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Editor's Note:
After writing the last six years' worth of the Best of Knoxville in the exact same manner, this year we decided to do it a little differently. Or, rather, much differently—in fact, we turned the whole thing into a hard-boiled detective story. We're hoping this'll be more entertaining than the usual list of blurbs, while still cluing you in as to why these winners are deserving of their awards. (If you'd like to see the complete list of winners by category, click the "Full List" button below.) Also, our lawyers would like us to apologize beforehand to all those involved.

 

Special Online-Only Bonus!

When we asked John Mayer to illustrate our Best of Knoxville detective novel, he didn't just throw together some drawings. No, he wrote his own entire story starring Knoxville Confidential detective Solomon Panzer. So please join us now as we enter the alternate-universe version of The Lost Knoxville Caper.

 

The 7th Annual
The Lost Knoxville Caper

Chapter Two

She was sitting in the corner finishing a cappuccino. She was a sultry brunette, classy, just like the Venus de Milo, but with a couple of good arms and some white froth on her mouth. She gave me a look and I came hither.

"You're Johnny Knox, the private eye," she said.

"Maybe I am. Who's asking?"

"Rowena," she said. "Rowena Dickey."

"Old man Dickey's kid," I said. "I wouldn't have known you. Last time I saw you, you would have had to show ID to get into the Mickey Mouse Club. I'm looking for your dad."

"I know you are," she said, with a look that made me feel stupid. Beautiful women always make me feel stupid. "Listen, Mr. Knox, I'll tell you what I know."

"Call me Johnny," I said.

"Okay, Jonny," she said. I winced.

"No," I said. "That's Johnny with an H. Let's get that straight." I try to be patient with beautiful women, but that Jonny stuff gets on my nerves.

"Daddy held out as long as he could," she said. "He didn't want to sell. Every time they came by with the briefcases, Daddy would send them packing. I was proud of him." A tear welled in her left eye, the blue one. "Then one day he just didn't come home. I didn't know what happened to him. Then the men came to the joint with the papers. They showed me his signature. It looked like his, anyway. I didn't believe it. I don't believe it."

"That makes two of us, sister," I said. "Do you have anything to go on?"

"Only this," she said. It was a crumpled piece of paper with a name—Al—and a phone number.

"What's this?" I said.

"I found it in the store, on the counter, the first day Dad was missing," she said. "I don't know whose it is. I've been afraid to call."

"That's what I'm here for, sister," I said. I grabbed the cell phone lodged in the crook of her shoulder. When I dialed the seventh number, I eased my .38 out of my pocket, just in case things got ugly.

"Barley's Taproom," came the answer.

It was the answer I wanted to hear. "I'm in the mood for great pizza and a wide variety of beers, anyway," I told Rowena. I got her to write down her own number on the back of that scrap of paper and said so long. Then, out on Kingston Pike, I flagged down the 5 o'clock bus. A bus named "Downtown."

Best Beer Selection: Barley's Taproom & Pizzeria
Best Jazz Band: Donald Brown
Best Local Bluegrass/Country Band: Robinella and the CC Band

I got off at Gay and made my way down the wet bricks of Jackson Avenue. It was a regular night in the Old City. Walking by Lucille's alley, I could hear Donald Brown's way with the keyboards. "My man," I said. Donald and I go way back. I used to play oboe for the Jazz Messengers. Down and dirty, gutbucket oboe. That was before the accident. Now I can't hear "A Night In Tangier" without thinking about it: the explosion, the screams, the severed limbs, the mute button that wouldn't work.

I shoved my way into Barley's Taproom and heard the crash of pool balls upstairs. There was a band, a good band, and I knew the singer, Robinella, from my jazz days. She was doing what she does best, singing some smooth torch songs that could have lit your way to Bali. I shouldered up to the long bar and ordered a wide variety of hand-crafted beers.

"Al here tonight?" I asked the bartender.

"Might be. Who's asking?"

"An old pal from the service," I said. I showed him a shiny new Connecticut quarter, the one with the big tree.

"I'll see," he said. A dame, cute brunette I once worked on a case with, heard my voice and moved over to the stool beside me.

"How are you, Johnny?" she said.

"I'll do," I said. "Mary, right?"

"Close," she said. "Sophonsiba."

"Of course. So how are you, Sophie?"

"Oh, fine, Johnny. I'm sure glad to see ya." She was chewing her gum a little faster than she was a minute ago. Right away I could tell she'd seen the shady side of 20, but she was still a very sexy number.

I was about halfway through the ales when Al showed up, looking like an Al. He looked scared.

"Maybe we'd better get a table," I said. We'd hardly sat before he started talking.

"It was my dream," he said. "I've been a bartender for years, but I'd saved up enough to buy a piece of land in West Knoxville. Just a little place, a perfect size for a catfish joint. But then the man showed up. He gave me an offer I couldn't refuse."

"Who was it, Al? Who?" I leaned across the table, over the candle.

"I can't tell you. I won't tell you," he said. He thought he was too tough to cry. "Give it up, Johnny. If you get too close, you'll get burned."

I knew he meant business. My lapel was on fire. I put it out with a Scottish ale and went back to the bar, hoping the night wasn't a lost cause. Sophonsiba was waiting for me.

"You know, Sophie, I could go for you in a big way."

"You already did. Remember Gatlinburg? We was married, Johnny."

"Of course, I remember," I said. "It was just on the tip of my tongue."

Robinella and the band shifted into a rendition of "Girl From Ipanema."

"I don't get it, Johnny," Sophie said. "You're a smart, talented, good-looking lug. So how come you're still a cheap detective?"

I lit up a Lucky and stubbed it out on the bar.

"Blame it on the bossa nova," I said. I flipped her a new Delaware quarter, the one with the horse.

Best Pizza: Tomato Head
Best Local Internet Service Provider: nTown

I needed something to have washed down with all that beer I'd drunk, so I headed uptown to the Tomato Head. On the way, I walked past the trendy headquarters of nTown, the new Internet service provider place. Maybe someday, I thought, I'll get a real job at a classy high-tech joint like that. But first I had to find Old Dickey.

When I got to the Tomato Head, some clown had knocked down their brick wall. I walked across to the Tomato Head West, and figured it would do. It was a busy night. It's always a busy night at the Head. All the tables were taken, so I climbed onto a stool at the outdoor window.

Mahasti, the owner, was busier than the guy who stokes the furnace on the space shuttle, but she stopped to take my order.

"I want a pizza with everything," I said.

Mahasti blinked. "Everything?" she said.

"Everything you got," I said. "Pineapple, capers, salmon, pesto, lamb sausage—the works. I'm feeling lucky tonight."

There was a pregnant lady sitting next to me. She ordered the same thing.

"Small world," I said.

"Big pizza," she said. She was reading an old New Yorker.

"Word is you're looking for the man who's paving West Knoxville," she said.

"Maybe I am," I said. "What's it to you?

"Not much," the big dame said. "But there's a man you might want to talk to. Name of Professor Dieter Von Bonk. He knows about these things."

"Oh, yeah?"

"Yeah. In fact, he's expecting you. He's waiting at... at..."

"Where? Where?" It was no use. She'd gone into labor. I left a sawbuck on the counter and lit up a Lucky. Outside, the Square was dark. A few people I couldn't make out were eating by candlelight at Lula. A guy was sitting on a bench beneath the trees, talking to himself.

"I said I didn't want no goddamn radishes goddamn it turnips too I'm sick of goddamn root vegetables I told you once, I told you...."

I nodded him a good evening, and as I walked by, he said, "Check inside the left canopic vessel in the Tennessee."

I halted in my tracks. "You talking to me, partner?" I said, but by then he was muttering about rutabagas and beets.

"Thanks, pal," I said, and as I flipped him a shiny new Jefferson nickel he muttered something unprintable. I figured he was just shifting back into his clever street-person persona.

Best Concert Venue: Tennessee Theatre
Best Local Music Release: R.B. Morris's Zeke And the Wheel
Best Local Blues Band: Hector Qirko

As luck had it, R.B. Morris was at the Tennessee Theatre, with Hector Qirko and the boys opening. The man at the door was selling copies of Zeke And the Wheel. I told him I played oboe with the band.

He looked suspicious at first, but then lightened up. "You know, I haven't seen the oboe player yet," he said. "I bet they're looking for you."

I scooted past and was soon lost in the dark theater.

R.B. was rocking through "Call Me Zeke." I thought I recognized his battered fedora, and felt my head to be sure mine was still up there. I sidled down the left side and had a good look at the big canopic jar in the backlit alcove. I needed a distraction. Without waiting for a cue, I jumped up and shouted, "Fire!"

Everyone ran out the clearly marked exits, just as I knew they would. I smiled, proud to live in a country like this. That's freedom of speech. At least, I think it is. UT law school kicked me out for smoking.

As soon as it was quiet, I climbed up the Moroccan architecture to the alcove, hugged the jar, and reached down into the dark hole, half expecting to find some boring pharaoh's mummified brain.

But what I felt inside was something wet and lively. It took some doing to get a grip on it, but when I pulled it out the top, I could tell it was a fish. A big fish. And not just any big fish. Mister, this was a carp. And I knew a carp meant one thing: Volunteer Landing.

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April 27, 2000 * Vol. 10, No. 17
© 2000 Metro Pulse