Cat in a Jeweled Jumpsuit (61 page)

Kenny
listened, never taking his eyes off of Temple/ Priscilla.

“
What happens to my suit?" he wanted to know.
"Who
gets custody of the suit?"

“
What about the chimp?" Temple wondered indig
nantly.
"Don't you care what happens to him?"

“
That stupid animal! Blew my cover. He was good for
a few laughs, but nobody better step on my jump
suits."

“Don't
worry," Bucek said. "That jumpsuit will be on
display like the rest of them, as Exhibit A in court some
day. You'll be reunited before
a
federal
judge, but I
doubt anyone will sentence a jumpsuit to the prison term
you'll get.”

Kenny
shrugged at this dire prediction of the future.
"Jailhouse Rock.
One of
E's best films. He did real well
in prison stripes.”

Bucek
shook his head and took Temple's elbow again, escorting her to the door.

“
That man
has an unreal sense of values," she com
mented."That's what makes hit men
tick."

“
So ... how does this case get settled? Publicly?"

“For
now, everything, of course, will be denied, lost,
brushed under the rug. There was no one here but Mem
phis Mafia hotel security. One Elvis impersonator
cracked and was ... institutionalized. A
mysterious Elvis impersonator tried to steal the show. Life goes on,
murders go unsolved, local police hate the outside
agency's guts. We try to keep Kenny alive to
testify and
bring down the bigwigs
behind it all. Are you happy,
Miss Barr?"

“
I'm happy to be alive," she said when they
stood out
in the hall again. The
onlookers had thinned, bored by
the lack of action. "And so, I
imagine, is Elvis."

“
Right." Bucek escorted her back to Quincey's
dress
ing room so she could change back
into herself. "By the
way,
there's one member of the press we haven't been
able to muzzle. Luckily, no one would believe him in a
million
years. I'm sorry.”

He
left the room, shouldered through the remaining spectators, and vanished.

The Fontana brothers made a daisy chain in front of
the door, but a slight, agile figure dashed through,
under
their arms.

“T.
B., are you all right?"

“Fine,"
she said.

“
Tell me about it." He came close, crouched
beside
her chair.

“About
what?"

“
About
Him!
The Elvis who disappeared. I was
wrong. Thank God I was wrong." Crawford
trembled on
the brink of tears.
"Lyle wasn't Him. He didn't die. He
came, and saved, and went again. Tell me about him,
please."

“
Well," said Temple. "The first thing I
noticed was
how blue his eyes were, and how they ... glowed. Like
electricity. In fact, everything about him ... glowed.”

Crawford
nodded, at peace. Not even taking notes.

Temple
drew in another hit of caffeine from the big
cup on the
dressing table, even though the contents were
stone cold, just
like Elvis. She was riding on the high
of survival and the
joy of imagination. Elvis had saved
her, yes, he had. In one form, or another.

Viva
Las Vegas.

One-twelve
A.M.

Matt
was gliding away from the radio station on the
Hesketh Vampire.
Leticia was annoyed that the results
of the Elvis competition at the
Kingdome hadn't been
available in time to announce at the end of the Midnight
Hour.

He was
relieved it was all over. Elvis had not called
since Lyle Purvis
had died, whatever one event had to do with the other. Only three women had
been waiting
for Matt after the show. Maybe his fans were all over at
the Kingdome, cheering the
ersatz Elvi on.

Even the Vampire seemed
subdued tonight, its motor
running smooth and
relatively silent for a change. Leticia
was busy preparing "Elvis tapes" for sale, but Dwight
had raised the issue of the estate objecting to
merchan
dising any unauthorized shred of Elvis.

Matt
could see their point.

Matt
could almost see Elvis, a distant, lonely figure
riding a
predestined track, a human being lost in the
meteoric dazzle of his own contrail.

Could you ever reach deep into another human being
and
know him?
Could you ever reach deep into
yourself and know
him? Matt glanced in his right side mirror.

Moon
at twelve o'clock high.

Moon,
or falling star? He was tired.

He
might be tired of himself.

And then he saw that cyclops of dogging light, just
like
the other night, that phantom in the mirror, that mo-
torcyclist's nightmare, that buzz at the farthest range of
his
hearing.

The
part of himself he could never escape, because it
had somehow become Other.

Matt
pushed the Vampire, pressed it into higher speed.
It grew throaty, as if growling
protest, then it leaped forward.

Still.
A light in the mirror.

A
pursuer.

A
Hound of Heaven.

Or
Hell.

Well.

He
knew how to ride this thing at last.

He
wasn't afraid to tilt almost horizontal.

He
didn't fear the noise and the speed.

Speed
King.

He
wasn't going to get caught.

Not
here.

Like
this.

By
... whom?
An anonymous splinter of himself. The eternal judge.
The
Wild Card Incarnate. Elvis on the half shell?
No.

Sometimes
you move and it's zen. The hand, the eye,
the soul in
mindless syncopation. Maybe it's rock.
Maybe it's roll. Maybe it's delusion.

Matt was
in that state. The machine moved with him.
He moved the
machine. The needle said they did ninety.
The moon and the
asphalt said they were waltzing in
three-four time.

But
finally the whirr and the scream behind them
caught up. The
light in the mirror was a star gone nova.
Some hounds you can't outrun.

Matt
slowed, breathed, pulled over.

In the
mirror, the single light focused, stopped, hung
there like a spotlight.

The sound of silence was
deafening after the rush.

He waited, balancing the weight of the Vampire on
the
balls of his boots.

Leather
creaked in the dry desert air.

Black
leather.

A motorcycle policeman advanced in Matt's left side
mirror.

A
mythic figure, really. Boots, pants, jacket creaking.
Hips expanded with a holster of
accessories: gun, gloves, baton, walkie-talkie, whatever.

Paper in a notepad shifted like dry bones. "Whoa,
son.
You were goin' pretty fast."

“Sorry.
My shift is over. I'm anxious to get home."
"Home's not worth rushin' to so fast. Let's see here.
Ninety
miles an hour."

“Guess
I didn't look. I'm sorry."

“What
this thing do?"

“The
bike?"

“
Never seen one like it." Boots creaking at
each step
around the Hesketh.

“It's
English."

“
English bike? Usually they're those real light
bicy
cles. This is a heavy machine."

“Custom."

“
Custom. I like custom. Got to give you a ticket,
though."

“
I
understand, officer. I'm a little nervous. Been work
ing late a lot.
And, I thought, someone was following
me—"

“
Someone following you.
That's a nasty feeling."
"Yeah. You get it sometimes?"

“
All the
time, son. All the time. Comes with the ter
ritory." He
walked around the Vampire again. "Nice
bike. So what'll it do?"

“
I don't know."

“Don't
know?"

“
Never took it up to maximum. It's ... well, against
the law."

“Against
the law. We don't wanta be against the law."
The cop leaned close, peered at the dash. "What does it
say
it'll do?"

“Uh,
the speedometer goes to one-twenty."

“You
tried it?"

“No."

“Maybe
you should."

“I
can't. It's against the law."

“Against
the law. See this?"

“It's
a badge."

“Yes,
sir. Now that's not against the law."

“I
guess not."

“
So I'm not going to give you a ticket tonight, son,
on one condition."

“Yes?"

“That
you take this thing to the maximum."

“But—"

“
Now, go on. I don't want to have to get mean, but
if I can catch your taillight, you're not doing as
I say."
"No, sir. I mean, yes, sir."

“Go
on, then. I want to see you flying.”

Matt
went.

Into the desert on empty roads, timeless flight.
The
moon couldn't keep up.

The
motorcycle policeman couldn't keep up.

Finally,
finally, the voices in his head couldn't keep up.

He got a
ticket anyway.
A
ticket to ride.

Temple
turned the key in her door, then tiptoed into her own place like a thief. It
felt so great to have the weight
of Priscilla, actual and metaphorical, off her.

“Meroww," said Midnight
Louie, writhing against her ankles and stalking over to his bowl to stand and
stare resentfully.

She had
thought ... who knew what she had thought
tonight?

“
We had some monkey business at the Kingdome to-
night, Louie. Good thing you weren't
there."
"Merrrr0000w!" said
Louie. He almost sounded like
he was scolding her.

“
I know
I've been gone a lot lately," she said meekly. "Got caught up in
Elvis fever. This whole town did. But
it's all over now. Here, have some
ocean flounder on
your
Free-to-Be-Feline.”

Louie dug in and Temple tiptoed away before he
could
scold her further, to the bedroom.

“
Meow," said Midnight Max, who was reclining on
the comforter, sans Elvis accoutrements.

The stereo was softly playing something Elvis,
though.

“
You would have won if you'd stuck around,"
Temple
said.

“Couldn't
afford to.”

She sat at the foot of the bed. "Okay. How? Why?
When?”

Max
smiled. "I got back in town and couldn't reach
you at home, so I
finally appealed to Electra for news.
She informed me you'd become Elvis's
greatest fan and
told me all about the dirty tricks going on at the King-
dome. I
figured you couldn't resist the greatest mystery
of the twentieth century, so I slipped
over there to sniff around—apparently Midnight Louie had similar notions,
because I kept seeing him around—"