She shook her head as I moved the folder to a separate file. We studied more and placed a few more files with the Sons of the South.
“Did he ever go over to the casinos?”
She shook her head. “Never mentioned them.”
After a while, I got up and stretched and shuffled back through the files, carefully inserting them back into each of the eight slots in the cabinet. She noticed I’d pulled out one file that contained a few crayon pictures she’d made as a kid and looked away.
“Your father owned a lot of property. Looks like he had thousands of acres across the Delta and up north. Owned some land in Jackson, Tennessee, too.”
Abby nodded, really listening, hands wandering over her face with fatigue. “Yeah, he used to take me out to some of those places. We’d hunt a little. He liked to hunt. We also used to break into old cabins in the woods and go find stuff. Sometimes we’d look for arrowheads in creeks.”
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.
Jon held the fat microphone to his lips and called out that sacred song, so haunting and beautiful that he almost wanted to cry, as the words escaped from his lips: Down in Louisiana,
Where the alligators grow so mean,
There lives a girl, I swear to the world,
Makes the alligators seem tame.
Polk Salad Annie.
The college kids went wild, man, as he dipped his shoulders and shook all over. Perfect just kept watching, jaw dropped down, and cigarette burning between her cherry-red nails. He sang like E would, right to her. He wanted the holy words to float through the air and into her ears twisting through the miles of veins right to her heart. He wanted to see her wiggle that fine heart-shaped butt and crinkle up that little rabbit nose. Man, he could feel himself heatin’ up singin’ about ole Polk Salad Annie, that woman wild as hell. He started imaginin’ as he was singin’ – beer splatterin’ all around him – that Perfect was like Annie. He imagined her in a bikini made out of animal hide, showin’ off her tight little belly, maybe carryin’ a spear down in the bayou. She’d have a wildcat she kept like a damned pet and she’d scream like hell when Jon made love to her up in the trees and sloshin’ around in the mud.
“Polk Salad Annie!” Jon sang on the second chorus. “Everybody said it was a shame… that her mamma was workin’ on a chain gang.”
Jon sang it like Perfect’s mamma was the one who done wrong. And she had. She’d created a woman so damned fine that it was distractin’ to men ’round the world.
Jon looked over at her and ignored the college girl runnin’ her tongue across her lips or the two women clawin’ at his feet. He just kept singin’ to his woman. His Ann-Margret.
T en minutes later, Perfect had Jon by the arm and was leading him back to her car. She may not be an expert on killing people, but she knew they’d been seen way too much tonight. If there was killing to be done, they would do it outside Oxford.