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“And I don’t want to hear anything like it again.”
“Still, you have to wonder.”
“What I wonder is what I was wondering before. Why would he send this shit to you?”
“I think he’s proud of it. There’s nothing like it. It’s . . . original.”
“I’ll give it that,” I said. “So, what do you want with me?”
“I want you to find Tootie.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t think he’s right. I think he needs help. I mean, this . . . It makes me think he’s somewhere he shouldn’t be.”
“But yet, you want to play it all the way through,” I said.
“What I know is I don’t like that. I don’t like Tootie being associated with it, and I don’t know why. Richard, I want you to find him.”
“Where did the record come from?”
She got the sheaf and brought it to me. I could see through the little doughnut in the sheath where the label on the record ought to be. Nothing but disk. The package itself was like wrapping paper you put meat in. It was stained.
I said, “I think he paid some place to let him record,” I said. “Question is, what place? You have an address where this came from?”
“I do.” She went and got a large manila envelope and brought it to me. “It came in this.”
I looked at the writing on the front. It had as a return address The Hotel Champion. She showed me the note. It was on a piece of really cheap stationery that said The Hotel Champion and had a phone number and an address in Dallas. The stationery looked old, and it was sun faded.
“I called them,
” she said, “but they didn’t know anything about him. They had never heard of him. I could go look myself, but . . . I’m a little afraid. Besides, you know, I got clients, and I got to make the house payment.”
I didn’t like hearing about that, knowing what kind of clients she meant, and how she was going to make that money. I said, “All right. What you want me to do?”
“Find him.”
“And then what?”
“Bring him home.”
“And if he don’t want to come back?”
“I’ve seen you work, bring him home to me. Just don’t lose that temper of yours.”
I turned the record around and around in my hands. I said, “I’ll go take a look. I won’t promise anything more than that. He wants to come, I’ll bring him back. He doesn’t, I might be inclined to break his leg and bring him back. You know I don’t like him.”
“I know. But don’t hurt him.”
“If he comes easy, I’ll do that. If he doesn’t, I’ll let him stay, come back and tell you where he is and how he is. How about that?”
“That’s good enough,” she said. “Find out what this is all about. It’s got me scared, Richard.”
“It’s just bad sounds,” I said. “Tootie was probably high on something when he recorded it, thought it was good at the time, sent it to you because he thought he was the coolest thing since Robert Johnson.”
“Who?”
“Never mind. But I figure when he got over his hop, he probably didn’t even remember he mailed it.”
