Gone South (36 page)

“Uh-huh.” Dan felt Arden’s body tensing beside him. But he decided he had to go the next step, too. “What about Pearly? Did your mama say the Bright Girl healed him?”

“No, I recollect she said the Bright Girl took him with her in a boat.”

“To where?”

“Goat Island, I reckon. She never saw Pearly no more, though. Mama said she figured he was too bad off for even the Bright Girl to heal. But that was all right, ’cause the Bright Girl made sure he wasn’t scairt when he went to heaven.”

“Come on, baby!” Cal grabbed Angie’s thin arm and tugged at her. “Let’s dance!”

“Wait! Please!” Arden’s anguished voice cut to Dan’s heart. “Is she buried out there? Have you seen her grave?”

“No, I ain’t seen her grave. But she’s dead. Got to be dead after all this time.”

“But you don’t know for sure, do you? You’re not certain she’s dead?”

The prostitute stared at Arden for a few seconds and then pulled free of Cal’s hand. “I’m certain as I need to be,” she said. “Ohhhhh.” She nodded as things came clear to her. “Ohhhhh, I see. You was lookin’ for the Bright Girl to heal your face. Is that right?”

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry, then. Far as I know, she’s dead. I don’t know where she’s buried. I can ask some of the other girls. Most of ’em were born ’round here, maybe they’d know.”

“Let’s
dance!”
Cal yawped. “Forget this shit!”

Both women ignored him. “I’d like to see the church,” Arden said. “Can you take me?”

“No, I can’t. See, I would, but I don’t have my own boat. It’s Lorraine’s boat, and she don’t take it nowhere but between here and Grand Isle.”

“Hey, listen up, scarface!” Cal slurred at Arden, his voice turning nasty. “I’m rentin’ this bitch by the fuckin’
hour,
understand? I don’t have no time to waste —”

“Come over here a minute.” Dan reached out, grasped Cal’s wrist, and drew him closer, beer slopping to the floor from the mug in the man’s hand. Dan’s face was strained with anger, his eyes hard and shiny. “The ladies are talkin’.”

“Mister, you let go of me or I’m gonna have to knock the shit outta your ears!”

“No fightin’ in here!” Burt warned. “You wanna fight, get out back!”

“You’re drunk, friend.” Dan kept his face close to Cal’s, his arm low across the man’s body so the beer mug wouldn’t come up and smash him in the teeth. “Don’t let your mouth get you in trouble.”

“It’s all right,” Arden said. The remark wasn’t anything she hadn’t heard before. “Really it is.”

She suddenly caught a strong whiff of body odor and swamp mud. Someone wearing a dark suit stepped between her and Dan. She thought of vulture wings sweeping onto a dying jackrabbit.

“Lambert?” A quiet voice spoke in Dan’s ear. At the same time, Dan felt the little barrel of a gun press against his ribs. “The game’s over.”

Dan jerked his head around and looked into the pallid face he’d seen by the flashlight’s glare in Basile Park, only now it was blotched with mosquito bites. His heart jumped and fluttered like a trapped bird.

Flint said, “Take it very, very easy. Nobody needs to get hurt. Okay?”

Beyond Murtaugh, Dan saw, stood the Elvis Presley impersonator holding his squirming bulldog. The music had faltered and ended on a squawked note from the squeezebox. The Presley clone was suddenly the center of attention, and he started drawing whistles and laughter.

Flint glanced quickly at the girl and saw that what he’d thought was a massive bruise was in fact a deep violet birthmark. “You all right, Miss Halliday?”

“I’m fine. Who are —” She realized then who it must be, and that he’d looked through her purse back where they’d gone off the bridge.

“My name is Flint Murtaugh. Fella,” he said to Cal, “why don’t you take your beer and move along?”

“I was fixin’ to whip this bastard’s ass,” Cal answered, unsteady on his feet.

“I’ll take care of him from here on out.”

“Anytime, anywhere, anyplace!” Cal sneered in Dan’s face, and then he grabbed Angie’s arm again and jerked her onto the dance floor with him. “Well, shit a brick!” he hollered at the musicians. “How ’bout some goddamn
playin’?”

The fiddler started up again, then the accordionist and the piano pounder joined in. Men were still laughing and gawking at Pelvis, who was trying his best to stand there and appear oblivious to the hilarity. His wig had started to slip, its glue weakened by the swamp water, and he reached up with a quick hand and straightened it.

“What the hell is
that?”
Burt grinned around his cigar stub. He hadn’t seen the derringer Flint pressed against Dan’s side, which was how Flint wanted it. “Is it animal, veg’table or mineral?” He spouted smoke and looked at Flint. “I swear to God, this is turnin’ out to be a circus! Where’d ya’ll come from?”

“We’re with this fella here,” Flint answered. “Just got left behind a little ways.”

“Your friend’s dressed up for Halloween early, ain’t he?”

“He’s a big Elvis fan. Don’t worry about him, he’s harmless.”

“Maybe so, but these sumbitches in here sure smell blood. Listen to ’em howlin’!” He moved away down the bar to draw a beer for another customer.

“Hey, Elvis!” somebody yelled. “Get up there and shake that fat ass, man!”

“Give us a song, Elvis!” another one called.

Flint didn’t have time to concern himself with Eisley’s situation. He knew something like this was bound to happen sooner or later. But the important thing was that Daniel Lewis Lambert was standing right in front of him, and the derringer was loaded and cocked. “Did he hurt you, Miss Halliday?”

“No.”

“You were lucky, then. You know he’s murdered two people, don’t you?”

“I know he killed a man at a bank in Shreveport. He told me about that. But he said he didn’t kill the man in Alexandria, and I believe him.”

“You
believe
him?” He darted another glance at her. “I thought he took you as a hostage.”

“No,” Arden said, “that’s not how it was at all. I came with him of my own free will.”

Either she was crazy, Flint figured, or somehow Lambert had brainwashed her. But she wasn’t his concern, either. He kept the gun’s barrel jammed into Lambert’s ribs. “Well, you ran me a good chase, I’ll give you that.”

Dan didn’t answer. His heart had stopped pounding, and now there was ice in his blood. He was looking at a closed door about ten feet away. Maybe beyond it was a bathroom with a window, and if he could get in there and lock the door to buy himself a few seconds, he might still get away.

“Face the bar and put your hands flat on top of it.”

Dan obeyed, but his attention was still fixed on the door. If he could get out a window into the swamp, then he could …

Could
what?
he asked himself. He was dead tired, hungry, and thirsty. His strength was gone. He doubted if he’d had the energy to trade a punch or two with Cal, much less swim through ’gator-infested water. As Flint quickly frisked him, wanting to attract as little notice as possible and helped in this regard by the loud and raucous attention being thrown at Pelvis, Dan realized that cold reality had just slapped him across the face. He had come to his senses as if awakening from a fever dream.

There was nowhere else to go. His run was over.

“You bring your pink Cadillac, Elvis?”

“Hell, get up there and sing somethin’!”

“Yeah, and it better be damn good, too!”

Pelvis had played rough rooms before, where the drunks with burning eyes would boil up out of their seats, wanting to either grab the microphone away from him or show their girlfriends that the King bled crimson. This room ranked right down there with the worst of them, and Pelvis tried to pay no mind to the jeering, but the shouts began stinging his pride.

“You ain’t no Elvis, you fat shit!”

“What’cha got in your arms there, Elvis? Your girlfriend?” This was followed by a barrage of barking and laughter that drowned out the struggling musicians.

Flint saw the situation getting out of control, but any man who wanted to look and talk like a dead hillbilly had to take his licks. He kept his focus on Lambert, who — he was surprised to find — carried no weapons, not even a knife. “Empty your pockets.”

“What’re you gonna do?” Arden asked. “Rob him?”

“No. Lambert, you must have a way with the women. First your ex-wife stands up for you, now her. She doesn’t know the real you, does she?”

Dan put his wallet on top of the bar, then a few soggy dollar bills and some change. He found the yearbook picture Chad had given him, wrinkled up by the swamp water. “How’d you find me?”

Flint flipped the wallet open and felt for hidden razor blades. “I heard your ex-wife tell you about the cabin. I’ve been waitin’ for you all day.” Flint picked up the damp picture and looked at it. “Your son?”

“Yeah.”

“See, that’s where you screwed up. You should never have gone to that park. If you’d steered clear of Alexandria, you wouldn’t be lookin’ at a double murder conviction.” He slid Dan’s wallet and the money into his coat, which was still buttoned to hide Clint’s occasional muscle twitches under his shirt. “You can keep the picture.”

Dan returned it to his pocket. “That man was alive when I left the motel. His wife killed him, and she’s blamin’ it on me.”

“Nice try. Tell it to the police and see what they think.”

“He already has,” Arden spoke up. “He called the Alexandria police while we were in Lafayette. He told ’em to check the shotgun for his fingerprints.”

“Uh-huh. He tell you he did that?”

“I saw him do it.”

“And he was probably talkin’ to a dial tone, or a recorded message, or he had his finger on the cutoff switch. Lambert, put your hands down in front of you and grip ’em together.”

“You don’t need to cuff me,” Dan said flatly. “I’m not goin’ anywhere.”

“Just shut up and do it.”

“I’d like to eat my gumbo and drink a beer. You want to feed me?” He turned around and stared into the bounty hunter’s chilly blue eyes. Murtaugh looked as worn-out as Dan felt, his face gaunt, his dark hair with its lightning-white streak oily and uncombed. A dozen mosquito bites splotched his grizzled cheeks and chin, and he had to scratch two of them even as he kept the derringer pressed into Dan’s side. “I won’t run,” Dan said. “I’m too tired, and there’s no use in it.” He read the distrust in the tight crimp of Murtaugh’s thin-lipped mouth. “I give you my word. All I want to do is eat some dinner and rest.”

“Yeah, I know what your word is worth.” Flint started to reach into his pocket for the handcuffs, but he hesitated. Lambert had no weapon, and he did look exhausted. This time, at least, there was no woman between them who knew tae kwan do. Flint said, “I swear to God, if you try to get away, I’ll put a bullet through your knee or elbow and let the lawyers sort it out. Understand?”

Dan nodded, convinced that Murtaugh would do as he promised.

“All right, then. Eat.”

A skinny man in a GSP cap and greasy overalls plucked at Pelvis’s arm. “Hey, you!” he said. Pelvis saw the man was missing most of his front teeth. His eyes were red and heavy-lidded, and the reek of beer and gumbo on his breath was enough to make Mama whimper. “I knew Elvis,” the man wheezed. “Elvis was a fren’ a mine. And you big ol’ turd, you sure as hell
ain’t
no Elvis!”

Pelvis felt the hot blood swelling his jowls. Hoots and laughter were flying at him like jagged spears. He walked to the blond woman with the birthmark on her face and said in an anger-tensed voice, “Excuse me, would you hold Mama?”

“What?”

“My dog,” he said. “Would you hold her for just two or three minutes?” He pushed Mama into her arms.

“Eisley!” Flint snapped. “What’re you doin’?”

“I’ve got my pride. They want a song, I’m gonna give ’em a song.”

“No, you’re not!” But Pelvis was already walking toward the musicians, braving the intoxicated jeers and insults. “Eisley!” Flint shouted. “Come back here!”

The musicians stopped playing their Cajun stomp as Pelvis approached, and then the whoops and hollers ricocheted off the tin roof. Burt had come back down the bar, and he yelled at Flint, “Your friend ain’t gonna need a burial plot! Ain’t gonna be nothin’ left to bury!”

“He’s a fool, is what he is!” Flint seethed, still holding the derringer low against Dan’s ribs, but in the dim and smoky light Burt didn’t see it. While Arden held on to the bulldog, the thoughts of what Angie had told her battering around in her mind, Dan took his first bite of gumbo and the hot spices and sausage in it almost set his tongue on fire.

“You fellas know ‘Hound Dog’?” Pelvis asked the band. He got three heads to swivel. “How ’bout ‘I Got a Woman’? ‘Heartbreak Hotel’? ‘A Big Hunk o’ Love’?” There were negative reactions to all those. Pelvis felt sweat collecting around his collar. “Do you know
any
Elvis songs?”

“All we play is zydeco,” the accordionist said. “You know. Like ‘My Toot-Toot’ and ‘Diggy Liggy Lo.’ ”

“Oh, Lord,” Pelvis breathed.

“Don’t just stand there, Elvis!” a shout swelled up from the others. “You ain’t dead, are you?”

Pelvis turned to face his audience. Sweat was running down under his arms, his heart starting to pound. He lifted his hands to quiet the jeering, and about half of it stopped. “I have to tell you fellas I usually accomp’ny myself on the git-tar. Anybody got a git-tar I can use?”

“This ain’t fuckin’
Nashville,
you asshole!” came a reply. “Either start singin’ or you’re gonna go swimmin’!”

Pelvis looked over at Flint, who just shook his head with pity and averted his gaze. Then Pelvis stared out at the roughnecks, the butterflies of fear swarming in his stomach. “Start croakin’, you big fat frog!” somebody else hollered. A drop of sweat rolled into Pelvis’s left eye and burned it shut for a couple of seconds. Suddenly a bowl of gumbo came flying up from one of the tables and it splashed all over the front of his muddy trousers. A wave of laughter followed, then somebody began to bray like a donkey. Pelvis stared down at his mud-crusted brown suede shoes, and he thought of how those men in there didn’t know the many hours he’d spent watching Elvis movies, learning the King’s walk and talk and sneer; they didn’t know how many nights he’d listened to Elvis records in a grubby little room, catching every phrase and nuance of that rich and glorious voice, that voice of the American soul. They didn’t know how much he loved Elvis, how he worshipped at the shrine of Graceland and how his wife had called him a stupid fat loser and run off with all his money and a truck driver named Boomer. They didn’t know how he had suffered for his art.