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    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?
    â€œQuick, 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.
    â€œThe 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.
    â€œWhat’s he saying?” Lovie asks.
    â€œWe’ll bury him in the turnip patch. Do you know of any laws against that?”
    â€œThank you, Gloria Swanson.” She’s on to me. I’ve just paraphrased one of our favorites, Sunset Boulevard.
    â€œHow 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.
    â€œDid she see us?” Lovie asks.
    â€œIf she did, what’s she going to do? Turn us in for hunkering in a doorway? She doesn’t even know who we are.”
    â€œI wouldn’t count on it. I’m unforgettable.”
    Good grief. Here we go again.
    â€œForget 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
    I n 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.
    â€œLovie! Duck!”
    â€œIt’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.
    â€œYou’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.
    â€œI can’t talk now. I’m in the middle of something important”
    â€œWhat could be more important than your mother?”
    â€œOkay. What is it?” Major goal number one: learn to stand firm in the face of emotional blackmail.
    â€œFayrene 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.”
    â€œThat’s far-fetched, Mama. What foreign country?”
    â€œWhat 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