The Dying Crapshooter's Blues by David Fulmer Page B

his heart was hard and cold like ice
    Â 
    Jesse was delighted, even as his mind wandered away and back again. His spirits lifted some, and so Willie switched to playing songs at his request. The blind man was a walking music book, with what seemed an endless store of vaudeville tunes, hillbilly cants, blues laments, rags, spirituals, and popular songs of the day swimming around in his head. Not one of the people
drifting in and out of the room could stump him. With his keening voice and the brassy sweep of the Stella’s twelve strings, he filled the next two hours, aided by the glass of whiskey that was topped for him regularly and the appreciative murmurs from those gathered at Jesse’s bedside.
    At one point in the middle of the afternoon, Joe happened to overhear a couple of rounders whispering about a jewel heist but couldn’t catch any of the specifics over all the chatter, and then was distracted by Jesse muttering something he couldn’t understand any better.
    Not too long after that, Robert Clark appeared in the bedroom doorway. He didn’t come inside once he saw the crowd that had gathered, instead lingering only to stare at Jesse with guilt-stricken eyes.
    Joe was surprised to see him and when their gazes met, Robert looked startled and faded back. By the time Joe got up and worked his way through the crowd to the kitchen, he was gone. Joe stood on the landing, looking up and down a deserted alley.
    Back inside, he puzzled over the hurried flight of the one other person who had been on the scene the night before. Willie said it was Robert who had found Little Jesse. Apparently, the man didn’t want to talk about it.
    Jesse weakened as afternoon crept toward evening. Just after the sun went down, Martha walked in with a bowl of hot chicken broth and told them all it was time to leave. Joe and Willie remained behind.
    Martha stepped up to the bed. “You best let him be,” she told them in a voice that was sweet and gentle for such a hard-looking woman. “Leave him to me.”
    The two men put on their coats and walked out and down the stairs to amble up the alley and onto a Decatur Street that was quiet in the Sunday evening rain.
    Joe raised a hand in farewell. Willie called him back. “You know I heard what he said up there.” Though he had been drinking the better part of the afternoon, his voice was deliberate.
    Joe said, “What’s that?”
    â€œI said, I heard what Jesse said. About not wanting to die for nothing.”
    Joe shrugged, not surprised that the blind man had caught a whisper from across a room or that he could recall it hours later.
    â€œSo what are you going to do about it?” Willie said.
    â€œAbout what?”
    Willie’s dark brow stitched. “About finding out why some damned cracker cop walked up and shot my friend Jesse down.”
    Joe laughed shortly. “What makes you think I can do anything about it?”
    â€œYou was a policeman,” Willie said. “And a detective. Ain’t that right?”
    â€œI was a cop for a year,” Joe said, sounding impatient. “And I worked as a Pinkerton for six months. That don’t make me a police officer, Willie. Or a detective.”
    â€œYou’re about as smart as anybody I know,” Willie said earnestly. Joe rolled his eyes at this flattery, but the blind man was serious. “There’s somethin’ wrong about it, Joe. You know it’s true.”
    â€œI asked him,” Joe said. “He won’t say.”
    â€œIt don’t make sense.”
    Joe shifted on his feet. “Maybe it was just one of those things, Willie,” he said. “Some cop who don’t care for black folk. Jesse said he was a drunk. Some people are like that. Could be Jesse just got in the man’s way at the wrong time. Or maybe he fucked with him somehow. Sassed him or whatever. You know how he is.”
    Willie had his head cocked in that peculiar