I scan the room, searching for the man I’ve only seen up close in a pickup truck window, and for a brief time in the Justice Court. The interior of the juke isn’t as dim as I expected, but it smells like every other one I’ve entered in my life. The first wave of odors confuses the olfactory senses—a strange brew of delicious aromas and suspicious funk. Frying chicken, sizzling lard, baking biscuits, fresh corn bread, and onions battle dead fish, stale beer, old garbage, disinfectant, sugary wine, and cigarette smoke that’s permeated even the cinder-block walls. Eight tables with red-checkered cloths have been squeezed between the bar and the corner stage, and four more stand along the far wall beneath narrow windows that actually allow some daylight through. A painting of a naked and bejeweled black girl floating above a smoldering volcano serves as a backdrop for the stage, where a glittering red drum set awaits the next show. The flashing jukebox in the corner sends Bobby “Blue” Bland throughout the club with bone-shaking bass. I can guess the other artists in that machine without looking: Little Walter, B. B. King, Big Mama Thornton, Wilson Pickett, Muddy Waters, Irma Thomas, Robert Johnson, Beverly “Guitar” Watkins, Ray Charles, and probably a couple of tracks by Merle Haggard or Hank Williams to round out the list.

No one in CC’s is younger than forty, except a tall, skinny busboy moving between the tables with a mop and bucket. It’s too dark to see faces clearly, so I try to differentiate Lincoln by his size. As I search the tables, a woman wearing jeans and a red bandanna tied around her head walks up and gives me a skeptical look. “What you lookin’ for? Your car break down or somethin’?”

“No, ma’am. I’m Mayor Penn Cage, from Natchez. I’m looking for a man from Chicago. His name is Lincoln Turner.”

She looks at me like I just announced I’m selling burial insurance. “Don’t know him.”

“His truck’s parked outside.”

“Well, you can look around, if you buy a beer.”

“Budweiser.”

She spins and heads for the bar.

The scents of cooking food are emanating from the ramshackle kitchen beneath the vent pipe I saw outside. Only a greasy curtain separates it from the main room, and it’s near this curtain that I spy Lincoln Turner, sitting alone at a half-size table. Did he consciously choose the table with the shortest path to the back door? Maybe not. He’s sitting hunched over a Colt .45 tallboy, facing away from me, and he seems oblivious to my entrance.

When the waitress places a sweating beer can in my hand, I move cautiously toward Lincoln’s table. He’s actually bent over a plate, not his beer, eating as though he hasn’t had anything for days.

“Mind if I sit down?” I ask from four feet away.