“This could be . . . could have been . . . a turning point,” I said, reminding myself that I had seen where Graciella’s life led.
“The turning point,” Messenger said, and without further warning the world sped by and the sun rose and a rested and a fed and washed Graciella snuck from the back door of the mission. Her guitar was slung over her back, and she had a loaf of bread clutched in her hand.
We followed her through the bright streets, hoping, I suppose, at least I was, that some more good would come her way. She came to a place called the New Daisy Theater. It was a plainer, sterner-looking building than the theater in Austin. It looked as if it should have been an armory, except for the green, red, and white marquee.
Of course I knew what name I would find on that marquee.
Nicolet.
“Here we go again,” I muttered.
There were alleys beside the theater, but they were closed off with tall steel gates. Beale Street is narrow, just two lanes of traffic, a long line of bars and music venues, including the original Daisy right across the street. During the day it was dead, the only activity coming from early morning delivery trucks dropping off flats of bottled beer and kegs, shrink-wrapped pallets of cans and number ten jugs, all the things that keep a bar or restaurant going.
Just a block away was the FedExForum, a massive sports arena decorated in banners for the Memphis Tigers, the basketball team of the University of Memphis. Here Graciella found short flights of stairs and stunted dividers to lean against. She sat down and began to nibble from the loaf of bread.
She was a pathetic sight there with her guitar and her loaf of bread. Time sped forward. The sun rose high in the sky. People came by in increasing numbers. People glanced at her, but I suppose she was not the first guitar-toting kid to be seen in Memphis. They probably figured she was a hopeful, looking to play some guitar, gather a crowd, maybe collect a few dollars, and catch the eye of some important music executive.
And part of that, she did. As the lunchtime crowd grew she took out her guitar. And she sang. She sang songs I had never heard, and some that I knew she had given to Nicolet.
Someone handed her a dollar and she seemed surprised and grateful. She opened her guitar case and as she sang, dimes and quarters, dollar bills, and even a five-dollar bill appeared.
Even knowing how her story ended, I was caught up in her joy at being able to perform music that people liked enough to acknowledge it with cash and applause. She had touched people. She had moved people. I saw a woman cry, unashamed, tears on her cheeks.
The afternoon wore on and the crowd disappeared. Graciella sat counting her money. It looked like twenty, maybe thirty dollars.
She stood up, bones cracking, and made her way to a coffee shop and bought herself an iced sweet tea and a ham and cheese.
As she was walking back toward the New Daisy down a narrow alley, three men followed her into the alley. Halfway down, they rushed her, grabbed her, one with a hand over her mouth, as a white van came speeding up.
Graciella tried to scream, did scream, but it was cut short and I doubted anyone had heard it.
The van took off and of course we had no difficulty keeping pace. It stopped at a grubby brick building with a faded auto-body repair sign. A steel shutter was rolled up and the van went inside.
We stood on the street, the three of us, staring at the steel door as it came down.
“The manager,” I said. “Mr. Joshua. He did this.”
Messenger’s silence was confirmation.
“Aren’t we going in?” Haarm asked.
“I don’t want to see,” I said through gritted teeth.
“I do,” Haarm said. Then, realizing how that sounded, he added, “I mean, that’s what we do, isn’t it? That’s what Messenger—my messenger, my master—taught me, anyway. We are to witness and understand. Right?”
I saw that Messenger was looking to me as though it was my decision. “I don’t want to see this,” I said, not as firmly as I meant to say it, but meaning it just the same.
“There are worse things,” Haarm said, though not flippantly.
“Not many,” I snapped.
Messenger decided the issue by rolling us forward in time. Judging by the lengthening of the shadows, hours had passed. Without a word, Messenger passed through the steel door, and we followed.
13
IT WAS DARK INSIDE, DARK IN THAT WAY THAT places that never truly see daylight are dark. Old and musty darkness. Darkness smelling of grease and dust and abandonment.
The three men sat on a stuffing-busted couch and a rickety wooden rocker watching a television, which supplied the only light. They were surrounded by beer bottles and overflowing ashtrays.