Blood Groove (10 page)

She had a knife taped to her right calf, like Leslie had once shown her, and a small Mace sprayer in her pocket. Fifty dollars in cash was distributed between two pockets. If she couldn’t cut, blind, or buy her way out of a tight spot, then she had no one to blame but herself. If someone did attack her, she hoped that she’d have the presence of mind to remember what was where, and not die because she tried to spray the knife at somebody.

And that was it; her disguise was complete. She left a note on her kitchen table outlining her plan and where she intended to start. If the worst happened, then this would give the police somewhere to start looking for her body. She knew one of her own morgue slabs might be waiting for her at the end of the night, but she almost quivered with exhilaration at the danger of it. Would Lyman feel the need to personally avenge her? Would Skitch actually get her job? Would Dr. Francisco speak at her funeral?

She climbed into her car and headed downtown.

•  •  •

   Fronting on Dudley Street, Elmwood Cemetery was the oldest graveyard in Memphis. Its residents went back to 1852 and included victims of the
Sultana
, a riverboat that sank in 1865 and killed an unbelievable seventeen hundred people. Danielle had supervised two exhumations there, so she recognized the address immediately in Leslie’s files. It didn’t surprise her that it was also a place where teenagers might go to do things adults wouldn’t condone. The place had isolation, the spook factor, and acres of dark grassland suitable for all sorts of illicit activities. But she doubted that single white girls just wandered into it looking for a good time. She’d need to find some other people, tag along with them, hope they wanted to get high on the new stuff, and procure a sample. Simple as death.

She parked in a paid lot and locked her car. She carried only the door and ignition keys; everything else, keys to her apartment and office, were hidden beneath the felt-covered cardboard bottom of the locked glove compartment. If she got rolled, they might take her car, but they’d never find those other keys.

It was a warm and scaldingly humid night, and for that reason alone she was glad she’d chosen the skimpier top. Sweat beaded on her shoulders and lower back. She fought the urge to suck in her bare stomach. Her breasts bounced with each step; she recalled watching Suzanne Somers jiggle her way through
Battle of the Network Stars
, and for the first time really felt sorry for her. As she took in the dark, gritty neighborhood, she kept hearing the refrain of a Three Dog Night song:
Mama told me not to come . . 
.

She walked with her head down along the empty sidewalk until she turned onto Decatur Avenue, a three-lane street lined with bars, porn peep shows, and businesses
closed behind barred windows. The light, noise, and traffic were a total change. Not only were cars cruising, windows down and music blaring, but little knots of teenagers, the very creatures she sought, milled about or prowled the sidewalks. Most were white boys, and she knew that once she caught their eye, they’d be all over her. It was not vanity, but psychology: she’d dressed to be provocative, after all. How bright, she suddenly realized, was
that
?

She recalled other really stupid things she’d done, like driving drunk two hundred miles to a concert in college, or having condomless—and very fast—sex with her high school prom date. Most vividly, she remembered the time when she was twelve, immersed in books on reptiles, and developed a burning desire to see a real rattlesnake. Armed with only her field guide and a stick, she’d gone poking into areas that the book called “likely habitats.” Sure enough, she found one, and sure enough, it bit her right on the foot. But its fangs missed by the barest fraction, instead imbedding in the rubber sole of her tennis shoe. She’d run screaming all the way home, the hapless snake trailing from her foot.

And here she was twenty years later, poking into another likely habitat. Would she be as lucky this time?

The four boys accosted her outside a convenience store. They huddled around the pay phone attached to the wall beneath a bright strip of fluorescent lighting, catcalling and whistling as she passed. She hunched her shoulders and walked faster, but sensed them peeling away from the wall and slouch-rushing to catch up. “Hey, baby, whatchu afraid of?” one of them called.

She kept her head down and sped up. This was a really bad idea, just as Leslie warned, and her courage completely failed her. She wanted to get back to her car and get the hell out of there, but with the boys behind her she’d have to loop the whole eighty-acre cemetery to do that. They drew closer,
and she heard one plainly drawl, “Ain’t nothing to be afraid of
here
, baby.” The others laughed, and she didn’t have to see the gesture to know what he meant by “here.”

It took all her resolve not to run screaming down the street. The boys were close now. They’d drag her into an alley and have her bent over a garbage can, or on her back on the filthy concrete. It would only be rape, if she was lucky and didn’t put up a fight. Then again, maybe they wouldn’t want to leave her alive as a witness. Fight or flight, she tried to decide.

Then suddenly one of them fell into step beside her. She suppressed a startled yelp. “Sorry ’bout what we said back there,” he said, and his regret sounded genuine. “We thought you were somebody we knew.”

She glanced at him but did not slow down. He was cute, maybe sixteen, and clearly a little drunk or stoned. He stared brazenly at her jiggling boobs. “She must be a lucky girl,” she said.

“Hey, I ain’t trying to cause any trouble with you. You just looked kinda lost and”—he stammered awkwardly—“p-pretty, and I thought you might need some help.”

“My hero,” she said wryly. The other three followed at a discreet distance, giggling and nudging each other. Had this one won the bet to talk to her, or lost? She slowed to a normal walk. “Do you always swoop down on girls you don’t know?”

He grinned, both shy and bold. “I don’t know about ‘swooping,’ but I always talk to a foxy chick anytime I can.”

She stopped outside a brightly lit Laundromat. He seemed harmless, and if he was the leader of this “gang,” she felt no danger from them now. If anything, she should be able to keep herself safe by judicious application of feminine wiles. The flood of relief left her giddy. She faced him, hands on her hips. “So talk,” she said.

“My name’s Billy Blankenship. What’s yours?”

“Danny,” she said, and instantly wanted to kick herself.
She had a whole alternate secret identity as a Nashville college girl named Jessica ready to go, and now she’d blown it.

“Well, hey there, Danny, good to meet you.” He leaned closer and said softly, “Me and my boys are meeting some other girls in the cemetery, to get high and stuff. Want to come?”

She peered past him at his friends. They stifled their laughter and looked away. “I don’t see any other girls,” she said suspiciously.

“Like I said, they’re meeting us there. You’ll like ’em.”

“Uh-huh.”

“No, I swear, Scout’s honor.”

“What about Boo Radley’s honor?” she deadpanned.

“Huh? Look, nothing bad’ll happen. Hell, sometimes when he’s in town, Elvis even sends his guys around to take us to Libertyland for free, so it could be extra-cool.”

She made no effort to hide her doubts on that one. “Oh, come on, that’s bullshit.”

“No, serious. He rents the whole place out in the middle of the night for his daughter. He wants Lisa Marie to see other people around having a good time, so we get in free to ride all we want, as long as we look happy whenever she runs into us.” He giggled. “And that ain’t so hard to do with a good nickel bag like we got.”

Danielle knew Elvis
did
rent out the amusement park, but the rest of the story sounded awfully thin. She examined Billy with exaggerated skepticism. “You better not be telling me all this just to try to get in my pants. I’m not like these citified girls; if I don’t like you, you’ll draw back a nub.”

The other boys laughed, whether at Billy’s discomfort or her defiance she couldn’t tell. Billy laughed as well. “Danny, I swear. We smoke a little, hang out, that’s all. You’re welcome to come.”

Well
, she thought,
this is exactly what I hoped would happen. Can’t ignore an answered prayer
. She tapped his chest with her
finger, trying to pretend she wasn’t twice his age. “Okay, hot stuff. But you better behave.”

“Cool,” he said with a big grin. Then he took her hand and led her down the street. The others rushed to catch up.

They were a typical ad hoc group of friends, drawn together by ennui and geography more than any shared interests. Billy appeared to be the leader, but only by default; she could imagine none of them getting too worked up about anything. His T-shirt proclaimed
KISS Tour ’74
and featured the band members dressed like aliens, or so Danielle thought. He was slender but soft, the result of indolence overcoming natural leanness.

Tom was the tallest, and by far the handsomest. He had that smooth attitude that told her he was used to girls finding him irresistible. He wore a clean polo shirt and neat jeans, and his tennis shoes were new. When she made eye contact with him he smiled and winked, letting her know it was okay to check him out. She wanted to slug him on behalf of all his future girlfriends.

Mike looked to be the youngest, probably not even old enough to drive. He wore a faded Confederate flag T-shirt with the sleeves ripped off, and cutoff jeans that hung to his knees. He had the typical teenage insecurities about girls writ large on his face, and would not meet her eyes. She pitied him.

Finally there was Ling, with his four-hair excuse for a mustache. He wore a floppy camouflage seaman’s hat and a tank top, and when he spoke had the same accent as the rest. Fully Americanized. She guessed his background was Taiwanese.

The five of them ducked down an alley between a bar and an insurance office. A man sang to himself as he urinated on the wall, so drunk he never noticed them. The chain-link fence around Elmwood Cemetery ran behind all the buildings on the street, and here one section hidden behind a
ragged shrub showed evidence of having been lifted up and bent back several times.

Tom held it so Danielle could slip under after Billy. She froze again: it was insane, running down an alley with a bunch of strange boys. But Tom seemed so earnest, so harmless, that she felt no danger from him. He looked up at her with wide, guileless eyes. “You coming?” he said softly. “It’ll be okay, I promise.”

Danielle smiled. This felt like the kind of group acceptance she’d never actually had in high school; now the cool kids
liked
her, and wanted to hang out with her. “I’m holding you to it,” she said with a warning wag of her finger.

“You can hold me any way you like,” Tom said with a grin. Danielle laughed as she crawled under the fence.

The boys knew their way around, and Billy pulled Danielle along at a faster pace than she liked. She stumbled over footstones and plot markers, until they finally reached a small gazebo deep in the cemetery grounds. There were no lights except the glow from the city reflected on the intermittent clouds overhead.

“Welcome to our little party crypt,” Billy said. The gazebo had seen better days, and Danielle was glad her tetanus boosters were up-to-date.

The four boys took positions around the small structure with the male certainty of previously established territories. Danielle stayed with Billy, who sat on the steps. Tom went inside and leaned one leg nonchalantly on the rail, while Ling plopped in the octagon’s darkest corner. Mike unfolded a wad of aluminum foil to reveal a plastic bag filled with marijuana. Ling handed him rolling papers and a plastic cigarette machine. He picked a sheltered corner out of the night wind and began rolling a joint.

Billy clearly had other things on his mind with Danielle, and ran a finger lightly down her bare arm. “So how old are
you, nineteen or twenty?” he asked, trying for casual and sophisticated. He fell far short.

“Legal in Mississippi.” She did not pull away, but she wasn’t about to encourage him. “Are you?”

“I ain’t too worried about the law,” he said with a smile. “Just a certain pair of lips.”

He leaned close, and because she was fighting not to burst out laughing, Danielle let him kiss her. It was almost comical in its chastity: closemouthed, no tongues, just a soft pressing of lips. As he drew back, he smiled as if he’d just convinced her of something she doubted.

Don’t laugh, she told herself, biting the insides of her cheeks. If you laugh at him, he’ll never tell you anything.

“Ready for launch,” Mike announced, holding up the finished joint.

“Let’s get high and see what happens,” Billy said to Danielle, aiming for Barry White sexiness. He never even reached Manilow. She nodded, afraid that if she spoke, giggles would overcome her.

Soon the joint had been passed around three times, and although Danielle faked drawing the smoke into her lungs, she began to feel an undeniable lethargic euphoria from the contact high. She hadn’t smoked dope since graduating from medical school, and it had the same effect now as it did then; she began to yawn and her thoughts grew sluggish and wandering.