Play Dead

I’ Fixin’ To Play Dead (Part 25).

The blue flashing lights in the rear view mirror were closing fast and I had to do something. With no driver’s license or identification of any kind, the state trooper would probably lock me up, and eventually it would be discovered that I wasn’t really dead after all.

That’s when the idea occurred to me to change places with Red before we pulled over. When I blurted out what I wanted to do Red said, “What’s the big deal? All he’ll do is give you a speeding ticket and then we can go on our way.”

I knew we only had a few moments left to accomplish what I proposed. “You don’t understand, Red,” I told him while my voice shook with panic. “I don’t have a driver’s license or ID of any kind, and there’s something else. I simply can’t allow myself to be arrested and identified!”

“Oh, Lord,” Red moaned, “I knew this trip was too good to be true.”

“Come on, Red,” I begged, “get me out of this! Think of something fast and your bonus will be another thousand bucks!”

I had barely gotten the matter of the money out of my mouth before Red leapt into action. “Okay,” he directed, “we’re gonna do the old over-and-under maneuver, and we have to do it fast before the cop gets close enough to see us doing it. Listen good and move fast!”

He immediately leaned over and placed both his hands on the steering wheel and said, “Okay, I got the wheel. Put your hands in your lap. When I yell go, you slither like a snake, go under me, into the floorboard to this side. I’ll just drag myself over the top of you. Do it now! Go!”

I dived and began clawing and squirming across the console and the floorboard with all parts of my body. I felt Red’s body roughly dragging over the top of myself. Suddenly, he was in the driver’s seat and I was in the passenger seat.

“Do you think he saw us?” I asked breathlessly.

“We’ll find out in a minute,” Red replied as he slowed and began pulling the vehicle over toward the shoulder of the interstate.

Unlike the Alabama State Trooper who had stopped Leon and I, the Mississippi one was polite, curt, and went about his business briskly. I figured he was probably on the tail end of his shift and was tired. Five minutes after being stopped Red pulled back onto the interstate with a two-hundred dollar speeding ticket in his hand. He passed it over to me and said, “You can tack that onto my bonus.”

I accepted it with gratitude and said, “I guess he didn’t see us make the switch. That was slick, Red. Where did you learn that move?”

“Learned that when I was a kid, long time ago. I’ll take us on in. I’m wide awake now. Flashing blue lights have a way of making me that way. Our exit should be coming up shortly.”

After we exited the interstate it only took us about five minutes before we dead-ended into Beach Boulevard, and right in front of us was about the grandest looking hotel I had ever laid my eyes on.

While we were waiting for the light to change Red said with a little reverence in his voice, “That’s my favorite hotel and casino in Biloxi, that’s the Beau Rivage!”

The connection hit me like a hammer to the head! “Bo! Beau!.” That was the name Old Man Jenkins had mentioned when I had asked him if he knew where Leon might be staying in Biloxi! He had just confused the name of the hotel with the name of a person.

Just as the light was changing to green I pointed and exclaimed, “There! That’s where I want to go, Red. I want to go to the Beau Rivage!”

The balmy, salty and refreshing breeze of the gulf swept over me when I got out of the parked taxi. I looked out toward the water, saw that it was flat and smooth with a million pinpoints of lights dancing off its surface. A sense of excitement swept over me, but I was brought back to reality when Red said, “I’ll take that twelve hundred dollars you owe me now.”

“I need for you to do one other thing for me, Red. I need for you to go inside and rent a room for me. See how much the room is for two nights and I’ll pay that amount and the twelve hundred. Okay?”

I didn’t want him to observe me digging around in my money belt.

“All right,” Red responded, “but I need to lay down for a while myself before getting back on the road.”

“So get a room with two double beds,” I told him.

When we got to the lobby I pointed Red toward the check-in counter while I pointed out a bank of house phones on the wall and told him I would be over there, that I wanted to check and see if a friend of mine was in the hotel.

I didn’t like the way Red kept watching me out of the corner of his eye, like he thought I was going to run away without fulfilling my financial responsibility to him. I was beginning to regret offering to let him sleep in my room when a voice on the house phone said, “This is Lou Anne, how may I help you?”

Taking a deep breath, I answered, “Could you please ring Mr. Leon Martin’s room for me?”

There was a moment of silence and then my heart began to thump rapidly when she said, “I’m fixing to put you right through, sir.”