Mesopotamia (14 page)

After some hugs, they said goodbye and stepped up onto the seven o’clock bus. That night, I fell asleep weeping.

I awoke early the next morning to the dull thuds of Vinetta chipping something from out of the bottom of her old fridge.

Flipping on my Dell, I dialed up and went online, surfing for images of Blue Suede’s in-house band—the Evils. Nothing came up. It was only while typing in each of their names—Irv, Snake, Ernie, Vern, and Leo—that I had a mundane revelation. Rearranged, the first letter of each of their names spelled out E-L-V-I-S.

Later that morning, as I continued my research, Vinetta dropped a small box on the table next to me.

“You can do what you want with that,” she informed me, “but I don’t want it mixing with the food.” It was Floyd’s boxed hand that she had been excavating from her fridge all morning.

“Can we leave it somewhere to defrost?”

She put it in a bucket under the sink in the laundry room. I assured her not to worry. The ghoulish task of fingerprinting it would be done far from the children.

“I’m signing up for the Sing the King thing,” I declared. “If you’ve got any pointers that Floyd might’ve shared with you …”

Vinetta directed me to Floyd’s boxes of Elvis videos in the storm shelter. Tapes of the King’s movies, live concerts, and interviews were all brought into the house. Upon selecting “Are You Lonesome Tonight?” as my feature song, my next three favorites were “Viva Las Vegas,” “Suspicious Minds,” and “In the Ghetto.” I handcopied the lyrics to each song off an Elvis web site. Then I spent the afternoon repeating the words over and over, pressing them into the dry hard clay of my unretentive memory. As I watched the performance tapes, the twins and other youngins sang along, using the opportunity to fine-tune their own words of penance.

The next day, while all the kids were out, I chanted the four songs over and over as I secured an inkblotter, two sheets of white paper, and a pair of old dishwashing gloves. Using a pencil, I drew five little boxes on the two pieces of paper and in the top of each box I wrote,
Pinky, Ring, Middle, Index
, and
Thumb
. I also checked the defrosting box of corn. It was finally melted enough to relinquish its gory contents. I locked myself into the laundry room and emptied it. Along with hundreds of kernels of frozen corn, a small, withered, brownish, yellowish claw of a hand fell to the bottom of the deep sink. It looked gothic, like something from an Edgar Allan Poe nightmare. Floyd must’ve chopped it off with the blade of an old shovel as the bone was splintered just below the wrist and dark purple marrow oozed from it. Slipping on the rubber gloves, I picked up the monkey claw and searched carefully for any identifying marks or scars. It looked like a typical severed hand.

Using Gustavo’s Polaroid camera, I snapped several photos of it, which I planned to use for extortion purposes.

Opening the inkblotter, I carefully rolled the ball of each of the prune-shriveled fingertips onto the blotter. Then I pressed the inky fingers from left to right, one by one, into each labeled box on the two sheets of paper. When all five fingers were fingerprinted twice, I washed the ink off the hand, dried it, then tucked it back into the box that still had some frozen corn stuck along the bottom. Although I should’ve asked Vinetta for permission, I didn’t want it to decompose any further. Discreetly, I slid the container back into the icebox under a bag of frozen gizzards. Next I took one of Gustavo’s largest cameras and took clear, well-lit snapshots of each fingerprint, creating ten jpegs.

That afternoon, Vinetta removed Floyd’s old Elvis getups from his study and we picked one—his white Vegas outfit with huge lapels. In it, I resembled the backside of a swan. While I watched endless footage of the King, she made delicate chalk lines on the costumes, where she was going to make alterations.

When I began practicing the songs myself, Vinetta made an ugly face.

“What?”

“Have you ever sung a song before?”

“Not professionally.”

That evening, Vinetta, who had a beautiful singing voice, coached me on the scales. Only after getting a basic grasp of my abilities did she give me pointers in mimicking the master.

Early the next morning, I made the calls and tracked down my old connection, Marcos, who worked as an underpaid file clerk for the Boston Police Department.

“I found a hand and I need to know who it belongs to,” I explained.

“Got the prints?”

“Yeah.” We had done this several times before. “Is it the same price?”

“Yep.” Three hundred bucks via Western Union. “But I’ll only be able to trace them if he already has a record.”

“I remember.”

Ever since the Patriot Act passed, Marcos believed, the government had been reading all his e-mails. Because he was actually taking advantage of his restricted post, he set up anonymous e-mail accounts for both of us. I was instructed not to use any names or details that could be tracked back to me. I gave him my cell number so he could call to give me the results.

The next day, I misappropriated three hundred dollars from the Gustavo Funeral Fund and converted it into a Western Union money order and I sent it over to him. Then I slipped the flashcard from the camera into the USB port on my laptop. Moments later, I sent the ten jpegs to Marcos’s anonymous account.

Last stop was the Blue Suede. Today was the deadline for the contest registration. When I stepped through the door of that dark, beer-stenched cesspool, I heard someone holler: “What the fuck you doing here?”

As my eyes adjusted I realized it was proprietor Snake Major sitting at the bar.

“I decided to take up your offer,” I announced as I walked toward him.

“Oh, then you’re not here for …” He seemed flustered.

“Why else would I be here?”

“We had another parking lot mishap.” His euphemism for Gustavo’s murder.

When I said I just wanted to pay tribute to the King, Snake instantly grew friendly and led me to the sign-up table in the rear. In addition to filling out the Sing the King registration form and paying the nonrefundable fee, I was told that my performance would be graded by a set of judges for originality, vocal ability, general appearance, and delivery.

“Who are the judges?” I asked nonchalantly.

“The best in the world.” He pointed to the inebriated inbreds parked at the bar behind him.

“And why exactly are they the best in the world?”

“Well, I won’t say who, but some of those boys worked with Elvis himself back in the day.”

“Really?”

I wanted to ask him if coowner John Carpenter was going to be among them, but I didn’t want to set anyone on edge. Before I left, the old bastard who I recognized as Irv staggered out of the john and slurred, “Who’s this cutie-pie?”

“Just someone trying to do right by the King,” Snake replied.

“Then you shoulda been here twenty-six years ago when he was looking for a little Chinese Ginnie.” Both men let out big guffaws. But it was as though Gustavo had shouted out from the great beyond. Ginnie Ginnalian was living somewhere down in New Orleans. If anyone knew who these guys were, it would likely be his final girlfriend.

On the drive back to the defunct trailer camp, I called New Orleans information and discovered that although no individual named Ginnalian was listed, there was a Ginnalian Rugs in the Yellow Pages. When I called, some woman answered.

“My mother’s thinking of buying an Oriental rug, but she gets disorientated easily.” I couldn’t resist the wordplay. “I heard there was someone there named Ginnie who would treat her right.”

“That’s me. You tell her to ask for me, and I’ll take care of her personally.”

I thanked her and hung up. It would have been absurd to try to conduct a surprise phone interview, but I wanted to establish that she was down there before I took the long drive south. Grabbing a few things, including all the photos of the Evils band, I abruptly informed Vinetta I would be away for a few days.

“Back up to New York?”

“The other way. New Orleans.”

“Mardi Gras isn’t in August, darling.”

“It’s a bit of a long shot, but I might have a break.”

“Don’t drink and drive,” she warned. Although I hadn’t touched the bottle in the past several days, she knew me well enough, an old drunk just waiting to fall off the wagon.

On the six-hour drive down to New Orleans (speeding the whole way), I practiced singing my four Elvis songs over and over. Caterwauling those tunes decently was like tiptoeing over the Grand Canyon on a tightrope, one wobbly note at a time until I was done. Then I’d turn right around and sing them all over again just a little stronger and faster.

Arriving in the Big Easy after business hours, I was too late to meet Ginnie, but I was just in time for an early-bird special at Pot o’ Gumbo, a local diner. Nearby I found a cheap motel called Jazzing Around, where I was able to flip through a Yellow Pages to get the exact location of Ginnalian Rugs.

Once my head touched the strange, lumpy pillow, despite rhythmic banging and distant screams, I fell right to sleep.

After a quick breakfast of eggs, grits, and biscuits the next morning, I marched over to the rug palace. The place was a funky old showroom just starving for a makeover.

Through the unwashed front window, I saw an attractive middle-aged woman hunched over a desk, with a coffee in one hand and a phone in the other. A moment later, a teenage girl rushed into the store and a frantic conversation ensued. It was obvious upon first sight that Elvis had a particular type of girl he pursued. Ginnie looked uncannily similar to Priscilla. Watching her yell at the girl—who looked like a younger version of herself—I realized this had to be her daughter. She looked a little younger than Ginnie had when she started dating Elvis back in early 1977.

Though I didn’t want to spend a second night at the motel, I knew better than to approach Ginnie at work where every prospective buyer and phone call would interrupt us. I waited in my car for her to take a lunch break. Unfortunately, business seemed slow and she worked right through the day. When she finally stepped out around four, she just stood in the doorway and lit a cigarette, so I approached.

“I was wondering if you might help me.”

“Sure,” she said, probably expecting to be asked for directions to a local Starbucks.

I took out my small stack of photos and handed them to her. “Do you by chance recognize any of these men?”

She inspected me carefully. Then, taking the photos, she flipped through them and asked, “What’s all this about?”

“I know this sounds crazy, but I’m investigating a possible murder.”

“A murder?”

“Well, I’m not sure.”

“Oh my God.” She stared at one of the photos. “This looks like … both these guys look like …” Slipping on her glasses, she said, “I haven’t see him in eons.”

“Who are they?”

Peering back at me, she asked, “What are you, some kind of reporter?”

“Not today; today I’m a private investigator.”

“This isn’t about no murder,” she said. “How’d you find me?”

“A friend of mine said you were down here.”

“Who’s your friend?”

“A black guy who helped you a few years back.”

“Who?”

“You won’t know his name. But he said someone tried to snatch your purse outside a Dunkin’ Donuts.”

“I remember,” she said introspectively.

“Gustavo was a truly decent human being.”

“But how did he know …”

“He was a tabloid reporter and he’d been following you all day. He was supposed to write a piece on the twenty-fifth anniversary of Elvis’s death. He had been taking photos of you, but when he saw your purse get snatched, he couldn’t take advantage of you. He was just that kind of guy.”

“I’ll bite. Where is he?”

“He was killed … and indirectly, some of these men played a role,” I said. “So I’m here trying to get him justice.”

“These guys?!” she asked, looking down at the photos.

“I think so. That’s why I’m here now. I thought maybe you could help me figure if any of them are dangerous.”

“How do I know you’re not lying about all this?”

“Well, I can’t prove everything, but …” I took Gustavo’s press card out of my wallet and showed it to her. “Was this the guy who helped you?”

She sadly nodded. “Tell you what. I’ll look over your photos provided you promise me that you’ll never see or call me ever again. For any reason whatsoever.”

“I promise I won’t,” I said earnestly. “I can also promise you that everything you tell me will be kept confidential.”

She reviewed the photos carefully, comparing a few of the Blue Suede men in one photo with other pictures of them.

“Okay,” she finally said, pointing out the two Evils I knew as Vern and Irv. “It’s been awhile, but these two look like Stan Persnip and Mike Hollenbroke. They were part of Elvis’s day-today business association. I don’t think Elvis completely trusted them.” This confirmed that they were using pseudonyms. Looking at Snake, she added, “Oh, I remember this little shit. He was a regular Hitler, he was.”

Inspecting the last two grisly men in the photos, Ginnie told me they looked familiar, but she wasn’t sure. They might have been part of his security staff.

Last I showed her a fuzzy photo of Jeeves.

“I have no idea who this poor devil is,” she said, staring intently, “though he does look vaguely familiar.”

“Do you think there’s any chance that Elvis Presley was killed?” I asked earnestly.

“When John Lennon got shot four times in the chest,
he
was killed. When I found one of the saddest and loneliest men I ever met dead in a pool of his own vomit and they traced over ten different pharmaceuticals in his system—pills everyone saw him taking for years—that’s slow suicide.” As she returned the pictures I thought I saw tears forming in her eyes. “Everyone stood by and no one did anything. I was just young enough to believe that somehow it’d all be okay. Thinking back, it was like selling tickets to someone’s drowning. You carry that guilt to your grave.”

As I thanked her for all her troubles, my cell phone’s beep reminded me that my battery was low. It also reminded me of something else: “There’s another photograph I want to show you, but it might be a little disturbing. It’s of a dead body.”