?”

At the front of the Silver Eagle, Luster sat in the lawn chair and gestured to the cooler for Creed to sit. “The comeback? After all these years?”

“Yeah.”

Luster sighed. “You know I quit when my wife died.”

“That's what I'd always heard.”

“I didn't have the drive anymore. My Virginia, God rest her soul, she just loved that ranch on Onion Creek. As addictive as that honky-tonk trail can be—and you know it is—the best times of my life were with her, there on the ranch, when I was off the road. I buried her there. Then, when it came time to hit the road again, I just couldn't do it. I couldn't leave her.” Luster snapped his finger and pointed at the cooler.

Creed jumped up, opened the lid, and reached in for two more Pearls. “And now? What's changed?”

“I don't want to lose her all over again.”

Creed gulped the Pearl, feeling the buzz of several beers now. “What do you mean?”

“I had this business manager. Buster Tull. One of my oldest pals from back home. Luster and Buster. We made quite a pair. He played drums in my first band, but he wasn't very good, so he became my business manager. He was good at that. Real good. He looked after my money. He made my money make money. When Virginia died, and I retired to the ranch, Buster stayed in Nashville and pitched my songs on a commission basis. He kept my songs making money, year after year, cut after cut.”

“Sure. I've heard dozens of covers of your tunes over the years. None as good as yours.”

“You can't beat an original Luster Burnett cut, son. It just can't be done. But those covers kept the mailbox money coming in, and I was grateful for every one of them. I thought I was set for life.”

“What changed?”

“I came home from a poker game about dawn, a few weeks ago. I had lost a few thousand, but I didn't care. Hell I didn't need the money. So I thought. I had been in a slump for a while, to tell you the truth, and I had some gambling markers out there, from here to Louisiana. But everybody knows I'm always good for my markers. I always pay up when the royalty checks come in.

“So, I crawl into bed about dawn, and the phone rings. It's my lawyer. He says, ‘Luster are you sitting down?' I said, ‘I'm in bed.' He said, ‘Get out of bed and sit down.' So I did. Then he proceeded to tell me that my old pal and business manager, Buster Tull, had blowed his brains out with a twelve-gauge shotgun.”

“Oh, shit,” Creed said.

“That's what I said. My lawyer goes on to tell me the reason. Buster had been raking off the top for years. Decades. He'd been stealing from me. Worse yet, he did my taxes for me, too, and he'd been lying to the I.R.S. about my income. Well, he got called up for an audit, and knew the shit was about to hit the fan. I guess he couldn't face me, or live with himself, so he put the muzzle of that old scatter gun in his mouth and…”

Creed gulped more beer. “How bad is it?”

“Pretty bad. He's still dead.” Luster laughed and turned his beer can upside down over his mouth.

“No, I mean…”

“I know what you mean. It's pretty bad. I owe about fifty grand in gambling debts here and there. But that's chicken feed compared to what I owe Uncle Sugar. I'm in for about seventeen million with the Infernal Revenue Service.”

The sum hit Creed like an anvil. Seventeen million? With no major label deal. No distribution. No tour support. No radio. How in the hell did Luster expect to earn back that kind of money? “Whoa” was all he could think of to say.

“They want to take my ranch, even though it ain't worth seventeen million. I can't let them do that, Creed. My wife is buried there. That would be like taking my Virginia all over again, and I won't have that.”

“How much time do we have before they take the ranch?”

“You don't even want to know, son.”

Creed looked into the face of his hero. He seemed relaxed, even amused. “How do you do it? How do you deal with it? You don't even seem worried.”

“That's the funny thing. I'm eatin' this shit up. You remember that old hungry feeling you had when you went to Nashville the first time, without a job, a deal, or a dollar in your pocket?”

“Sure.”

“Well, I've got the hunger again. Never thought I would. Once I got over the shock of what Buster had done, it just hit me. I got off my ass, picked up a guitar, and started singing. Felt good. Then I went to Nashville and those snot-nosed sons-of-bitches told me I couldn't make a comeback. That just fueled the hunger. The hell I can't make a comeback. I'm Luster by-God Burnett! I'm gonna take the world by storm all over again!” Luster guzzled a beer, crushed a can, then tossed it over his shoulder.

“Damn right!” Creed slammed his beer, too.

“But you know what worries me, Creed? I mean, do you know what
really
worries me?”

Creed shook his head.

“Not a cotton-pickin' thing!” Luster blurted. He laughed and motioned for another brew. “If I can't out-bluff some piss-ant bureaucrats arrogant enough to think they can tax music, I don't deserve to be called Luster.” He looked over his shoulder, as if a revenuer might be standing there. “Tax this, you son-of-a-bitch!”

Luster strummed an open chord, and with his golden voice, began to sing:

“Fair thee well

May your good times never end

May you always find a friend

At every crossroads and bend…”

Creed sat on the cooler, staring at his country music hero as he smoothed out the bumps in the infant song. “Damn, that was pretty,” he said. “I can't believe I just wrote a song with Luster Burnett.
The
Luster Burnett.”

“Yeah, well, you know the deal. Get your ass back under the bus.”

 

15

CHAPTER

Hooley woke to the sound of the truck door opening, his hand reaching instinctively for the grip of the autoloader holstered at his hip.

“Take it easy, Hooley,” Mel Doolittle said in the dark. “It's just me, Mel.”

Hooley had dozed off in the seat of his truck in the parking lot, waiting for Mel to come back from The Crew's Inn.

“Have a nice nap?” Mel said.

“Lovely. You get anywhere?” Hooley rubbed his face and sat up in the seat.

Mel got in and politely clicked the passenger door closed as he sighed in resignation. “Have these people
ever
seen a black man before?”

“I tried to tell you.” He pushed at the ache in his lower back.

“The owner gave me an application for a dishwashing job!”

“You should have took it. Good undercover cover.”

“I graduated summa cum laude from Delaware State,” Mel said, defensively.

“Well, you're Leroy-come-lately around here. Did you get
anything
?”

“I followed the plan. I posed as a fisherman. Nobody would give me the time of day. I asked around about the girl who had died on the lake. They all clammed up tight. The owner told me I'd better stop harassing the customers, or he'd throw me out.”

“Don't take it personal. Nobody around here wants to talk to a colored Yankee about a dead mob girl. Besides, you look like a cop.”

“They didn't make me. I'm sure of that.”

“Uh huh.”

“Anyway, it wasn't a total loss. I witnessed the owner—his name's Patrick Palmer—I witnessed him selling beer to minors. They looked like they were about fifteen. And he let a couple of customers walk out with their drinks.”

“I saw 'em, too. They got in their car and drove off with their beers.”

“That's a liquor violation in Texas, isn't it?”

“Yep. Maybe that'll give us a little leverage.” He reached over and nudged Mel's shoulder roughly with his fist. “Good job, Special Agent Doolittle. You got more than I thought you would in that white cracker bar. So, is your ol' pal Patrick shuttin' the place down for the night?”

“I was the last one to leave. He still wouldn't talk to me, even after everyone else had gone. But I overheard him in conversation say that he lived in the condos next door.”

Hooley saw the light go out in the back of the bar. Patrick Palmer stepped out and locked the door. “My turn,” he said to Mel. “Wait here.”

Hooley quietly stepped out of the truck and shut the door. He walked toward the bar as the owner turned to trudge toward the condominiums.

“Mr. Palmer!” he shouted.

Palmer wheeled. “Who's that?”

“Captain Hooley Johnson, Texas Rangers.”

“Now what,” Palmer whined.

“I thought you could use some advice.”

Palmer's shoulders slumped, weary of all the unwanted attention. “Advice? On what?”

“How to keep your liquor license.” Hooley walked up close to the bedraggled entrepreneur and stopped in front of him.

“Why are you people harassing me?” Palmer said. “I run a quiet little lakeside bar. I ain't askin' for trouble.”

“Selling to minors? Letting drinks walk off the premises?”

“Yeah, I'm a real menace to society, Captain. You gonna bust me, or what?”

“I'm here to help you, Mr. Palmer. I can keep these other law dogs off your back.”

“Yeah? In exchange for what?”

“Information. I need to know what happened that night.”

“I already told the other cops everything I know, which is
nothin'
. You know, if you'd coordinate with the sheriff's office and the F.B.I., you'd know all this already.”

“F.B.I.?” How had Doolittle allowed himself to be pegged as a fed, Hooley wondered.

“Yes, there was an agent here.”

“Colored?”

“No, not the one tonight. That kid had cop written all over him, but I didn't figure him for F.B.I.”

Puzzled now, Hooley pressed. “If not tonight, when?”

“Last night. Some agent nabbed me on the way home. Right about here, just like you. Flashed a badge, but I forgot his name.”

“What did he look like?”

“About five-ten, burly. White guy.”

“And he said he was F.B.I.?”

“Bigger than shit. He was wearing an F.B.I. cap.”

Hooley pretended to remember. “Oh, yeah. That would be Special Agent what's-his-name. By the way, the colored kid was F.B.I., too. He's sitting in my truck right now. He's got one of those new portable spy telephones, and he's just dying to call you in for liquor violations and ruin your life. He's a little pissed that you pegged him for a dishwasher. But if you'll help me, I can keep him off your ass.”

Palmer bowed his head in surrender. “I don't know who gave that girl a ride. I didn't see anything.”

“But…”

“But … A guy had been hanging around the bar, maybe twice a week, for a couple of weeks. He would boat to the dock, and come in for a couple of drinks. I never got his name. But I haven't seen him since the girl died.”

“Describe him.”

“White guy. Tall. Maybe six-two or -three. Long hair. Brown, or dark brown, or maybe black, I don't know. I never had reason to notice the details, you know what I mean?”

“What was he like in the bar?”

Palmer shrugged. “He hit on some girls. They all shot him down. He'd play the jukebox a lot.”

“What kind of music?”

“Country. The old classic stuff. He played this one Luster Burnett song over and over. ‘Like an Old Coyote.' You know, the one where he howls like a coyote. Drove everybody crazy with that song.”