Prologue - Part III

A week before, another edgy man wearing mirrored sunglasses drove a rust-bucket Ford Econoline van east on Interstate 40, just a half-a-mile from the Mississippi bridge, the one Chuck Berry sang about. It was a faded Portofino blue with California plates. From time to time, his shaded eyes checked the rear-view mirror as he drove five miles an hour over the speed limit—which everybody did. He didn’t want to stand out. He looked a bit older than thirty, or a well-preserved forty-five, with his dirty blond dreadlocks, splayed out like weeds under a black porkpie hat. On the seat next to him were a cell phone and a Rolling Stone magazine opened to page forty-three, showing an article about the up-and-coming band, Cold Irons Bound. The producer’s name, Paul Flowers, highlighted in yellow. In the glove box was a Smith and Wesson .22-caliber revolver. Some guy Flowers had ripped off in L.A. had given it to him. Money, too. He didn’t need any outside motivation. His reasons were good enough. The cell phone was a fringe benefit.

From that same article, he learned the band was doing a showcase at 12th and Porter on Wednesday, still a few days away. He’d asked a young Southern bartender about the band—where they were rehearsing and so forth. The barkeep revealed the band might be rehearsing at Studio Instrument Rentals near the river downtown, but he wouldn’t swear to it. Worth checking out, but not that night. Instead, he drove back to the forty-dollar-a-night motel on the north side of Music City to relax, watch some TV, hell, maybe even catch a porno. Tomorrow was another day, another day closer to finding Flowers.