"Me and Jerry and Anne-hey, and you-we all part of this agenda."

Dennis said, "I'm not gonna ask what it is, so fuck you."

Robert glanced over. "You don't like me playing with your head. But you're cool, you can handle it." He said, "Listen, what I was saying about these people… I went to two different reenactments up in Michigan. One near Flint, a small one, only a couple hundred people dressed up, one cannon. And the other reenactment near Jackson, home of America 's biggest walled lockup, five thousand inmates in there messing with each other. This Jackson reenactment had a couple of thousand counting people dressed as civilians, women and children, General Grant, Robert E. Lee, the cavalry, lot of cannons, people selling Civil War memorabilia, kielbasa and grilled Italian sausage, and all the people I spoke to, man, were serious."

"So you were serious, too," Dennis said.

"Yes, I was."

"They didn't know you were only acting serious."

"No. I was. I found myself being serious with them and it was a strange experience."

"Being in the real world for a change."

Robert said, "Yeaaah," in a dreamy tone of voice. "That's what it's like, huh?"

Dennis fell asleep. He missed going through Memphis, opened his eyes to see they were in the country going south, blues coming out of the speakers.

"Robert Johnson," Dennis said.

"You passed the test. Eric Clapton will speak to you."

They went by a US 61 road sign and Dennis said, "Do we come to 49?"

"Other side of Tunica, down by Clarksdale, the most famous crossroads in the history of blues. Shit, in the history of music."

"Where Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil."

"You remember-that's good."

"But I don't know what it means."

"Like Faust, man. Sell your soul you get anything you want. They say Robert Johnson made that kind of deal. He didn't say it, they did. But now Tom Johnson 's a different story. This was when Robert Johnson was still a child. Tom Johnson tells people he sold his own soul at the crossroads. I say maybe, maybe not. The man drank poison, canned heat, that Sterno. What kind of deal is that? Now Robert Johnson-one day Son House tells him he ain't gonna make it, ain't good enough. Robert goes to the crossroads-the way the story is told-meets Satan in the form of this giant black dude. Satan takes Robert's guitar and messes with it, hands it back, and from then on nobody can believe the way he plays. They say to him, `How you do that?' Robert won't tell. See, but if he didn't sell his soul, why did he write `Hell Hound on My Trail'? Why did he write `Me and the Devil Blues'? Everybody's saying he musta gone to the crossroads and made the deal, 'cause listen to him, his wailin' chords, man, crawling up your spine. No doubt about it, was the devil gave him his mojo."

"Like a charm?"

"Mojo-yeah, like a charm, an amulet, something you use to get what you want, or be what you want. Something that's magic for you. You keep it in your mojo bag."

Dennis said, "It sounds like gris-gris." "How you know about gris-gris?" " New Orleans."

"Yeah, I forgot. Voodoo City."

"You have a mojo?"

"Wouldn't be without it."

"You keep it in a mojo bag?"

"Yeah, little bag made of flannel, has a draw string. You want to see it, don't you?" "I wouldn't mind."

"It's in the room. I'll show it to you."

"What's the charm that's in it?"

"Strands of Madonna's coochie mop."

"Strands? You're kidding."

"Am I?"

Shit, this guy-Dennis kept his mouth shut. He swore he wouldn't get into it any deeper.

But then Robert said, "You ever think about selling your soul?"

And Dennis bit; couldn't help it. "How do you do that?"

"You stand up and say, when the time comes, Enough of this shit, I'm gonna do what I want. Or I'm gonna get me what I want. It's how you turn your life around."

"What if you don't know what you want?"

"You have to be cool, wait for it to be offered. But when it comes, you only have the one chance to grab it. You know what I'm saying?"

"Like a job? What I've always wanted, a regular job."

"You're feeling edgy now, huh? You like to be eighty feet in the air about to do your number-a thousand fans watching and you know you have 'em in your hand. And for that," Robert said, "they pay you three hundred a day?" He stared at the highway now as he said, "Man, I can make you feel like you way higher than eighty feet. Up on an edge you won't believe."

There was a silence, Dennis telling himself to leave it alone. But there was a question he had to ask.

"How'd you get it?"

Robert turned his head. "What?"

"Your mojo."

"I bought it."

"How do you know it's the real thing?"

"I believe it. That's enough to make it work."

14

WALTER KIRKBRIDE CALLED THE MEETING, in his office at Southern Living Village, Walter in casual clothes, his beard still gray, a Cuban cigar in one hand, a Confederate cavalry saber in the other. Arlen Novis, Eugene Dean, Bob Hoon and his brother Newton filed in and took seats: Arlen wearing his slouch hat, Eugene holding a sixteen-ounce bottle of Pepsi-Cola, Bob Hoon with a cigar stub showing in the thicket of his beard, Newton showing tobacco juice in his.

They all assumed this meeting was about the reenactment.

Walter corrected that notion. He brought up the hilt of the saber even with his eyes and hacked the blade down on his oak desk, hard, and their shoulders jumped, all four of them sitting right in front of the desk. Walter said:

"Do I have your attention?"

Loud, as they were looking at the new scar on the desk, next to the ones that had been varnished over. Walter lowered his voice but kept grit in it saying to Arlen, "You shot Floyd telling me it was a personal thing that had to be done. You shot Junebug without telling me anything, and I want to know why."

"Don't think I wanted to, Walter."

"You had Fish do it?"

"He's my shooter."

Walter said, "Where is he?" looking beyond them, as if Jim Rein might be lurking back there.

Eugene said, "He's minding my dog."

Now Walter had to stare at Eugene. He heard himself say in his head, He's minding your dog? With a tone that required an explanation. He heard himself say, Minding your dog is more important than…? What he said was, "I told all five of you to be here."

Eugene said, "My dog don't have somebody with her she chews up the house."

Walter had never seen this dog and was curious, but kept to his purpose. He said to Arlen, "Why Junebug?"

Arlen said, "I had him put down 'cause he was getting drunk and talking too much."

"But you let an eyewitness to your shooting Floyd walk down the street, do whatever he wants."

"I set him straight. He knows what'll happen he's called and testifies."

"And Charlie Hoke?"

"Charlie knows better." Arlen cleared his throat and said, "I don't see this has anything to do with business. It come out of our dealing with Floyd. So I don't see it has anything to do with you?"

"It's business," Walter said, "because it brings the police. I can say to myself there is nothing they can find that would tie me in with what you're doing, but I can never be absolutely sure, can I? What I think about is any one of you facing a convictiondoesn't matter what it is-could roll me over to get a reduced sentence. Or name all the names, all your friends and associates, to get immunity from prosecution."

Arlen turned his head to Bob Hoon on one side of him and then to Eugene on the other. "Walter sounds like he's running the business."

Bob Hoon said, "I thought he was," and nudged his brother, Newton.

"As I see it," Arlen said, "we hired him."

"At gunpoint," Walter said.