Cat in a Jeweled Jumpsuit (37 page)

We are all percolating to the whine and the wail
and
the rhythm and the rock 'n' roll.

And then along comes Trojan, winding down from the
big tropical what's-it plant, his massive head nodding
like
it can't stop, his
thick coils pulsating to the beat.

In no time he has thumped to the floor of the case coil
by coil, his eyes slitted to obsidian slivers, his body
bob
bing to the sound and the motion.

I
let the wail wind down and keep the purr going strong. Then I slip in a
significant question or two.

And it works like a charm.

Chapter 36

Little
Sister

(Blues number Elvis recorded in Nashville in
1961)

"It is so creepy around here. I can't believe I gave
up
singing in a grunge band for this.”

Quincey hunched over the long empty dressing table,
her white go-go boots dispiritedly turned out at the
ankles, her sleeveless A-line pink polyester dress
seeming
to hold her up by its severe
architectural lines alone.

“I
didn't know you sang," Temple said cheerily.

Quincey's eyes gazed rebuke through her black holes
of mascara. "I don't. That's why I would have been so
perfect for the job. Are you sure
Courtney Love started
this way?”

Temple took in the outfit and the lonely ambiance of
the deserted dressing room. Being the only peahen in a
clutch of male peacocks couldn't be described as fun.
"I'm not sure anybody started this way, including
Pris
cilla Presley. Have there been more
threatening notes?""To me? No." That fact seemed to further
dispirit Quincey. "I am the forgotten woman at this thing," she
announced,
"now that somebody has offed an Elvis."
"The death
hasn't been labeled a homicide yet."
"What else could it be?"

“
An accident. A suicide."

“
Suicide. Now that I can buy. This whole gig is sui
cidal."
She threw a tube of Daddy Longlegs's Centipede
Sweetie mascara onto the scuffed tabletop. It rolled all
the way to the other end, like a ball down a
bowling
lane, where it crashed into a
bumper of scratched For
mica. "I
mean, I am bored to death! It's all sitting
around, waiting for the guys to get ready to run through
their acts. Like, I've been forced to bring
homework and
even look at it here.”

Temple eyed a slim book with one lined sheet of no
tepaper stuck askew between its pages. This did not look
like
serious study.

“
That's show biz," she said matter-of-factly.
"Waiting
for your time to come.
In fact, Michael Caine once said
he
got paid nothing to act, but a very lot of money to
sit around and wait.”

Quincey stared at her, as if riveted by this gem of
theatrical wisdom. "Who's Michael Caine?" she
finally
asked.

“
Oh, nobody. The Brad Pitt of several generations
back."

“
Brad Pitt. Yuck. Totally retro. He's really let
himself
go."

“
Oh. I guess Elvis holds the record, then. He kept
his fans for over twenty years, and even death did not them
part."

“
But they're all crazy." Quincey sighed.
"I guess
crazy fans are better than no fans."

“
You could quit, you know. They can find another
Priscilla.”

Quincey
seemed to consider the idea. "It is a drag
going to school during the mornings and
then coming
over
here to sit around in case someone needs me to
stand there while they rehearse the awards ceremony.
Like anyone cares who wins best scarf-tosser and
biggest
belt buckle." Her eyes
grew suddenly calculating. "But
if
I quit, I wouldn't have a chance to meet any cute
Elvises."

“I
didn't think there were any."

“Well,
the bodyguards aren't bad."

“The
Memphis Mafia? I thought those old guys in hats and suits creeped you
out."

“Not
those guards. The ones you got me. They're the best-looking Elvises in the
place."

“Ah.
They're still a little old for you."

“
Please, moth-ther, give me a break. I like older
guys
if they're not really old, like thirty or something.”

Before Temple could get into basic arithmetic with
Quincey, obviously a subject she'd skipped in school,
the
dressing room door banged open against the wall. A phalanx of suits filled the
doorway.

Three abreast, this particular outcropping of the Mem
phis Mafia resembled Siamese triplets. The black suits
melted
into one vague blob, and their three pale faces
protruded like mushrooms under three very black
caps ... that is,
fedoras.

“Okay,
lady," one addressed Temple. "Up against the mirror. What is your
business here?"

“Ah,
I'm Quincey's manager.”

When they looked blank as well as menacing, she
pointed to the seated Quincey, managing to impale her
finger into a rat's nest of Clairol's blackest embrittled
with
hair spray. Yuck.

The
Mafia guys were not distracted.

“You
haven't been around before," one said.

With their eyes narrowed into tough-guy slits, the
guys looked even more like Siamese triplets. Temple
couldn't tell which one had spoken. Of course they spit
out their words between almost immobile lips, like Bo
gart
on a laryngitis day. Must have been that damp and
foggy ending of
Casablanca.
Poor guy. Paul Henreid got
the
girl, and he got the upper respiratory infection.

Temple coughed discreetly. "Managers come and go.
I
have other clients, you know."

“
That right? She got a right to be here?" one
asked
Quincey.

A
rebel glint brightened the tiny eye-holes between
Quincey's quintuple-strength false eyelashes. With one
word she could rid herself of a voice for maturity
and
prudence.

Also
a cohort in a hostile world.

“
Sure." Quincey punctuated her casual response
by
snapping her bubblegum. It echoed
in the empty room
like a gunshot.

The
boys stiffened and clapped hands to armpits. Then they began clearing their
throats, shuffling their feet, and
backing
out of the room before they looked even more
foolish. Pulling firearms on two lone women would look
like
overkill.

“
Were those the real Kingdome Memphis Mafia, or
shills?"
Temple wondered aloud.

“
You mean there are fake hotel security
guards?"
Quincey paled a little.
"Who can you trust around this
place?"

“Regard
it as the real Graceland, and trust no one."

“
You know, that's true. Elvis had closed-circuit TVs
in his bedroom so he could watch people
around the
house and decide whether to
come down and play. So
many people
came around, it got so he couldn't see them
all.”

Temple
shook her head. "Was that in his later years?
Paranoia seems to be the last stage before complete
breakdown."

“
Maybe I'm being paranoid." Quincey clasped
her
narrow white arms and shivered.
"I'm sure not going to
be voted
Miss Congeniality here. Do you suppose the
guy in the pool had his
throat cut? With a razor?"

“No!
Definitely not."

“
How do you know?"

“
There would have been blood, for one thing."
"In a big
pool like that?"

“
Good point, Quincey.
The large amount of water
would
dissipate any blood. But why slit someone's
throat and throw him into a pool? Overkill, if you ask
me."

“Las
Vegas is an overkill kind of place," Quincey said
earnestly. "I mean, I wasn't going to freak because of
some funny notes, and whoever wrote the 'E' in my
neck
could have just as easily slit my
throat, but didn't. But
now there's a
really dead guy—and I'm getting a little
worried.”

Temple leaned against the tabletop. "So that's why
you were so cool about that razor incident. You'd al
ready
figured out it wasn't a serious attack."

“
I figured it was some publicity stunt. And hanging
around here hadn't gotten so boring yet."

“
Well, hang in a little longer. As your 'manager,'
I'm
going to visit the other dressing rooms and see if they're talking
about you.”

Quincey tossed the immovable edifice of her hair and
used
a pick as long as a chopstick to torture the topmost
strands even higher. "They better be talking about me. I'm not
wearing this creepy crepey polyester dress just
for my health, you know.”

Temple
nodded and left, refraining from mention of
the seventies urban legend that
polyester caused cancer. Quincey had enough to worry about.

Chapter 37

From
a Jack to a
King

(One of
Vernon Presley's country favorites, recorded by Elvis in 1967)

"Gotcha!"

“
You idiot! Get your hands off me." Temple had
pulled away from whoever grabbed her and adapted a battle-ready martial
arts stance.

Crawford Buchanan, dry but otherwise as slimy as
ever,
was leaning against the wall where he had suddenly appeared.

“
What's the matter?" he taunted. "Snake
got you a
little nervous?"

“
No. Not that snake, anyway. Why are you here pes
tering me, anyway? I thought you had major news
stories
to write. 'Elvis Dies!'
Really. Are your trying to build
the death in the pool into some kind of
Elvis legend?"

“
I'm not here to pester you," he answered,
shoving
himself off the wall and
batting his naturally dark-lashed
eyes. Temple thought unhappily of
Daddy Longlegs's
Centipede
Sweetie mascara. "I'm here to keep an eye on Quincey."

“
The way you were doing when she got slashed."
"I can't
be around here every second."

“
I haven't seen you
around here at all, until now."
Temple
glanced down the empty hall beyond him. Noth
ing that way but storage rooms. "And what were you
doing up in the Medication Garden? And why the
twenty-foot
dash into the pool?"

“
You sound like the police. I'm a reporter as well
as
an emcee, right? So I have to check
things out. My being in the Medication Garden when the corpse turned up was
just a piece of good luck. I tripped over one of
those
damn critters from the Animal
Elvis exhibit when I saw
the body
after you and the landlady noticed it. Believe
me, I had no urge to share a pool with that snake and
its
prey."