Forty-Two

I went to visit Davey at St. John’s the next morning. I told Mooney where he could find me if he wanted to try.

I located my car in the lot, a red parking ticket gracing the driver’s window. The Hummingbird, in its hardshell case, was shoved under Davey’s mechanical bed.

“Has he seen it?” I asked Dr. Sanderley.

“Yes,” he said with a brief, sad smile, and hurried off.

Davey’s sunken eyes looked at me blankly.

“Who am I?” I asked.

“Dee?” he said, clearly uncertain.

“Never mind.”

I slid the case out from under the bed and opened it.

I brushed a G chord, adjusted the E string. Played a few more chords, picked some notes, had to tune again. The strings sounded bright, acted new. I wondered if Cal had replaced them. A spare set of GHS strings nested in the velvet lining of the case. I’d brought my own picks.

I played the instrumentals first. Gary Davis’s songs, old Baptist hymns, fiddle tunes, “Mole’s Moan.” I didn’t trust my voice. Then, when I saw that Davey seemed to appreciate the music, I sang softly, Robert Johnson stuff, Blind Willie McTell.

Gloria’s brother Leroy was okay; that was one bright spot. He’d been tripped, shoved down a flight of steps, and trussed like a turkey. He described it as the meanest clip he’d gotten since retiring from pro ball.

The DEA’s case against Mickey Manganero was blown like smoke. No Hal to testify. Mimi would probably have her day in court, but not in the immediate future. If Roz’s prediction held, maybe she wouldn’t live to see it.

Roz had dyed her hair a curious shade of copper.

Stuart Lockwood had refused Ray’s case. It would be assigned to a public defender. Nobody had figured out who Manganero’s contact was among MGA’s top brass. DEA was willing to wait for him to start signing checks.

Whoever it was, it wouldn’t affect Dee. Nothing did.

I started a twelve-bar blues, so old it’s labeled traditional; nobody knows who wrote the lines.

“I’m goin’ away, babe, I won’t be back ’til fall.

If I find me a new man, I won’t be back at all.”

I didn’t hear the door open, but other voices joined in. I held the melody line, letting the others harmonize.

“Nice,” a familiar alto murmured at the end.

I said, “Davey, Dee’s come to say hello.”

The roommate stared till his eyes bugged out.

I tried to hand off the guitar to Dee, but she’d brought Miss Gibson. Cal had brought a mandolin, a banjo, a bass. If it’s got strings he can play it. The three of us sang and played till I was hoarse, till my calluses blistered and bled.

“I thought you’d be in Baltimore,” I said to Dee.

“Postponed the show, the whole tour. We need a new road manager, a new bass.” She gave a sidelong glance at Cal.

Davey faded in and out. Sometimes he’d close his eyes and we could only tell he was awake by the rhythmic tapping of a finger on the blanket. Sometimes he’d hold one of the instruments, his skeletal hands barely able to sound a note. He couldn’t remember who we were, but his long-term memory seemed fine, so we played the old songs, and a few times he tried to join in with his ruined raspy voice.

“I was born in Tennessee,

I miss my friends and they miss me.”

That’s where I lost it. I set the guitar down carefully by the side of the bed and walked out.

Dee and Cal stayed. I hope they work it out. I hope he joins her tour, gets his music back.

I ripped the ticket off my window and shredded it without remorse, scattering the bits over the parking lot. Then I opened the door with my spare key, and retrieved the other from the dash. I planned to drive, drive all day, all night, all the next morning, until I found a bright yellow kite, a kite with a young Hispanic girl hanging on to the string.

I’m good at missing persons.