Cat in a Jeweled Jumpsuit (18 page)

“What
kind of Elvises do you get?"

“
We got a Mexican Elvis," Jerry said. "El
Vez. One
of the top veterans in the
business. We got Oriental El-
vises.
We even got a broad or two. But we don't get
black Elvises." He
shrugged. "It's just a cultural thing."

“Why
do Elvis when you can do Ray Charles?”

Matt nodded. Elvis had been a musical, stylistic
bridge from black to white, but it still wasn't
necessarily
a two-way street, for either race.

“What
other specialty Elvises are there?”

The two men exchanged another of their insiders'
glances:
should we tell him?
Jerry decided to do
exactly that. "It's a riot. The El-
vises we got. Just when you think you've seen 'em all,
along
comes a whole new act. Like Velvet Elvis."

“Velvet
Elvis?"

“
Yeah, man. Very cool. Wears this black velvet
jumpsuit with these neon decorations, just like a velvet paint
ing."

“
Beeeeau-ti-ful," Mike said, nodding and
curling his
lower lip instead of the
Elvis upper one. "You should
see that one under the stage lights.
And it's a woman."

“You
mean a dyke," Jerry corrected.

“
Well, the jury is out on
that one, but not the outfit.
First class.
Original. There's always room for originality
in an Elvis
competition."

“
But not too
original," Jerry said. "There's a certain
ranking for the songs and stuff. You got to deliver
on
the classics. Can't go too far off the path."

“
But Velvet Elvis is pretty impressive. Great shoul
ders."

“
Yeah. Velvet Elvis is okay. I don't think she'll
win
shit. I mean, a woman ..."

“
And then there's Velveeta
Elvis."

“Yeah. Cheesy!”

Their
raw crescendoes of laughter threatened to split
jumpsuit seams. Matt had read that the overweight Elvis
had
actually done that.

“
Styles his hair with Cheese Whiz!" Jerry got
out be
tween guffaws. "Dude from
Dallas, where I guess Vel
veeta is the local, you know, cure-all."

“
Yeah,
they probably use it instead of Viagra there!"
Both men were
laughing themselves almost off their
chairs.

“
Anyhow, Velveeta Elvis is no lightweight. Must go
two-seventy. And he has a white jumpsuit and all
the
stones are this yellow-orange—"

“
Like those yellow bulbs they embed in streets. We
call
him 'Warning Light Elvis' too."

“
That guy just won't give up.”

Matt hated to interrupt the laugh fest. "Anybody get
so serious about impersonating Elvis
that they don't give
it
up—ever? They won't go—" He glanced at Temple.
She
knew the phrase for what he was trying to say.

“
They don't ever go out of
character," she supplied.

The two guys barely blinked at her interjection,
though
they responded to it.

“
Oh, yeah," Jerry said. "The Ever-Elvises.
These are
not professional-caliber
impersonators. They never walk
away from a gig. They
are
the
gig."

“
These yoyos show up at Graceland in costume!
Tacky,
tacky, tacky. We are talking wannabe wannabes.

See, we
don't have any delusions. We know we aren't Elvis. We are performers. These
guys, they are head cases. They gotta walk like Elvis, talk like Elvis, dress
like Elvis, sing like Elvis out there in the real world. Among the public. On
the street."

“
Sad,"
Jerry put in for the coda.

“So
... you don't approve of people like that?" Matt wanted to be sure.

Mike
had no doubt. "They give us all a bad name."
"They should be taken out and shot," Jerry said.
"Or
stabbed?" Temple suddenly suggested.

The
men were too deep in their disdainful duet to notice her, or the sharp
relevancy of her question.

“Just
drowned, maybe," Jerry conceded, as if one mode of murder were less
violent than another.

“
Yeah. Elvis is dead." Mike shook his dyed,
lacquered
head. "It's too bad that creeps like those aren't."

“Amen,
brother.”

Mike
and Jeff, Elvises of one mind under the skin, grinned absolute agreement at
each other.

Chapter 17

Turn Me
Loose

(Written for Elvis in 1959 when he was in the
army;
Fabian recorded it first, and it hit the Top
Ten)

This is
one occasion when I do not
have to worry about
keeping a low
profile while working undercover.
I mean, this Kingdome place is a zoo.

Flrst of all, you figure on dozens of performers
milling
around in the dressing room
area. Not just chorus mem
bers, mind you, but all solo acts.
(If
you can ever consider
impersonating
someone else as a solo act.)
Then you have
the costumes, which are stiff enough
with
glittering gewgaws to stand on their own, like a space
suit.
I
am beginning to think that these fancy jumpsuits
are capable of going out and doing a show on
their own
power. I mean, in this case
it is a very close call as to
whether the man makes the clothes or the clothes make
the man. Or, in this case, the King.

This makes me sorry to see my little doll and Mr.
Matt
Devine wasting their time
going around and talking to var-
ious of these impersonator dudes when it would be much
wiser to cultivate a unique source. Talk to one Elvis im
personator, and you have talked to them all, is my point.

So my target is not this plentitude of dudes, but the
lone little doll among them, and I am not referring to
Miss
Temple.
Once she has led my friends to the Elvis con
cession and turned them loose, the subject fades out into
the hall, where I am waiting.

A classic line in crime detection is French:
cherchez la
femme.

In
plain English, this means tail the frail.

So I pitter-patter after Miss Priscilla, aka Quincey.

Frankly, I do not expect much to come of this. I expect
to end up back at her dressing room, where she will re
sume obsessing about the state of her resemblance to a
woman who at least is still alive, even though this partic
ular
semblance of her evokes the Bride of Dracula.

I can understand the King's fixation on the color black,
however.

No wonder he dyed his wimpy golden locks to the color
of soot. I am glad that my rival for the cat food spokes
purrson role, Maurice, has not thought to turn his yellow
coat black like
mine. Elvis, I heard Miss Electra holding
forth, dyed his hair because even from the first he
wanted a film career and he felt dark-haired dudes had a stronger
screen presence. Dudes like Marlon Brando in
The Wild
One,
or
James Dean. Well, James Dean was a little
wishy-washy
in the hair color department, but Tony Curtis
was another favorite of Elvis, and he was black as Mid
night
Louie.

Another thing Elvis was into was black leather. I come
by mine naturally: nose, footpads and eyeliner, only I do
not have to apply mascara like some Adrian Actor dude.

So I cannot fault the guy for changing himself around
to look like me. Maybe not me personally, but my kind of
cat. We are
considered tough hombres, let me tell you,
and
the ladies really go for that macho look.

Why he wanted his Miss Priscilla to also look
black to
the max, I do not know. I
myself prefer a bit of variety in
my private life. But everyone is entitled to his little quirks,
and Elvis, a born collector of everything from
cars and
'cycles to girls and horses,
was dealt a full hand of little
quirks too.

So
there I am, only a few steps behind these cute
chunky old shoes, and I almost run into Miss Priss's pale
hose
when she stops at a door that is not hers.

It is all I can do to keep my whiskers from tickling her
calves. I do not manage to keep from gawking up her A
line skirt to check out a garter. Nobody wears garters
anymore
but snakes. Sure enough, Miss Quincey has
been
accurate enough to Miss Priscilla's era to be wear
ing a garter belt. I am impressed by her acting
verisimil
itude.

She does not notice me, though, not even my vulgar
surveillance.

She opens this door, darts in, and turns to close it so
fast
she leaves me standing in the hall extracting my
whiskers from the doorjamb. I have just received a most unexpected and
unattractive crimp in my facial hair.

Now I am really curious! Just what is so secret behind
that
door?
I retreat to a nearby trash container,
hunker behind its
cola-streaked side, and wait.

When Miss Priscilla comes out, I will be ready to dash
in,
or my name is not Mr. Lucky.

Actually, my name is not Mr. Lucky, but there
are times
when it should be.

Chapter 18

King
Creole

(The title song from a 1958
film)

"And I thought that Mike and Jerry were a twin
act,"
Matt said, staring
at the next-door dressing room chock
full of burning hunks of
Elvis.

“I
guess their dressing room was unusually deserted," Temple said. "Say,
wasn't Elvis a twin?"

“
Not exactly. He was a surviving twin. His brother
was
delivered dead about a half hour before he was born. Why do you ask?"

“I
just wondered if anyone here did a twin act."

“I
suppose it's possible." Matt didn't add that the ever-expanding boundaries
of bad taste could encompass almost anything nowadays. "His twin was named
Jesse Garon."

“And
Elvis was Elvis Aaron?"

“
A lot of people in the South used rhyming names for
twins, if not first names, then middle names." Matt stud
ied the mirror-magnified mob of Elvises.
"Psychologists
say that twinship
bonds are formed in the womb. Sur
viving
twins like Elvis never seem to recover from the
loss of that exact double. They say twins touch in the
fetal
stage, even kiss."

“Ooh.
Creepy."

“
And suicide rates for surviving twins are much
higher
than normal."

“So
maybe not just drug abuse killed Elvis?"

“
No one was willing to go on record that drugs did
it. Heart failure was the ostensible reason, the
diagnosis
for all sudden deaths. It
was also used for his mother,
but
later sources say her death at age forty-six was
caused by cirrhosis of
the liver."