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Chapter Three
Best Ribs: Calhoun's
Best New Restaurant: Riverside Tavern
I walked down Gay Street, took a left on Hill, and could already smell the delicious ribs at Calhoun's. Near the dark elevator I vaulted the fence and slid down the steep pedestrian access, bumping over the top of the retaining wall and plummeting through thin air. I made a perfect two-point landing on the pavement. I knew these gumshoes would come in handy.
I strolled into the Riverside Tavern, looking for Professor Von Bonk, but blundered into a surprise party for Cynthia Moxley. The first one who saw me was the Mox herself.
"Johnny, baby!" she said. We get along all right. I feed her most of the stuff she writes up in that "Strolling" column, and sometimes she's good for a tip.
"You seen Professor Von Bonk tonight? Professor Dieter Von Bonk?"
"DeeDee?" she laughed. "No, of course not. This is the night he does his show."
"His show?" I asked.
"Yes, of course. Her show, I should say. At the Electric Ballroom. You knew she's the queen of Friday night, didn't you?"
"Of course I did. Thanks, Cynthia."
She looked at her watch. "You'd better hurry. He finishes in 10 minutes." I could already tell that big carp in the jar was a red herring.
"You don't have a ride, do you?" She asked around, and, just my luck, somebody had a spare Yugo. I took the keys. "Thanks," I said. "I owe you one." She agreed, and returned to her party.
Best Overall Dance Club: Electric Ballroom
Best Gay Club: Carousel
Best Museum: Knoxville Museum of Art
I drove out on Dale Avenue, into that dark forgotten industrial neighborhood beneath the highways. There was a big crowd at the Electric Ballroom.
"I'm looking for DeeDee," I said to a gorgeous brunette.
"Isn't everybody?" she said in a curiously deep voice. "DeeDee's such a hussy," she said.
"Okay, sister, okay. But do you know where can I find her?" I flashed her a fancy new quarter, the New Jersey one with Washington crossing the Delaware.
"This time of night?" she said. "Try the Carousel."
I got back in the Yugo, hoping it would make it. It stalled out on 11th Street in front of the Knoxville Museum of Art. I pulled her over to the shoulder and had a good look at the Escher exhibit. I didn't trust it. I looked at those pictures up and down, and something about them just wasn't quite on the square. I came out walking sideways.
I got the Yugo started again and drove down White, where they'd been paving over things for years. I knew I was hot on the trail.
Inside the Carousel I stood at the bar and pulled out a Lucky. Scratching my thumbnail against a bar match, I lit it.
"That Bogart look is so '70s," said an attractive middle-aged dame. She had a chest that looked like the Sunsphere making love with the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame. "I love it."
"I'm not sure what you mean, sister," I said, crushing my cigarette. "But I like your style."
"You wear it well," she said. "On you it looks so, so—Marlene Dietrich." I lit another Lucky and winced. It was the second time this week someone had said that. But coming from a lady like this, I didn't mind too much.
"Did you know Fedora is the name of a woman in a French musical play by Victorien Sardou?" she asked. "Wear a fedora and you can be cross-dressing and not even let anyone know it! It feels so naughty!"
"Is that right, sister?" I said, shoving my Lucky into somebody's leftover sandwich. "So how come you know so much?"
"I'm a professor, darling. Professor Dieter Von Bonk. But I hope you'll call me DeeDee."
"Say, you're just the—woman I came to see!" I said.
"All the fellows tell me that," she said. "I know a little place where we can talk." Looking around to see who was watching, she slipped through a back door. I followed her outside, and she led me to one of the university buildings nearby; her key let us inside, and we made our way down the hall. "Pardon me while I slip into something a little less comfortable," she said before ducking into a bathroom.
"Be my guest," I replied. When she came out again, she became a he, attired in university-issue professor chinos and a tweed sportcoat. He led us into his office and turned on the lights.
"You see, Mr. Knox, I've been waiting for you," he said, and unveiled an easel holding two large photos stacked one over the other. "See this picture? It's West Knoxville, 40 years ago."
It was a nice-looking spread, lots of green farmland, with a two-lane road running through it. Cows. Horses. The sort of place you read about in old pulp novels by Laura Ingalls Wilder.
"Now," he said, "here's the same view, in a photo taken from my private blimp last week."
It was a barren mess of highways and parking lots, clogged with traffic. It looked like an X-ray of my lungs. I lit another Lucky.
"My God," I said.
"That's right. In another 10 years, Knoxville will be entirely encased in asphalt."
"Who's responsible?"
"I have a theory that I think may interest you," he said, leaning close and whispering into my ear. I was beginning to get a feeling that this could take a while. "My theory is that—ak...."
He fell to the floor, deader than a letter office.
It didn't appear to be natural causes. I looked closer, and there was a gleaming knife, inscribed with an elaborate number 12, sticking up out of his back—and a tough-looking thug in a cheap suit and a trench coat with a long scar down the side of his face was standing behind him in the doorway. He looked like a pretty good suspect.
He smiled one of those threatening smiles that thugs like him get by on.
"Okay, pal. We know who you are," he growled. "But you don't know who we are. Keep it that way."
I charged at him. He ran past me like I was a second-string Vanderbilt defensive back and fled outside. I took a last look at that knife protruding from Von Bonk's back and knew there was trouble ahead. But that's my business. And business seemed pretty good right then.
When I got outside, day had broken like a cheap shot glass, the kind your neighbors bring you back when they go to Panama City or Myrtle Beach. I saw a long, black car driven by a second mean-looking guy in a turban squeal away, headed west down White Avenue. The wrong way down a one-way street, I thought to myself. We all know where that road leads.
April 27, 2000 * Vol. 10, No. 17
© 2000 Metro Pulse
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