by Ace Atkins
Elvis had to control his power when them men in the movie branded Him like He was a steer and then started firin’ their gold cannon at that Ole West city. If E had danced and sung, it woulda been a different story, brother.
It was late in the day and Jon could feel a rumble in his stomach. He sat on the steps of the garden feeling his knee jump up and down like a piston. Been so keyed up about another killin’ job that he didn’t even remember to eat.
Maybe he was all worked up ’cause he’d sniffed two rags of lighter fuel before he took the bus across the boulevard. Man, the fountain was lookin’ mighty strange through all them blurry flowers and wreaths and things.
But this was a special spot for E and he needed to concentrate. Made him feel important, like them Bible people who used to debate scripture, when he sat along the wall of arches in that little curve of brick wall. Jon heard that first time He’d seen it, that tears of joy washed down His face.
Jon remembered that story he’d heard from one of the ole timers durin’ Elvis Week a few years back when he just come up from Hollywood, Mississippi to make somethin’ of himself. Heard that E sent a man all the way to Italy to buy statues of Roman soldiers and to Spain to buy all them pretty stained-glass windows set into the curved wall.
He watched the big round fountain beyond the graves, some skinny wrinkled woman bawlin’ like a baby, and them gray skies overhead. E left a world that needed Him too much.
Jon folded his hands and bowed his head.
Dear Lord God E, please hear my worried prayer for that I may know the full potential of my worrisome mind. I have wandered from my skills. I have become soft in the eyes of You, much like the days of Hollywood when the government took away Your sideburns and powers over the world. I want to be reborn as You were in 1968 when the Holy Spirit entered You and sat You upon the throne of the world. Lord God E, make me into a man. Brand me with Your knowledge and power so that I am me once again in You. In Your name I . . .
Jon was about finished prayin’ when he saw about the most God-darned gorgeous woman he’d ever laid his eyes on walk in front of Jesse Garon Presley’s grave, pick a flower from the wreath, and tuck it behind her ear. She was blond and blue-eyed and had this body on her that was nothin’ but curves. Had on tight faded blue jeans frayed at the bottom and some kind of tight low-cut white sweater that showed a good bit of chest.
Jon thought he was just gonna burst when she sucked on that lower lip, real impatient like, and looked around the garden. He knew he should just leave her alone and keep on takin’ care of the business at hand. But man, those hips, eyes, lips. She was shaped like a God-dang Coca-Cola bottle. Probably could wrap just his hands ’round that little waist.
The woman tossed back her blond hair and sat on the fence as everyone else kept lookin’ at the grave. Just a bit of her stomach showed from beneath her tiny little sweater and she looked down at the skin. Jon’s blood hammered out a pulse in his ears when her lips slightly parted in a smile.
She then lowered her blue eyes to her chest, sweater stretched tight across her, and smiled some more. Woman was watchin’ herself. Watchin’ all them curves and bumps.
Dang!
As Jon walked toward her, the wind scattered a thick strand of blond hair across one eye. She blew it away with a quick breath from her movie-star lips.
“Ma’am?”
The smile disappeared. She hooked her feet in the low fence, placed her hands on the rail, and looked away.
“Ma’am, I jes had to come over when I seen you, to tell you you’re the prettiest girl I think I ever seen.”
The woman raked her long red fingernails over her puffy lips and smiled.
“Well, I’m sure you get tole that a lot. And I’m jes a stupid little country boy. But I was wonderin’, there’s this little malt shop across the road there called Rockabilly’s. Wonder if you’d allow me the pleasure of buyin’ you a blueberry milk shake. Taste like a cloud up in heaven, ma’am.”
“Are you stoned?” she asked. Real lazy like. She didn’t say it sexy, more like she didn’t have no time for his mess.
“No, ma’am,” he said, feeling himself breathe through his hooded eyes.
She folded her arms across her chest and kept looking through the loose crowd that was floating back to the front of the mansion. Jon always liked this part of the day best. He liked to be the final person to leave the garden and the last to say good-bye to E and the family before night coated their lonely bodies.
“You lookin’ for someone special?” Jon asked.
“Maybe,” she said. “I don’t know.”
He watched her eyes move across the crowd and focus on an old man in a blue leisure suit carrying a purse. His hair was dyed so black that it looked blue. He was white and pasty and looked like he’d lain with other men.
The woman shook her head.
Jon smiled, his face flushing with excitement.
“You lookin’ for a man called Deke Rivers?”
Her eyes slowly turned back to him, her mouth tight like she was real annoyed, and unfolded her arms. “And what would you know about Deke?”
Chapter 21
AFTER BEING SHOT AT, killing another man, and ultimately being called a liar, about the only thing I could think of that would really soothe the problem, mend my psyche, and possibly motivate me to find the answers I was looking for was simple: a plate of ribs from the Blues City Café. I know most real hard-core barbecue folks swear by Cozy Corner on North Parkway or Payne’s down on Lamar. But although I have to admit Payne’s makes a truly beautiful pork sandwich, there is nothing like dipping your steak fries in some of that sweet molasses-fused sauce down on Beale.
I ordered a large slab. U refused to eat anything deep-fried or barbecued. Abby ordered a Coke.
“You sure you don’t want some gumbo?” U asked, polishing off the last spoonful of his. It looked like a mean batch, but I sure missed Loretta’s cooking.
Abby shook her head. She fiddled with the old watch on her wrist. It was gold and tarnished and looked like it was made for a man.
Apparently, she never quite warmed up to Bubba Cotton. He’d kept Days of Our Lives cranked to volume eleven while she stared out his window and played a little with his cat. But U said Bubba didn’t mind. U said he’d only known Bubba to say a couple of sentences in the last ten years. Bubba grunted all he wanted you to know.
I looked over at U as he pushed away his bowl and smiled.
“Better than tofu?” I asked.
“Much. Although, a little teriyaki sauce can make a tire taste good.”
He stared over at Abby and then back at me. He nodded. Slowly, keeping eye contact. It was time.
“Abby, look, I know this is tough as hell. I can’t imagine what you went through at that casino. But we need to know about those folks.”
Abby kept on with the watch. She suddenly stopped, letting it hang loose, and pulled out a couple of sugar packets from a bin on the table. She poured them into a small mountain before her and then raked through the mass with a fork. A tiny Zen garden on the table.
She never broke concentration as she shook pepper on the pure cane and mixed it through the white. She clenched her jaw as if grinding her teeth would stop whatever pain she’d endured.
“What was it?” I asked. I grabbed her hand and she pulled away. The Zen garden swept away under her hand and onto the floor.
U kept silent. He leaned back in the chair pretending not to pay attention.
“Can we walk?” she asked. “If I stay here another moment I’m going to puke. I need some air.”
“Sure,” I said, pulling out my wallet and dropping money on the table. She was already gone, through the restaurant and out the front doors to the mouth of Beale Street. I pushed through a couple of drunk businessmen in ties and plastic derbys and found her walking down a pathway. She was hugging herself. Head down.
Beale was the black business district that had recently become tourist central for the city.
I loved the stories of the old sin dens, told by blues musicians who’d played Handy Park back in the day. Pool halls. Whiskey joints. Grocery stores. Pawnshops. Now the historic street was just a neon strip mall filled mainly with bars that exuded as much cultural importance as a Gap in Des Moines. Who came to Memphis to eat a burger at a Hard Rock Café? Like my old buddy Tad Pierson always says, people want to see the grit.
Funk pulsed from some no-name bar. Jazz floated from the open door of the next. A daiquiri stand advertised with a warped sheet metal sign like it was an old-time juke.
“Abby?” I yelled, finally catching her at the intersection of Rufus Thomas Boulevard. I grabbed her hand and pulled her out of the road as a horse-drawn carriage passed. “C’mon. Someone tried to kill both of us last night. Now they’re jerking me around and pretending like the whole thing was a joke. Please.”
“I need your help,” she said. “I need your word.”
“You got it.”
She was a head shorter than me and I could see the darkened roots of her hair, which was loosely parted in the middle and smelled of hotel soap. She didn’t wear makeup and her face was flushed with embarrassment like she was about to tell a dirty story that she’d begun but didn’t want anyone to hear.
“Will you go to Oxford with me?” she asked.
I nodded.
“I have a cousin,” she said, her teeth chattering. “And I can’t reach her.”
“You’re afraid they will?”
She nodded. A panhandler walked up to me and grabbed the edge of my jean jacket as a cold fall breeze shot down Beale like an icy river. He said he’d lost his bus fare and needed to see his sick wife. I didn’t turn to him but handed him a couple of bucks.
“What do they want?” I asked her.
“My parents were murdered. I left town and came back a few days ago to get some of my dad’s things. They were waiting for me.”
“Who was your dad?”
“A lawyer.”
“Why would they . . . ?”
“I don’t know. I swear to you, I don’t know.” Her tired eyes grew larger as the din of the music down the street grew into a pulsing beat. The steady rhythm seemed to pick up energy and pace as a saxophonist played to an empty street.
I handed Abby my threadbare jacket.
She accepted it and pulled it onto her shivering body.
Chapter 22
PERFECT LEIGH LOVED good hotels. She loved the way they folded back your covers at night and left little mints beneath your pillow. She loved the smell of clean sheets and tiny hotel soaps. She liked room service and the list of services like massage or laundry or whatever kiss-ass kind of thing they could come up with. Basically, she loved being pampered, loved people tripping over themselves to please her. She wished the world could be one big luxury hotel, she thought, walking through the lobby of the Peabody. She wished everybody could just keep kissing her ass like they couldn’t get enough.
The air smelled cleaner here, like rich people didn’t fart as much as the farm trash who stayed down in Tunica. Smelled like hot coffee and potpourri and new shoes fresh from the box.
Today she was wearing a nice pair of knee-high brown boots with a tan suede skirt and white cotton shirt rolled to the elbows. Her hair shone a honey-colored blond. She smelled good, too. Smelled like body powder and Calvin Klein soap.
She felt so damned good that she even hated to touch the jive-talking bellhop who was handing baggage tickets to a Japanese couple. They were doing a lot of oohing and ahhing about the marble fountain in the middle of the lobby and all the gold trim and oriental rugs.
As soon as they left, she grabbed the bellhop’s hand. He was in his late forties or early fifties. Hard to tell with blacks. He had bloodshot eyes and reeked of body odor. Still she smiled, head back like her mama taught her to do in all those child beauty pageants.
“Hello,” she said, pulling him into a narrow hallway that led up to the banquet rooms. It was quiet and cold in there. Fresh paint and cigarettes.
“Hello yourself, miss. Can I get your car for you?”
She hugged him and began to cry. His nametag smashed into her eye. Renaldo.
“Renaldo, he’s gone.”
“He? He who?”
“My husband. Left with another woman. Left me with the kids.”
“Miss, I’m sorry and Lord, you are pretty and all. But—”
She hugged him tighter, getting a good smoosh of her breasts against his chest, letting him check out her cleavage and smell her Calvin Klein. This was too easy. She almost wanted to yawn.
“He’s a big fella. Black-and-gray hair. Has a scar down one eyebrow. Wears boots.”
He shook his head. Perfect released her grip and handed him fifty dollars.
“Find the man who checked him out of the hotel and he’ll get a hundred.”
“Lord, he musta done you real bad.”
“You have no idea, Renaldo. Please.”
Renaldo tipped his slanted green hat and disappeared. In a few minutes he returned with a small black man with ears that reminded her of the movie Gremlins. He had a big grin on his face and almost danced in front of her as he bounced from foot to foot.
“You’ve seen him?” she asked.
He looked back at Renaldo and then smiled at Perfect. She handed him the hundred.
“I seen him. Left with a young woman. Wasn’t as pretty as you, ma’am.”
Perfect finally yawned and pulled a long thread that had somehow attached itself to her suede boot. She ran her tongue over her teeth and made a quick smile that fell. “And?”
“That’s what I seen.”
“Where did he go?”
He shook his head and looked down at his hand.
Perfect stood up to her full six feet (boots helping with four inches), tucked her hair behind her ears, and scanned each direction of the hallway. She suddenly ripped a long section of her blouse.
The men started backing away like they were watching a mad dog circling and foaming at the mouth.
“You tell me where they went or I start yelling rape.”
“Lord God!” Renaldo said under his breath, pulling away his hat and pulling the little black boy close to his chest. “You crazy.”
“You’re right, I’m one crazy fucking bitch. Now tell me where they went.” She started grunting and expelling little gasps of air like she was trying to scream. She tore at her blouse again and flashed the men her lacey bra. They averted their eyes but seemed to have their feet stuck in concrete.
“Mi-Mi-Mississippi,” the boy said. “Asked if they needed a cab and he asked for his truck. Said he goin’ to there. That’s all I know. Don’t know nothin’ about them.”
Perfect patted his cheek and straightened the hat for Renaldo.
“All I needed. You boys are so kind.”
Perfect seemed to float as she skipped down the hall and out to the car where Jon waited.
Woman seemed to give the ole boa constrictor who lived in his pants a good swellin’, Jon thought, as he watched Perfect emerge from the Peabody on Union and walk over to his car by the new baseball field. Lord, she had long legs like his old girlfriend Inga and had this self-confidence about her that made her seem more sexy than anything he’d ever imagined. Kind of like she always knew it’d be the biggest pleasure in his life if he ever got in her drawers and rooted around like a hog. But for some reason, Perfect treated him like the damned mental case at the family reunion. That kid that drooled in his wheelchair as everybody grabbed their potato salad and talked about grandpa’s drinkin’ problem.
She climbed in beside him and pulled off her shirt. She had on a pink bra with flowers. Man, her breasts were so full they just swelled. Tight little stomach with just a slash for a belly button. Man, oh man. If she wanted it here that was fine by him. He crawled over the gear shift feelin’ the ole snake gettin’ hungrier than hell before she slapped his face, pushed him back into the driver’s seat, and pulled on a fresh shirt.
“You touch me and I’ll have you back at that gas station from whatever Podunk town you’re from in two seconds. I don’t give a crap how many people you’ve killed.”
“Sorry, Miss Perfect.”
“That’s better. Now drive.”
“Where to?”
“Just drive, I’ll tell you. Head south.”
“Like Mississippi.”
“No, like Alaska. Yes, Mississippi. Now, go.”
She was checking her lipstick in the visor mirror as Jon dropped his gaze to his crotch to make sure nothin’ was showin’. She wasn’t like any other woman he’d ever known. She was it. She was that special woman that E always found halfway through the movie. And, at first, she always hated E, too.
If she was going to be his wife, he had some work to do. What would E do? Think. Jon pulled onto the highway headed south and ran his mind over some of those sacred scenes from Clambake. Shelley Fabares lookin’ for a rich man when all she really needed was E’s love.
Where was a guitar when you needed one?
Chapter 23
THE LAST TIME I was in Oxford, Mississippi, I had to bail an old teacher of mine out of jail for exposing himself to a group of tourists at the home of William Faulkner. He said he was trying to finish a blues song he’d been working on for the last ten years when the group — retirees on a Southern Living tour — descended on the historic site on a day it was normally closed. He was so pissed off that they’d disrupted his peace that he thought it would be a fantastic idea if he unzipped his fly, pulled out his unit, and placed his National steel guitar between his legs. When this portly woman asked him if he could play her a little ditty, a dewy mint julip loose in her fingers, my blues-tracker mentor pulled the instrument to his chest and plucked away. Crazy old fucker was still laughing when I found him at the Oxford jail, explaining how the woman screamed all the way back to Ohio or Pennsylvania or wherever she lived.