Cat in a Jeweled Jumpsuit (54 page)

“
You keep saying 'really,' in that noncommittal
tone.
Like everything you say has a double meaning."

“It
could," she said seriously, drawing back while
Wild
Blue plopped a condensation-dewed bottle of dark
beer before each of them.

“Should have asked for a
glass."

“
Easy riders don't ask for glasses."

“
Sorry." She sipped, then sighed. "I've
been feeling
kinda blue too. One of
the neatest Elvis impersonators
oops,
we say 'tribute performers' nowadays—died yes
terday. He was really, really good. Might even have
passed as the real thing, if you were inclined to
think
that way. Had a great chance of
winning the competition.
I did it
again: found the body, thanks to Midnight
Louie.”

Matt only noticed then that Three O'Clock had settled
on
the brick skirt of the fireplace and was watching them through slitted eyes.

Despite the half-full dining room, he felt that here
even the cats had ears, and lowered his voice.
"That's
the second guy to die at the
Kingdome."

“
Don't I know it. The first wasn't a real tribute
per
former, just some petty crook in a
cheapo costume. Not
a truly cheap
costume, but not up to what Elvis had ever
worn. That guy was drowned, as far as the police are
saying. Lyle was killed onstage, strangled with a
white
silk scarf."

“Aren't
women usually killed by strangling?"

“
True. Maybe because they're easier to overwhelm
from behind. That's what bothers me about this
murder.
Lyle wasn't quite as big as
Oversized Elvis, but he was
no
bantamweight. It would take a lot of force to bring
him down with one
silk scarf."

“Bizarre.
And this happened—?"

“Yesterday."

“
The night Elvis didn't call. The night after our
big
on-air showdown. I hope I didn't
drive the guy away to
do something
foolish. I assume you haven't been follow
ing my nightly channeling sessions."

“
Not recently."

“
I could leave a set of
tapes at your door. You
think—?"

“
I think what you think: something awfully close to
Elvis has been going on here. After
all those jokes about
Elvis playing
one of his own impersonators. I must say
that Lyle was an impressive Elvis impersonator. He
looked closer to fifty than to sixty-four, but
plastic sur
gery nowadays can make
even a Savannah Ashleigh
look fifteen
to twenty years younger. Elvis had already
had a facelift when he died, although his associates said
he
really hadn't needed it. Poor guy, age and prescription
abuse were catching up with him and he was trying to
stem the tide—he really was a great-looking man,
almost
to the end. It must have hurt to see that sliding away.”

Matt
nodded. "You could come to take it for granted."

“Oh?”

He found Temple regarding him with interest and re
alized that he had never before spoken as if his own
good looks were a given. Maybe the midnight groupies had
converted him. Maybe he was making as much pro
gress
in self-acceptance as the call-in Elvis had been.

“
What can you do about this man's death?" Matt
asked. "You're not really involved. You
should stay
away from that Kingdome
place. And what was Louie
doing there?"

“
I don't know. He tends to tail me, excuse the ex
pression.”

Matt glanced at Three O'Clock, his forefeet tucked
under him like a Chinese mandarin's hands slid into his
sleeves. The posture made the venerable cat into a feline
sage.

“These
cats have a way of looking like they know as
much—or
more than we do. I don't know if I could live
with that. I like dogs; at least they look a lot more anx
ious and
dependent."

“
Can't take an equal animal, huh? I love the way
Louie
seems to get one step ahead of me sometimes. I
know I'm reading things into simple feline behavior, but
it's fun
to pretend."

“
Finding corpses should not be fun, Temple,"
Matt
lectured. "What about what got you to the Kingdome?
Anything new on the Elvis apparition at the
Crystal
Phoenix?"

“
Not a word." She took a disgruntled swig of
beer.
"But I feel responsible for
Quincey, especially now that
her Priscilla wedding gown has been
trashed."

“
You should get out of the picture. You and Louie
should get back to the Phoenix and to harassing
goldfish
and the ghost of Jersey Joe
Jackson. I'd feel a lot better
if you did."

“
So you think your gorgeous, intelligent, pleading
brown
eyes are gonna cut it with a cat person?”

Matt shook his head. "Nope. I know your weakness
for
the aloof and mysterious feline and that, against that
competition, I ain't nothing but a hound dog, cryin' all
the time. It's just that advice is my business
nowadays.
I may have exorcized my
Elvis forever. Time you ex
orcized yours."

“
Don't be cruel," she answered with a mock
pout.
"We could go on forever in Elvis-ese."

“
There is an Elvis for every
occasion."

“
Even murder,
apparently. I mean it, Temple. I've
only
had to deal with Elvis long-distance. You've gotten
much too up close
and personal. Time to pull back.”

She nodded, serious.
"You're right. I don't even have
• a link to the crimes against persons unit this
time. Mo
lina could be on the moon for
all I'm hearing from or
about her."

“
You miss her?"

“
Lord, no! It's nice to
be an innocent, anonymous
witness for a change, with the detective on
the case just
shaking his head at my
unsuitability as witness or sus
pect. I could get used to playing Susie
Citizen again."

“Take
my advice, and try it.""Got a Lot 0' Livin' to Do," Temple
agreed.

“
I hope so. It Wouldn't Be the Same Without
You."
They both had been studying way too many Elvis books.

Chapter 52

That's
Not
All Right (Mama)

(Elvis's
breakthrough song, recorded during his
first session at
Memphis's Sun Records, July 5,
1954)

Temple returned to the
Kingdome aflame with righteous resignation.

Matt had
convinced her: she was out of the Elvis busi
ness.

Apparently no one else was, because acts were loung
ing about the vast stage on which Lyle Purvis had died
so recently, rehearsing for the competition tomorrow
night.

In fact, Purvis's death had thrown expectations into
turmoil. It seemed that a whole lotta shaking was going
on now that the King of Kings was out of the picture.
A
lot of the other candidates had a decent chance.

Could the Elvis murders be
the ultimate answer to performance anxiety? Temple also noticed that the
Memphis Mafia numbers seemed to have tripled. Men in black suits were every
where, watching rehearsals like competing
Hollywood
agents, and flocking in the hotel's vast lobby.

Temple even expected to see them lurking like Cold
War
spies behind slot machines, jotting down notes and talking into
shoe-cell-phones.

The Kingdome's general air of high intrigue may have
been why she wasn't surprised to hear piercing screams
issuing
from the backstage dressing rooms again.

She joined the stampede to get there, a force divided
almost equally between the sublime (Elvis tribute per
formers mostly in jumpsuits) and the ridiculous (the
dudes
in black mohair suits).

For once a conservative mode of dress looked far
more self-dramatizing than wall-to-wall jeweled jump
suits.

Alas, the shrieker was the
usual suspect.

Quincey, this time wearing civvies (hip-slung black
vinyl pants and a skimpy shrink-top in neon leopard-
print),
sobbed and thrashed like a punk banshee.

This time, the person harassing the much-tried Pris
cilla
performer was . . . her mother.

“
I don't care how much faster the world will end if
you leave the show. You're leaving
it." Merle Conrad
finished her declaration by folding her arms over
her low-profile chest. Her daughter's high-profile edition, emphasized by
skin-tight Spandex, heaved with disappointment.

“
This'll ruin my life!"

“
Maybe," Merle
said, faintly but firmly unshakable.
"At
least you'll be alive to have a ruined life. This is it. You're out of the
pageant. Or contest. Or race. Or what
ever it is." Her darting
dishwater-hazel eyes fastened on
Temple.
"It's time, isn't it, to take Quincey out of this
terrible place
where people are dying?"

“
The
Elvises are dying," Quincey wailed. "There's
only one
Priscilla, and all I've gotten is spooked a little."
"A little spooking is too
much." Merle grabbed her daughter's skinny arm. "I'll get the hotel
to stand behind
me, if I have to. Enough is
enough. Two men are dead.
You have no business being here."

“
She's right,"
Temple told the girl, whose mascara-
blurred
eyes were desperately panning the hallway out
side for supporters. "If Elvi are dying, it's not safe for
the
one Priscilla among them."

“But
they're counting on me!”

Somehow,
Merle had dragged her daughter to the
doorway. "They can count on some other girl."

“
The Crawf is counting
on me!" Quincey clawed at
the doorjamb, but her long fingernails
snapped under the pressure. "My manicure—!”

A man in black stepped forward. "Need some help,
ma'am? We'd like your daughter out of the line of fire,
too."

“
Fire?" Merle stiffened.
"There's been shooting too?"

“
Just an expression, ma'am. Come on, miss. Your
mother's right.
This is no place for a teenager."

“
Elvis was my age when
he started his career!" Quincey was kicking as well as screaming now, and
the man
in black's mohair shins were
bearing the brunt of it.
"You
don't know what you're stopping here! I'll sue!
I'll get my probation officer to go to the highest court
in the
land. I'll—”

The
words, "probation officer" had the opposite than
desired effect. Men in black tightened their lips,
and
their grips. They hustled Miss Quincey down the hall to
instant obscurity, and therefore safety, her mother
taking
up the rear.

“
Probation officer," Temple mumbled, awestruck.
All
she had was one unimpressed
homicide lieutenant, and it had taken her until age thirty to attract official
atten
tion.