Cat in a Jeweled Jumpsuit (10 page)

The circle of elevated Elvi regarded the vastness
erected in their honor with cataract gazes: the blank
white
eyeballs of classic Greek statuary. The face of
Apollo (he wasn't copyrighted) stood in
for Elvis's.
Actually, the time-tested,
white-marble medium used to memorialize long-gone gods such as Apollo and Pan
fit Elvis's full-lipped, Roman-nosed profile like
an Attic
glove, although the ghostly
yet solid chorus line of Elvi
also (and rather wickedly) reminded Temple
of Pillsbury doughboys in candy-decorated astronauts' suits.

Just when Temple thought that Las Vegas had pulled
out all of the stops, shown its best hand, exceeded the
spectacle speed limit, outgrossed and grossed out, say,
the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, it would con
coct
another baked Alaska of entertainment: an overdone
confection of fire and ice, a high-calorie extravaganza of
fairy
dust and fever like the Kingdome.

The real wonder was that the Kingdome had managed to evoke
Elvis in all his incarnations without presenting
one
genuine artifact of Elvis Presley's roots, history, performing career, or
personal life.

He might as well have been a dead god for anything
material
of him that survived in this mausoleum of ersatz mementos.

Above the roar of moving, talking people, a sound
expanded like an invisible cloud over all their heads. It
was not rock 'n' roll, although it was as hard to ignore.

High,
piercing female shrieks.

Holy Hunk-a Burning Love! The hotel designers had
even
imported Elvis's screaming fans!
Temple
clapped hands to ears. In this vast, marble-
lined stadium, shrieks bounced off every hard surface,
and the only softening surfaces here were the
plants and
the people.

The hubbub troubled no one else. Las Vegas tourists
had long since learned to tune out programmed sights
and
sounds if they were discussing vital issues like the locations of loose slot
machines, or looser women.

Temple hurried toward the stage where the sound
probably originated, on the theory that it could only be
better
close up.

But
when she arrived at what would be the mosh pit
nowadays, she looked up at a dark and empty stage. No
show at the
moment, no screeching fans.

She
released hands from ears. The screams had sub
sided.

Just when she thought it was safe to breathe normally
again, shrieks resumed, so loud that the set of cymbals
near
the unattended drums vibrated in sympathy.

The
sounds were coming from behind, and below, the
stage.

Temple knew theatrical geography. She darted up the
dark
stairs at stage right, then dodged walls of ponderous
velvet curtains and the toe-stubbing array of fly anchors
in the wings behind them. She flailed in the dark
until she found a stairwell leading to the dressing rooms be
low.

In that narrow, dark passage the screams turned pos
itively painful. Temple burst into the bright light of a
deserted hallway and followed the sounds to a dressing
room.

And there, dead ahead of her, she found him dead:
Jumpsuit
Elvis, face down on the bare cement, a rampant
rhinestone stallion on his back stabbed through the
shoulder with
a gold-studded dagger haft.

The screamer was reflected in the dressing table mir
rors opposite Temple: a white-garbed Elvira, Mistress of
the Dark, whose midnight tresses writhed like Medusa
snakes against her long, flowing temple-virgin gown as
she
continued screaming.

Temple had either stumbled onto the set of a Roger
Corman horror flick, or the scene of a crime. Given her
past performance record, she'd opt for the scene of a
crime.

Chapter 9

Paralyzed

(Otis
Blackwell wrote the song for Elvis, and it
was recorded in 1956)

"Thank God you're here!”

Temple
had no idea she was expected.

The white witch in the corner stared at Temple
through the black holes of her makeup-charred eyes.
Splayed fingers behind her hugged the wall as if it were
the
gates to Hades and the fallen figure on the floor were King Kong.

Come to think of it, the parallel to Elvis was not far
fetched.

Temple did not like the way the fallen man's limbs
lay. Living flesh would not tolerate those straw-man
angles
of muscle and bone.

She stared at the viscous red liquid pooling between
the winking rhinestones of the horse's bejeweled trap
pings.
Red blood. Fresh.

Then she reached into her
tote bag for her cell phone.

This was
a job for Crimes Against Persons, not PR per
sons on holiday.

“What's going on here?”

The
newcomer was male, middle-aged, and dressed in faded work-shirt blues. Stage
hand or maintenance man.

“Nothing
we should mess with," Temple mumbled,
scrolling
through her computerized directory of key
phone numbers, which just happened to include that of
a certain
homicide lieutenant.

The guy eyed the body, not moving. Then he took a
step
toward it.

“
I'm not
kidding," Temple warned. "You could con
taminate the crime scene.”

He
glanced at her, baby-blue eyes puzzled under a worry-corrugated forehead that
extended into thinning silver-blond hair. "It's just that I recognize
something."

“
The dead man?"

“No--”

Before Temple could issue another warning to leave
the
scene untouched, he darted forward, bent down and snatched something from the
end of one twisted arm.

In fact,
he snatched a forearm from the end of one
twisted sleeve, now an empty twisted
sleeve.

“Groossss!" wailed the
vixen impaled against the wall.

Temple couldn't decide whether to (a) scream too, (b)
lose her Oreos or (c) jerk the idiot back with a well-
executed martial arts move, of which she had mastered
very
few.

Then he
held up his trophy: a long rolled oblong.
Bone . . . ? Yuck. Or ...

“That's nothing but a roll
of paper towels," she said.

“
Yeah." The guy's
voice was taut with anger. "My
cart got ripped off yesterday. A
whole twelve-pack of goddammed paper towels.”

Temple stared down at the spread-eagle Elvis suit.
"He's
just a straw man? Pardon me"—she glanced at the textured paper cylinder in
the man's huge hand—"a Brawny-brand paper-towel man? And the
blood?""You tell me, lady. Paper products is my job. Blood's another
ball of wax.”

Temple edged forward,
squatted, and dipped a hesitant
forefinger
into the puddling red. "Fingernail polish!"
"Oh." The girl on the opposite wall waved
a bouquet
of scarlet-lacquered nails
on long, pale-stemmed fingers.
"A
brand-new bottle of my favorite color, Vamp Tramp,
was missing
yesterday.”

Temple's
cell phone received a quiet and dignified
interment in her
tote bag. She was most thankful that
she had not reached her party.
"Is this someone's real
costume,
or what?”

Paper-towel
man was shaking his head on the way out. "Don't ask me, lady. Ladies. I'll
let maintenance
know
to clean up."

“
No. Wait! This may not be a murder scene, but it is a malicious mischief
scene. At the least, hotel security
should be notified. And the . . .
tableau should be photographed. And probably the components should be
preserved."

“Who the heck are you?"

“
I handle public relations for the Crystal Phoenix. I
know what
precautions to take."

“
Okay. I'll tell someone who can make decisions. Me,
I'm outa here. And . . . if this roll of paper
towels might be evidence, keep it. I got plenty more where that came
from.”

He
dropped the roll on the dressing table top and
bowed out, quite literally.

“
Really?" the woman in white asked in a small, wee
voice.
"It's just a dead . . . dummy?"

“Nothing but a deck of
cards, honest.”

The
reference to
Alice in Wonderland
was lost on this
Babe in
Elvis land. Beneath the heavy swags of dark
hair, her alabaster
brow may have frowned, infinitesi
mally, as she spoke. "They play cards upstairs. Not
down here. This is a dressing room."

“And what were you doing
here?"

“Dressing."

“
For what?" Temple
asked. "And you act as if you
know me.”

The girl finally pushed off the wall and stepped for
ward. "Of course I do." She parted the river of
long hair
that made her face
a pale stepping stone almost lost in
its rippling brunette flow.
"It's me."“

 
'M
_e
'
?"

“
Your posing partner! Well, not your partner. I
mean,
that would have been a little
kinky, even for the cover-
hunk pageant.”

Temple
grabbed the parted hair and separated it more.
"Priscilla! I mean, Quincey. Of course! I forgot about
you being here during the excitement. Wow. You
look
... unreal. Did Priscilla Presley really look like this?"

“
Absolutely." Quincey Conrad patted her
borrowed
tresses into place again.
"I have researched every detail
of
this role. I'm even wearing the required five pair of
false
eyelashes."

“Is
that why your eyes are at half-mast?"

“
I don't have half-mascara on! I have on half a
bottle
of Daddy Longlegs' s Centipede
Sweetie from the dis
count drug store.
It's probably a lot more advanced than
the
stuff poor Cilla had to use, like, in the Stone Age,
thirty years ago. It's got little ceramide microns
in it.
Thousands and thousands."

“
I know. Billions and billions. Well. I'm sure the
cer
amide microns are delighted to be serving on your false eyelashes.
You certainly don't look like yourself."

“
Oh, honestly. Get with it, girlfriend. I have
never
looked like myself. What's the point?”

Temple nodded. "You may be strangely right. So. Tell
me what happened here."

“
You're so good at this . . . you know, calm and
col
lected stuff. Can I sit down?”

Temple
eyed the get-up. "That depends on your outfit, doesn't it?"

“
Oh, everything was polyester
then. Didn't wrinkle,
wears like diamond-dust
nail polish. I got it at a funky
little shop called Leopard Alley."

“Ah, yes. I remember it
well."

“
Hey! You know the place. Wild." Quincey pulled out
a wooden
ice-cream-style chair and stared down at the
paper-towel-stuffed
costume corpse. "That's probably
one
of the Elvis imitators' costumes. Poor thing. They
pay a fortune for those corny, custom-made pjs, you
know."