Dark End of the Street

I smiled at her as I flipped back through four files I’d pulled from the rest. Outside the dull patter of rain fell from the gutters. The candles shook light across her face as I stood.

“You want to get out of here?”

“More than anything,” she said. “You find anymore about that singer?”

“I’m sure I’m missing a hell of a lot,” I said, scooping up some letters. “There were tons of case files in there that didn’t make a damned bit of sense to me.”

“Or me.”

“I’d need an accountant to decipher most of those financial records. Mainly, I found a shitload about Sons of the South and a thick file of personal letters I’ll need your help going over if you don’t mind… So, you never heard him mention the Sons of the South?”

She shook her head again and soon walked with me through the dead caverns of the house, holding the candles, and back out into the rain. She locked the door behind us, as if it really mattered, and I smelled the strong scent of candles as the small flames quickly died in the wind and wetness.

As she followed me back to my truck, her eyes on the broken rocks of the road, I noticed a skinny brown lab wagging its fat tail and placing its two muddy paws onto her chest.

“Old friend?”

She nodded.

I held my truck door open and we all climbed inside.

Chapter 26

JON WAS BATHED in sweat and excitement waiting for the skinny guy with bad teeth to call his name and play his song. This was the opportunity that he knew would come since he met Miss Perfect. This is the way it worked when you were courtin’ a high-class woman. You sang the song. She saw you had talent. And soon you kissed her under a fake moon. Dang, it had taken him long enough to talk her into calling off their search for tonight. They were in Oxford and they could stand for a little fun. Stretch the legs. Live a Little. Love a Little. He knew what to do as soon as they’d looped through the Square for about the fiftieth time and he spotted the big plastic road sign with mismatched letters reading, KAR-E-OKE TONITE!

She’d said about a thousand times that they needed to get back and watch the house so they could kill that man Travers and some bad little girl. He told her to relax, they could track ’em to Timbuktu tomorrow. He kind of let it hang there between them like that. Kind of like that he wouldn’t mind going to Timbuktu with Miss Perfect, if he knew where it was.

Now Perfect was workin’ on her fourth daiquiri while she watched this ole goofy cat clock by the door. Swingin’ tail. Shifty bug eyes.

The little bar was kind of dark and smelled like the half-eaten pizzas that lay on the tables around them. There was a good ole handful of college kids around them, too, kids about his age, that were drunker than a goat.

One big ole boy had a straw in his pitcher of beer. A couple of girls on stage were belting out some ole song about “Summer Lovin’” and gigglin’ like crazy. They were makin’ big eyes at a couple of skinny boys in high-collar T-shirts and beaded necklaces. The girls were so drunk they were about stumblin’ off stage.

Jon drank a Dr Pepper. E never drank. And neither would he.

This place reminded him of the time down on E.P. Boulevard when a bus full of Yankees come down to sing all of E’s Sun songs at the Holiday Inn. Jon didn’t think the police ever did find the one who wore E’s metal shades and fake sideburns. Funny how he disappeared after he sang “That’s All Right Mamma” while eatin’ a big ole cheeseburger, laughin’ ’cause he thought E had gotten fat. Never understandin’ about the replacement E. Not even when Jon choked the life from his worthless body.

Jon shook his head. Man, his mind sure was hummin’ along tonight. He popped another pill in his mouth, pretendin’ like he was about to cough, and took another drink of his Dr Pepper. He looked over at Miss Perfect who was slunked into the vinyl of the pizza joint’s booth. Bored as hell. Playing with the straw in the daiquiri.

She wouldn’t be bored when he hopped on stage. She’d see all the people screamin’ and yellin’ and goin’ crazy, like in his mind, and would love him so hard that he’d never be able to crawl out of bed.

“Has Elvis left the building?” the guy with the bad teeth asked, looking into the crowd.

Jon jumped onto the old wooden stage and felt that same power that E had. Even disguised in a beard, he felt stares onto his body covered in black leather and his electric sideburns and even on the gold T.C.B. necklace (twenty-four carat) that hung from his neck.

But the weird thing was that they was kind of laughin’ at him. Thinkin’ he was some kind of freak. That’s all right. That’s the way it worked. There was always the big dumb guy by the jukebox that said E couldn’t sing. One, two. One, two, three.

He looked down at Miss Perfect and she was mad as a pie-eyed snake. Mad he was makin’ a scene. That people were rememberin’ him. But she didn’t know that’s what he wanted.

And then it happened. The magic.