Cat in a Jeweled Jumpsuit (34 page)

Temple felt relief soften her muscles. This was such
a
ridiculous death to have discovered. It didn't seem real.

At least her name wasn't on it in a respectable news
paper.
Yet.

She
tapped her front teeth with the eraser end of a
long yellow
pencil. She knew the backstage area would
be abuzz with gossip today. More than
other performers,
these men were not islands.
Their whole existence was
a form of
denying death, so any Elvis death would diminish them. They would not go gently
into that dark
night.

She
really needed to return to the Kingdome and view
the aftermath of
the articles herself. First, a phone call.
She glanced at the
clock while punching in numbers to
make sure the hour was decent.

“
Matt? Oh, I'm fine, but you sound like I woke you
up. Oh, didn't
get to sleep until six A.M.? Whyever not?”

His
answer was vague, saying the ride home had been windy and cold. He really had
to get a car.

“Terrific.
What kind?"

“Something
reliable and economical."

“
Oh,
phooey. You're no fun. Listen, I'm off to the
Kingdome, and I
wanted to know what call-in Elvis said
last night."

“
Nothing."

“Nothing?
Don't tell me he sang instead?"

“Not
a note, not a peep."

“That's
... odd."

“We
don't have a date every night."

“
Well
... it's really odd that he was mum last night
when you know that
an Elvis imitator was killed yester
day."

“
Killed?"

“Not
necessarily murder. Could be a bizarre accident. Electra and I found the
body."

“I'm
not going to ask how."

“
Just by
being the usual nosy. I'll spare you the lurid
details. It's in
the evening paper if you want to read it
when your baby
browns are open wide. You do sound
beat. How can radio chit-chat be so draining?"

“
Waiting for someone to
call who doesn't can be a
strain. And ... other stuff."

“
Other stuff. Life is full of
'other stuff.' It'll be really
interesting to
see if your call-in Elvis stops calling now
that this guy is dead."

“
Why do you always see a
death as linked to any
nearby remote connection?"

“
I don't see. I suspect. What does your gut tell
you?"
"That I got to bed way too late this morning and need
something to eat."

“You
want me to breeze upstairs and whip you up something?"

“
No breezing, no whipping, and I would hope no
snooping
around the death scene."

“Can't
promise anything. I'll let you know if anything fascinating turns up."

“It
probably will. It always does when you're around." "Thank you!"

“Temple.
Be careful. There are odd people out there."
"Sounds like you've had your fill of talk radio al
ready.”

He
didn't answer, an ominous reaction.

“
Let me know if Elvis calls
again," she said. "Temple, that's a fantasy."

“
Matt, this is Las Vegas.”

Temple thought about Matt while she drove to the King-
dome.

He was
usually as easy to see through as a crystal ball,
but now, she
sensed, he was trying to keep something from her. She couldn't tell if he was
feeling worried—
not a new emotional state for him—or jaded. Jaded def
initely would be a new
emotion. How could he be Down when so many Up things were happening to him? A
new
media career, a modicum of fame and
fortune, hero
status ... what more
could any normal American boy
want?
Of
course there were no normal American boys, or girls, just people muddling their
way through the sweet
mysteries of life. And
now that Temple had ended the
unhappy state of being torn between an
ex-lover and one
not-yet-and-maybe-never
lover, she had no business be
ing in
Matt's life. What did a fallen-away Unitarian have
to offer a recovering
Roman Catholic celibate anyway?
Temple
smiled to recall Matt's astonishment at hearing
that she had dropped out of a religion as broad-based
and tolerant as the Unitarian Universalists, whose
name
said it all. Unification.
Universality. She had neglected
the
Sunday sermons, that was all. The lessons stayed
with you in spirit whether you were there in body or not.
And she'd become so busy when she and Max began
living together. A performing magician kept
ungodly
late hours, which didn't lend
themselves to keeping
godly Sunday mornings.

When Max had vanished a year ago, everyone had
been
so ready to believe he was just another skedaddling
scoundrel. Not Temple. And Max finally had returned,
to confess that he'd left to safeguard her from
the secrets
of his dangerous
undercover past. Matt and Max. Light
and
dark, quite literally, and both dogged by the darkness of that eternal mystery,
their own tangled family
relations. At
least her family was pretty uncomplicated,
if a bit overbearing. But now Max the performer had
been forced into hiding, and Matt the modest priest
cursed with matinee idol looks had been pushed into the
limelight. And wasn't sure he liked it! Did
everybody
get exactly what they
didn't
want? Was that the
sweet-
and-sour mystery of every life? Maybe
even hers? Temple felt a rare nostalgia for her fleeting television
reporter stint. Maybe she should have persisted in
TV,
found another on-air spot. Hosting a local talk show, say.
Cohosting. She was so good at talking to people, at
find
ing out things about them. Gee, if she had Matt's current
opportunity, she'd be jumping in the air and
clicking het
heels, even if that did scuff good shoe leather.

But she wasn't Matt, she
wasn't a talk-show host, and
her off-campus
assignment right now was to check out
:he
Elvisfest at the Kingdome. Which was good, because
the felt sorry for Quincey, and responsible for her
in a
weird, big sister way. And in
that regard, she really n
eeded to follow up on her Grand Plan.

Half of her Grand Plan greeted her when she reached
the
dressing room area.

They
were attired as sea-to-shining-sea Elvis: from
East-Coast glitter Mafia to Hillbilly Cat metallic-thread
rayon to Country Crooner rhinestones to Western
Swinger
to West Coast glitz tux to Hawaiian neon.

“
Fetch my rhinestone sunglasses, boys," Temple
teased in a Mae West voice, hefting
her forearm up be
fore her eyes as if bedazzled. "So what's the
status quo?"

“Vadis?"
Hawaiian neon Elvis tried.

“I
just need to know the basics: who died, who cares."

“
Nobody knows yet—I'm not kidding." Hillbilly
Cat Elvis was so cute in his fifties muscle shirt and narrow
belt that
Temple wanted to pinch his arched upper lip. "Somebody says he was from
Chicago, I think."

“
I suppose the Elvi come from all over,"
Temple ob
served.

“
Not many Italians." West Coast Elvis twitched
his
shoulders in his sharkskin dinner
jacket with the black
velvet lapels.

The Fontana brothers may not have possessed Elvis's
facial features particularly, but at a universal six feet
even and all imperially slim, they gave Temple a pretty
good insight into just how gorgeous Elvis must have
been in his prime. Dude-licious, one might say, to go
with babe-licious, phrases Quincey would no doubt ap
prove.
Or "dig." Or rock with.

“
I imagine you hear all the gossip, being part of
the
show."

“Hey,
we're more than that," Oversized Elvis sounded distinctly aggrieved.

“
Yeah," said Fifties
Elvis, "the management is using
the pageant as an employee screening system."
He ex
ecuted a swivel-pose onto the
balls of his blue-suede
shod feet.
"Several of us have been offered permanent
positions in the
hotel," he added importantly

“Oh,
really. And how would your brother Nicky at the Crystal Phoenix like that?”

Hillbilly
Cat Elvis pouted. "He doesn't have nothing
to say about it. He
never offered any of us a job." "I didn't know any of you were pining
for jobs."
"We're
not, but it's nice to be asked.”

It turned out that various brothers Fontana had been
plucked from the mob, so to speak, for positions as gift
shop sales clerk, parking valet, health club waterboy,
floor
show usher, waiter, bartender, and blackjack dealer.

“
The idea is that every guest will get a young
Elvis
working his way up to serve them."

“
He had a lot of different jobs even in high
school,"
Karate Elvis put in. "That kid was no slacker.”

Temple shook her head. "Do you have to sing at any
of
these jobs?"

“Not
a requirement. We can hum a little, though, and fidget our left legs."
Fifties Elvis demonstrated with a slacks-shaking shiver.

“
That was the birth of the Delta boogie, you know.
Elvis
was a nervous-energy kind of kid and was always
twitching something, particularly his left leg. That's
what really got his pelvis going. Who'd ever think
a
nervous tic would be the key to all those teen angels out there?"

“
He caught on fast, though," Motorcycle Elvis
said.
"You guys are sounding
like fans. Did you start out
that way?"

“
Heck, no, Miss Temple. Except for Aldo, we thought
he was this square old guy in
Liberace leftovers who liked to blast out songs like churchy stuff and 'Dumb
Coyote.'
"

“
I know 'How Great Thou Art' was one of Vegas
Elvis's
staple hymns, but what was 'Dumb Coyote'?""You know, 'I am I, Dumb
Coyote—' “

Temple stared, dumbfounded. These guys were her
age, but they didn't have her broad background from
doing public relations for a repertory theater.
"It's not
`dumb coyote,'
"—she had to pause to keep from laugh
ing herself sick—"it's 'I am I, Don Kee-ho-tay.' Don
Quixote. From the musical,
Man of La Mancha,
based
on
Cervantes's eighteenth-century novel."

“
I don't think that
Man of La Muncha
has
played Ve
gas, Miss Temple."

“
Well, not the hotels. I'm sure a touring company
played the civic center at one point, years ago.
During Elvis's heyday. Anyway, that's the show-stopping song
from the
musical play, and Elvis sang that."

“
We didn't really think he'd call himself a dumb coy
ote."

“He
was too cool a guy.”

Temple nodded, reminded how fast the plays and
songs of the one day fade into the fads of the next
generation, and how remarkable it was that no one was let
ting
Elvis turn the same sepia-brown of memory.