THE JUNGLE ROOM LOUNGE WAS really just a hotel dining room with a ten-foot bar off to one side and a fifteen-foot-square dance floor in the center. There was a stage of sorts, a raised platform, maybe two feet off the ground, covered with royal-blue carpet. A piano sat to one side, and of course, there were the ubiquitous Elvis spottings. They were everywhere, bellied up to the salad bar, eating chicken wings, or posing for pictures with other hotel guests. Strains of “Blue Hawaii” could be heard over lulls in the conversations.
“So, I got a speck of bad news and I got two heaps of good news, fellas,” said the Paradise Brothers’ band manager when they were all seated around a table with drinks in their hands. Clark was a barrel-chested cowboy from the pointed toes of his black snakeskin boots to the top of the brown ten-gallon hat perched on the back of his head. Sissy, his wife, was a giggly little thing with long cleavage and a short attention span. Her enormous white-blonde hair was sprayed so stiff it looked like a plaster cast, but Delaney liked her instantly. It was impossible not to with all her oh-sugar-this and God-bless-that. Something about her Southern accent made everything she said sound entirely gracious. Even when she said, “My ex-sister-in-law is a gap-toothed, hump-backed, mercenary whore, God bless her little heart.”
“How about the bad news first,” Finch said to his manager, twin frown lines meeting up between his eyebrows.
Clark adjusted that enormous hat. There must be a lot of head room in whatever car he and his wife drove. “Well, it seems the Blues City Café where I had you boys booked just had a frozen water pipe burst. Place is shut down while they make repairs.”
Disappointment spread around the table.
“Oh, but don’t you boys worry, ya hear?” Sissy chimed in, waggling her red-lacquered fingernails at the group. “Sugar bear here has everything all worked out. You tell ’em, honey. Go on.”
“I do. I do indeed. That’s where the good news comes in. Seems that the band hired by this here hotel has been waylaid up north by the same storm that’s freezing pipes down here. I tell you, this weather is about as welcome as a two-dollar whore in church. Anyway, I figured, them being in need of a band, and y’all being in need of a venue, whah-lah! Goes together like country music and a pickup truck.”
“You want us to play here?” Humphrey asked.
“Right here in this very room.” Clark nodded and took a big chug of beer.
Finch looked around, squinting, and Delaney understood his concern. The acoustics would be lousy in a room like this, and they’d have to play unplugged or all that framed Elvis artwork would rattle right off the walls.
Clark tipped his hat back a little farther with the lip of his bottle. “It’s better than nothing at all. Just a couple of nights, anyway. Plus they pay almost as much as the other place, and they’re gonna comp us the rooms, and all our food’s included. So eat up, boys. You got a show to do tomorrow.”
Finch looked around at his brother and bandmates.
“We don’t have to dress like Elvis, do we?” Humphrey asked.
“Do they cover booze?” Reggie asked at the same time.
Clark shook his head. “No to dressing like the King, and no to the booze. If you want free drinks you’ll have to flirt with the waitresses. Knowing you horny devils, you’d have done that anyway. So, we all good here?”
The Paradise Brothers exchanged another round of glances before Finch finally nodded. “We’re in. Let’s eat.”
They ordered ribs, catfish, cornbread, and several more drinks, and passed the time swapping stories with Delaney managing to avoid giving anything but the vaguest of answers. Sissy here was exactly the type to watch a show like Pop Rocks. One word about making soap or even the names of her sisters and this woman could be on to her.
“So where did you say y’all are from?” Sissy asked, licking barbecue sauce off her thumb as she ate a french fry.
“Grant and I have a house up in Michigan,” Delaney answered. That was true. They did. Sort of.
“Really? ’Cause you look sort of familiar to me. You ever done any modeling?”
Delaney’s dismissive chuckle ended in a hiccup. “Me? Oh, gosh no. I was a bank teller.” Shit. Maybe she should have said travel agent? She glanced at Grant from the corner of her eye, but fortunately he seemed to be engrossed in something Humphrey was telling him. Just to be safe, she added, “Um, a bank teller in college, I mean.”
Sissy’s penciled-on eyebrows rose. “A bank teller? With a body like yours? What a waste.”
“Hey, speaking of bodies,” Finch interrupted, “Elaine here could use some clothes. Did you bring anything extra she might borrow? Not that Humphrey doesn’t enjoy having her in his pants.”
Clark chortled loudly and tapped his hand against the table. “Anything extra? What do you think, Fincher? My little missus here brought enough clothes to change her outfits six times a day.”