Read Online Elvis And The Memphis Mambo Murders by Peggy Webb - Free Book Online Page B

loose. Elvis is barking, Lovie is saying words she learned from bathroom walls, and Armageddon has started behind the door where we’re skulking.
    â€œI’ve got to go, Mama.” I hang up on her, something I’m positive I’ll live to regret. Behind us, the thundering, galloping noise is coming closer. “Down, Lovie!”
    She drops and we hunker on the pavement like sewer mice faced with the world’s biggest mousetrap. We don’t have a single weapon, not even Lovie’s baseball bat.
    Rule number whatever-it-is: don’t go sleuthing without a weapon. You never know when you’ll land smack dab in the path of something meaner, uglier, and bigger than you.
    The door behind us bursts open and I nearly wet my pants. Towering over us, seven feet if he’s an inch, is the most fearsome man I’ve ever seen. Skin as slick and shiny as patent leather, dressed in black from head to toe, he looks like the funnel of a tornado. Even Lovie is intimidated.
    â€œWell, well,” he says. “What’ve we got here?”
    I couldn’t squeak if I were in the path of stampeding elephants. For once, even Lovie is rendered speechless.
    â€œDon’t ya’ll move.” Staring up at Giant Man’s open mouth is like gazing into the abyss of a red stone canyon. “I’ll be right back, sugar.”
    He turns around and thunders inside.
    â€œ Sugar? ” Lovie gives me this look but I notice she’s not moving.
    â€œThat’s what he said.”
    I’m trying to decide whether to stay put, call the cops, or make a run for it. Suddenly the giant is back and all escape routes are closed.
    â€œHere, ya’ll.” He’s holding two enormous sandwiches in hands as big as Virginia hams. He even leans down and offers a biscuit to my dog. “Nobody goes hungry at Wet Willie’s.”
    I’d give the food back, but I don’t want to get on the bad side of a man twice the size of Arkansas. Besides, I don’t want to hurt his feelings.
    I accept the sandwich and say, “Thank you, sir.”
    My mama brought me up right.
    Down the street at the Rum Boogie Café, a mournful trumpet signals the beginning of another day of nostalgia and blues. Soon throngs of people will pour onto Beale Street. I’m not about to stick around and be mistaken for a panhandler again.
    â€œYou’re welcome, sugar. Ya’ll have a nice day, now, you hear?”
    I wonder if he’s Wet Willie. It wouldn’t be polite to ask. Lovie looks like she’s going to anyway, and I give her a sharp nudge.
    By the time our monumental benefactor leaves, Grayson and his lady love are long gone. At this point, I don’t even care. I’ve already hauled a dead body out of the fountain, been held at gunpoint by the police, and been mistaken for a beggar. And the day’s not even half over.
    I have an insane urge to go inside Wet Willie’s and order the drink advertised on his windows— CALL A CAB . After a drink with a name like that, who would care if Grayson is cheating on his dead wife? Who would care if my sweats are so stiff with duck goo they could walk back to the Peabody by themselves? Who would care if Beale Street makes me think of a blues harp curled against the lips of a man who knows how to rock my world with a kiss?
    â€œLet’s go back to the hotel, Lovie.” She’s too busy eating to reply. “How can you eat? It’s not even ten-thirty.”
    â€œIf you’d forget the clock and eat when you’re hungry, you might get some love handles, Callie.”
    I’m always after her to lose weight and she’s always after me to gain. In a good-natured way, of course. Best friends since birth, we’ve never had a real fight.
    Right now, though, I don’t even want to get into a lighthearted discussion with Lovie over my love handles and all the name implies.
    â€œLet’s go,