Cat in a Jeweled Jumpsuit (26 page)

“
But she did," Temple said. "And a lot of
people
blame her defection for his decline and fall."

“
Enough to kill even her
image?" Tuxedo Elvis asked.

“
That's what Elvis was all about, wasn't it? Image. In
that kind of world, even a jumpsuit isn't too
inanimate
to hate.”

They
nodded soberly.

Someone who would stage the killing of a costume
was
not operating with all hinges screwed in tight.

Chapter 25

F
ame and
Fortune

(The first song Elvis recorded after leaving the
army in 1960)

"I
can't do it," Matt said. "I can't play games with a sick man.”

He was staring at the front-page headline on the
Las
Vegas
Scoop
that lay across Temple's coffee table:
IS
IT ELVIS, OR IS IT EYEWASH?
Matt had brought the tabloid journal
here. It was more
of an advert than a newspaper. Temple's coffee table
wouldn't
be caught dead upholding the sleazy daily that took Las Vegas's pulse at its
most diseased. Other cities
had their artsy "alternative" weeklies that
covered the
arts. Las Vegas had the
Scoop
(what she considered
short
for Pooper Scooper) whose motto could be: "All the
dirt
that's fit
to sling.”

The subhead was even worse: "Talk Jock Shoots
Breeze
with the King." Then the story: Hot new after-hours air-head Matt Devine
at
WCOO-AM has held a couple post-midnight
tête-
à-têtes with the purported King
of Rock 'n' Roll,
worth mentioning
only because said purported King
is also purported to be dead.

Elvis, don't be cruel! Tell us if it's really you
waxing melancholy at length—at Long Playing
length, maybe; remember those good ole LP
days?—in
conversation with Mr. Midnight.

On the other hand, our spies (and we have count
less spies everywhere, thank you, loyal readers) tell
us that local radio's recent hero—he talked a hom
icidal new mama into sparing her infant until the
cavalry could get there—was seen hobnobbing with
the
Elvis imitators in town for the Kingdome's gala opening next week.

Could our local hero be craving more public
ity and making sure that he gets it with the collu
sion of an out-of-town Elvis? Makes you wonder.
But
then maybe that's what the radio shrink and
WCOO-AM
want: all of us wondering and tuning
in.

How about opening the air waves to the skeptics,
Mr. Midnight? Viewers should call the Midnight
Hour
with some hard questions for the show's most
famous
(and surely phony) guest. Think you're
enough
of an Elvis expert to stump the supposed
King himself? Call WCOO-AM from midnight to
1
A.M.
and put Mr. Midnight to the test. Maybe
you'll be a local hero for putting a faux Elvis to
rest.

They regarded the story silently, until Matt spoke
again. "You're the media expert. What should I do
now?"

“
I bet this is Crawford Buchanan's work, even though
the story doesn't have a byline. It's tawdry, cheap, and despicable ...
but I think it's a good idea."

“
Seeing
that the so-called Elvis is kept off the air?"
"No! Letting
the listeners call in and try to stump him.
Bet Leticia could
kiss the guy who wrote this article,
even if it is the Awful Crawf.
It's
great marketing."
"That's just
it! I don't think we have a right to 'mar
ket' a sick man."

“Maybe not, but maybe he's
not so sick."

“
How can you say that? I've heard genuine hurt in
what that man
says."

“
Then help him. Help
him understand himself; that
could do
him good, whoever he is. And maybe con
necting
him with his 'fans,' even indirectly, will help
him more."

“
Listen to yourself, Temple! 'His fans.' That's what
I'm worried about, people being so
crazy themselves
wanting to have the
King back that they'll buy any
scheme or delusion.”

Temple shrugged. "That's the great American public
at its best. They want to believe, even if they know deep
down it's a snare and delusion. That's
what all enter
tainment is about:
erecting illusions, fulfilling wishful
thinking. Build it and they will come. You know there's a
whole world of Elvis worshippers out there hoping he
isn't
dead. Maybe he can live a little, love a little again, through your show."

“
'Live a Little, Love a Little . . .' Even you,
Temple,
have sold out! This is insane. I can't counsel a dead man
through a delusional go-between. This guy might be
su
icidal, and if the 'fans' call in
grilling him, who knows
what he might do?"

“Good
point." Temple frowned down at the
Las Vegas
Scoop.
"You
should be the go-between for the fans.
Don't let them call in directly, just relay their
questions,
or bring up the issue when you talk to
him."

“
He might not ever call
again."

“
I doubt it. The King
performed up to the very end.
That's
the only thing that kept him going even as it
destroyed him. He'll call
again."

“I
don't like it," Matt said.

Temple
frowned again. Saleswomen at cosmetic coun
ters cringed in
agony if they caught her doing it, but it
was one of her
best expressions. Anyone who couldn't
frown couldn't express uncertainty,
and anyone who
couldn't express uncertainty in this world was doomed
to disappointment.

She sighed. She knew Matt
was terribly sincere, which
made him such an
excellent foil for the insincere of the
world. If he had sensed honest turmoil in his caller, then
it was there. Therefore the caller wasn't a cynical
user,
at least not totally, no more
than Elvis had been once
the bloom
had blushed off the rose of his naive country-
boy youth and upbringing.

“It wasn't your
Elvis"—Matt groaned at her use of
"your"—"that
brought me to the Kingdome, you know.
This
whole Elvis thing does involve me, professionally,
in a way."

“What way?" Matt was
sounding suspicious and hard-
nosed. Good;
progress. Lesson one from Life's Large
Instruction
Book: Trust no one, especially those you
trust most of all.

“
There's been a construction holdup at the Crystal
Phoenix. I went
over to investigate, then ended up at the Kingdome."

“
What could an Elvis
attraction have in common with
the classiest little hotel in Las
Vegas?"

“
That was the construction holdup. They're excavat
ing the Jersey Joe Jackson action attraction mine
ride."
"So?"

“
The workmen were balking at digging any
further."
"More money?"

“Less
shock waves."

“Shock
waves? Underground tremors?"

“Of
a sort. They were seeing things."

“Well,
it is a ghost attraction, isn't it?"

“Yes,
but not for this ghost."

“What
ghost?""They're convinced it's Elvis."

“
Elvis
has gone underground? At the Crystal Phoe
nix?"

“
Do you see any reason someone trying to hype the
Kingdome would put in a guest appearance at an un
derground
attraction at another Vegas hotel?"

“
Only if he was trying to tunnel his way out of a
crypt,
and Elvis is very definitely
buried in Memphis, at Gra
celand, in
the Meditation Garden, along with his mother
and father, and
grandmother."

“
If he's dead."

“
Temple! Things are weird enough without you jump
ing on the 'Elvis
lives' bandwagon."

“
I agree that it's
unlikely, but let's give Elvis a
chance.
Let his fans, or detractors, call in with itsy-bitsy
facts about his life that could trip up an
imposter. You
relay them in a nonchallenging
way, crediting the person
who asked
the question. Maybe the station could give a
trip to Graceland to whoever comes up with the question
that
stumps the King."

“Temple,
that's so tawdry, cheap, and despicable. If I weren't looking at you right now,
I'd think you were a Crawford Buchanan imitator."

“
I agree. But ... this kind of bad publicity in the
Scoop
could put your newborn career in jeopardy. You
have to demonstrate somehow that this phone-in from Elvis
isn't a put-up job. You have to give the public a
shot
at proving that he's a phony.”

Matt
ran his fingers into his Fantastic Sam's low-cost haircut.

“
My career," he said as if naming a new enemy.
"Sud
denly I'm getting some decent
money. I seem to be nat
urally good at
this talk radio stuff, I'm getting a
following, I'm getting criticized
by the press—"

“
Oh, puh-leeze."

“
By the tabloid press,
such as it is. Everybody has a
stake
in me, Leticia, the station, the public who believes
I'm a good guy
because of the baby incident, only now
I'm
maybe a bad guy because I might be a colluding
fraud. I don't know what
to think and do."

“Ever think that's how Elvis
began to feel?"

“
No. I've never really put any effort into thinking how
Elvis got the way he got, until now. If this is
just a taste
of the price of fame, it's pretty bittersweet."

“
That's why you can't stop now. It's not just the pub
lic you owe something to. And the story doesn't
really
have to have a pat ending. Let
me put it another way:
you have to
give this man who sounds like Elvis a shot
at proving he's who he says
he is.”

Chapter 26

Let Me Be There

(A
"sugary
pop confection"
says one biographer,
that Elvis sang in a 1973 concert as
he began to
retreat from the musical ground gained during
his
post-comeback touring schedule)

"Have
you considered the advantages of an expert as
sistant?”

Temple considered Electra
Lark first.

Her
landlady had rung the bell and spent the past fif
teen minutes sitting on her sofa
bruiting about her qual
ifications as an Elvis
expert, ranging from attending the
vital February 14 concert in Carlsbad
to avid perusal of virtually every Elvis book published.

“
I know, I know," Temple finally said, interrupting
the flow of fannish enthusiasm. Electra was looking
more like a toy troll than an Elvis
freak today, with her
white hair tinted a clownish carroty red.