Chapter 4
1
Although it’s nominally a tour for Kate McKay’s new book, A Woman’s Testament , the publisher has had nothing to do with planning the dates; Kate is an old hand when it comes to scheduling, and thus getting the biggest bang for her buck. The dates are far apart at the start of the tour, but they’ll speed up, including a few one-nighters. She’s told Corrie it’s like a prizefight: you feel out your opponent, then move in and start pummeling.
On May 10th, the gig is at Denver’s Ogden Theatre, which seats sixteen hundred or so. Corrie has nine AM coffee with the venue’s event coordinator, who assures her Kate will fill almost every seat. This is no doubt helped by the fact that there is no actual admission charge (although the book, random copies autographed, will be on sale).
The women have connecting accommodations high up in the Brown Palace Hotel. “Quite luxy,” Corrie says. “I’ve actually got a bidet.”
Kate laughs. “Enjoy it while you can. It’s apt to be all downhill from here.”
Corrie finishes with the coordinator at nine-thirty. She’s got a meeting back at the hotel with a bookseller from the Tattered Cover at ten-thirty. The woman will arrive with two hundred copies of A Woman’s Testament to sign. While Kate signs, Corrie will meet with the security person who’ll be with them until they leave town, bound for Omaha. His name is Brian “Bull” Durham. He’ll be joined by two more off-duty cops who will be with them from the time they leave for the gig until they’re back at the hotel.
Corrie arranged for Durham ahead of their arrival. The extras come courtesy of the Ogden’s event coordinator. News of Corrie’s adventure in Reno has spread. No one wants the famous Kate McKay attacked (or God forbid, assassinated) on their patch. At three PM, Corrie will be back at the hotel, readying a meeting room for the press conference, where Corrie herself will be asked many questions about what happened in Reno. She would prefer— much prefer—to stay in the background, but Kate insists, and Kate is the boss. Corrie tells herself she doesn’t resent being Kate’s show pony.
It’s going to be a busy day.
She’d like to have a few minutes to herself before meeting the bookstore lady—she needs to pee, for one thing—but when she sticks her head into Kate’s suite to see if the boss needs anything, she realizes me-time will have to wait a little longer, because the boss is having a full-bore Katie McKay tantrum. They aren’t common, and Corrie has discovered they’re basically harmless. It’s how Kate blows off steam. Corrie tries to not find this annoying or self-indulgent. She reminds herself that Kate is right, men are allowed to holler all the time—when in doubt, they scream and shout—but Corrie still doesn’t like it. It wasn’t the way she was raised.
“Mother FUCKER ! Cunt LICKER ! Bitch KITTY ! You have to be fucking SHITTING me!”
Kate looks up and sees Corrie standing in the doorway, mouth open. Kate tosses her phone on the couch and brushes her tousled hair away from her face with the backs of her hands. Gives Corrie a razor-thin smile. “So how’s your day going?”
“Better than yours, I guess,” Corrie says.
Kate goes to the window and looks out. “Have you ever noticed that the best curses, the most effective curses, always center on women and their parts? Motherfucker —to commit incest with one’s own progenitor—used to be the queen of curses, and even overuse hasn’t entirely robbed it of its power. And cunt . Is there an uglier word? It’s a goddam blunt instrument. Even cow , at least the way the British use it…”
“How about cocksucker ?”
Kate waves a dismissive hand. “An equal-opportunity vulgarity.”
“ Scumbag ?”
But Kate has lost interest. She’s looking out at the Rockies with her hands stuffed deep into the pockets of her Lafayette slacks.
“What’s wrong?”
“We lost our venue in fucking Buckeye City. Why are we finding this out so late? Because they were scared. Cowards! Buckeye City cowards! From now on I don’t even want to say its name. From this point forward it’s just the one that’s Not-Cleveland.”
Corrie doesn’t even need to consult her notes. “The Mingo?” She’s astounded.
“Yeah, that’s the one. Some soul-singing diva comes out of retirement, and we get bumped.” Then, grudgingly, “Okay, so it’s not just some diva. It’s Sista Bessie, and she’s great. Listened to her all the time when I was a teenager—”
“The Sista? Really? ‘Love You All Night,’ that Sista?”
Kate gives her a sour look. “She’s terrific, no doubt, but we still got bumped. Which pisses me off. I can’t call Sista Bessie a cunt, but the people who knocked us off the schedule? Them I call cunts! Them I call motherfuckers!”
Corrie keeps all the tour info on her laptop and her tablet, but she doesn’t need to go into her connecting room to get either of them. She’s got the tour—at least the midwestern part of it—by heart. “They can’t do that, Kate. I’ve got a contract. She’s a great singer, no doubt, but that date is ours ! May thirty-first!”
Kate points to her phone, which is half-buried between two couch cushions. “Read the event coordinator’s email if you want. Cowardly fucking cock-knocker didn’t even have the guts to call me. He quotes the ‘extraordinary circumstances’ clause in the contract.”
Corrie rescues Kate’s phone from its semi-internment, taps in the code, and looks at the email from Donald Gibson, the Mingo’s Program Director. The phrase extraordinary circumstances is there, all right. Now Kate’s tantrum seems justified. Corrie’s pretty mad herself. The nerve!
“This is bullshit. Extraordinary circumstances means a flood or a blizzard or a citywide blackout! Extraordinary circumstances would be if the damn building burned down. It doesn’t mean Sista Bessie! It wouldn’t even mean the Beatles if they decided to get back together!”
“They can’t,” Kate says, beginning to smile. “Two out of four ain’t rockin no more.”
“Well even if they did , and decided to play the Mingo! And they’re scrapping us for a date we made months in advance? Ridiculous. I’m calling this Gibson person and setting him straight.”
“Whoa, girl, slow your roll.” The smile is stronger now, and a tiny bit indulgent. The steam has been blown off; thus thinking can recommence. “Sista Bessie’s not the Beatles, but she’s a big deal. The woman hasn’t performed a full-on concert in ten or twelve years, let alone done a tour. She’s a legend. Also, she happens to be Black. We got some good press after that bitch scared you—”
“She did more than scare me. That hurt !”
“I’m sure it did, and I’m sure I’m being crass, but ask yourself what happens if I enforce my contract, lawyers and all, against Sista Bessie. In a city that’s forty per cent Black. How do I look if she says, ‘I’m sorry we had to cancel. White lady enforced her contract and took our date.’ How will that look? How will it sound ?”
Corrie thinks it over, and her conclusion makes her angrier than ever. “He knows that, right? This Donald Gibson person knows that.”
“You bet. He fucked us at the drive-thru, honey.”
He also fucked the people hoping to see you , Corrie thinks, but doesn’t say. “So what do we do?”
“Rearrange.”
Corrie’s heart sinks. She worked hard to fine-tune the schedule, and now Kate wants to trash it. Not that it’s Kate’s fault.
Putting her hands on Corrie’s shoulders, Kate says, “You can fix this. I have total confidence in you.”
“Flattery will get you nowhere.” Nevertheless, Corrie is flattered.
“The event coordinators in most cities will go along, Cor. It would be different if the summer concert season had started, but it hasn’t. Most of those halls are standing empty except on weekends. Also… we have three days off after Cincinnati, right?”
“Yes.”
“Suppose we take those off days in Not-Cleveland instead. We can go see Sista Bessie. How does that sound?”
“It actually sounds pretty cool. Listen, Kate, you’ve got that presser at five. What if you were to say that, in solidarity with your Black sisters and because you love Sista Bessie’s music, you’re giving up your date at the Mingo so the Sista can play?”
“If Donald Gibson says that wasn’t my idea—”
Corrie is smiling. “Do you think he’d dare?”
Kate kisses Corrie first on one cheek, then the other. “You’re good, Anderson. Very good indeed. And I think our new friend Donald will be happy to provide us with house seats for Sista’s first show. Do you concur?”
Corrie, smiling more widely than ever, says she absolutely does.
“Plus backstage passes. He better add those.” And then, with great satisfaction: “That scumbag.”
2
Thirteen hundred miles east of Denver, Izzy and Holly are once more having lunch in Dingley Park. As promised, Izzy buys.
Holly doesn’t waste time. “What’s up with Bill Wilson?” She adds: “Absolutely on the downlow.”
“It’s the jurors, for sure,” Izzy says. “Targeting them by proxy. Those murdered men behind the laundromat… you know about those two?”
“Of course,” Holly says, and chomps into her fish taco. “Dov Epstein and Frank Mitborough.”
“You really have been keeping tabs.”
“Buckeye Brandon had the names.”
“That busybody piece of shit,” Izzy says.
Holly wouldn’t exactly put it that way, but understands Izzy’s frustration. Whatever sources Buckeye Brandon has in the city PD, they’re good. And there was his scoop about Alan Duffrey, of course. “Have you gotten the names of the other jurors?”
“Six of the twelve so far, thanks to what Letitia Overton, Philip Jacoby, and Turner Kelly remember.”
“Those three names were…”
“Placed in the hands of the murder victims, yes.”
“Oough.”
“The jurors’ names were kept very close because of the nature of the case. The judge actually wanted them to call each other by their numbers.”
“Like in The Prisoner ,” Holly says.
“What?”
“A TV show. ‘I am not a number, I am a free man!’?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Never mind. Go on.”
“We’ll have the rest of the names when the Clerk of Courts comes back from Disney World. I reached out to her, but she says the names are locked up in her terminal of the courts system computer.”
“Of course they are,” Holly says. “The jurors probably don’t matter, anyway. They’re proxies, as you said. The ones who have to live so they can… how did he put it? Rue the day. Judge Witterson was in charge. Who was the prosecuting attorney?”
Izzy swirls a french fry in her ketchup and doesn’t answer.
Holly backtracks. “If you really don’t want to talk about it, that’s okay.”
Izzy looks up and smiles. It’s a wide one, making her look about sixteen for a brief moment. “You’re better at this than I am.”
Holly doesn’t know what to say. She’s flabbergasted.
“Which presents me with a problem. I’m a girl who believes in giving credit where credit is due, but I’m also a girl—”
“Woman,” Holly can’t help interjecting.
“Okay, I’m also a woman who has her eye on the lieutenancy if Lew Warwick retires in a few years. I don’t want the bureaucratic bullshit that goes with the job, but it’ll help with my pension. Also, I love his chair.”
“His chair?”
“It’s ergonomic. Never mind. What I’m saying is if you come up with some amazing deduction—like the one about twelve jurors plus possibly two others—giving you the credit could put me in a mess with the department.”
“Oh. Is that all.” Holly waves it away, and then says something so much a part of her that it seems neither ridiculously overmodest nor in the slightest extraordinary. “I don’t care about credit, I just like to find answers.”
“You mean that, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“You like to deduce .”
“I guess I do.”
“Eat your taco.”
Holly tucks in.
“All right, here’s more. The ADA who prosecuted Alan Duffrey is Doug Allen. He’s an up-and-comer with his eye on Albert Tantleff’s job as County Attorney when Tantleff retires. He went at this case hammer and tongs, so he could be the guy Bill Wilson calls the guilty party. Also, Tolliver claims— claims —he wrote Allen in February, fessing up to the frame job.”
“Holy gee. Any proof?”
“If you mean did he send an email or even a registered letter, no. Just regular snail-mail. Tolliver could be lying about that. He could also be lying about what he told Buckeye Brandon.”
“Do you believe that?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Can’t tell you. I have to re-interview someone first, but it’ll have to wait for tomorrow, when Doug Allen’s out of town at a Republican fundraiser.”
“Who’s the someone?”
Izzy shakes her head.
“Can you tell me later?”
“Yes, and at that point you can amaze me. Did you find the missing jewelry?”
“Some of it, yes.”
“Are you on the trail of the rest?”
Holly looks up from her second fish taco. Her eyes gleam. “ Hot on the trail.”
Izzy laughs. “That’s my Holly.”
3
That afternoon, Holly’s young friend Barbara Robinson gets a call from an unknown number. She answers cautiously. “Hello?”
“Is this the Barbara Robinson who wrote Faces Change ?” The caller has a deep voice for a woman. Husky. “It says on the flap that you live in Buckeye City.”
“Yes, this is her,” Barbara says, then, remembering her grammar: “She. How did you get my number?”
The woman laughs—a deep, rich sound that invites Barbara to join in. Barbara doesn’t, she’s been through enough with Holly not to trust unknown callers, but a smile touches her lips. “Spokeo,” her caller says. “It’s a website—”
“I know what Spokeo is,” Barbara says. She doesn’t, exactly, but knows it’s one of several sites that put names and locations together with phone numbers. For a fee, of course.
“You might think of going unlisted,” the woman says. “Now that you’re famous, and all.”
“People who write poetry aren’t famous and don’t usually need unlisted numbers,” Barbara says. The smile is more pronounced now. “Especially poets with only one published book under their belt.”
“I enjoyed it very much, especially that title poem, about faces changing. When you been in the bi’ness as long as I have—”
“What business? Who are you?” Thinking: It can’t be, it just can’t .
The woman with the rich, husky voice pushes on as if the question merits no answer… and if Barbara is right, it probably doesn’t. “You get to know people who are three -faced, let alone two. I wonder if I could get you to sign my copy. I know it’s pretty ballsy of me to ask, comin out of the blue like this, but since I’m in your town, I thought why not try? My mama always told me if you don’t ask, you don’t get.”
Barbara sits down. It’s either that or fall down. It’s crazy, but who else would call with such a bold request? Who but someone who’s used to having all sorts of whims catered to?
“Ma’am, are you… this is crazy, but are you Sista Bessie?”
That rich laugh again. “I am when I’m singin, but otherwise I’m plain old Betty Brady. I flew in last night. Band is with me, at least some of em. The rest comin.”
“And the Dixie Crystals?” Barbara asks. She knows from Sista’s website that the famous girl group from the 70s has also come out of retirement to sing backup and harmony on the tour. This is Barbara’s first encounter with fame, it came out of nowhere, and she’s finding it hard to catch her breath.
“The girls are s’posed to be in today. I’m stayin at the Garden City Plaza Hotel downtown, and tonight we’re goin to start our rehearsals at this old empty place out by the airport. Used to be a Sam’s Club, Tones says. Tones is my tour manager. You could come to the hotel, or if you wanted to drive on out and watch a scraggy-ass first rehearsal, you could do that. What do you think?”
Silence from Barbara’s end.
“Ms. Robinson? Barbara? Are you there?”
Barbara finds her voice, although it’s more of a squeak. “That would be… so good.” Then adds, “I won tickets to your first show on the radio. K-POP. And backstage passes. I’m a fan.”
“Fanwise, right back atcha, girl. Then maybe you’d just as soon skip the rehearsal. It’s been a long time for me, and like I say, we goan be piss poor at first. We got two weeks and a little more to get right.”
“No, I’ll be there!” Barbara feels like a girl in a dream. “What time?”
“We’ll start around seven, I s’pose, and prob’ly go late. You wouldn’t want to stay for all of it, but there’ll be food.”
Like hell I won’t , Barbara thinks. She finds her feet again. “Sista… Betty… Ms. Brady… this isn’t a joke? A prank call?”
“Honey,” Betty Brady says, again with that rich chuckle, “it’s as real as can be. You come on out to that Sam’s Club. Tones and Henrietta—she’s my agent—will have your name.”
4
When Barbara pulls her Prius into the parking lot of the defunct Sam’s Club out by the airport that evening, she feels a pang of anticipation that’s mixed with fear. She has a fair amount of self-confidence, but it’s still hard for her to believe she hasn’t been pranked. How likely is it that a famous person would call her , just because she’s written a slim (128 pages) book of poems? She can see a couple of Ryder trucks parked near the building, and she supposes those are filled with musical equipment, so yes, Sista Bessie is probably here, but when she approaches the man sitting by the door and smoking a cigarette, what are the chances he’ll say, Never heard of you, lady, get lost ? Barbara thinks the chances are pretty good.
Still, she’s not without courage (she thinks her friend Holly has more of that), so gets out of her car and walks to the man sitting on the plastic milk crate. He stands up and gives her a grin. “You’re the one she wants to see, I’m thinking. She said young, Black, and female. Barbara Robinson?”
“Yes,” Barbara says, relieved. She shakes the man’s outstretched hand.
“Anthony Kelly, but everyone calls me Tones. I’m Betty’s tour manager. Pleased to meet you.”
“I’m in a daze,” Barbara says.
He laughs. “Don’t be. We’re just regular people. Come on inside.”
It’s a big space full of echoes. There are a few men and women rolling equipment around; a few more lean against the walls, talking. An elderly, thin-faced woman—Sista Bessie’s dresser, Barbara assumes—is rolling a rack of glittery costumes to where the cash registers used to be.
Betty Brady—Sista Bessie—is up front by herself, slinging a guitar over one shoulder. The case, battered and covered with stickers, is open at her feet. Dressed in mom jeans and a sleeveless top that strains to hold in truly mighty bazooms, she could be almost any streetcorner busker. Barbara is immediately struck by how broad-shouldered she is. How indubitably there .
“Let me introduce you,” Tones says.
“No, not yet. Please.” Barbara can hardly speak above a whisper. “I think she’s going to play. I’d like to… you know…”
A white woman with a deeply lined face, a yacht of a nose, and too much rouge on her cheeks joins them. “You want to hear her sing. I understand.”
Betty is tuning up, or trying to. One of the roadies approaches. Betty gives him the guitar and says, “You do it, Acey. By the time I found out I was no good at this part, I was too rich to quit.”
The over-rouged woman says, “I’m Henrietta Ramer, Betty’s agent. I don’t guess you’re the only reason Bets wanted to kick things off in this town, but I think you were a big part of it. She loves-loves- loves that book of poems. Has read it half to death. I think she has an idea about one of them. You might like it, you might not.”
The roadie hands the Gibson back. Betty slings it and sings “A Change Is Gonna Come,” strumming each chord just once. Tones and Henrietta wander off, Tones to confer with an old Black man uncasing a saxophone, Henrietta to talk to the old lady who brought the costumes. They’ve heard it all before, but when Betty soars to the top of her range, Barbara gets goosebumpy from the nape of her neck to the small of her back.
Two more roadies wheel in a beat-up piano, and almost before it’s stopped moving, Betty begins to pound out “Aunt Hagar’s Blues.” She plays standing up, shaking her bluejeaned butt, getting a rough growl into that otherwise smooth, one-of-a-kind voice. The Black man with the sax claps along and sways his skinny hips. People are walking around, talking, laughing, but Betty ignores them. She’s totally into it, tuning her voice the way the roadie tuned her guitar.
Sista goes back to the Gibson. A skinny longhair, Barbara assumes her sound guy, puts a mic stand in front of her and plugs into a power strip. He also plugs in her guitar. Sista doesn’t even seem to notice; she’s singing gospel now. Amps are put in place. Sound monitors. A few musicians start to wander in, carrying their instruments. The old guy steps up beside her and honks his alto horn.
Sista Bessie pauses mid-verse of “Live A-Humble” to say “Yo, Red, you old son of a gun.”
Red yo’s her right back, then joins her singing: “Watch the sun, see how steady he run, don’t let it catch you with your work undone.” Barbara gets the goosebumps all over again. She thinks they’re perfect, but perfection is still building.
One by one other members of the band assemble behind her. Two of the three Dixie Crystals come in. One has her hair in Bantu knots, the other an Afro as gray as fog. They see Betty, scream, and rush to her. Sista hugs each in turn and says something about Ray Charles that makes them yell with laughter. Betty hands her guitar off, not looking, just assuming some roadie will take it. The three women put their heads together. They murmur, then launch into an electrifying version of Thelma Houston’s “Don’t Leave Me This Way” that ends with Red honking away all by himself. They all laugh and Betty bumps him with her bazooms and almost knocks him down. There’s more laughter and applause.
Betty starts to say something to one of the Crystals, then catches sight of Barbara. She puts one hand to her chest, then rushes forward, high-stepping over a few electrical cords. “You came!” she says, and takes Barbara’s hands. In her state of heightened acuity, Barbara can feel the calluses on the fingertips of Betty’s left hand, the one she uses to make the guitar chords.
“I came,” Barbara croaks. She clears her throat and tries again. “I came.”
“I’ve got a little dressing room in back. Your book is there. If you want to go—pretty girl like you might have a date—I can get it now for you to sign. But if you want to hang out a bit…”
“I do,” Barbara says. “Want to hang out, I mean. I can hardly believe I’m here.” What she says next just spills out. “You’re so goddam talented!”
“So are you, honey. So are you.”