Gideon (36 page)

“Don’t tell me you haven’t seen it,” Cissy chirped.

Carl shook his head. Amanda shrugged apologetically.

“How ’bout the newsletter?” Duane rumbled.

This time Amanda shook her head and Carl shrugged.

“Gracious,” Cissy said. “It goes out monthly to some twenty-three thousand subscribers.”

“Worldwide,” Duane added, and there was no mistaking the pride buried in his deep monotone.

“All we try to do,” Cissy said, “is share our pure, unadulterated love for Elvis with his people, and give them a chance to share their love with us. It’s put all of us in closer touch with our humanity.”

“Sounds very spiritual,” Amanda said understandingly.

Cissy lit up, her smile spreading across her face. “It is. It really and truly is. All we’re really doin’ is spreading the gospel. The gospel according to Elvis.”

“The Memphis
Commercial Appeal
did an article on us last month,” Duane added. “Ever since, people’ve been dropping by all the time. Just like you.”

“Sugar, you have the absolute prettiest hair,” Cissy burbled at Amanda, who colored slightly. Compliments made Amanda uncomfortable. “Elvis was always partial to titian tresses, you know. Now, do tell, was it the house you wanted to see, or did y’all want to talk?”

“We wanted to talk,” Amanda answered. “We’re searching for something. A place. We thought maybe you’d be able to help us find it.”

“We’ll sure try,” Cissy said warmly.

Carl glanced around at the house. He’d been expecting a kitschy shrine cluttered with Elvis memorabilia—black-velvet Elvis paintings with eyes that followed you around the room. Bobble-headed Elvis dolls, that sort of thing. But this wasn’t the case at all. True, the old portable record player over by the window was playing a scratchy forty-five of “That’s All Right, Mama.” True, there was a framed newspaper photo on the mantel of Elvis performing at the Louisiana Hayride with Scotty and Bill. Also a framed picture of Vernon and Gladys with Elvis when he was a little boy in overalls. Otherwise, the house was sparsely and rather humbly furnished. A table fan whirred weakly. There was no air conditioner.

“You mentioned the house,” Carl said. “Is there something special about it?”

“Oh, my, yes,” Cissy replied. “In March of fifty-five when Elvis was twenty years old, he, Vernon, and Gladys moved into their first real Memphis home, the one on Lamar, partway between Katz Drug Store and the Rainbow Rink, where Elvis and Dixie first met.” She trailed off, her round face dissolving into sadness. “Dixie was a good, church-going Christian girl who loved Elvis for himself, not his fame or his riches—unlike so many of the others who latched on to him through the years. But the strain was already there between them. She’d given him back his class ring once already, you know.”

“I didn’t realize that,” Carl said, then winced as Amanda’s elbow caught him in the small of his back.

“The Lamar house was a two-bedroom brick bungalow,” Duane continued, “with a small, screened-in porch where Elvis, Scotty, and Bill would rehearse numbers for the neighborhood kids.” He steered them over toward the kitchen doorway. It was a noticeably old-fashioned kitchen with fifties appliances and vintage yellow linoleum. “Our home is an exact replica,” he revealed proudly, “accurate down to the slightest detail. We’ve compiled the plans and offer them to anyone who’s interested. Free of charge.”

“To date,” said Cissy, “some seven hundred and ninety-seven people have already built replicas of their own, including one gentleman in Kyoto, Japan, who built his to nine-tenths scale.”

Carl nodded. He did not dare look at Amanda or release the firm hold his teeth had on his lower lip, because this was the whole new level of weird. He was not sure he could handle this. Not now. Briefly he thought about waiting in the car, but he cold not do that to Amanda—mostly because he was pretty sure she’d kill him.

“Have you been doing your show for a long time?” she asked them, her own voice quavering slightly. Asking questions was her way of maintaining a grip.

“Why, no, sugar,” Cissy replied. “We both taught over at the high school until we took early retirement this past June. Duane was there thirty-six good years. I was there thirty-two. But we decided it was tome to let some young people get started on their own careers. And for us, to, well, let it all hang out. Y’know, enjoy the time we have left.”

“Which we have every intention of doing.” Duane grinned at them crookedly, stroking his sideburns. “Where are you folks from?”

“Washington,” Carl said. No point in pretending otherwise, since Amanda had a D.C. license plate.

“My, you’ve come a long way,” Cissy said. “Sit and I’ll fetch us some refreshments.”

They sat on the sofa, which was a horsehair, and rather uncomfortable. Duane sat in the armchair. The record finished playing. The room was silent for a few moments except for the sound of the fan. Then a new forty-five dropped into place. This one was “Good Rockin’ Tonight.” Cissy returned a moment later with a tray loaded down with corn bread, a pitcher of milk, and glasses. “Elvis loved nothing better than to dip his corn bread in a glass of buttermilk,” she declared, pouring them each a glass. “So you go right ahead.”

Carl did. The corn bread was delicious, the buttermilk ice cold. And he was starving.

“Can I fix you a peanut butter and banana sandwich?” Cissy asked him, watching him wolf down the corn bread. “Take me only a second to fry one up. Elvis just plain adored them.”

“No, no,” Carl assured her. “This will be fine.”

She sat. Carl tried not to stare at her bulging thighs.

“Now, do tell us what you’re searching for,” Duane said.

“Well, my parents both passed away when I was a little girl,” Amanda began, lapsing into a bit of a drawl.

“Why, you poor thing,” Cissy clucked.

“I’m trying to find the town down here where they grew up. You know, locate their birth records and so forth.”

“Searching for you roots, huh?” suggested Duane.

“Exactly,” Amanda said, nodding. “My roots. Trouble is, I have almost nothing to go on. Except for one thing—they met at an Elvis concert. That’s one of the few things I can remember Mama telling me. And I know the approximate date of the concert. Because they got married one year later, almost to the day, up in Norfolk.”

Carl nodded, wondering where on earth she’d come up with Norfolk. Where she’d come up with any of it, for that matter. He was beginning to realize that her nature was vastly more devious than his own.

“I just don’t know the
where
,” she went on. “Anyway, I thought if we could find out where Elvis was performing on that particular date—I mean, if you could look it up on your records …”

The LaRues both laughed hugely at this.

“Sugar, there
are
no records,” Cissy roared.

“But,” Amanda sputtered, “we were told you’d know …”

“Oh, we’ll know,” Duane assured her.

Cissy, still laughing, tapped her own forehead. “But no records,” she said. “It’s all up here.”

Duane peered at Amanda eagerly. “What was the date?”

“It was nineteen fifty-five,” Amanda said. “And we think it was New Year’s Eve.”

Duane immediately shook his head. “Sorry. Not possible.”

“What do you mean?” Carl objected. “Why not?”

“Elvis didn’t perform on New Year’s Eve that year, son,” Duane said. “He was home with his family. In Memphis.

“Oh, dear,” Amanda said, her voice heavy with disappointment.

“I’m sorry we couldn’t help you, sugar,” Cissy said sympathetically.

“Wait, hold on just a second …” Carl racked his brain, trying to remember what Rayette’s diary had said. The exact words.
Damn, what were they? … “Three days before Danny’s tenth birthday”… What else? Shit! What else? …“A girl in class had a birthday of her own” … Come on, come on, come on … yes! “As a present for her birthday and to welcome in the new year.
”

“It doesn’t have to be New Year’s Eve,” he blurted out. “What about over the next few days?” Amanda was staring at him. “What I’m thinking dear”—Amanda raised an eyebrow at his use of the
d
word—“is that maybe the concert wasn’t necessarily held on that exact date.”

Amanda frowned at him, confused. “But I thought,
dear
, that Mama always said—”

“I did, too. But she said ‘to welcome in the new year.’ “

“Are you sure?” Amanda said.

“How do
you
now what her mama said?” Duane asked.

“Well, I…I just think it’s
possible
that’s what she said. It’s possible the show could have been a few nights later, isn’t it?”

Amanda shrugged her shoulders at this. “I guess it’s worth a try.” Turning to Duane and Cissy, she said, “Would that be a problem? I mean, to cover the week or two after New Year’s?”

“No problem at all,” Duane said, scratching his chin. “No sirree. Elvis was with Scotty and Bill in west Texas the week of January the second on a Louisiana Hayride package tour.”

Carl sighed inwardly. This was not looking promising. “And what about the week after that?”

“On January the twelfth he played the city auditorium in Clarksdale.”

“What state is that in?” Carl asked.

“Why, Mississippi,” Duane replied. “He was on a bill with Jim Ed and Maxine Brown. They were a brother-and-sister act. On the thirteenth he performed in Helena. That’s Arkansas.”

“What can you tell us about those places?” Carl asked, leaning forward.

“Couple of small towns straddling the Mississippi River,” Duane said. “An hour or so south of Memphis. Clarksdale’s in the delta. Don’t know much beyond that about ’em. Don’t know that there
is
much to know. On the fourteenth,” he continued, sipping his buttermilk, “Elvis was in Corinth, Mississippi. Now, Corinth is just a hop, skip, and jump south of here. Right on the Tennessee-Mississippi border. From there he made his way over to Sikeston, Missouri, then on back to Texas for a five-day tour.”

“After that,” said Cissy, picking up the story, “poor Elvis’s entire universe changed. And not for the better, mind you. Those were his last days of pure happiness, you see. Because it was soon after that, in February, that he joined a Hank Snow package tour under the stewardship of the devil’s own instrument, Colonel Parker. That awful man robbed him of his blessed youth, his innocence, and his faith in people. But he could never take away his goodness.
No one
could ever take that away from Elvis.”

Amanda turned back to Duane. “These towns that you mentioned—Clarksdale, Helena, Corinth—would any of them happen to have a big factory?”

“What kind?” he asked.

“We’re not sure,” Amanda replied. “We only know that it made the air smell pretty bad. That’s something else Mama mentioned.”

Duane pondered this a moment, tugging at a sideburn again. He seemed to enjoy doing that. “Well, you might find yourself a poultry works. You ever been downwind of one of them, you’d know it. Beyond that, I wouldn’t say it’s too likely you’d find yourself much of anything. Factory jobs are mighty scarce downriver of Memphis. Gone south of the border, most of ’em. Or all the way to Asia. That delta country, my oh my, there’s not much there besides cotton fields and sugarcane. And, of course, all of those darn fool casinos they’ve been building. Not that I have the slightest use for those places. They don’t
make
anything. All they do is suck what little money those poor people have right out of their pockets. Why, nine out of the top ten poorest counties in the entire nation are found right there. Poverty rate’s three times the national average.”

“Duane used to teach social studies,” Cissy noted with girlish pride. “He still likes to keep up with current events.”

Carl nodded, hoping the old man didn’t like to keep up so well that he’d just watched the evening news. It appeared not. He didn’t seem to recognize them. He wasn’t acting at all nervous or suspicious.

“Are you sure this here plant is still in operation?” Duane pressed Amanda.

“We’re not real sure of anything,” Carl answered. “Why do you ask?”

“Could be it came and went, that’s why,” Duane replied. “River’s littered with old mills that cleared out a long time ago and never came back. Gotta be a hundred of ’em.” He took Carl’s groan to be one of empathy for the unemployed. “What do those greedy so-and-so’s care if they leave the folks with no food on their tables? They don’t care, and that’s the honest truth. Not that I mean to sound like some kind of Communist. I happen to be a big believer in the free-enterprise system. All it takes is for one big company to come in, like Saturn did over in Columbia, and wham, it brings the whole area back. You should have seem Hohenwald before Saturn got her. Man, this was
nowhere
.”

Carl nodded. Near as he could tell, this still was nowhere. He signaled Amanda.

“You folks have been very kind,” she said, getting to her feet.

“Nonsense,” Cissy said. “I just hope we were a help.”

“You were,” Carl answered. “A huge help.”

They made their way toward the hundred-percent-authentic replica of Elvis’s first front door. Outside, darkness was approaching. The mosquitoes and no-see-ums where out and biting. Carl and Amanda stood there on the front steps, waving hopelessly at the swarm. Carl had never been surrounded by so many insects in his life.

Duane and Cissy stood framed in the doorway, holding hands like a couple of decaying teenagers. “Just between us friend,” Duane said cheerfully, “I’ll tell you something that not many know about. That tour Elvis undertook for Colonel Parker in February of fifty-five? It started out in Roswell, New Mexico.”

“
The
Roswell, New Mexico?” said Carl, smiling at them.

Duane nodded sagely. “And believe me, we have been contacted by more than our share of UFOlogists, every single one of them hoping to discover a link between Elvis and the Incident.”

“And is there one?” Carl asked.

Duane let out a guffaw. “Shoot, no. Doesn’t stop them, though. Why, they even have some fool theory regarding the colonel’s true planet of origin, what with him always having been so secretive regarding the nationality on his birth certificate.”