Elvissey (20 page)

"Could you sing a blues song for me?" I asked, hoping
that as he sang he would distract enough that I could make
a grab. My own stress was whelming over; I worried if John
was recovering, I feared E's rages, I wanted to go home.
Again, I found myself desiring the risk I readied myself to
take, uncaring of outcome so long as I could break the
situation's stasis, intoxicated with the rush of deathchanc-
ing. It occured to me that John must have always felt this
way. "You're not instrumented-"

"Don't need no guitar to sing," he said. "What'cha wanta
hear?"

"Your preference."

"Mamma'd never let me sing the ones I liked best in the
house."

"Sing one of those, then," I said. E smiled, and cleared his
throat. He patted his foot on the ground slowsteady while he
acapellaed, shutting his eyes and bobbing his head as if he
were blind when he began to sing.

His pitch tracked unerringly by the first verse's end; in his
tone and phrasing I heard a precise match of the Master's
voice as we'd listened to it, replaying timeover in our ears. E's youth notwithstanding, he'd already developed his tricks
fullbore: the unexpected swoops from aching tenor to rumbling baritone, the sudden elisions as if the notes had been
greased. E's songstyle shifted from primitive to mannerist
and back again, containing the pluses and minuses of each
extreme, and all else inbetween.

To watch E singing astonished me as I'd never been, seeing the vids of his double. Though I tried to believe it no
more than a light-trick, he nonetheless countenanced what
could only be called a religious glow; all the while he shaded
his lyrics with secular threat, undertoned with a vengeance
so subtle that its scalpel couldn't help but seduce as it sliced.

Against my will, I was fascinated; he knew he had me
tranced and he rose, still singing as he approached me,
fixing me where I stood with naught but voice and glare.
Dryco would snare an unimaginable bargain if we were enabled to return with him; so long as he did nothing more
than sing, the laity of the C of E would surely follow him
wherever he led, and rush to do whatever he commanded.
He fancied love in his eyes at me as he stared, appearing
mayhap as Romeo eyed Juliet; as Jack the Ripper must have
studied his first whore before closing in.

As he finished, I snapped awake, recovering at once,
thinking I heard a noise in the meadow; a slowrolling crunch, as if the remaining graves were being crushed flat by
something heavy. I glanced behind me, looking through the
woods to ascertain the noise's source; E suddenly embraced
me, pressing himself against me, rubbing his tongue over
my teeth as if to brush them. "Kiss me quick or a snake's
gonna bite you," he said.

"Off," I said, breaking his hold. "Don't touch me-"

"You're sweatin', sissie," he said, bunching my dressfront
in his hand so swiftly I hadn't seen him move. "Put out that
candle. You must be gettin' hot in that dress." Ripping
downward, he rended my shift to my waist. "Hell, yes," he
said, brighteyed and gawking. "You know you want to. Let's
rock."

"Don't!"

"I'm not askin', Isabel, I'm takin'-"

Caution essentialled while using a lightrod; maxed, its
length heated to sixty degrees centigrade. Sans hesitation I
ironed mine across E's face, pressing his cheek; he stepped
back, his pain muting him, and I fisted him square in his soft
stomach. As he fell I booted him, trying to leverage my kick
enough to send his jewels up his throat. With one hand I
gripped my lightrod's cool end; with the other I drew his gun
from his pants and unsafetied it as I rammed its tip against
his ear. I'd instincted as John believed I would; as I feared I
would. As my soul returned to me from its brief but necessary absence I saw E wailing as if he'd been orphaned.

"I'm untouchable, hereout," I told him, forcing the gunbarrel into his ear as if to plant it there, stilling my desire to
trigger and blow. "Understood?"

"Understood-"

"You're stupid, Elvis," I said. He grunted, continuing to
clutch himself, but responded with nothing resembling
anger. My power over him heartened enough that I found
myself readying to finger and fire away; but before I could,
I stood up, heaving the gun into the woods so far as I could
throw it. I seized him by the throat with an adrenaline charged grip, bringing up my light-rod as if intending to
sear away his eyes. "Astonishingly stupid," I said, barely
recognizing my own voice's snarl. "I'm untying John. We're
leaving. You, too-"

All at once we were absorbed within a near-nuclear whiteness, as if without benefit of the Alekhine we were transferring back. As I eyeshut against the glare, blinded by green
afterimages swimming beneath my lids, I heard a voice that
wasn't my husband's calling out to us.

"Put your hands over your head and walk out here into
the light," the man said. "Don't try anything."

By fixing my stare at trees I was able to eclipse the glare's
source as I helped E stand up and walk out. We moved
slowpaced but steady, arms up as if to snatch heaven, until
we came to the field's border. Two of our four visitors rushed
from their car and grabhanded us; they wore gray uniforms
with sleeve insignia that IDed them as Mississippi State Patrolmen. The other two men stood farther away, lurking
near their vehicle; the searchlamps mounted atop the hoods
of their cars attracted and sizzled uncountable moths.

"Looks like we got ourselves couple lovebirds here," said
the patrolman who restrained me, bending my arms behind
my back as if attempting to dislocate them. "Didn't have a
chance to get all the way unbuttoned yet. Hate to break 'em
up, they looked mighty cozy."

"He was lyin' down and she was leanin' over 'im," said the
one who'd seized E; he was considerably fatter, and rested a
long-barreled pistol along E's back, aiming it at the back of
his head. "Hate to interrupt the matin' season, folks-"

"They armed?" said one of the other two, walking toward
us. His accent was placeless; sewn onto his black uniform's
sleeves were American flag patches.

"Not now," said the fat patrolman, grinning as he tightened his grip on E.

"Search 'em anyway."

"You know this is private property, people?" the fourth man said; he was also in black, and evidenced as the senior
authority. "You're trespassing."

"Didn't see no signs," said E.

"Could you a read 'em if there'd been signs, boy?" the fat
patrolman asked, driving the end of his barrel into the base
of E's neck. The four were well-armed; each carried a pistol,
and the black-clad policemen shouldered rifles. The senior
officer eyed our car, leaning slightly away from me; white
letters stenciled upon his back's black field initialed F H P.
"Who's that in the Hudson?" he asked.

"My husband," I said. "It's explainable, officers."

"Try," said the patrolman behind me, grinding his midsection against my hips while he jerked back my arms. One
of my breasts emerged from my torn dress's folds.

"I'd call those a pair a 45s," the fat one handling E said,
laughing as he ogled me, throwing E against the hood of his
car sans warning. "What'd you been doin' to that girl? You
gonna answer me or you gonna play deaf and dumb?"

The men in black stared at my chest. The patrolman
behind me pulled my elbows together, keeping me from
covering myself. "Do some explaining, then. Why's your
husband tied up?" asked the senior officer, raising his rifle
as he stepped closer to me.

"We were kidnapped," I said. "Please let me go."

"You're both under arrest." I saw that their jackets' initials were spelled out in white letters on the doors of the
black car: Federal Highway Police. "Charges, trespassing,
public lewdness, indecent exposure, resisting arrest-"

"Let me go-" I shouted, trying to twist free. The senior
officer thrust out his rifle as he approached, resting the end
of its barrel against my breast, inserting my nipple into its
muzzle. As I felt its chill shiver me I silenced, thinking how
much safer I'd been with E.

"You stop at the Green Frog Restaurant on Highway 51
couple hours ago?" he asked, smiling; a stone set in one of
his incisors sparkled. "Did you?"

"We did," I said.

"Charge murder, three counts," he said. "Sergeant, pat
her down."

"Three counts?" I said. "There were two in the restaurant-"

"And one in your car," said the other Fed.

"He's not dead," I said. The senior officer lowered his
rifle, and pushed me against the hood of their car as the
patrolman held me; then, clutching my hair, slammed my
head against the metal. I fought to keep from going coma;
slipped in and out of awareness for several moments, thinking the pain would asunder my skull. Wetness warmed my
forehead; my nose bled as freely.

"Ma'am," the senior officer said, "we want to keep you
pretty if we can. Do what we tell you to do."

"Come on," the patrolman holding me said as he reached
down and shoved my legs apart. "Spread."

"My husband's not dead," I told them. "I'm unweaponed.
Don't, please-" The fat one was cuffing E's hands behind
his back, preparing to search. My guardian patted me updown as the Feds stared on, kneading my thighs beneath my
dress, pawing and poking as if uncertain of what was sought.
"He's not dead. Please untie him. You'll see."

"He doesn't respond," said the senior officer. "Bob
reached in, shook his leg."

"He's stiff as a board," said Bob, the other officer in black.
"When'd you kill him? This morning?"

"He's epileptic," I said, feeling the patrolman bruise me
as he grasped my hips. Blood dripped into my eyes. "Fits,
every day. He conniptions."

"What?"

"He's just blacked out. Untie him, and he'll tell what's
up „

"All right. Go back there and drag him out, Bob," said the
senior officer. "Raise the dead."

"You say so," Bob said, sighing; he walked off toward our
car, disappearing from sight within the white glare.