by Peggy Webb
The Gibson Guitar Factory a few blocks away inspired Jack to buy a guitar, though he never did learn to play it with the same heart and soul he pours into the blues harp he always keeps in his pocket.
Don’t get me started on Jack’s harmonica or I’ll end up bawling like a newborn calf.
I force myself to concentrate on Schwab’s, which looks very much the way it did when it was built in 1876. You can find anything in there, from swizzle sticks to sweat pants. You can even get voodoo paraphernalia.
Jack bought me some mojo hands, lucky roots in oil that smell like dark secrets and night-scented moon flowers. I still have it.
Why is another question. When I get home, I really ought to clean out my house, get rid of the mojo hands and the dried roses from our wedding bouquet, the onyx angel he brought to me from heaven only knows where, the tin candy box with a carousel on top.
Moving on requires leaving behind baggage. At least that’s what all the self-help books say. I’m not fully convinced those so-called experts are right. How can you know who you are if you don’t remember where you’ve been? How can you ever learn anything about yourself if you just dump your past in the garbage can and forget about it?
“Quick, Callie.” Lovie jerks me out of my reverie and into a doorway.
On top of everything else, I’m going to have a crick in my neck.
“The mark’s stopped.”
The minute we start sleuthing, she starts sounding like Sam Jaffe in The Asphalt Jungle. I half expect her to break out with a statement about crime being a cockamamie form of human endeavor or some such throwback to old crime movies. (In addition to Westerns, Lovie and I are partial to late night film noir.)
She risks a peek around the doorway. Taller by a good three inches, I peer over her head. Grayson has his arm around his female partner in crime and is talking earnestly to a street vendor.
“What’s he saying?” Lovie asks.
“We’ll bury him in the turnip patch. Do you know of any laws against that?”
“Thank you, Gloria Swanson.” She’s on to me. I’ve just paraphrased one of our favorites, Sunset Boulevard.
“How should I know what he’s saying, Lovie? I don’t have X-ray ears.”
Up and down Beale, shop doors are beginning to open, the sun is climbing and I don’t have my sunglasses. I’m beginning to regret my hasty decision to trail H. Grayson Mims. Shoot, I’m even regretting my decision to get out of bed. I should have told Elvis to just hold it.
The woman with H. Grayson opens her purse, takes out a pair of rhinestone-studded dark glasses, then swivels around and stares straight at us.
“Did she see us?” Lovie asks.
“If she did, what’s she going to do? Turn us in for hunkering in a doorway? She doesn’t even know who we are.”
“I wouldn’t count on it. I’m unforgettable.”
Good grief. Here we go again.
“Forget it, Lovie. I don’t think she even saw us.”
Suddenly the “William Tell Overture” splits the silence. We might as well have announced our presence with trumpet fanfare.
Grayson and cohort whirl around, and his hand shoots to his pocket. Holy cow. We’re fixing to get shot in public (and probably in the heart, too) and my hair’s not even combed.
Chapter 7
Beale Street Blues, Tattoos, and Wet Willie
In the split second it takes H. Grayson Mims to pull out his gun, my life flashes before my eyes. Might I add that I’m proud of what I see. Except for a few details. Which I don’t have time to go into right now.
“Lovie! Duck!”
“It’s just his billfold, Callie. He’s buying bagels.”
Listen, I don’t care what he’s doing. I’m changing my tune. Jerking my phone out of my pocket, I say hello. And I’m sorry to report I’m not very nice about it.
“You’ll never guess what I heard.” It’s Mama sounding fully recovered from her brush with death. I wish I could say the same for myself.
“I can’t talk now. I’m in the middle of something important”
“What could be more important than your mother?”
“Okay. What is it?” Major goal number one: learn to stand firm in the face of emotional blackmail.
“Fayrene and I were in that cute little gift shop in the lobby. You know, Lansky’s? We heard Gloria Divine’s the deposed princess of some foreign country.”
“That’s far-fetched, Mama. What foreign country?”
“What does it matter? She was probably assassinated.”
Two murders on the same day in the same hotel do not add up to assassination, but I don’t want to get into that with Mama. For one thing I’m tired and dirty. For another, all bedlam is breaking loose. Elvis is barking, Lovie is saying words she learned from bathroom walls, and Armageddon has started behind the door where we’re skulking.
“I’ve got to go, Mama.” I hang up on her, something I’m positive I’ll live to regret. Behind us, the thundering, galloping noise is coming closer. “Down, Lovie!”
She drops and we hunker on the pavement like sewer mice faced with the world’s biggest mousetrap. We don’t have a single weapon, not even Lovie’s baseball bat.
Rule number whatever-it-is: don’t go sleuthing without a weapon. You never know when you’ll land smack dab in the path of something meaner, uglier, and bigger than you.
The door behind us bursts open and I nearly wet my pants. Towering over us, seven feet if he’s an inch, is the most fearsome man I’ve ever seen. Skin as slick and shiny as patent leather, dressed in black from head to toe, he looks like the funnel of a tornado. Even Lovie is intimidated.
“Well, well,” he says. “What’ve we got here?”
I couldn’t squeak if I were in the path of stampeding elephants. For once, even Lovie is rendered speechless.
“Don’t ya’ll move.” Staring up at Giant Man’s open mouth is like gazing into the abyss of a red stone canyon. “I’ll be right back, sugar.”
He turns around and thunders inside.
“Sugar?” Lovie gives me this look but I notice she’s not moving.
“That’s what he said.”
I’m trying to decide whether to stay put, call the cops, or make a run for it. Suddenly the giant is back and all escape routes are closed.
“Here, ya’ll.” He’s holding two enormous sandwiches in hands as big as Virginia hams. He even leans down and offers a biscuit to my dog. “Nobody goes hungry at Wet Willie’s.”
I’d give the food back, but I don’t want to get on the bad side of a man twice the size of Arkansas. Besides, I don’t want to hurt his feelings.
I accept the sandwich and say, “Thank you, sir.”
My mama brought me up right.
Down the street at the Rum Boogie Café, a mournful trumpet signals the beginning of another day of nostalgia and blues. Soon throngs of people will pour onto Beale Street. I’m not about to stick around and be mistaken for a panhandler again.
“You’re welcome, sugar. Ya’ll have a nice day, now, you hear?”
I wonder if he’s Wet Willie. It wouldn’t be polite to ask. Lovie looks like she’s going to anyway, and I give her a sharp nudge.
By the time our monumental benefactor leaves, Grayson and his lady love are long gone. At this point, I don’t even care. I’ve already hauled a dead body out of the fountain, been held at gunpoint by the police, and been mistaken for a beggar. And the day’s not even half over.
I have an insane urge to go inside Wet Willie’s and order the drink advertised on his windows—CALL A CAB. After a drink with a name like that, who would care if Grayson is cheating on his dead wife? Who would care if my sweats are so stiff with duck goo they could walk back to the Peabody by themselves? Who would care if Beale Street makes me think of a blues harp curled against the lips of a man who knows how to rock my world with a kiss?
“Let’s go back to the hotel, Lovie.” She’s too busy eating to reply. “How can you eat? It’s not even ten-thirty.�
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“If you’d forget the clock and eat when you’re hungry, you might get some love handles, Callie.”
I’m always after her to lose weight and she’s always after me to gain. In a good-natured way, of course. Best friends since birth, we’ve never had a real fight.
Right now, though, I don’t even want to get into a lighthearted discussion with Lovie over my love handles and all the name implies.
“Let’s go, Lovie.”
“Since we’re here, we might as well go down the street to the tattoo parlor. We could get something cute and sassy to put on our hips. Maybe a little red devil with a halo. What do you think?”
“I think you’re losing it. Come on.”
“What’s your hurry? Let’s have some fun. Let’s stop at the Rum Boogie Café and have a Long Island Ice Tea.” Made with vodka, gin, rum, tequila, and Lord knows what else.
After the night and morning I’ve had, if I have a drink with that much alcohol in it, you might as well put me in a box and ship me back home to Eternal Rest. It’s the best funeral home in Mississippi, even if my uncle does own it, and I sound like I’m bragging. But I’m not even sure Uncle Charlie’s embalming skills could put some color back in my cheeks.
“Listen, Lovie. You stay here and have a Long Island Ice Tea if you want to, but I’m going back to the hotel and break into Grayson’s room.” He’s somewhere on Beale Street with his new squeeze, and we’ll never get a better chance.
“Now you’re singing my song. Crime is the only thing that can make me leave off liquor.” Lovie whips out her cell phone and punches in numbers.
“Who are you calling?”
“If we’re going to cross crime tape, we need disguises and we need a diversion.” Her connection goes through. “Bobby? I need a favor.”
I start shaking my head and saying, “No, I don’t want to involve Bobby.” Naturally, she ignores me. When has Lovie ever listened to the voice of reason? Not that I’m always right. And there have been a few times (well, a lot, really) when I haven’t used my own better judgment. Still, compared to Lovie, I’m a fount of discretion and wisdom.
“I need you and Fayrene to get in that crowd waiting for this morning’s duck parade and create a ruckus. A big one.”
Now that Lovie’s pulled Fayrene into the investigation, Mama won’t be far behind. I might as well find the Peabody’s oven and stick my head in.
“Yep, that sounds good, Bobby. And I don’t want you asking questions. ’Bye, now.”
Good grief. Only she and Mama can get by with such high-handed behavior.
“What sounds good?”
“You don’t want to know.”
Holy cow. I’ll bet it’s criminal.
“Why do we need a diversion, Lovie?”
“So we can steal maid’s uniforms.”
“That ranks right up there with your hair-brained scheme to get Texas Elvis up in the hot air balloon, and we all know how that turned out.” Elvis impersonator fiasco, and that’s all I’m saying about that.
“Okay, Callie. You tell me how we’re going to find a costume shop and get back here in time to ransack Grayson’s room before he returns from his morning outing. We might as well send him a letter of intent.”
She has a point, even if I don’t like it. “Forget ransacking, Lovie. We’re just going to look.”
“You look, I’ll pillage and plunder.”
She’s kidding. I hope.
Now that she’s up to no good, Lovie trots along like somebody’s set Memphis on fire and she has the only bucket of water. I try to keep up with her, but Elvis is determined to mark every light pole between Beale Street and the hotel.
Finally the Peabody comes into view, and Lovie whips out her phone again. “We’re on the approach, Bobby. Get ready to rumble.”
That sounds like something I don’t want to be involved in. “What does that mean, Lovie?”
“Trust me. In a few minutes, this is all going down. Wait for my signal.”
“I’m not going to stand here and argue with a criminal type,” I paraphrase Richard Erdman to Dick Powell in Cry Danger.
Lovie shoots me a jump in the lake sign—to put a nice spin on it.
Elvis’ Opinion #4 on Paw Prints, High Heel Sneakers, and Detectives at Large
This is my kind of morning. It reminds me of the old days of jumping on my motorcycle in the wee hours when fans were least likely to be waiting at Graceland’s Music Gate, then roaring off for a few moments of stolen freedom.
Of course, adoring fans always caught up with me, just as they did this morning. There’s no telling how many paw prints I’d have signed if we hadn’t been in hot pursuit of H. Grayson Mims III.
By the time we get back to the hotel, the Peabody lobby is filling up with folks waiting for the duck parade. If I weren’t deep undercover I’d prance over there and get the crowd rockin’ ’n rollin’ with “High Heel Sneakers.” Listen, if Callie and Lovie would use me for the diversion, the crowd would be eating out of my paws. They could steal the angels off the top of the Peabody fountain and nobody would notice.
But I’m indispensable undercover. While they steal housekeeping uniforms, I’ll be guarding the door. If anybody tries to bother Callie and Lovie in the middle of petty theft, he’s liable to leave without a chunk of his leg.
Well, bless’a my soul.
Here comes Bobby at a fast lope with Fayrene puffing along behind. In that dark green getup, she looks like a mess of collard greens. Which just happens to be one of my favorite snacks, if you add a little ham hock.
Half hunkered behind an overstuffed sofa, we watch while Bobby and Fayrene get into place at a midpoint of the red carpet. (Red carpet for ducks, my substantial but cute backside!) Within seconds the crowd is in a milling, screeching turmoil.
If you ask me, that’s not a diversion, that’s a riot.
“Go,” Lovie says, and we race toward the service area. Only one woman tries to stop us—the same nosey old broad we encountered earlier by the player piano.
Lovie snarls, “Out of my way, heifer,” while Callie tries to smooth things over with, “Police business.”
My human mom gets by with it. Barely.
If we’re going to take up detective work as a sideline to beauty (Callie) and entertainment (Lovie and me), I’m going to suggest she order three faux badges imprinted with ECDL. Elvis and Company, Detectives at Large.
We skulk through a labyrinth of back rooms not suitable for the fainthearted till we find one with HOUSEKEEPING written over the door. I’m getting all psyched up to make my big contribution when Callie says, “Lovie, grab a couple of uniforms. I’ll stand guard.”
What does she think I am? A silly shih tzu? Believe me, she’ll pay for this. I’m already working on a 3 A.M. urge to piss on a Union Avenue fire hydrant.
But since I am by nature a big-hearted dog, I relent enough to let Callie think she’s doing all the guard duty.
“Hurry, Lovie,” my human mom says, “I hear somebody coming.”
I could have told her that two minutes ago. I’d know the smell of ducks anywhere. If that’s not the duck master, it’s somebody wearing eau de duck.
“I can’t find my size,” Lovie says.
“Just grab one. We’ve got to scram.”
We do, and they head the wrong way. Naturally. With the sound of footsteps getting closer, they jump behind an ice-maker, dragging yours truly. While they pray not to get caught (I can tell by their auras), I check out the situation.
Just as I thought. It’s that dour man in his silly gold-braided suit heading down the hall toward the break room. Listen, I don’t have to go down there to look. I can smell chocolate chip cookies and pepperoni pizza a mile away.
He’s probably having to tank up on sugar and carbs before he goes up to the roof to bring those dratted ducks down. If I were in his tacky shoes, I’d have a little nip of something strong before I opened the door to the duck palace.
I get ready to attack i
n case he spots us, but he’s in a hurry. I guess herding a bunch of moronic ducks around not only builds a big appetite, it gives you tunnel vision.
We wait till we hear the door down the hall slam shut, then we charge up the stairs. Let me tell you, charging for four floors is no picnic.
“I’ve got dibs on the bathroom.” Lovie dives in without waiting to see if anybody has a bigger need.
“Make it snappy,” Callie says. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
What does she mean? Back in a minute?
I’m not long in finding out. Before I can say pass the Pup-Peroni, she’s hustled me up to the tenth floor and asked Ruby Nell to watch Elvis for a while.
Watch Elvis, my crooked hind leg. Who does she think did all the work this morning? But do I get any thanks for it, any gold medals, any fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches?
All I get is a lousy pat on the head and the admonition to be a good boy.
If she thinks I’m going to behave while she runs off and has all the fun, she’s got another think coming. I’m fixing to break out of this joint and head to Graceland where folks appreciate a dog of my iconic status.
Chapter 8
Maids, Mayhem, and Faux Fox Furs
When I get to her room, Mama’s on the phone with Uncle Charlie, saying, “Everything’s great and everybody’s having a big time.”
Apparently he buys it because she laughs at something he says, then tells him goodbye.
“Doesn’t Uncle Charlie know about the murders?”
Gloria Divine’s demise won’t make the news till tonight, but I’m surprised he hasn’t already heard about Babs Mabry Mims being pushed off the roof.
“Sometimes he falls asleep during the news. Charlie’s getting old.”
“Don’t say that, Mama.”
“Well, he is.”
“You’re practically the same age.”
“Yes, but I put Preparation H on my wrinkles.”
“Holy cow, Mama. That’s for hemorrhoids.”
“If it can shrink them, it can shrink anything.”
On that shocking beauty note, I inquire if she’ll keep Elvis for a little while. Naturally Mama is full of questions I don’t want to answer.
