Dark End of the Street

“Bullshit,” I said. I kept walking. The walls seemed to constrict as the blood flowed hot through my face and ears. I could hear my own breathing as the clacking of my boots beat a steady rhythm.

The hallway ended with a path to the right and left. This was the path back to the sealed door. I walked about fifteen yards ahead to see the hall blocked with seven-foot stacks of paint cans.

“Clever,” I said, brushing past Fat Man and continuing down the hall.

“Mister…?” Beckum called out.

U caught up with me. “They good,” he said.

I nodded.

I turned to the first door. This was it. Or at least I thought this was it. Shit, I was so damned turned around, this was maybe the women’s bathroom. Felt like this was the turn from last night. I didn’t remember any doors along the corridor before the surveillance room. I reached for the door. It was locked.

“Open it,” I said.

“Listen, I’ll indulge you,” Beckum said. “But don’t be smarting off to these folks.”

Fat Man pulled a set of keys from his pocket, extracted a single one from dozens, and pushed open the door.

The room was filled with dusty blackjack tables and roulette wheels and a few mannequin Southern belles propped armless by the door. Along the back wall was a row of something long and rectangular under a tarp. I walked over and pulled it away.

Slot machines.

“Y’all done?” Fat Man asked, giving a phony yawn.

“Room one-oh-two,” I said. “But let me guess… it’s now a swimming pool.”

It wasn’t.

It didn’t exist at all.

The room sequence stopped at 101. A long concrete hallway continued on without a single entrance. Caged lamps burned in the semidarkened corridor.

“Can’t you see what they’ve done?” I asked, my voice sounding hollow. “They’ve erased everything. Go interview employees. They’ll tell you about the work they put in last night. They sealed up two doors and moved a lot of shit around. Check on this man Humes. He was here last night. People saw him. Someone had to have heard the shots… there were witnesses. You can’t just pretend that the man never existed. That’s bullshit.”

Beckum looked over to U. “Best get this boy some sleep. And keep him the hell away from this place.”

“That’s all you going to do?” U asked.

Beckum ran his hand over his head and looked down the concrete corridor. “What do you want me to do? Arrest the man for murder? Do you really want that for your buddy?”

Fifteen minutes later, I slammed my fist into the dashboard of the Bronco. U reclined the seat back and stared into the cotton fields I had shown him. A quiet splatter of rain dolloped on the hood. The sky was deep black and seemed to stretch all the way to the Gulf.

“I’m not crazy, U,” I said.

“Listen, brother, I’m with you,” he said. “If you say you seen a chicken smoking, I’ll walk over to his feathered ass and bring back a pack of Camels.”

Chapter 20

JON BURROWS LOVED the smell of Graceland. Burnt bacon, cheap women’s perfume, and Tampa Nugget cigars still lingered more than twenty years later. Maybe because everything in the holy estate was the way He’d left it for His return. Jon’s heart just started rockin’ in his chest every time he entered that front hall and saw that long white leather couch and them stained-glass windows of peacocks. Jon could see E’s piano where He sang gospel till dawn with the boys and them pretty blue curtains in the dining room where Dodger used to serve Him boiled ham and sweet potatoes. He wanted to jump past the velvet ropes and sprint up to E’s bedroom so he could lay on that shag carpet and soak up all them smells. This was holy air that seeped deep into your lungs and made you one with Him. Jon took in a big lungful, got loose from the tour of old people, nonbelievers, and fools, and walked outside following a back path to the Meditation Gardens.

The man he’d called from a pay phone in Holly Springs told him to pick a spot to make contact and he figured this was as good a place as any. He knew the layout, the curves, the cracks, just in case the law was playin’ some kind of game. Jon pulled the Resistol down in his eyes and stroked his thick black beard.

Today he wore nothin’ but black to match his feelin’. Black jeans, a black T-shirt – with one sleeve rolled up to show his tattoo with Elvis wearin’ a crown of thorns – and real shiny black boots. Jon kind of felt the way he imagined E did when he was making Charro!, back when everyone didn’t think He could act. Hell, He only sang the title song and didn’t even dance once. If that ain’t actin’, Jon didn’t know what actin’ was.

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.