Dark End of the Street

Jon suddenly had the vision of Colonel Tom Parker and Hollywood and record deals and spreadin’ the word of E in every language on the gosh dang planet. E on cologne and shampoo bottles and bumper stickers. This is what Jon needed, someone to take his skills to the next level. Someone to get him them high-level killin’ jobs to make him a legend.

“Yes, sir,” Jon said, smiling, leg just ashakin’ at his side.

They were surrounded by darkness now. Nothin’ but woods and a narrow path. Tree branches swattin’ into their faces with every step. Barely even hearin’ the semis rollin’ off Highway 61.

A cry.

A dang wild animal in heat.

Jon followed Ransom down through a loose gathering of small trees. Small moon above beamin’ down some pale silver light that reflected off the leaves and the back of Ransom’s leathery neck.

Ransom crept along, listening.

“Kid, you know much about politics?”

“No, sir.”

“You know Tennessee is gettin’ a new governor next month? The first Tuesday in November?”

Jon listened for another wild cry.

“I don’t want to lose,” Ransom said. “You get back to Memphis tomorrow. All right?”

He looked back at Jon. Jon felt a heat spread through his body. Real warm. Man appreciated him. Colonel Ransom.

“Yes, sir,” Jon said, biting into the cigar and taking a long puff. A nice old buzz mixing with the Benzedrine.

Another wild cry. The fast rush of leaves and little twigs cracking under paws.

Jon saw the dang cat first. Didn’t even wait for Ransom, just squeezed off five rounds from his Beretta. That cat crying and wrigglin’ on his back, screaming wild as hell and swattin’ that ole tail.

Ransom laughed and ran to the animal. “Hot damn, boy,” he said. “That was a hell of a shot. See what I mean about lookin’ around you. Can you do that fast for me?”

Jon nodded as Ransom aimed at the wrigglin’ cat, ears pinned back and teeth exposed with fright, and fired off two rounds into the animal’s skull.

He kicked the cat in the side. “Mean bitch, too,” he said.

“Can you do that again?” Ransom asked.

Jon didn’t understand but didn’t want to say it. He looked down at his cigar; it had gone out and sat wet and useless in his mouth. He wanted to relight it more than anything in the dang world.

“Can you take care of another mean ole bitch?” Ransom asked.

The cat’s blood was scattered and red on Ransom’s boots like a crazy painter’s dream.

Perfect walked back to her hotel room adjoined with Jon’s and noticed the connecting door was cracked open. She heard the buzz of a television on some kind of teenage sitcom where this little girl was a witch and had a damned talking cat. The cat made some kind of crack about the teenage witch’s boyfriend being stupid and a sissy and was shut up into a pet kennel to the delight of a laugh track.

She called out Jon’s name. Nothing. She checked the bathroom and even the closet and made sure the hall door was locked. Even if he was at the door right now she could scoot on out of Dodge before he knew she was in there. Nothing much in the bathroom. A toothbrush and a bottle of white pills. Wet towels on the floor. A wrinkled JCPenney catalog, opened to the teenage girl’s underwear page, lay wide open by the toilet along with a couple Captain America comic books and a Gideon’s Bible with a crude hand-painted image of Elvis on the cover.

The drawing was so bad that she could barely recognize the singer. His head was kind of lopsided and he had on a high, white collar studded with jewels and thick black sideburns. Below were the words: My name has Evil and Lives. It’s probably better not to worry too much about it.

Back in the bedroom, she opened the drawers in a long chest. Nothing. Not even lint. She looked under the bed and in the nightstand. Some stray socks and a book on numerology and sexual positions. But tucked behind a long row of curtains, standing on its side, sat a little Captain America suitcase. Something seriously made for an eight year old. It had been buckled tight, its plastic hide ragged and worn at the edges. She pulled it up to a coffee table, loose beams of sunlight breaking through the blowing curtains, opened it, and rifled through.

Inside: four pairs of dark-indigo unfaded Levis, five white T-shirts (crisp and ironed), four pairs of tube socks, a couple leather wristbands, a couple Polaroid shots of a naked woman with dark hair and long legs in a shower stall (on the back, words written in German), a couple more Captain America comics, Vitalis hair oil, a dozen identical postcards of Graceland, a beat-up cassette of Elvis: Live at Madison Square Garden, and a full bottle of Hai Karate cologne.