"A n.o.ble life flushed down the toilet of society. Do not condemn this poor soul. Pity her. Empathize with her. She was once an innocent child who wore pretty dresses and loved ice cream. That empty husk was once you. And someday you might be her."

He glanced over, expecting me to swallow the bait, but I stayed cool. It's like we were growing comfortable with each other's depravity-made both of us harder to outrage.

The procession paused while Shane backed off a curb, without asking for help. On the other side of the street, Lloyd set down the beer and gave him a boost. Shane kept talking.

"I too have lain unconscious in public places. To look at me now you may never believe I was once held up as a bad example."

I said, "You're still my bad example."

With a screech, Andrew went from sound sleep to ultra-awake. "Let me down. I'm thirsty. Why doesn't that man have arms? This place is the pits."

When Marcella set him down, he ran in the street. She yanked him onto the sidewalk and swatted his b.u.t.t once. He burst into tears and accused her of being mean and not caring about him. "I'm gonna live with Daddy. He gives me presents." For a change, Daddy was nowhere in sight.

"You're not going to live with Daddy."

"I love him and I hate you."

Kids have an instinct when it comes to hurting parents. I know I did. Andrew pulled loose, ran over to a b.u.m pa.s.sed out in a doorway, and stole his bottle. I handed Marcella Hugo Jr. and went after him.

"Give me the man's bottle."

"I'm thirsty."

"You can't drink that, it has wino cooties."

Andrew looked suspiciously at the bottle-DeKuyper peach brandy-then back at the inert pile of clothes in the doorway. "I'll wipe the cooties off on my shirt."

I advanced. "It's the man's bottle. When the man wakes up he'll need his bottle."

Andrew skipped out of my range. "He won't wake up, he's dead."

"He's not dead, now give me the bottle before I yank off your arm and beat you with the stub."

Andrew whined. "I'm thirsty."

"We'll get you a drink of water."

Meanwhile, Shane had wheeled over and was inspecting the public pa.s.s-out. "Andrew is correct. The gentleman is dead."

Andrew went white and dropped the bottle. It shattered. Lloyd bent over the man and touched his neck. "You people take the beer on to the hotel. I'll find a policeman."

We gathered in a bunch around the doorway. Andrew clutched Marcella's leg. I stood between Shane and Brad with one hand on the back of Shane's chair. Lloyd turned and left.

The dead man was wearing a denim shirt, slacks held up by a cord belt, and black loafers with no socks. His brown hair was slicked down and neatly parted. His fiftyish face had no flesh under the skin, as if he'd started going skeleton even before he died. A trace of drool leaked from the corner of his mouth and his eyes were cloudy, the same color as the Mississippi River when we crossed.

"There, but for the grace of G.o.d, go I," Shane said.

I said, "Bull."

He wheeled back a foot. "You know nothing, little girl."

I couldn't very well challenge him on that one.

"I'm sorry I stole your bottle," Andrew said to the dead man.

I thought about Auburn.

33.

Ta-da. I'd survived to the next shower. Small triumphs-like making it through an entire day without dying-are sometimes more commendable than the big ones. Showers had come to represent goals. Safe zones. Sam Callahan and the kids in the neighborhood played tag games where certain trees were Base, and It couldn't get you when you were touching Base. I'd always looked at Jackson Hole as my personal Base, but recently safety from It had shrunk to the shower stall.

Quality-wise, the Calhoun Arms shower was about what you'd expect. Tepid water, used soap, dribbly pressure, furry stuff on the wall-but I wasn't in a position for pickiness. I'd just seen a dead man; I needed to be washed.

I saw a dead man once before. Lydia Callahan and I were in the Killdeer Cafe, or whatever it was called back then, when an old logger named Bill fell across the jukebox and died. I don't remember where Sam was. I do remember everyone sitting in their booths looking vaguely put upon.

For a very short while after I saw Bill crumpled up dead on the floor, sensate-type things were ultraintense-chocolate malts tasted luscious, the snow outside was colder and whiter, radio music had a new crispness. Sam Callahan and I had the most dynamite s.e.x we ever had, which makes it the most dynamite s.e.x I've had so far because no one's wiped me out since.

Sad when your s.e.x life peaks at thirteen.

Clean underwear, I had. I'd never sunk so low as to put dirty underwear back on after a shower. Clean clothes, I didn't have. The last jeans and the Neiman Marcus rodeos-and-funerals shirt went on in De Queen, Arkansas, so as of Memphis I have sunk so low as to wear dirty clothes after a shower. Could be better, could be worse.

Marcella and Andrew sat on one bed playing Old Maid. Whenever she won a hand he threw all the cards against the wall, so Marcella stopped winning hands. Hugo Jr. lay on his back on the other bed, gurgling and kicking his feet in the air. Being cute. The kitten with half whiskers was drinking baby formula from a paper c.o.ke cup on the floor. She couldn't reach the milk with her tongue, but she'd learned the soak-a-paw, lick-a-paw trick.

I sat next to Hugo Jr. to comb my wet hair. It had finally grown out enough to cover my ears and look somewhat intentional, like a woman with a short hairdo rather than a grief-wallowing neurotic who'd tried to chop herself ugly.

When a man gives himself a burr haircut society doesn't rear up and scream rampant instability.

"Where's Brad?" I asked.

Andrew pulled a card from Marcella's hand and threw down a pair of Gus Gulps. He shouted, "Fooled you, meathead."

"He took off," Marcella said.

"Took off?"

"As soon as you turned on the shower he ran out."

"He say where he was going?"

She looked at her cards and said, "Oh, dear, the Old Maid." Andrew cackled.

I asked again, "Did Brad say where he was going?"

"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."