Cat in a Jeweled Jumpsuit (29 page)

Leticia's orange-painted lips were mouthing "poor
baby" at him through the glass. Matt took a swig of
lukewarm spring water. He felt as if he'd been wrung
out and then hung out to dry. And this hadn't even been
the
main event: the night's Elvis appearance.

At least
the phone lines were jumping, and in talk
radio, that was the name of the game.

Chapter 29

Return to Sender

(Otis
Blackwell's song was the only quality
number on the soundtrack of
Girls, Girls, Girls,
a
1962 film)

Temple hated to admit it, but Electra's notion that the
spirit haunting the Kingdome backstage area was more
likely
a vengeful Memphis Mafia member than the King himself made sense.

Of
course, she didn't for a moment believe in spirit
manifestations. In the two incidents, flesh and blood had
been attacked in actuality, or in simulation. As
if the
whole thing were a show. A production number.

It was possible that some Elvis advocate was so
caught up in the past that he, or she, needed to protest
the
presence of an ersatz Priscilla.

Temple found the razor attack the most disturbing.
Despite Quincey's tough teen bravado, the act had been
cruel and personal. If whoever did it had an opportunity
to approach the real Priscilla . . . but that was the point.
He
didn't, or he wouldn't have bothered Quincey. And anybody that could do that to
a sixteen-year-old girl—!
Temple had paused
under the soaring dome, which
played
endless footage of Elvis in concert. Evidently,
running pre-existing film was estate-approved. Most of
it was in black-and-white, so the effect was
eerily like
storm clouds clashing
above, a pre-Technicolor twilight
of the god.

Electra
had temporarily abandoned Temple to make a
round
of the domed chamber's vast perimeter, admiring
each designer Elvis in
its niche.

Around Temple, gawking tourists thronged, often
bumping into her, the lone stationary object, as they
gazed
up at Elvis in 3-D surround.

Somebody
bumped her and didn't back off.

A half-second later she shook off her thoughts enough
to
become annoyed. "Hey!"

“Hey,
hey, hey! You ticklish, T. B.?"

“
Get your hands off my ribs, or you will be corned
beef
hash.”

Crawford Buchanan backed away just enough so that
she
could focus on his abhorable face. It was grinning.

“What
is that dreadful smell?" Temple demanded.

“
My cigar." Buchanan swaggered the small brown
cylinder to the side of his mouth. "A Tampa
Jewel, like
Elvis used to
smoke," he said through his cigar-
clenching
teeth, just like a melodrama villain. "Got it in
the gift
shop."

“He
smoked cigars, too? Not my type."

“
All of us big shots smoke cigars. It's a guy
thing."
"That's what I mean."

“So
what are you doing here alone?"

“
I'm not alone. Just because I look alone doesn't
mean
I am."

“
Oh, come on, T. B. You don't have to pretend with
me. You haven't always got some guy on a string, like
you want me to think. Afraid to admit you could
use an
escort? I don't see any rings."

“You
would have, but I lost it.""That 'lost ring' excuse is as old as
Elvis."

“
It happens to be true in my case." Temple felt
a jus
tifiable stab of self-pity. Not every woman lost her en
gagement ring to a traveling magician's
sleight-of-hand.
She'd barely had it
for two weeks, and, presto! Gone
forever.

“
Now, don't pout. Crawford's here to turn every salt
water
tear to pure cane sugar."

“Yuck!"
Temple said.

He leaned close. The more she expressed her distaste,
the
more he felt compelled to force himself on her. She wondered for a wild moment
what would happen if she
actually encouraged
him ... but she couldn't count on
an equal and opposite effect.

“
You'd cheer up if you were sitting on what I'm sit
ting
on," he whispered in sing-song, taunting tone.

Temple didn't want to know what he was sitting on.
"I
doubt it." She scanned the crowd, looking for the loud
beacon of Electra's muumuu—chartreuse, black, and
or
ange today.

“
I am on to something so big it'll rock this town
right
off its blue suede shoes."

“That's
hyperbole even for you."

“It's
the biggest story of the century."

“
Isn't that premature? The century isn't quite over
yet.
I believe 2001 is the actual date."

“
And it won't be over until I break this story.
Believe me, this is the Big One. I can write my own ticket when
this gets out." He leaned closer, radiating
cigar stench.
"And you can ride it with me."

“Why
should I want to?"

“Because
nobody can resist a success."

“I
can, very successfully.”

He blew a thin stream of blue smoke over her right
shoulder. "Tut-tut, T. B. You talk a good game, but
you'd fold like everyone else if you knew what I'm sit
ting
on."

“Well,
I guess nobody will until you get up."

“
Oh, I will,
when I'm ready. And then everyone will
notice me. The
story of the century. Want a clue?"
"No.”

Leaning
to whisper in her ear. "It's the biggest, hair
iest hot flash since Abel axed
Cain."

“Cain killed Abel."

“Details."

“So what have you got? King
Kong?"

“
Even better." Buchanan's smile wrapped itself
around the
soggy cigar end. "But you'll see. You'll see.”

At last he moved on, a small poisonous cloud of
Tampa-jewel cigar smoke hanging over his head like a
visible
miasma of bad news.

Hot story, ice-cold heart, Temple thought. As if all
someone
had to do to earn her interest was have a career
conquest. King Kong! Well, the Elvis dome was big
enough to hold a mythical beast of that size, but
even
Elvis couldn't live up to that scale.

Electra
returned from her circuit, flushed and impressed.

“
Those jumpsuits are fabulous. I can see why they
have to keep them so high up for security purposes—
they must be worth millions, altogether—but I'd
love to
see them closer up."

“Have
you ever been to Graceland?”

Electra lowered her pale eyelashes demurely. "I'm
afraid so. It was years ago, of course. I happened to be
in
the neighborhood." She answered Temple's unspoken
question.
"In
Atlanta. Distances aren't that far in the
East.”

Temple nodded at the non sequitur. Obviously, Electra had
gone considerably out of her way to visit Graceland.
"I've
seen pictures. Graceland is not that impressive."

“
It is when you think it's what a dirt-poor teenage
boy
was able to buy for his mother in three short years of
performing music that nobody had ever heard quite
that
way before. And that two-story, pillared portico reeks of Southern
dignity. Of course the inside is decorated in
got-rich-quick
kitsch, but Elvis was a musical genius,
not an interior designer."

“What
I find impressive," Temple admitted, "is the per
formance records he set in this town. Did you know
that
he outpulled them all in terms of
audience numbers—
Sinatra, Streisand,
Dean Martin—and that was after he
made his comeback in the late sixties.”

Electra nodded, as somber as Temple had ever seen
her. "That. time I saw him perform live back in the
late
fifties. He was
pure heat lightning, energy and music and
raw sex branded white-hot onto that stage and searing
out
into the audience."

“A
hunk-a-hunk-of-burning-love. Stupid lyrics."

“
Not when Elvis sang them. He got more feeling out
of a song than you believed it was possible to put
in.
And he was always so charming and gorgeous."

“Electra!
You were a groupie."

“
I wasn't always 'of indeterminate age,' you know.
And
I've had a few husbands."

“A
few!”

Electra's shrug made the flowers on the muumuu
shoulders do the hula. "A few," she repeated,
and said
no more.

Temple let her gaze drift to the surrounding Elvis stat
ues.
"It's all so garish, so gross."

“
That was the seventies, kiddo. It's just that Elvis
is
so famous his image is frozen in time. If you'd seen his
contemporaries then you'd realize he wasn't that
over
the top. Don't you remember the
glitter rock 'n' roll
crowd, Elton John with his huge glitzy sunglasses,
David Bowie, KISS . . . ?"

“I
was just a kid; they were antiques."

“
Besides, he was inspired by Liberace. When they met
and he discovered Liberace was also a
twin, they really
hit it off."

“Now
Liberace I appreciate. A master of high camp. Liberace turned glitz into a gold
mine. He could make
those glitter rock stars
look like they were wearing tin
foil.”

Electra nodded. "You have something there. So ex
plain to me again how the hotel is able to exploit Elvis
dom
without violating the estate trademarks."

“
It is fascinating," Temple said, much more
turned on by marketing magic than dead legends. "Everything here
is 'Almost Elvis.' Nobody can copyright anything
in its
generic form, so that's what
the Kingdome homed in on.
Like
selling Elvis's favorite brands of things in the gift
shop. And capitalizing on his love of fast
vehicles of
any description in all
their indoor/outdoor rides, calling
the whole thing Raceland.”

As she talked, she guided Electra past the blinking,
buzzing, neon-lit entrance to Raceland. A bumper-car
attraction
in which all the vehicles, modeled after Elvis's
favorite cars from pink Cadillacs to black Stutz Bearcats
to Mercedes, clashed at the behest of their
drivers aged
eight to eighty.

“
There's a pink Cadillac tunnel of love farther
in."
Temple gestured past the
busy casino areas that acted as a river of commerce between the theme-park
attractions,
the machines burping out
electronic versions of the ap
parently
hundreds of songs Elvis had recorded during
his twenty-four-year career.

“
And of course they can play his music, as long as
they
pay for the privilege.”

Electra shook her head in wonder. She suddenly
stopped and pointed. "Look! There's some Memphis
landmarks. Ohmigosh, 'The King's Clothing Empo
rium.'
Elvis shopped at Lansky's Clothing Emporium in
Memphis from the time he was seventeen years old. He
wasn't afraid to sing black or dress black. Do you
realize
how gutsy that was for a poor
white kid to do in the
early fifties?"