Cat in a Jeweled Jumpsuit (59 page)

Temple felt cultural confusion. In a way the artifact
was
the Sword in the Stone. In a way it was the National
Wrestling Federation trophy belt. It was Platinum Rec
ords and Latinum bars, a cross-cultural mélange of
tro
phies both fictional and factual.

It meant nothing and everything, just as Elvis had.
It
meant life and death, just as Elvis had.

She was
Priscilla, she was Guinevere. Both had feet
of clay while they wielded belts of
gold.

She
was mortal, she was eternal.

The
sword was in the lake, the sword was buried in
a bejeweled back.

She was a symbol, she was a solver of symbols.
She
was nuts to be here.

Then the nine Fontana boys bounced onstage, each to
a
twanging guitar chord, each in a pose that reflected his version of Elvis.

“Lawdy
Miss Clawdy," wailed the first.

“
You
Ain't Nothin' But a Hound Dog," whined the
second.

“
Running Scared," howled the third.

“Farther
Along," crooned the fourth.

“
Find
Out What's Happening," urged the fifth.
"Any Day Now," moaned the
sixth.

“
Love Me Tender," whispered the seventh.

“Crying
in the Chapel," blazed the eighth.

“Amen,"
intoned the ninth.

They
got a standing ovation.

Temple
was among the clappers who blistered the
heels of their hands.

Then someone else was gyrating on stage. Kenny!
Looking
much larger than himself, larger than life.

“
Do You Know Who I Am?" he wailed with savage
passion, hips swiveling like a stopped-up pepper
shaker
on a humid, Gulf-coast restaurant table.

Temple jumped up and down in the wings. "Go,
Kenny, go!" An exiting Elvis glowered at her. She
wasn't
supposed to show favoritism.

Temple settled down to look around. No one much
noticed
her. She really wouldn't come into play until she awarded the winner's belt.

If the killer was an Elvis freak, and if
"Priscilla" was
his next
target, it didn't make sense to kill her until all
the
shouting was over.

“Hey!"
Oversized paused by her. They had to whisper, which helped disguise her voice.

“You
guys did good," she told him.

“Thanks.
You okay, Miss Quincey?"

“Fine."

“You
want some us to hang out by you?"

“
Naw. What's to worry? I'm packing a really mean
hair
spray.”

Oversized
laughed. "You always did. Well, if you're okay—"

“
Go on. Wait for the rankings. I'm sure you guys got
at least an eight."

“
It's like the Olympics, right? Ten's the
winner."
"But eight's not to sneeze at. Go on."

“
You're sure in good spirits, Miss Quincy. I can't
see
why Miss Temple wanted us to
leave you to your own
devices, seeing
as how your own devices involve some
pretty strange stuff."

“
I'm fine." She pushed Oversized away, quite a
feat
given his bulk, and her lack of
it. "Quincey" couldn't
take too close examination.

She watched him join his brothers in passing behind
the black velvet back curtain to the stage's other side,
where
Crawford held forth as emcee and the
^y
could watch him. It only Crawf
were the target most likely . . . !
She felt
terrible about deceiving them, but the show
must go on.

The
King of Kings' show wouldn't go on.

Temple
lost her sense of time and place as she thought
about Lyle. She had really liked him in the few minutes
they had talked, and would probably never know
what
he had done to merit witness protection, or death. Maybe
nothing but blow the whistle. Why would a man risk
his life for recognition as someone he could never be? If the
King of Kings had lived and won, a protected witness
really couldn't afford that much
attention. Nor could the "real" Elvis, if Lyle had been what Crawford
thought he
was.

Being Elvis seemed to be an unhappy vocation all
around. What was the attraction? Did they all hope to
do
Elvis better than Elvis had?
No, it was
something else. They all wanted to
save
Elvis.

Turn back the clock, step on their blue suede shoes.
If
they could change something in the Elvis legend, they
could change Elvis himself. Save him. Even Priscilla was still engaged
in that very mission, through Elvis
Presley Enterprises. Redeem the past
by preserving it in plastic for the present and future King.

Beam
me up, mama.

The stage was sprouting new Elvi like legendary
dragon's
teeth sowed soldiers.

But the routine—Crawford' s slightly lugubrious em
ceeing, sudden entrance, hard-chord intro, quick and
dirty rendering, fast exit—was becoming routine. Re
petitive
drudgery, as it had been for Elvis, in the end.

Temple heard the numbers work their way to the in
evitable
countdown.

Sixty-seven. Eighty-three. Ninety-four. She yawned.
Gosh, she hadn't seen Electra's new boyfriend, Today
Elvis,
perform yet. A shock of white hair would be anice change from all the black.
Funny guy. Israel what?
Feinberg. Not a
likely Elvis impersonator name. Un
less
. . . wasn't Israel an anagram for Is real? Could it
be? Where was he? The
watch she wore under Priscilla's long, dainty
Cinderella-gown
sleeves read almost midnight.
A
rat-a-tat of bass guitar chords preceded a rebel yell.
An Early Elvis in black leather came sliding across
the dark stage floor on bended knees,
a guitar cocked at
his leading hip like an ax.

“(You're
the) Devil in Disguise" was the song, and a
madman incarnate delivered it straight from Beelzebub's
mail room.

Temple straightened up, blinked, and only then no
ticed a pale satin rope looping down from the heights
above
her misty headdress.

Every eye in the place fixed on the magnetic Elvis on
stage.
Tutti Frutti Elvis from rehearsals, Temple realized belatedly. Why did he
change his number ... ?
Her hand lifted to
bat at the encroaching stage line.
Wait!
There were no white ropes backstage, only black—
The dangling bridal rope was looping around her
neck.

She twisted her head away, but the pouf of veiling
over her exaggerated hairdo made it hard to see. Holy
Hound Dog! Someone was trying to strangle her! Bucek
had
been right.

Her arms flailed so sharply Minnie's shoulder seams
ripped
like pressed wood in a table saw.

Beads rained past her veiling, bleached poppy seeds
falling to the stage floor, but Temple couldn't hear
their
brittle landing.
Everything was pulsing to the song's
driving beat; the stage
floor was heaving, her throat was tightening and her eyes were losing focus in
a pale, many-layered haze.

The
corner of her eye caught a compact black form launching at her head, launching
beyond her head.

Something
was screaming, screeching. Not her, her
voice was silenced.

The
white satin snake at her neck loosened and fell
away just as the
on-stage Elvis charged into her vision
like a rocket.

He grabbed her elbow.

His grip forced her to duck
and run forward. By center
stage she had been
dragged to her knees beside him,
skidding on yards of beaded organza.

They
were sliding together like suicidal skiers toward
the stage's far
corner rim, a satin garrote trailing over Temple's left shoulder like an
aviator's scarf, like the
scarf
that had caught in Isadora Duncan's car wheels and killed her. What a way to
go!
Elvis and Priscilla skidded to a dead
stop at the very
brink of the stage,
cheek to cheek, right where a phalanx
of
photographers in the pit were posed to snap their pic
ture.

Temple coughed discreetly.
"Nice timing," she com
plimented her
unknown savior. One of Bucek's ersatz
Memphis
Mafia men? She never would have credited the
FBI man with such flair.

“
Rotten planning," he muttered through her smile and
his into
her almost-kissed lips.

The
voice was as unmistakable as Elvis's. "Max!?"
"May I call you
Cilla?"

“Oh . . . fudge."

Chapter 57

Won't
You
Wear
My
Ring

(Entered
Billboard's
list at number seven, the
highest opening
position of any Elvis single;
advance
orders exceeded one million)

Frank Bucek offered Temple a huge Styrofoam cup of
coffee.

“I'll
never get to sleep tonight if I drink this."
"Maybe that's not a bad idea. No dreams. I heard
Elvis had a
lot of nightmares.”

She was back in Quincey's dressing room with what
was
left of Minnie's instant wedding gown.

Bucek tossed an ivory satin rope in a plastic bag on
the
dressing table top. "You had a close call."

“
More like a close curtain
call.”

He shook his head.

People still clustered in the hall, but they were alone
for
the moment.

“
I'm a little fuzzy on what happened," Temple
ad
mitted.

“We're
still a lot fuzzy on what happened. The Fon-
tana Elvi tell me you told them to guard that Buchanan
guy? Why? For God's sake,
why?"

“
I was afraid no one would try anything with that
much Elvis-power
around. Those guys can be pretty pervasive."

“
Yeah, like garlic. You're lucky that monkey es
caped."

“Monkey? I thought . . .
wasn't it a cat that jumped up when I was being attacked?”

She was
thinking of Midnight Louie, of course, her
knight in shining fur.

“Chim-pan-zee." Bucek
had the nondescript, chiseled
features of an
astronaut or a military man or a monk.
Hearing
him intone the name of the beast that had saved
her was too funny for words, but Temple didn't have
the energy to
laugh. "Named 'Chatter.' Ring a bell?"

“
Elvis had a pet chimp named Scatter. He trained it to play all sorts of
vulgar tricks. And it came to a bad
end,
didn't it? It got hooked on straight scotch and bour
bon and turned violent. Everybody lost interest and
it
was caged at
_.
Graceland
until it died of cirrhosis of the
liver. What's gonna happen to this
one?"

“
Hey, he fingered a hitman for the Mob. We'll have
to put him in protective custody. Probably here at
the
hotel Animal Elvis exhibition. In
a big chimp suite. Lots
of interaction with the clientele. He should be
fine."

“You have a sense of
humor," she accused.