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CHAPTER XXVIII, Wired for Sound

Jack and Nancy start to realize that all is not as it seems, as the violence of the past echoes throough the years. Delano gets a reprieve

Jack handed the box to Nancy so he could take his turn hugging Marisa
and Dinah. They exchanged final goodnights, Jack assured Marisa once
again that they would have the box and its contents back by Friday
evening, and he and Nancy walked down the driveway to the back of the
GTO. Nancy fished in his pocket for the keys.

"I swear, Jack Moonlight, you forget to take out the keys on purpose."

"Jangle, jangle, baby. Hey! No squeezing!"

Nancy giggled as she pulled the keyring from his pocket. She opened the
trunk, Jack placed the box inside, and the trunk was no sooner closed
than they were locked in an embrace that made Jack look up at the porch.
The two ladies had gone inside. "I think we both need some sex, to ease
the pain of being fired." he said.

"I could sit up here on the trunk" Nancy suggested. "No one is out this
late. Dare ya!"

"But what would Mr. Fosh-ex say?" He looked down at the dealer
name-plate, which read Faucheux Motors of Biloxi.

"That's Fo-shay, silly. Faucheux Motors has been around at least since I
was a little girl. You probably saw it when you were there. It's a big
place."

"Yeah, on the main drag, with the red whirly-gigs on the lines in
front. No money down, no trade-in refused."

"So, no trunk sex?" Nancy asked as she replaced the keys in Jack's
pocket. Her hand lingered for a second.

"Let's get back to the motel. Georgia has some funny laws."

A minute later Jack was pulling out of the driveway, and heading west
towards palmetto parkway. He wasn't going to think about the case
anymore. He was fired, right? Still, he almost didn't hear Nancy tell him
that it was his turn to play 'find the key-ring'.

When the GTO's taillights were dots, A black car pulled out of a driveway
two houses down from Marisa's home. There was a FOR SALE sign staked in
the lawn. The '93 Civic slowly closed the distance between the vehicles.

"Man, I thought they were gonna do it right there in the old lady's
yard! Who's the twist, anyway?"

"I have yet to ascertain that factoid, Cal." The driver saw the look his
passenger was giving him. "What?"

"Does that mean you don't know?"

Jessie sighed; he had been longing for intelligent conversation since
they left Biloxi. He turned his attention to the road. "Yes Cal, that
means I don't know."
----------------------------------------

June 9, 1950
Samuel Wheatland Psychiatric Hospital, Atlanta, Ga.

Delano was on his one hundred and thirty-eighth push-up when he heard
the key turning in the door to his right. The door opened as he got to
his feet.

"Visitors, Outlaw. Put your shirt on." It was Hetrick, and behind him
were two more guards, carrying manacles and leg-irons.

"You know I don't need to be all trussed up, Officer Hetrick." Delano
said as he buttoned up the gray hospital-issued shirt.

"Deleon, no one knows better than I. I wish all the people on this ward
were as co-operative as you. Now, hold out your arms."

"So who managed to unsnarl the red tape enough to get a visitor's
pass?"

The guard who shackled his legs stood up. Delano, who had been admitted
under his alias, was gently ushered out the door. Hetrick closed it
behind him, and the quartet walked down the hallway, Delano's inhibited
gait setting the pace.

"Three men, one had papers from the governor's office. One's black. I
thought you didn't have any living relatives."

He's gotta be a relation 'cause we're both black? Delano thought but
didn't say out loud. What he did voice was, "Three men? What's the deal,
tag-team psych-ee-at-ree?"

All three guards laughed at the remark. More laughter came from a couple
of the cells they were passing, a high, keening wail from another.
Gramps, the oldest in age and residency on the ward, screamed at
everybody to shut up, as he did about ten times an hour.

"Heard your record again this morning." Hetrick said as they waited for
the steel door to open. "WERD 860, out of Atlanta."

"On Jockey Jack's show? The man knows quality when he hears it."

"He calls the song crazy. He calls you crazy. Wonders when you're gonna
play in Atlanta."

They stepped into the reception room. The guards began reversing the
shackling procedure. Delano moved his hands automatically to meet the
key in Hetrick's hand, but he was not paying attention to the process.
Delano was looking through the thick window at a smiling Frank Hatton, a
shortish squared-off fellow who had to be a cop, and old Titus Byrd.
Frank waved a paper at him. He mouthed the words, "You're free".

"Are those tears, Deleon?" Hetrick asked

"Yeah, I was gonna make it to two hundred push-ups today, if not for this
interruption."
------------------------------------

"The Woodie!" Jack exclaimed.

Nancy looked up at Jack. "Well, I can see that."

"No," Jack corrected her. "I mean the dealer plate on the GTO.
Carruthers' car, the one he took us to lunch in, it had the same plate,
Faucheux Motors."

"That's what you think about while I'm..." Nancy sat up in the bed. "I
guess I've lost my touch."

"Baby, I'm sorry. That was nagging at me. Now we can relax and have some
fun."

"Have fun all by yourself, Mr Detective." Nancy dramatically turned over
and dropped her head onto the pillow. She lay facing the wall opposite
Jack.

The light from the window shone on Nancy's uncovered body. It was too much
for Jack. He snuggled up against her, pulling the covers over both of
them.
Nancy clenched her shoulder when Jack tried to kiss her neck. "You and
Woodie go have fun somewhere else."

Jack continued to spoon with her. He reached down between her legs.
"Okay, I'll go. As soon as I find my keys."

Laughing, Nancy reached behind her to guide Jack inside. "No more shop
talk until daylight."

"Well, I need to do something to keep my mind off the case."

"You're doing it, Jack. Do not stop."

Their movements got into sync, the rhythm, slow at first, began
building.

"I guess it could be a coincidence."

"Jack, stop it."
-------------------------------------------

"Wire recorders were in their hey-day in the late forties to the early
fifties." Carruthers' hands never slowed as he gave his latest lecture.
"Their dynamic range was not as good as tape, but a tape this old would
be unplayable, no matter how you stored it."

Jack watched the albino splice the wire as he talked. Luckily, only one
spool had a tangle in it. Jack had spent an hour undoing the tangle as
per Carruthers' instructions, easing the wire back through the loop,
snipping the wire where it had kinked. Carruthers was using a
fly-fish tying jig to hold the hair-thin pieces of wire as he joined
them together by tying what Jack recognized as a reef knot, and snipping
the loose ends as close as possible to the tie.

"These wires will be playable 200 years from now, Jack. They will
outlast the players, is the only problem." Carruthers turned from his
worktable to pick another length of wire freed from the clutches of the
spool marked 'Because I Say I'm Free'. Jack was laying them out in order
as he freed the pieces. Already he had five long strands waiting for
surgery. Carruthers looked at the spool, saw Jack was close to being
done. Jack could see what Carruthers was thinking.

"My uncle had some wire recordings, and a Silvertone playback from the
early fifties. He had me untangling some recordings he picked up for
free, when I was just ten years old. I ruined a copy of 'Flying Home' by
Illinois Jacquet, and Louis Jordan's 'What's The Use of Staying Sober'
before I got the hang of it."

"I bet he wanted to hang you. Probably worth four to six hundred to a
collector these days." Carruthers selected a long piece and began
connecting it to its fellows. "You know, we are probably the only two
people between Atlanta and Raleigh that can do this. I made a couple
thousand bucks repairing these for the Smithsonian a few years back."

"I prefer steadier work." Was Jack's reply. He had called Carruthers the
night before, after Dinah took him to the added-on room in the back of
Marisa's home. On seeing the spools in a box marked 'Transplantation
Blues', and a Webster recorder-player just like his uncle's on a work
bench, Jack picked up the first spool and threaded it into the player
like he had been taught. Unfortunately, he forgot to checked the spooled
wire for tightness. When he turn the play switch, the wire, moving at
two feet per second snapped when the slack was taken up, and the wire
broke, its recoil backspinning the spooled wire and creating the tangle
Jack was undoing.

They had listened to several of the songs, Carruthers duping them onto a
reel-to-reel as the the wire wound itself onto the take-up reel. Carruthers had
backed up the tape twice now to re-hear the songs. Jack had not complained.
Without saying anything, both knew what the other was thinking; they had a
real gem on their hands.

He had a white-skinned father and a blonde grandmaw
A roman nose, blue eyes, and an anglo-saxon jaw
but his mama had a negro servant for a great-grandpaw
And that made him a black man under Mississippi law

That's the power of black blood,
the red runnin through our veins
The power of black blood,
though all blood looks the same.

"Considering when this was written, it's pretty god-damned bold." Jack
remarked.

"It's not just the lyrics. That's a church choir singing behind Delano.
And that other one, the ballad, A Man Like You? I swear that's a full
string section. I wish we had the acetates, they gotta exist."
Carruthers stopped as "Black Hands, White House" came on. This was their
favorite so far, about how the great monuments of Washington, D.C. were
built with slave labor. The song was written from the point of view of a
slave who carved stone and marble for use in various landmarks in the
young capital.

"Acetates?" Jack repeated as Delano sang about toiling 'unda the
Rotunda'.

"The discs made from the master recordings. Wire is great for
longevity, and Delano may have used them when he was shopping his
music to the record companies. But their sound is sadly inferior to
tape. The acetates, however, are as close as one can get to the master
tapes in fidelity. They last forever if they aren't played, but
deteriorate noticeably after a few listens." Carruthers snipped the ends
of his latest knot, and continued after reducing Jack's lead by one.
These recordings are of interest to historians and critics, but the
quality won't attract a large audience. And this," he said, pointing at
the box, "Deserves a large audience. Blues, gospel, choirs and strings?
Unheard of! A themed blues album that doesn't hide behind 'hard times'
cliches, but speaks openly of racism and oppression?"

Both men heard the car door slam shut.

"That would be Nancy. back from her mysterious chore." He looked at
Jack. "Wait until she hears what we've got here." Carruthers cued up
'Bird In The Bush', a slinky blues full of sexual innuendo, for Nancy's
benefit.

"I'll let her in." Jack got up and walked out to the front door. Nancy
pushed past him before the door was fully opened. She looked around the
room. "Where is he?"

"In the back, splicing the wire I screwed up. What did you find?"

She lowered her voice to a whisper. "It was his. Your mid-life crisis
car out there. James Carruthers bought it 1974, right after he got out of
prison for invountary manslaughter. Two years later, he sold it to one
Calvin Jacobs, Sr.; who died in 1998, and the title was transferred to
his son, Calvin Jr., and then to one Jess Xavier, who signed it over to
you a day later."

"Is this a private conversation?" It was Carruthers. They had been
watching the hallway, looking for him, but he had walked through the
door leading from the dining room into the living room. Jack recognized
the gun in Carruthers' right hand, A Sig Sauer P232.

"Nice gun. I have one myself."

"Do you now? Then you know how accurate it can be." Jack's phone rang,
and Carruthers motioned for him to answer it. "Pull it out slowly. And
don't say anything stupid, Jack."

Nancy thought she saw her chance, and reached into her purse for her own
gun while the record dealer was watching Jack. Carruthers barely moved
his hand and fired. Nancy's purse spun out of her hand as she yelled. The
second shot parted the strap around her shoulder, and the purse fell to
the carpet, spilling its contents.

The sound echoed in the room. Tufts of couch-stuffing floated in the
air. Jack's phone stopped ringing.

"Are you all right, Nurse Nancy?" A nod of the head was all she could
muster in reply. "Well, good. Don't worry about the couch, I was
planning on getting a new suite for the living room. Should I go with
green again, or maybe paint the room in bolder colors?"

Jack remember something Jessie had told him. "You're Jimmy C. Jessie
said you died in prison."

"I was stabbed with a sharpened bedspring, true enough." He chuckled.
"Jessie told me he tried to cover up his using my name." Jack, your
phone is beeping. Let's hear the message.

Jack did as he was told. He turned on the phone's speaker, and Sheriff
Boulware's voice boomed out. "Jack, I checked out that name. Carruthers,
known as Jimmy C, was an enforcer for the Dixie Mafia. He took a
plea-down on a murder charge, did his time, all of it, because he never
named any accomplices. He has supposedly retired, but his name pops up
from time to time. You might want to consider playing in a different
league, fella. When are you coming to see us again?"

"I got fifty large for keeping my mouth shut. Jack, pull up your right
pants leg."

Jack did as requested, revealing a holster strapped above his ankle.

"Take the gun out, two fingers. Toss it on the couch. Good man!"

Then he surprised the pair by re-pocketing his gun. "Jack sit down,
Nancy, would you get us all some tea? There's lemon in the crisper, none
for me, though."

"You're not going to kill us, then?"

"Never was, Jack. But someone else might try." He sat down as Nancy
brought out three glasses of tea. Thank you, hon. Now sit down with Jack
over there, and I will tell you why you may not have to die."

-----------------------------------------

 From Jack's notes on the case.

Found in box marked D. Outlaw, in Mrs. Outlaw's storage shed:

12 wire recording spools

notebook titled Trans-Plantation Blues cont. lyrics and recording notes

1 handbill for appearance of SpoonDog & DogMen @ Shade City Supper Club

bill for recording time- 27hrs $540, marked 'overdue'

1 pen knife

1 splicing tool?

several gum wrappers

2 cigarette butts

1 pic of band

1 pic of Delano, Frank, another white guy, &old black man ID's unk. in front of car make unk. Hudson?

1 set western elec. headphones

The Mississippi is running hard, due to heavy rains up north. We were coming upriver as I took these shots, making a phenomenal seven tenths of a mile an hour.  I tried running up the west bank, but the current was so strong on that side that we stalled out. So I made it back to the eastern side (the New Orleans side) of the river, and ran northbound in the slack water close to the bank.
The Domino Sugar Refinery in Chalmette, just south of New Orleans. It is celebrating its centennial this year.

                     Port & Ship Service dock, just north of the Domino Refinery.
             These boats take supplies and crew to and from ships transiting the harbor.

The river pilots  also use these boats to get back forth from the boats they guide upriver to their respective docks, wharves, and anchorages.

This military chopper landed on the levee, and the house behind it looks none too happy about the situation.

Look under the chopper, and you can see two guys walking up the levee to get on board

        Take-off after boarding passengers. The copter was on the ground for maybe 10 minutes.
                      We probably made 600 feet northbound progress in that time.