Harley Jean Davidson 03 - Evil Elvis (28 page)

“Have you lost your mind?” she yelled, clinging to the side of the carriage as Nana gave the reins an expert slap across the gleaming brown rump of the horse. “We’ll be hung for horse-stealing!”

“They repealed that law. Shut up and get off the running board and in here with me. Look for him. He’s headed down Union.”

Harley managed to pull herself up into the driver’s seat beside Nana. She clutched at what would be a dashboard in a car and held tight with both hands as the horse broke into a brisk trot. “Do you know what you’re doing?”

“Little girl, I was driving a team of horses when I was ten.”

“While you were shooting squirrels out of trees, no doubt,” Harley muttered, and closed her eyes when they nearly clipped a red Honda at the corner.

“Don’t be smart. Isn’t that him walking down the street?”

Harley opened her eyes. Tight black pants and soft slippers, suspenders, hat, white face, no feathers—yep, looked like the guy who still wore the interesting blend of Old Spice and Mace. “Yes,” she got out, holding tightly to the edge of the carriage. “Slow down! What are you going to do, run over a mime?”

“If it’ll help.”

The horse and carriage increased speed. The mime glanced over his shoulder and gave one of those fake, open-mouthed looks of astonishment, but Harley didn’t recognize him. He had on too much white face paint, and eyes defined with black lines helped disguise him. And he acted like it was all a damn game. He was enjoying it just a little too much.

“Faster,” she urged when he broke into a run, and Nana obliged. Rubber horseshoes made a heavy muffled clack against asphalt, and carriage wheels whined. Then the man cut through the overhang of the Radisson and down the street by the Greyhound bus station. Nana had no problem making the turn, and thankfully, neither did the horse or carriage. Now the mime was running, his feet slapping against concrete as they gained on him.

“Stop, you asshole!” Harley yelled, and grabbed the whip stuck in some kind of holder on the front. Apparently, it was easier in theory to work one of those than it was in reality. It popped in the air, snaked back to wrap around her arm, startled the horse, and sent them racing headlong toward a parking lot fence straight ahead. It was like watching a car crash, knowing it was going to happen but unable to stop it. Harley flung an arm in front of Nana and braced for the impact.

Just before they became one with the metal mesh, Nana managed to turn the horse. How she managed it, Harley had no idea. Those thin little arms had to be all steel. Tangled in the whip and holding onto the edge of the carriage for dear life, she was no help to her grandmother at all. Damn, did they really hit horses with these things? It hurt.

“There he goes,” Nana hollered like a woman possessed, and Harley caught a glimpse of the mime turning the corner onto Fourth Street. Dear God. He was headed for Beale Street. He’d get lost in the crowd.

“If he gets past Gayoso we’ve lost him,” Harley yelled back.

Nana sawed on the reins and the horse made the corner without clipping the curb. Much. A carriage wheel bumped over it and jolted Harley so that she nearly lost her grip on the metal rail along the front, and slammed her teeth down on the tip of her tongue.

“Thit!” she yelped, but couldn’t let go of anything to see if she had any tongue left. It’d just have to wait.

By the time she got the whip untangled from her arm, they’d crossed Gayoso and Nana turned onto Beale Street. The killer mime was just ahead. Music throbbed, coming from open doors, a mix of rhythm and blues, rock, and heavy metal. The W.C. Handy House, a small structure moved there some years back by the tourist industry to honor the late blues legend, had a line out front. The street was blocked off to vehicles, and Nana barely missed one of the posts. A little farther down, the crowd got a lot heavier with tourists, street dancers, and drunks. Disaster loomed.

“Never mind, Nana. Let him go,” Harley said, lisping, “Juth let him go. He’th gone anyway.”

“Damn,” Nana said, and slowed the horse to a walk, then a halt. “Probably a good thing. I think I’ve got blisters on my palms. Uh oh. Looks like we’re nabbed.”

Sirens blasted the air, and blue lights reflected off building windows. The whoop-whoop of police cruisers came from all directions. Nana’s wrist bracelet beeped like a flock of roadrunners. Harley wondered if they’d let her wear a red or purple jumpsuit in jail instead of that awful orange color. It’d be so much more attractive at her trial and hanging.

* * * *

Nana
was right. Horse theft was no longer a hanging offense. However, that didn’t mean they weren’t in trouble. Fortunately, Tootsie arranged bail and Nana’s lawyer said he’d work it all out. Tootsie pulled up in front of the jail in his Acura as they came out.

Waving a hand like getting arrested and held at 201 Poplar was an everyday affair, Nana said to her lawyer, “Harley didn’t have anything to do with it. Like I told those hardheaded cops, she was just trying to keep me from getting hurt. I forgot to take my medicine and thought I was back on the farm as a young girl again, driving my mama to church on Sunday morning.”

Her attorney, a tall, thin man with shrewd eyes, looked at her and nodded. “An excellent defense, Mrs. McMullen. I’m sure the DA and I can come to some sort of agreement.”

“Good. That’s what I pay you for.” Nana turned to Harley and Tootsie. “It’s late and I’m missing my poker game. Let’s go.”

On the way to Whispering Pines, Harley turned to look at Nana, who was stretched out on the back seat with her eyes closed, and said, “You’re a complete fraud. I’m amazed you haven’t led a life of crime.”

Unperturbed, Nana said, “What makes you think I haven’t?”

Harley rolled her eyes and turned back around. Tootsie was making funny noises in the back of his throat that sounded suspiciously like laughter. Harley was not amused.

“It’s been a horrible day. I’ve been attacked by a mime disguised as a giant bird—which the police were not interested in hearing, I might add—involved in a horse race against my will, then sat in a smelly cell with prostitutes and drunks. And no toilet. Believe me, after a day like that, a girl needs a toilet.”

“Quit complaining,” came the voice from the back. “You’re out now, aren’t you? Kids today have no stamina. In my day, we plowed twenty rows at sunup, then dug potatoes, picked beans, and cooked lunch for a dozen people, all before noon.”

Harley refrained from pointing out the inaccuracy of Nana’s claims. She just didn’t have the energy.

“Mr. Fraser promised he’d unlock the doors for us,” Tootsie said after a few moments in which he managed to stop making those irritating noises. “He said he’s rather concerned about the recent activities.”

“He’s not alone.” Harley drummed her fingers against the wood and leather of the dash. “I should find another place to go. Apparently, the killer knows where I am anyway. Bobby thought it’d be safe for me there since they lock the doors at night, but now I just don’t know.”

“You can come stay with me and Steve. We have a guestroom. Since he’s a cop, it ought to be safe enough for you.”

“I’d have to bring Sam. Don’t you have birds?”

“Yeah. Steve got them last year. They’re Red Lorries, sometimes known as Scarlet Lorries. Beautiful, loud, obnoxious, and entertaining. Believe me, they can handle Sam.”

“I’m not sure Sam could handle them. He’s sensitive, you know.”

Tootsie laughed out loud. “I’ve met your cat, Harley. He’s as sensitive as a brick.”

“He doesn’t like loud noises. Seriously. He’s been known to attack me for singing. It’s not a good quality in an overnight guest.”

“We’d live through it. Think about it. The offer is good as long as you want it to be.”

That was the thing about good friends. No matter what the problem, they were there to help. “Thanks,” she said, and he smiled.

Once back at Whispering Pines, Mr. Fraser had one of the on-site nurses check out Nana to be sure she hadn’t damaged anything with her adventure, then suggested she go to bed and rest.

“Rest, hell. I’m missing my poker game. Besides, I rested on the way home.”

With that, Nana was off to the recreation hall. Harley looked at a bemused Mr. Fraser. “I think Nana’s reliving her teen years. Or the ones she never had. She’s trying to make up for all she missed.”

“Well,” he said wryly, “she’s doing an excellent job of catching up.”

Harley promised Tootsie he’d get back his bail money as soon as she got to her checkbook and he waved her off, kissed her cheek, then left. Before his taillights were out of the gated driveway, Harley was in Nana’s apartment and running bath water. The jailhouse stench had to go.

Still out on the screened porch, Sam looked pretty irritated that his dinner was late and it was too dark to see birds at the feeder.

“They’re asleep anyway,” she told him as she gave him more dry food with a scoop of wet tuna flakes in some kind of kitty sauce on top. “We’re about to do the same.”

After her bath, she remembered she hadn’t turned her cell phone back on, and dug it out of her backpack. How nice that it was still working. Keeping it chained to her waist or safe in her backpack helped prevent the monthly expense of replacing them.

As expected, there were two messages from Bobby, one from Cami, and none from Morgan. The last message had Blocked Call on the Caller ID. She hesitated. A twinge in her belly told her to delete it without listening, but that wouldn’t solve anything.

She took a deep breath and punched the buttons. It wasn’t a big surprise to hear a strange voice that sounded disguised say, “My time, my place, my choice. Expect it. You’re dead.”

Despite being exhausted, she lay awake a long time that night, with Sam curled up beside her and sleeping soundly. There were times it had to be good to be a cat.

Chapter Thirteen

“
Why
me?” Harley looked at Bobby. They sat in Nana’s living room. “I mean, this guy is after me as if I did something to him, when all I’ve done is drive the damn tour bus.”

“We’ve been through all that. I’ll have the phone company do a trace. Here, take your phone. You’ll probably need it.” He looked up at her. “In spite of yesterday’s stupidity, you’re still safer here than anywhere else in Memphis unless we put you in a motel or hotel room, with a guard posted. Somewhere you can’t involve an eighty-five year old woman in idiot schemes like stealing a horse.”

Harley opened her mouth to defend herself, then shut it. He would never believe that Nana had been the one to steal the horse and carriage. No point in even trying.

“Right. I’ll stay here, I guess. But he knows I’m here. He’ll try again.”

“Not if you keep your ass here and don’t go out.”

Harley frowned. “But how did he know I’d be at the ball game yesterday? It couldn’t be just coincidence. And the day before, he came here as Elvis. I know it. You know it. What I don’t know for sure is if it’s Hughes or not. But it can’t be anyone else. Can it?”

“He’s watching you. Maybe he has an accomplice, someone you wouldn’t suspect?”

“Unless it’s the old geezer on the second floor who tried to look down my shirt the other day, no.”

Bobby grinned. “You might find another boyfriend here if you try hard enough.”

“I’m not at a shopping mall for boyfriends, thank you. I thought this was an old folks’ home but I think I’ve found the stars of Cocoon.” Bobby looked blank so she explained, “You know, the movie where the old folks find aliens who share the secret of youth?”

He rolled his eyes. “Just be careful. My offer of police protection still stands if you want it.”

“Bobby, what if I go home to my own apartment?”

“I don’t recommend it.” He frowned. “You’re not thinking of doing that, are you?”