Elvis And The Memphis Mambo Murders (16 page)

S
tuck in the room again. If they think that's going to stop me, they might as well be singing “Heartbreak Hotel.”

I sashay my ample self out of the closet. (Listen, I wasn't really pouting. I was just trying to teach Callie a lesson: how can a soul dog complete his mission if you keep leaving him behind?) Than I prance right over, grab the telephone by its cord, and drag it off the table.

If you think I don't know how to dial room service, you're barking up the wrong tree. How do you think I avoided being mauled by hoards of adoring fans? It was bad enough in the late nineteen fifties when my star was just beginning to rise. I couldn't sit down in a roadside restaurant without having girls all over my lap. After I was playing Vegas, I'd have been kidnapped and taken into love slavery if bodyguards hadn't whisked me out the back and up to my room.

You bet your blue suede shoes I know room service. Only trouble is, paws don't have movable digits. Fortunately, I'm not just another famous dog who howls with a drawl. I'm smart. If I can find a pencil, I'll have room service up here before you can say “T-bone steak.”

Callie's left a pencil on the desk. Basset hounds may be God's gift to French poodles, but we've got stubby legs. If God had sent me back as a golden retriever, I'd be gnawing meat off the bone by now. As it is, I'm forced to rearrange the furniture. I'm in the process of overturning a chair to climb on when I hear the key in the lock.

I instantly go into
cute
mode. Callie will forgive anything if I flap my mismatched ears and put on a big doggie grin.

It's not Callie who comes through the door, though. It's Bobby Huckabee.

“What happened in here?” He puts the phone back on the table and picks up the chair. “Have you been a bad dog?”

Bad dog? Has he lost his tiny mind? Does he know who he's talking to?

Obviously he's immune to fame and charm. If I didn't need him for nefarious purposes, I'd hoist my leg on his shoes. Instead I put on a show. Contrite, hungry, lonely dog. Rescued, at last. Listen, I can act. If the Colonel hadn't pushed me into one shallow role after another, and had let me choose my own movies, there'd be an Academy Award in the Trophy Room at Graceland.

“I'll bet you'd like some food and some good company while you eat.”

Well, now. There may be something to Bobby's psychic eye after all. He squats to scratch my ears.

“You know, I get so lonely eating by myself, I've started taking all my meals in front of the TV. Wheel of Fortune. It's like Vanna White is my best friend.”

This man has some serious social issues. When we get back home I might have to teach him a thing or two.

While Bobby orders two fat hamburgers, I decide on the spot to become an entrepreneur. As soon as I get back to Mooreville, I'm opening a lonely hearts school. Listen, the King wrote the book on charm. If I can't teach Bobby Huckabee how to win French poodles and influence basset hounds, nobody can.

There's a loud rap on the door.

“Room thervice.”

“Boy, that was quick.”

Too quick. And that lisp is a dead giveaway. It's not hamburgers this dude is delivering. It's death.

I don't fancy lying in state again being mourned by millions. I've got too much livin' and lovin' to do.

Bobby is already headed to the door. I make an end run around him, then stand between him and the door. He'll cross my snarling, fat self at the risk of losing a limb.

Come on in, sucker. I dare you. I'm waiting for you.

Any minute now, I'm going to get my chance to be headline news. “Famous Basset Hound Foils Killer, Saves the Day.”

Except for my growls of destruction and impending doom, all is quiet on the Western front. Has the killer vamoosed? Turned tail and run from my formidable presence?

Suddenly my mismatched ears perk up and my nose goes into overdrive. What's this I hear and smell?

Somebody raps sharply on the door. “Elvis. What's the matter, boy?”

My master calls.

I get my hackles under control so Bobby can let my human daddy in. Jack squats and rubs behind my ears and you might as well just add some jam and spread me on toast. Listen, if he'd do that to Callie, he wouldn't be in this divorce pickle.

“Did you see room service out there, Jack?” Bobby asks.

“Yes, but he was headed down the hall.”

You bet your britches he was hightailing it out of here. Anybody with half sense and one eye would run if they saw Jack Jones looking like a cross between Indiana Jones and 007.

Jack glances around the room. “Where's Cal?”

“Looking for the Peabody killer.”

“Any idea where?”

“I'm not getting a clear picture, but I think in her mother's boyfriend's room. And you'd better hurry. She's in danger.”

Jack's out the door before Bobby can get the warning out of his mouth. Much as I'd like to go with him, there's a hunk of beef on the way. And my wind's not what it used to be. Just between you and me, I'm happy to see Bobby lock the door and wait for room service.

T
homas Whitenton's still not moving. There's nothing I can do for him now, so I race to the window to rescue Lovie. Assuming she hasn't already plunged off the ledge.

Please, God. I'm praying every step. In the distance, sirens wail.

“Lovie,” I call. “Are you all right?”

No answer. Just the screaming of emergency vehicles, the muted roar of a gathering crowd drifting up from the sidewalk ten stories below, and the sounds coming from the TV—Latoya LaBelle and Gloria Divine doing things I'd be embarrassed to tell you.

I'm drenched with sweat, I'm wearing concrete shoes, and somebody has moved the window. The Sahara lies between me and my cousin.

Suddenly sharp lights beam upward. God and his angels, come to escort Lovie to Glory Land? I move toward the light in slow motion.

“Lovie! Answer me!”

“No habla English!” she screams.

Good grief. Lovie has died and gone to…Mexico?

From ten stories below, an amplified voice floats up to the window. “Stand back. Everybody stand back. We've got a jumper.”

Six years later and near heart failure (to say the least), I finally reach the window. A fireman is shouting to the crowd through a megaphone, eight more firemen make a circle around a vast net, and another sets up a ladder that could reach to kingdom come. Meanwhile, Thomas is expiring on the floor, Lovie's pinned in the lights of WCBI-TV, and cameras are rolling.

Could it get any worse? If I were the wrong kind of woman, I'd utter one of Lovie's improper words.

A pigeon swoops in and lands on Lovie's wig. Obviously he has higher aspirations, and is seizing his chance to end up on WCBI-TV's nightly news.

“Shoo, shoo.” She jiggles around, flapping her arms, but the only thing that comes loose is the top button of her tight uniform. Photographs spill out and fly to the sidewalk like vivid birds. Mama, in various brightly colored caftans.

It just got worse. Tonight Mama will be all over the news. Lovie, too. If she lives that long. The ledge she's standing on is hardly big enough to hold the pouter pigeon on her head, let alone a hundred-and-ninety-pound bombshell doing the shimmy.

“Don't jump, lady,” the fireman yells through the megaphone.

“No habla English!” Lovie yells back.

Maybe the black wig and the accent are enough to hide her identity for a while, but as soon as that sexy-looking fireman mounting the ladder reaches the top, Lovie's act as a voluptuous Mexican maid is history.

There's only one thing to do: rescue her myself.

“Hang on, Lovie. I'm coming.”

I lean as far out the window as I dare and stretch my arms as far as I can reach. Behind me, Thomas has probably drawn his last breath and the dead erotic dancers are forever frozen on video, doing things I don't even want to know. If Lovie and I get out of this caper alive, I'm sending letters to God and Santa Claus and the president of the United States, to boot, apologizing for every one of my wicked deeds.

“Take my hand, Lovie. Inch this way and take my hand.”

“If I move, I'll fall.”

“No, you won't. One tiny step in this direction and I've got you.” She shakes her head. No. I've never seen her speechless. “Come on, Lovie. You got out there. You can get back.”

She shakes her head again while the fireman climbs closer and the shameless dancers grunt and groan on the TV screen in living color. And I don't even want to think about Mr. Whitenton.

I've got to get Lovie off the ledge and out of this room before we become bigger sensations than Elvis—the icon, not my dog.

There's only one thing to do: climb onto the ledge.

Sending petitions to God and Buddha and Mother Earth and deities I make up on the spot, I kick off my shoes and hoist one leg over the windowsill.

The megaphone-toting fireman yells, “Don't do it, lady. Stay back.”

He might as well save his breath. I'm desperate enough to do anything. Including commit murder. Which I've already done. I try to look on the bright side. If I rescue Lovie in a spectacular act of selfless bravery, will the judge give me a lighter sentence?

Taking a deep breath, I reach for a protruding section of ornate concrete and prepare to hoist my other leg over. Suddenly, large hands circle my waist and I'm plucked off the windowsill.

“You never did listen to advice.”

Jack Jones. Naturally. I don't know whether to kiss him or to slap his face.

He spins me around, rakes me from head to toe with the blackest, sexiest, most dangerous gaze in captivity, then drawls, “Kinky.”

He pats me on the backside, then throws me over his shoulder and deposits me in the room's only wingback chair.

“Stay put. We'll play French maid and hungry rogue later.”

I should have smelled him coming. All those pheromones. Not to mention the clean fresh scent of Irish Spring soap that clings to his skin no matter how long ago he took his shower. You know the scent. The one you could eat with a spoon.

Except I'm in no mood for eating Jack Jones with a spoon. Or any other way, for that matter. I'm scared and I'm mad. I've killed one man; I might as well kill two.

“Get Lovie off that ledge before I end your life.”

What's happening to me? If I had time, I'd have a nervous breakdown.

“Yes ma'am.” He winks, then disappears through the window.

If I were a vengeful woman, I'd wish he would fall. Fortunately I'm just a small-town hair stylist who wants a divorce so I can have a normal life, a normal husband, and lots of babies.

Plus, this is the first time I've seen Jack since I found out his profession. I feel dazed, blinded by truth. How could I have spent all those years dreaming in my marriage bed while my husband hid under dark bridges and blood-red moons, the body I kissed from head to toe both a target and a killing machine?

And now, he and Lovie could both die. Because of me. Because Jack wouldn't be here if I weren't involved, and I'm the one who wanted to prove Mr. Whitenton is a murderer.

Before I have time to work myself into a wad of weeping rage and guilt, Jack is back. With Lovie, thank goodness. Her wig's on crooked, she's got pigeon poop in her hair, and she looks like she just got her mojo back.

“Are you okay, Lovie?”

“I've just mooned Memphis on the six o'clock news. I should have charged admission.” She buttons her blouse. “Why didn't you tell me this hotel didn't have balconies?”

“I was too busy killing Mr. Whitenton.”

“You didn't kill him.” Jack hauls Thomas off the floor. “But he has a lot of explaining to do.”

“How'd he get in here?” I ask Jack. “I had the night latch on. For that matter, how'd
you
get in?”

“Connecting door.” Well, naturally. Mama and Uncle Charlie were dancing, which means Mr. Whitenton picked the lock to her room and sashayed right in. What other locks has Mama let him pick?

On the big screen TV screen, Gloria and Latoya go into a particularly loud and embarrassing moment. Jack studies the screen and gets this amused look I'd like to slap right off his face.

“Your taste in movies has changed, Cal.”

“Those belong to Mr. Whitenton,” I tell him, and Mama's former dance partner turns the color of Lovie's hair. “It looks like we've caught the Peabody killer.”

“Cal, I want you and Lovie to go to your room, lock up, and don't come out till I call.”

Jack scoops up the DVDs, collars Mr. Whitenton, then vanishes. Which is just like him. I am glued to my chair with all the wind sucked out of me.

Lovie says one of her classic bad words, but I barely hear. I'm in the eye of a hurricane and can't get out.

“He didn't even acknowledge our part in collaring the perp,” Lovie says.

At the moment, I'm not interested in the perp. All I'm interested in is getting enough oxygen into my lungs so I can breathe.

“Callie?” Lovie puts her hand on my shoulder. “Don't let him get to you.”

“He's not. I won't.” Is that a lie?

“Jack was always high handed. No wonder you can't live with him.”

“Look on the bright side, Lovie. He took the DVDs off our hands. Now we won't have to deal with X-rated evidence.”

“You don't have to defend him.”

“I'm not.” I brush my hair out of my hot face. “I'm just stating the obvious. That's all.”

Lovie jerks off her wig, then mine. “Let's go to the room and get out of these maid outfits.”

“But not to stay.”

“Definitely not to stay. This show's not over till the fat lady sings.”

Then Lovie stands right there in Mr. Whitenton's room and belts out “Hard Hearted Hannah.” I guess she's trying to show me she's okay.

Or maybe she wants to remind me that soft hearts can get stepped on and tromped all over, that the best way to navigate life's treacherous tides and killing seas is to harden your heart. But not all the way. Just enough to stormproof it.