“You in a show?” the kid asked.
“I ain’t a performer,” Jon said.
The kid watched him, making his eyes small. But he scooped up the money like a hungry dog and got to wipin’ down the bar.
The bar didn’t have a crumb on it, but the kid kept on rubbing it anyway. Kept it smooth and neat. Somethin’ about the rag over the wood made Jon think about Ransom.
He thought about Ransom sendin’ him up to Memphis for a triple hit with no backup. Just alone.
The kid kept searching for crumbs.
Jon knew he could hit the bond shop and take them all out in two shakes of a lamb’s tail. But the dang office was a squirt of piss away from the jail. Them cops would be all over him before he’d hit the door runnin’.
He needed somethin’ quieter. He needed somethin’ to hush up his gun.
Just as he was thinkin’ who in Memphis could handle such a device, the cell phone in the front pocket of Jon’s black leather jacket began to ring. He answered it.
It was Ransom.
Ransom said there had been some kind of big change in the plans.
Chapter 60
At a quarter till nine, Jon Burrows, showered, tanned, and shaved in a crisp white dress suit, peered down at the side mirror of the rental car Levi Ransom was driving and watched a beautiful convoy of killers joining them along the highway to Memphis. At first, he’d only noticed the two lunkheads who’d been playing with their Smith amp; Wessons in the parking lot of the border truck stop where he joined Ransom, but then he saw the pickup holdin’ that grizzled fella and the sheriff. Then, an identical rental to the one they were in passed, and two good ole boys in black leather jackets gave a two-fingered wave to ole Levi as they passed and ran ahead for a while.
‘Course, Ransom knew who his boy was. He knew that when trouble started comin’ down, when they tried to take down Travers, that Jon was his man. That’s why he called him back. He didn’t want his A-1 rockabilly star locked up in no dang pokey. Jon turned his head and popped a couple more Benzedrine tablets into his mouth.
Felt like he could fly back to Memphis himself. Why wouldn’t Ransom speed up? Why was he goin’ so dang slow?
Hell, he was ready. Now. Jon looked down at his white double-breasted jacket with matching pants and white zip boots. White shirt. Red tie. Cuff links. He’d borrowed the suit and shoes from the Holy area where they stored His things down in this big warehouse by the airport. He hadn’t taken much, just this suit and the black jacket E’d worn on the NBC TV special in ‘sixty-eight. He thought it was appropriate ’cause he was thinkin’ about all them sweet Memories from the last few weeks as he watched the convoy and knawed on his knuckle tryin’ to get his leg to quit shakin’. The past sure made you feel kind of funny in the stomach.
“Kid, this is where it all breaks down,” Ransom said.
“Yes, sir.”
“I’ve been playin’ this game for thirty years and I want it runnin’ clean by November. You understand?”
Jon nodded. Let’s go. Let’s go. Speed up.
Ransom smiled to himself as he passed over the Tennessee line, just like a man comin’ home from the wilderness to a place he now owned.
M r. Ransom sure didn’t take no mess. As soon as they parked by these two ancient, metal bridges, he pulled out a big ole Colt revolver and tucked a handful of bullets into his black coat. It was dark as a black steer’s ole butt outside and the bridges looked like somethin’ that should’ve been torn down about a hunnerd years ago. They lay loose and rusted and broken ahead of them, stretchin’ over the river all the way to Arkansas. A few of them orange highway lights flashed in the night, warning people not to get too close.
Jon could get close. He had this feelin’ buzzin’ in his head like he wanted to sprint over to Arkansas and back.
Ransom told the two big dudes with pistols to go back down under one of the old bridges and get ready. Them twin bridges just skippin’ over the Mississippi.
The man with withered skin and the sheriff fanned out on the first bridge. The other folks workin’ with them were out there somewhere, hidin’.
Ransom walked ahead, past the orange light, and onto the bridge. Jon followed, the old man walkin’ way too slow. He had to bite the inside of his cheek just to walk in place.
Jon kept the pace and soon his feet made clankin’ sounds on the metal grates. He was just waitin’ for the bridge to break loose and for him to tumble out into the night sky where he’d just keep on flyin’ back home.
He was kind of twichin’ inside when he looked down and saw the big ole river swirlin’ and twistin’ below. Looked like they was up at least two hunnerd feet in the air.
He took a deep breath and walked along the spaced slats where the railroad cars used to run. He kept followin’ Ransom and soon heard him callin’ the other boys on a handheld radio.
Come on. Where were they? “Faster.”
Ransom looked over at him.
“Nothin’,” he said. Gosh dang he wanted to explode inside. His heart felt like it was beatin’ like an egg timer.
About twenty feet away, a red balloon twisted in the wind.
Jon ran over to it but Ransom walked.
Jon stared at the red balloon, waitin’ for it to pop. Or maybe he was gonna pop.
Finally Ransom strolled on over and ripped a card from its string. Just looked like some Christmas card, but Lord it made Ransom mad. He threw it to the ground and spit over the bridge’s railing.
“Come on,” he said. “Someone is playin’ us.”
“Who?”
“Travers’s buddy decided he needed a little cash. He’s smart. He’s runnin’ us around to find out how bad we want it.”
“How much he gettin’?”
“If we find him?”
Jon nodded.
“Zero.”
Jon laughed with him and kept watchin’ Ransom’s craggy face till he ’bout fell down into the river. His foot hit air where a metal grate used to be. His heart picked up a tick and now beat like it wasn’t takin’ no pause. Just a tick, tick, tick.
Ransom quickly grabbed his hand, Jon’s stomach up in his chest, and helped him onto the railroad line.
“Careful, son,” he said. “This bridge was built for the Union Pacific around nineteen-oh-five. Ain’t used to people walkin’ her.”
“How far is that drop?”
Ransom watched his face, the lights of Memphis burning behind them. “Far enough.”
Jon looked up and saw the moonlight hitting the unpainted, rusted metal beams and twisting down in purple rays. The light lay in a million crisscrossed patterns that made his head a little dizzy. He felt like he might throw up. His head racin’ harder than his body. His body was in a low tremor, maybe Ransom didn’t see it.
Ahead, the opening to the bridge on the Tennessee side stood like a big dark mouth. Behind him, Jon couldn’t even see where the bridge ended and Arkansas began.
Ransom yelled over to the old man and the sheriff on the twin bridge. They called back that they hadn’t found nothin’ either.
Jon wondered if E had ever been out here as he tried to keep his body still. He looked at all the old graffiti spellin’ out high school classes from the ‘fifties and ‘sixties and lovers that was probably dead now.
Maybe down on the banks where he’d seen all them bums and street people livin’, E may have taken His girl
