Dark End of the Street

“We’d made you a meal, too, Mister Jon,” McLeod said, his dentures slipping in his mouth. He held a plastic plate in his hand filled with a fried peanut butter and banana sandwich. McLeod used two sticks of butter for each sandwich. He said that’s the only way E would eat ’em.

“ ‘Preciate it,” Burrows said, taking the plastic plate stamped with a picture of E from the Aloha from Hawaii special. “Think I’m gonna go hit Smart Boy in the cellar.”

“Whatever you want, Mister Jon. Black Elvis speaks real high of you. You holler out you need anythin’.”

“ ‘Preciate it,” Burrows said again, walking around to the twin doors of the cellar. He pulled the rusted handle on one of the doors and moved below the unmowed weeds and piles of chipped brick into the cool brick bunker.

He closed the door behind him and walked to the electronic screen burning beneath a framed velvet image of E. It was the holy one. The one where E is crying. A blue halo around his head.

He sat before the computer and clicked his way on to the Internet. The computer burped out some weird sounds before he heard the buzzing connection. He typed with one hand and held the sandwich with the other. What he wouldn’t give for an RC right about now.

He smacked on the sandwich, warm butter oozing down his arm, as he watched for the address prompt. Sure glad he’d hooked up with that German chick a couple years ago. When they left Mississippi for Las Vegas, she’d taught him all kind of things about computers.

Burrows pulled out a business card from his wallet and carefully keyed in the address. Within seconds, the home page for LOST YOUTH appeared. He clicked on a photograph of a poor Mexican boy and the face disappeared into another site called BOUNTY TIME. Names of wanted men were listed under regions. Burrows double-clicked on SOUTH. There he had a list of states. Under Mississippi he saw a name, picture, and last known address for a prison rat named Dock Boggs. Only $500. Shit.

The other hit was out on a woman named Lillie Fitzpatrick. She was worth $2,000, but was all the way up in Atlanta running a beauty shop.

He clicked on the next best thing. Louisiana. As the computer struggled to pull up the names, he finished off the sandwich and scraped the excess peanut butter off the roof of his mouth with his tongue.

In the past two years, he’d killed over thirty men and women. Made some good money at it, but was always on the run. He felt like E did at the end, when no one understood how hard it was to travel. But he didn’t have people to put tin foil on his windows while he slept in hotels during the day or give him special pills to make him feel all happy. He just hit the road with his gift, driving through the truck stops of the South. A hot shower and a country meal were about the only thanks he ever got for his true talent.

The computer screen brightened.

Just as you start to feel all sorry for yourself, E illuminates a man to his true purpose. “I’ll never doubt you again, E,” Burrows said, crossing his heart with his sticky fingers.

Jon Burrows knew one of the bounties.

He pulled out the switchblade his mama had bought him at Wal-Mart and flicked it open. In the gleam of its sharpened steel, he could see a warped image of himself. Beard. A couple years older. And tougher than ever.

Burrows snapped the blade shut and stared at the screen. The face of a white man with a scar across his left eyebrow appeared. Black hair with gray on the sides. Yep, it was him all right.

NICK TRAVERS.

And damn if he wasn’t gettin’ more valuable.

Twenty thousand dollars.

Chapter 15

THE NEXT MORNING, I felt brittle carpet fibers on my cheeks and a hot slice of sunlight in my eyes. Sometime last night, I’d grabbed a stiff bedspread and pillow before the girl fell asleep and was slowly waking up sore as hell. I usually tried not to think about how many body parts I’d broken, sprained, or dislocated, but mornings like this made me aware. The girl was still curled up in bed, a loose strand of blond hair in her eyes. Lips pursed. Tightly wrapped in a smooth blue blanket.

Abby. Her name was Abby.

Last night, I could barely get her to eat the chicken sandwich that I’d ordered from the Peabody’s room service. Kept on saying she had to go, and made it to the door twice before I convinced her to stay. I showed her my driver’s license, scattered notebooks, and even the battered cassette recorder I’d used in the Delta. I tried to make her relax and even laugh.

She never did trust me. She was just beaten and scared. Absolutely no place to go. She spent the few hours before she went to sleep silently watching Letterman and then the last half of Breakfast at Tiffany’s in a worn JoJo’s Blues Bar T-shirt and pair of my Scooby Doo boxers. Didn’t even blink when Holly lost Cat.