"You pay him, huh?"

"Way more than he earns making people feel secure." Robert watched Dennis step out to the balcony and remembered he wanted to play a CD for him. He heard Dennis say Billy Darwin was down there. Talking to the hotel electrician.

"What's he doing? I told him I'd set the spots tonight."

Robert was up now shuffling through his stack of CDs, telling Dennis, "I arrive, check in, I give the cashier ten thousand in cash, so they know I'm here."

"You said you don't gamble."

"I put on a show, play some baccarat like James Bond. I'm using the cashier as a bank for my tip money I don't have to carry around. Understand? I get the suite comped, I get tickets to the shows in the Tom Tom Room, and I get to meet Mr. Billy Darwin, shake his hand. Mr. Billy Darwin is cool. He looks you in the eye and you know he's reading you. Mr. Billy Darwin can tell in five seconds if you for real or you by ciditty. You know what I'm saying?"

Dennis turned from the balcony. "I don't have any idea."

"From that Shemekia Copeland song ` Miss Hy Ciditty '? Means a person puts on airs, fakes it." He found the CD he wanted and replaced John Lee Hooker with it.

Dennis said, "So how'd you come out with Darwin?"

But the CD came on, a dirge beat, and Robert said, "Listen, see if you can name who this is."

Dennis heard a baritone male voice half singing half speaking the words:

I got a bone for you.

I got a bone for you.

I got a little bone for you.

I got a bone for you 'cause I'm a doggy

And I'm naked almost all the time.

"The harmonica could be Little Walter," Dennis said, "but I don't know."

"Little Walter, shit. Man, that's Marvin Pontiac and his hit song `I'm a Doggy.' "

"I never heard of him."

"Shame on you. Marvin's my man. Marvin Pontiac, part of him came out of Muddy Waters. Another part was stolen from him by Iggy Pop. You know Iggy?"

"Yeah, I see what you mean. Iggy's `I Want to Be Your Dog' must've come from… yeah, `I'm a Doggy.'

Marvin Pontiac 's voice saying, singing:

I'm a doggy.

I stink when I'm wet 'cause I'm a doggy.

"Some of his music," Robert said, "he calls Afro-Judaic blues. Marvin always wore white robes and a turban like Erykah Badu 's before she went baldheaded. Had his own ways. Lived by himself… Listen to this. A producer begged him to cut a record? Marvin Pontiac said yeah, all right, he'd do it-if the producer would cut his grass."

"His lawn?"

"Yeah, his grass, his lawn, the man did it to get Marvin in the studio. That's what you listening to, The Legendary Marvin Pontiac Greatest Hits.

`Pancakes' is on there. `Bring Me Rocks' is on there. It's the one has the line `My penis has a face and it likes to bark at Germans.' That's funny 'cause Marvin Pontiac's face was never photographed. There shots of him taken from far away, you see him in his white robes and the turban? But there's not any up close."

"He still around?"

"Died in '77 in Detroit. Got run over by a bus and they picked his bones, Iggy and some others, David Bowie. But listen, you better get ready, do your dive. You know what one you gonna do?"

"Not till I'm up on the perch. This afternoon's a warm-up."

"Look over the house. Big crowd, give 'em the triple somersault with some twists and shit. Small crowd-"

"Flying reverse pike. I gotta go," Dennis said, "meet the CIB guy."

Robert said, "Wait," and edged toward the balcony. "Remember I was telling you about the famous crossroads?"

He saw Dennis shake his head.

"Last night in the car, driving you to Tunica." Robert paused but didn't get a reaction. "I'm telling you about the great Robert Johnson the bluesman and the cop cars go flying past?"

"Yeah, I remember."

Robert pointed out at the sky. "That way thirty miles down the road, where Highway 49 crosses Old 61."

"Yeah?"

"That's the famous crossroads. Where the great

Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil. You understand what I'm saying to you?"

No, he didn't.

He didn't understand half of what Robert said to him.

Was Robert here because this was where some serious blues got started? The way tourists visit Elvis' house in Tupelo with the bed in the living room? Robert was too cool to be a tourist. Robert wouldn't visit a site, Robert was the site. Was he here looking for talent? Some forgotten bluesman missing link, another Marvin Pontiac, and take him back to Motown?

Or was that a side deal while he set up Mr. Kirkbride?

Why would he show Kirkbride the photograph of a man hanging from a bridge unless he expected to get something out of it? Restitution. Play on Kirkbride's sympathy. Hope the man is a rich bleeding heart. Willing to contribute to… what? Some kind of appeal, the Robert Taylor scholarship fund for the heirs of a man who was lynched. Robert drives up in his cool S-Type Jaguar looking legit, Robert soft-spoken… and the man hanging from the bridge isn't even his great-granddaddy.

This is what Dennis was thinking in the elevator, cutting across the lobby and down the hallway past the rest rooms, the beauty shop, the workout room and sauna toward the patio bar.

Robert had the confidence to be a confidence man. You believed him. He said in the car last night, "That man gives you any shit, tell me." Dennis believed him as he said it and still believed he was the guy he could go to. Robert knew what was going on here. He knew Arlen Novis had been to prison and worked for Mr. Kirkbride, because Robert had looked into Mr. Kirkbride, he must have, to see if the man was worth going after.

Dennis pushed through the glass door to the patio.

“Mr Lenahan?”

It was the CIB man, John Rau, it had to be, getting up from a table, his hand extended. Dennis walked over and they shook hands. John Rau, in his shirtsleeves but wearing a tie, his navy-blue suitcoat on the back of his chair, gave Dennis his card and asked in a pleasant voice if he'd like a cold beverage. Dennis said no thanks, feeling the grass laying him back now just enough. Good stuff.

John Rau had a Coca-Cola and a dish of mixed nuts on the table. They sat down and Dennis let him explain who he was and what he was investigating, John Rau saying it shouldn't take too long, he understood Dennis was getting ready to do a show.

Dennis was staring at John Rau 's tie, blue, with an American flag in the center of it. He said, "It's more of a warm-up than a show. I haven't gone off the top in more than a month." He looked at the mixed nuts now and wanted some. "Of course anybody who'd like to watch is more than welcome." He said, "Do you mind?" reaching for the nuts.

"Help yourself." John Rau gestured and looked out at Dennis' setup. "I was telling Mr. Darwin the investigation could help your show."

Now Dennis turned enough to look over his shoulder. Billy Darwin was still out there with the electrician.

"He seemed to agree. He sees the local people as your main audience." He waited for Dennis to turn to the table again. "What time was it you left here last night?"

"Going on seven."

"Showers was still working."

"Checking the pressure on the guy wires."

"You trusted him to do that? Wasn't Showers a rummy?"

"He knew what he was doing," Dennis said, looking at the American flag on John Rau 's necktie. There was something wrong with it.

"He tell you he was a confidential informant?"

"No, he didn't. He barely spoke to me."

Dennis reached for the mixed nuts and John Rau pushed the dish closer. He looked in it to see cashews, peanuts, almonds, one pecan… Dennis came away with a fistful of nuts.

John Rau saying, "You know about his background?"

"I know he was in prison. And from what I've heard, talking to people, Floyd was in the Dixie