Cat in a Jeweled Jumpsuit (56 page)

Bucek
chuckled. "In their own self-dramatizing imag
inations. Even the bad guys want to see themselves as
good
guys."

“
Maybe especially.”

He nodded slowly and puckered his lips. "Career
criminals are just that: upwardly mobile working stiffs
trying to climb the ladder. Whoever hit Lyle will expect
a
promotion."

“
And it's the same person who harassed Quincey.
Why?”

Bucek tilted back on the wooden chair's fragile legs,
making Temple even more nervous. She hadn't relaxed
for a second since he'd entered the room, though she
was finding the information he was sharing fascinating.
Why, he was almost talking to her like a colleague . . .
or
a patsy.

“You
ever read any G. K. Chesteron?" he asked.

Temple shook her head. "Not an Elvis impersonator,
I
take it."

“
British writer. Created the Father Brown mysteries
in
the nineteen-teens and -twenties.
Ever read those?"
"Not that I can remember."

“Guess
they're considered old-fashioned these days. Chesterton was a writer with a
theological bent. He used
Father Brown as a
vehicle for his ideas about God and
good
and evil. Father Brown was this utterly over
lookable little man who just
happened to understand the human soul in all its extremes.”

Temple
nodded politely, as she did at all impromptu
lectures,
but she was wondering when Frank Bucek
would
get to the point. She could see him holding forth
before a class of seminarians. No wonder so many
had
left the priesthood.

“
Anyway," Bucek said, sensing her
restlessness, "Fa
ther Brown once
asked Flambeau the thief 'Where do
you
hide a leaf?' `In a forest,' Flambeau answered. The
case involved an
officer who died on a battlefield."

“
And you think the killer here is hidden among the
Elvis
impersonators. Makes sense.”

Bucek's smile grew patronizing without his realizing
it.

Temple felt anger flare, as it did whenever she de
tected men patronizing her, which they did more than
they
realized, in no small part because of her petite appearance.

Yet her anger suddenly illuminated the other side of
the
same equation.

“And
someone else was masquerading as an Elvis impersonator! That's redundant,
'masquerading as an Elvis
impersonator.'
Wasn't there a rumor after Elvis's death
that he went underground with the witness protection
program
because his antidrug stance angered the Mob?"

“
That's far-fetched, even for conspiracy buffs.
Elvis
had nothing to do with illegal
drugs, except for some
LSD he tried once, and a little pot, also a brief
experi-
ment. He loved playing power roles, though; that's why
the
Memphis Mafia. But it was all play. Nothing to take seriously."

“
Except as a cover at the
Kingdome.”

Bucek nodded. "Unfortunately, that works both ways.
We have a few real players running around here in
shades
and suits, just enough to confuse the issue."

“So.
How long had Lyle Purvis been in the witness protection program, if he wasn't
really Elvis?"

“
He wasn't, but he was a lifelong Elvis fan. We
went
along with the cover because it was the perfect identity
within-an-identity for him. It's hard for these
guys to
drop out of their previous lives, move, get new identities,
worry about jobs, all that. Lyle was a loner,
divorced,
no children. He decided to
indulge his secret passion for
all
things Elvis. It embarrassed him, but no one knew
about it. He already had the perfect hobby to hide
in,
even made pretty good money at it. And the notion that
surfaced now and again that he was really Elvis,
well ...
Elvis is a larger-than-life figure. He makes a pretty good
screen, just obvious enough that everybody looks
right
past the impersonator to Elvis.
But somehow the players
had figured
out where he was. We don't take kindly to
breaches of the witness
protection program."

“
Poor Lyle." Then Temple snapped herself out
of the
lonely life and pseudonymous
death of a former crook.
She didn't
even want to know what he had done, and
she was sure Bucek wouldn't tell her anyway. "But poor
Lyle is dead. And what about Clint Westwood? He
wasn't
in the witness protection program?”

Bucek's head shook. "Remember the question about
hiding
the leaf?"

“
You were hiding a witness among the Elvises, and
the Mob was sending in their own Elvis impersonator
to
find and kill your witness. But
more than that, the Mob
was hiding its
real target behind a flurry of other inci
dents. The attacks on
Priscilla, the bizarre killing in the Medication Garden, with a snake in tow no
less. You're
telling me they'd kill other people
to hide the fact that
they had hit Lyle? That's vicious."

“
That's why they're the Mob. They don't know we're
onto them, and we don't want them to know that
until
we can build a case not only
against the hit man, but
against the
family that ordered it. So they don't know
that there's any reason to
stop their original plan."

“
Another killing. Turn the whole thing into a three-
ring
circus: Clint, Lyle, and . . . oh, no!"

“You'll
have all the protection I can get."

“
It didn't help Lyle, as I so presciently mentioned
be
fore."

“
We didn't know Lyle was the target. We knew some
thing was up when Westwood turned up dead, and you
know that there's an ongoing mob scam in this town
tracing back to the Goliath and
Crystal Phoenix hotel
casino deaths
tied to the late Cliff Effinger, our friend
Matt's noxious stepfather. If we don't blow our cover now, we may be
able to net years' worth of illegal ac
tivities,
perhaps on an international scale. So we need to
catch the killer in the act. We think he has no reason to
stop
his plan now."

“
I have no evidence to believe you guys could stop
a
flea from biting my cat, much less
a hit man from killing
me.”

Bucek's smile was apologetic. "You have reinforce
ments,
don't forget."

“
Reinforcements."

“
Full Spectrum Elvis.
The only reason they didn't
keep
Quincey's dress from getting trashed was that they
had to be onstage to run through their number. We
ex
pect the last murder to occur
during the show. We'll all
be
onstage, and you can have it the way you set it up
for Quincey: Priscilla with her personal bodyguard
around her at all times. The Fontana
brothers are as apt
to spot the perp
as we would be. Just tell them you're
the
target of a hitman, and they'll be better than a pack
of watchdogs.
Plus, we'll be there."

“
I don't know. I've been attacked on stage before,
but
I've never gone on knowing
someone was going to at
tack me. Talk
about stage fright!" Temple shivered and
looked around the dressing room. All the laid out cos
metics
reminded her of a mortuary preparation room.
Tomorrow
night Poor Priscilla could go from wedding
to grave.

“
Besides," Temple took a last stab at eluding
the role
of sacrificial lamb,
"poor Priscilla doesn't have a thing
to wear anymore.”

Bucek
stood. "Are you telling me there isn't a fairy
godmother in this town who can get you a gown by
tomorrow
evening?"

“
I suppose it's
possible."

“
You'll be as safe as in
your own living room. We're
fully on
to this scheme now. I wouldn't ask you if I
weren't sure we could
protect you.”

Temple read absolute conviction in his eyes, but no
one could promise immortality. She nodded. She had a
horrible
feeling Quincey would try to resume her role if
Temple didn't take it, and Temple had promised Merle
to look out
for Quincey.

She
just hadn't expected to do it in the persona of
Priscilla Presley.

Chapter 53

Catchin'
on
Fast

(From 1964's
Kissin'
Cousins)

Temple poked her head in the various dressing rooms,
hunting Full Spectrum Elvis and casting her eye over
likely suspects: Velvet Elvis, for instance, looking like
the Melancholy Dane. She was big
enough to manhandle
an unwary Elvis,
and big enough to be a transsexual.
Now that was a thought.
Maybe she was, somebody had
found out, and
she'd been blackmailed into murder to
avoid
being disqualified from the competition, though
Temple didn't quite see why or how transsexuals would
be barred.

Mike and Jerry were still best buddies despite the
looming
pressure of competition, exchanging grooming essentials, and looking nervous.
Wasn't Jerry from New
Jersey, a storied if
stereotypical Mob bastion? Some
times stereotypes, like fairy tales, can
come true.

Oh, and there was Kenny,
eager-beaver Kenny, so
quick on the scene of the
jumpsuit murder.

Not to mention a whole raft of other Elvis imperson
ators.

Full Spectrum Elvis was not in the below-stage area,
so Temple was forced to clomp up the backstage stairs
to
hunt them down.

She found them massed in the wings at stage right,
watching a sincere but uninspired Elvis perform the
difficult
American Trilogy
medley of "Dixie," "The Battle
Hymn of the Republic," and "All My Trials."

“
Speaking of 'trials . " Motorcycle jerked his
head
at the guy onstage as soon as she
spotted them. "We
gotta run through our act after that. Anything
going on downstairs? We heard, ah, whining."

“
You heard right. Quincey had another crisis."
Elvi
gathered around, glittering.

“
How so?" Rhinestone
Lapels wanted to know.

“
The Priscilla wedding
gown was slashed to smith
ereens, well,
rags, anyway. Quin's mother had heard
about
the murdered impersonator and took the attack on
the dress as a last straw. She was ready to jerk Quincey
from the
show."

“
Aw," came the chorus. The brothers Fontana,
even
in unrecognizable guise, at least had the grace to sound
disappointed.

“
But Quincey talked her out of it," Temple
added
quickly. "And you have
someone more vital to guard
now."

“
How so?" asked
Oversized.

“
Your endearing emcee,
Crawford Buchanan, is con
vinced the
late Elvis impersonator was really the late
Elvis, that someone killed Lyle Purvis because of it, and
that now that someone will kill him, Crawford,
because
he too 'knows' it.”