—Come on. I’m begging. You’re the nearest thing to a sane person in the whole gang. I didn’t know who else to ask.
—You understand I’m not collecting anymore. I told you that. I’m not involved.
—You sold your records?
—No.
—So you still have your records.
—I don’t listen to them.
—If you still have your records, you’re still in.
Train going express. Both hunched in our coats on the El platform, hands crammed in pockets. The wind slicing at us like a mugger, inverting Grady’s puny umbrella.
—Chester went to see Pinkus at the bank.
—Pinkus works in a bank?
—Some savings and loan in midtown. Chester turned up there, stinking all to hell, Pinkus said it smelled like he shit his pants, pardon my French. Told Pinkus he needed to come over to his room right away and take all the records. Pinkus was worried about the customers. He could have lost his job, someone in a state like that running around in the office. He just wanted him gone, but Chester wouldn’t leave until he promised that he’d come and take the records, as soon as possible, that very night. Pinkus didn’t think he was serious.
—Did he go?
—Of course he went. Pinkus can’t stand Chester, you know that. He puts up with him because he’s obsessed by the music. But he went all the way out to Williamsburg and Chester wouldn’t let him in, just talked to him through the door.
—Well of course. He’d never just give them away.
—Here’s the weird part. He told Pinkus he couldn’t give him the records because it was too dangerous. He couldn’t have it on his conscience. That’s what he said. Word for word. Pinkus tried to persuade him, but nothing doing. He’s been going back every day hoping Chester will change his mind.
—Did you tell Pinkus you were planning to do this?
—No. I thought—put it this way. If we find anything, he’ll be on to us soon enough.
He gave me a straight look.
—Fifty-fifty, OK? Split right down the middle.
—Grady.
—Just say it.
I could have replied, I don’t want anything. I could have told him I was just there out of curiosity, or any number of other things. But I didn’t. I shook on the deal.
—Fifty-fifty.
I was still in.
Chester’s building looked doubly sinister in the darkness and rain, a great brick slab set on a corner, with a soot-blackened stone porch and an empty lot on either side. Five bucks to the super got us into Chester’s room. I could smell the stink of smoke as we climbed the stairs. The guy unlocked the door for us but didn’t want to go in. Some kind of accident while cooking, he said. Hell of a mess.
As soon as I stepped inside, my eyes began to water. The room was soot-blackened, but weirdly undisturbed except for a rough circle, about three feet in diameter, scorched into the floor. One of Chester’s two chairs was intact. The metal skeleton of the other lay on its side in the scorched patch. There was no space heater, or anything else I could see that might have set him on fire like that. The mattress was gone from the bed frame, and there was nothing stored underneath it. No boxes. No records. Grady looked stricken.
—Poor bastard. What a way to go. I mean, Jesus, the feet. Imagine his two feet, just sitting there.
He flashed another five at the super, who was standing in the doorway, a handkerchief over his mouth.
—Were there any records here?
The super looked wistfully at the money and shook his head. He hadn’t carried out any records. Some books, a few cups and plates. I flashed on Chester sitting in that chair. Sitting and listening, or just sitting and waiting in the silence. Was that how it was? Chester, rigid in his chair, knowing he couldn’t escape, waiting for the heat to erupt in his core. Suddenly it was all I could do not to run for the door. I fought it for a few seconds, then gave in. The records weren’t there. Nothing could keep me in that room a second longer.
I could hear the sound of boots, clattering on the stairs. My own boots. Chester had gotten rid of his collection, but it hadn’t been enough to save him. I still had mine. I was still in. Panic completely overtook me and I fled along the street. I didn’t know where I was going. It was a primitive urge, fight or flight, unmodulated by civilization or decency. Grady caught up with me as I reached the El. I was shouting, hyperventilating. Somehow he managed to calm me down. He said the best thing would be to go to a bar and get drunk. All the way back into Manhattan, he babbled on at me. A couple of drinks. Steady the nerves. How he wished Bly had answered the letter he wrote. Grady had his hopes set on the success of a certain little scheme. He thought maybe Chester would consider selling his Broonzys separately or perhaps even the Robert Johnsons. He thought, with a little notice, he could have raised enough money to take a few, at least. But it wasn’t to be. We ought to look on the bright side. They weren’t in the room so they weren’t damaged. That meant he got rid of them before it happened. So they were still out there. All we had to do was find who had them. Someone would know. We just had to keep an ear to the ground…
I left him on a street corner, still talking. In my apartment I bolted the door and lay down on the bed, knowing that I would not sleep that night. The next morning I sold my records to a guy at the Washington Square fountain. I just walked them down there in a crate and sat for an hour or so with a cardboard sign saying Blues until a buyer turned up. He was a rich kid who wanted to start collecting. I told him a few of them might be warped but he didn’t mind. He knew nothing, less than nothing. Though he handed me enough money to pay a couple months rent, he didn’t really understand what he’d bought, the burden he’d taken on. I didn’t try to explain.