Part 28 (2/2)

”I don't think so.”

”When he'll be back?”

”He didn't say a word.”

”He take his art pad?”

”I suppose so. He had something under his arm.”

I didn't see his art pad anywhere in the bare room. ”I wonder if we've been ditched.”

Marcella shrugged. Andrew turned on me with fierceness. ”Would you shut up. I'm concentrating.”

”Yeah, right.”

The Jesus eyes came in a circle and hit me full in the face. ”We'll sell blood.”

”Whose blood?”

To his overalls and sandals getup, Lloyd had added a ball cap that said Cat. I didn't remember him wearing it when we left Moby d.i.c.k. ”Yours and mine,” he said. ”Who else's blood we got to sell?”

”I'm not selling blood.”

”It's easy, Maurey. Last time I sold it was fourteen dollars a pint. Twenty-eight dollars and a few cases of Coors will get us across Tennessee.”

”Just trade more Coors.”

”We're not getting what we paid for it. Imagine how embarra.s.sed you'd feel to pull into Granma's farm with an empty trailer.”

”Lloyd, I was a high school cheerleader. I don't sell blood. During the Red Cross drive I might graciously donate, but girls from Wyoming are not desperate enough to trade blood for money.”

Lloyd's face had a tireder than usual look, and he usually looked tired. He took off the cap, wiped dew from his forehead, then put the cap back on. I wondered if he stole the cap from the dead guy. What an awful thought.

”At least walk down to the bank with me,” Lloyd said.

”Why?”

”What else have you got to do?”

Shane was outside hitting on the black hooker in the leather vest whose two parking meters we almost blocked.

”Meet Miss Ivory Tupelo,” he said. ”Miss Tupelo is a recent graduate of Duke University.”

”Pleased, I'm sure,” said the hooker.

”You better get in out of the heat,” I said. ”You want some help with the steps?”

Shane was sweating like a jitterb.u.g.g.e.r. ”I have no intention of entering that establishment. It's disreputable.”

”You staying out here to be reputable with the coed?”

”He'd have more fun with me than he does with you,” the hooker said.

”G.o.d, I hope so.”

Shane jerked his shaky thumb at a pay phone next to a shredded phone book. ”I called Priscilla and she insists on sending a car. You needn't concern yourselves about my welfare, I informed her I must return prior to five o'clock.”

I should have known better than to ask. ”That's Priscilla Presley?”

”How many Priscillas do I know in Memphis?”

I think the dead man had triggered a fed-up-with-bulls.h.i.+t gland in Lloyd, because for the first time since I met them, he didn't humor Shane's rich fantasy life.

He said, ”Shane, you don't know Elvis Presley.”

Shane did the hurt slump. ”Have you come to doubt me, too?”

”Get in out of the heat, I have enough problems without nursing you.” Strong words for Lloyd. It occurred to me I should set him up with Dot Pollard at the Killdeer. They could be the couple who never offended anybody.

”Credo quia absurdum est,” Shane said.

The hooker said, ”You tell 'em, baby.”

He repeated. ”Credo quia absurdum est, Father Tertullian said those words in the third century as proof that the Christian G.o.d exists. They mean 'This is too absurd to be made up, therefore it must be true.'”

”If s.h.i.+t's weird enough, it's real,” I paraphrased.

”Correct. Elvis and I are buddies. I saved his life and his career, not to mention I introduced him to his wife. This all must be true simply because you cannot believe it.”

Lloyd said, ”He's got a point.”

Lloyd gave me a b.u.m's tour of downtown Memphis. ”The gray building is where you apply for food commodities. They won't okay the application unless you can prove you're living indoors. Over there's a Catholic church where you can sleep on the floor if you don't look drunk, only they kick you out at six-thirty a.m. This block is thick with winos by the seven o'clock rush hour. Across the street there is the Manpower temporary labor office. Good place to hide on cold days.”

”That's where you found the bottle that started your last bender,” I said.

He looked at me. ”You remembered.”

”You blacked out two months before you woke up in Mexico City with a broken leg. My memory's not totally shot.”

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