Cat in a Jeweled Jumpsuit (47 page)

“
Neighbors used to sniff at Mama's chickens, and
Daddy's donkeys, and my big cars, and later
reporters
came 'round to sniff at my
shot-out television sets and
my red
rugs. Hell, Mama, she got scared when I got so
famous and the girls came
screaming. Mama, she got
worried for me.
Said I should give it all up. Come home
to Graceland and sell furniture, I was so good at collec
tin' it for Graceland. I swear to God, that's what
she
really wanted me to do. Sell
furniture. I swear to God.
Mama.

“
She was my best girl. I always said that. It's as
true
today as it was then. What was I
gonna do? Turn all
them girls away? No red-blooded boy'd do that. But
they
were just all noise and worry and
wantin,' them girls.
They didn't
really care for me, most of 'em. And those
that did, didn't last. Maybe I didn't let them last. She
was always my best girl. I even said it on a
collection
of those bubble gum cards
they sold in fifty-six. You
know,
Elvis answers all your questions. Said back then
I didn't like to be
bored, and I ended up bored to death.

“
See, that's what I gotta wonder about death. Always
did. Is it just sleepin'? Or is it
boredom? Bore, bore,
boredom. Man, that'd kill me!"

“You're
not thinking of dying, are you, Elvis?"

“
About time, isn't it, Mr. Midnight? Maybe I just
gotta let go of this world, even though nobody
seems to
want to let me go. Just let
go, get the answers to all
those mysteries for myself."

“You
don't want to take your own life?"

“
And
ain't I supposed to have done that already, son?
How can you kill a dead guy?”

Chapter 45

Keep Them Cold Icy
Fingers
Off of
Me

(Traditional
country ballad Elvis sang at the Humes High School Minstrel Show in 1953)

"All right," said Motorcycle Elvis. "We're
gonna rock
around the clock until tonight.”

Temple admired their energy. They had been rocking since
last night, long after she left the Kingdome, when
an escaped chimpanzee had been found digging up a
body
of evidence in the Medication Garden.

She
had no idea that Fontana Inc. had her home phone
number, but they did, or they had gotten it somewhere.
She had been rousted from sleep at seven
A.M.
by an
Elvis singing "Wake Up,
Little Susie.”

She had no idea whether the song was associated with
him, but he had recorded so many songs that it was
possible.
Certainly the song's era had been his heyday.

“
We thought we would break the news to you
gently,"
the serenading Elvis had
explained once her fury at a
wake-up call that implied she was
"little" had eased.

“
Elvis
would do that kind of thing," he added. "Call
up a girl and sing an
appropriate lyric to her by way of greeting."

“
Elvis is dead, so even if he did that, I certainly don't
want to be awakened thinking I'm either past the
pearly
gates myself, or being treated
to a tabloid newspaper
incident."

“
Yes, Miss Temple," the contrite Elvis said, asking
her to meet them at the Kingdome ASAP. That's how
he said it: ASAP with a long A. Not the full form:
As
Soon As Possible.

Now
her personal guard of Elvi were assembled in the
dressing-room hallway in all their glitter and glory.
"So
what's the news?" she asked.

“
Well, we managed to linger in the area of the, ah,
dig,
remaining inconspicuous.”

Temple
eyed them en masse, Rainbow Elvis. She had
to admit that in
the Kingdome, this was indeed a subtle
and soft-spoken
disguise: Max's maxim that overdressed
is the best
camouflage in Las Vegas proved true once
again.

“
And we were able to see the ... victim disinterred,"
Oversized Elvis added delicately.

“
Don't tell me! It was Elvis, as fresh as the day he
was put to rest."

“
We can't tell you that, Miss Temple," Fifties
Elvis
rebuked her. "It wasn't even a person."

“The
suit was empty?"

“Yup."

“You're
sure them bones, them bones, them dry bones weren't paper towels?"

“
Absolutely. That suit was as flat as a long-playing
record."

“
And get
this!" Rhinestone Lapels Elvis put in. "We
saw some of the
gemstones and the pattern was of, like,
rays around
something. Some of the dirt and moss cov
ered the design."

“
A rearing stallion?""Could be."

“
Then
that's the jumpsuit that was 'killed' in Quin
cey's dressing
room? Why bury it in the Medication
Garden? Listen to me! I'm beginning to go along with
Elvisinsanity. Why bother to bury a jumpsuit at all?"

“Wanted to get rid of
it," Fifties Elvis suggested. "Didn't do a very good job of it, did
they?"

“
Yeah," Cape-and-Cane Elvis said, "but how often is
a chimpanzee going to go ape in the Medication
Garden?
I mean, the tourists weren't
about to root up the herb
beds like dogs, were they?"

“
There's an Elvis fan who carted a toenail clipping away from the shag
rug in the Jungle Room at Grace-
land.
Another devoteé went to a doctor who had re
moved a wart from Elvis very
early in his career and—"

“Wait a minute."
Oversized Elvis looked genuinely concerned. "The doctor or Elvis?"

“What?"

“Which one was early in his
career when the wart was removed?"

“
Elvis! Nobody knows where the doctor was then, or
now. Or cares.
So what does it matter?"

“Timing is very important in
these things," Oversized Elvis/Aldo said.

“
Anyway," Temple emphasized fiercely, "this other
fan bought the wart from the doctor—he'd apparently
kept it preserved all these years.
It's now a major Elvis
artifact. So
does this give you any hint of what Elvis
fans might try to do in the
Medication Garden?"

“
Yeah, but the people who buried the suit might not
have known
much about Elvis fans." Karate Elvis.

“Not like you, Miss Temple,
who is always on top of everything." Oversized/Aldo again.

“
Yeah. I was even on top of that buried suit. From
what you say about its location, Electra and I—and
Crawford Buchanan—were sitting right
near it when the
body was found in the pool.”

Temple had a sudden
epiphany, which was a fancy
word for insight. Maybe it was an Elvis Epiphany. She
could feel her eyes narrow. Rainbow Elvis sucked
in
their diaphragms in preparation for action.

“
Crawford Buchanan!" She could feel the clues
strug
gling to click into place.
"Has he been heard from or
seen lately? Could he have buried the
suit? Could he be
buried up there too? Too
much to hope for, but he was
acting very strangely when Electra and I
found the body
floating in the pool. Dove
right in with it. Was he trying
to save . . . the suit?"

“
I understand these artifacts are worth a great
deal,
Miss Temple," Aldo said.

Even
Temple could tell he was agreeing with her wild theories simply because he was
trying to be kind.

She took a few steps into Quincey's dressing room
and
sat down, glad that Quin was not there to see Temple
flailing for answers. That girl needed a strong role
model, and a
confused thirty-year-old was not it.

Jumpsuit Elvis stepped forward with the air of a man
about
to tell a tale or two.

“
We have been making some inquiries," he said
gravely.

“Of
whom about what?”

The brothers Fontana shook their dark-helmeted heads
in
awe, rendered speechless.

“Did
you hear the lady?" Jumpsuit Elvis asked Karate Elvis.

“I
did."

“
Of whom," Jumpsuit Elvis repeated reverently.
"Does anyone here doubt that this
is the proper gram
matical form?”

Heads
shook in unity.

“
Of whom." Jumpsuit Elvis regarded her with
the
fond wonder of Columbo catching a
murderer in yet an
other slick but useless lie.

“Awesome,"
Motorcycle Elvis added.

Jumpsuit
Elvis shook off his amazement to return to business. "We have been making
inquiries," he resumed
his speech with a
politesse equal to Temple's employ
ment
of the pronoun "whom," "of those who might
know or be able to find out who the stiff in the
pool was
when he was lucky enough to
be breathing air instead
of chlorine."

“What
kind of people are these?"

“Connections,"
Karate Elvis said shortly.

“Friends
of the family," Rhinestone Lapels added.

“You
mean, friends of your uncle Mario?" Their uncle
Mario was Macho Mario Fontana, an old-time kingpin
of Las Vegas when the only mafia in town had
decidedly
not been from Memphis.

“
In a manner of
speaking," said Motorcycle Elvis.

“
Let's say they owe him," Tuxedo Elvis added.

Temple nodded. Since she didn't have an in, or even
an out, with any official police personnel on this case,
it
was handy to have sources on whom one
could depend
on the other side of the law.

“So,
who was this guy?”

Tuxedo Elvis shimmied his shoulders inside the for
mal jacket. "Well, actually, the bigger question is .
. . the
suit."

“The
suit. The jumpsuit?"

“
Right. See, it isn't a tourist-shop number."
Tuxedo's
dark blue eyes made quick contact with his brothers'.

“
And it isn't from the big-time Elvis outfitters
around
the country," Karate
said, making a move appropriate to
his name.

“
Nor is it from the twinkling needles of any show
costumer
like Miss Minnie." Oversized.

“And
it certainly isn't from any collection of the real jumpsuits—" Blues
Brothers Elvis.

“So
you see our problem." Oversized again.

Temple looked from Blues Brothers Elvis to Fifties
Elvis to Karate Elvis. For once Quincey was right: they
were
all scrumpdilliscious. But they were also all as aggravating as . . . Elvis.

“
Let's try another tack," she suggested.
"Who's the
dead guy?"

“
Some loser who used the name Clint Westwood."
Fifties Elvis curled half his upper
lip at the obviously
phony moniker.

“Used
the name?”

Karate Elvis shrugged. "He'd been arrested for petty
this and minor that for so long that
'Also Known As'
was closer to his name than anything
else."

“Just
a local deadbeat." Tuxedo.