Cat in a Jeweled Jumpsuit (43 page)

“
What did you do then?"

“
Do?"
Lyle shook his head as if to shake off a night
mare, Temple thought.

She glimpsed the tiniest
flash of white roots at his left
temple. His
face was lightly lined and tanned, the way
Elvis liked to look after a
trip to Hawaii. Temple was
miserable at
guessing ages. Because she felt she looked
so ridiculously young, she
tended to underestimate other
people's ages
too. She would put Lyle Purvis in his for
ties. In fact, Elvis's hair had gone white by forty-two. It
was
weird to picture a snowy-haired Elvis.

While Temple was dallying on
top of old Smokey, all
covered with snow,
Lyle had come out of his own fog
reliving Elvis's last performances.

“
What do you mean 'do'?"

“Do
for a living back then?"

“I
don't even remember. I was just a kid."

“What's
your day job now?”

He
laughed, uneasily. "It's pretty unglamourous." When she waited in
silence, he added, "I work for a
messenger service."

“
Around town here?"

“Right.
Have car, will travel."

“
None of
the Elvis impersonators have performance-
type jobs that I
can tell. Unless they're the ones who
make a living at it."

“
There are a few of those," he agreed.

“
Why not you? Everybody talks
like you're the best."
"Because I
don't want it to be that serious, all right?
I want it to be something I
can do if I feel like. I don't
want to end up like Elvis, having to go through
the mo
tions to make enough money to
get everybody off my
back, and then
get so depressed I blow the money myself
and have to dig myself in
deeper to keep the whole cycle going."

“
It's
hard making a living as an entertainer," she
agreed. "What brought you out of
hiding for this show?" "Hiding? Who says I was hiding?"

“
I didn't mean hiding,
exactly. Just that the other El-
vises
see you as some kind of mysterious figure that
comes and goes without
notice."

“
There's nothing mysterious
about me."

“
You certainly wowed
them by showing up on the
stage."

“
Okay. Maybe I like theatrical entrances. Elvis did
too, and that's who we're supposed to be
impersonating. These offbeat Elvises oughta be drummed off the stage.
The idea is to honor the man and his music, not
come
up with the funkiest interpretation. Cheese Whiz Elvis. Where's the
respect?"

“Didn't
Elvis mock himself and even his audience sometimes?"

“
Yes, he did." KOK sat forward and fixed Temple
with a stern look. "And he was
wrong. It was a gesture
of surrender to his own vulnerabilities. In the
end, his
self-esteem was so low he looked on
his audience's love
for him with
contempt. Instead of seeing them as for
giving
friends, he saw them as fools and dupes he
couldn't force to turn
against him."

“
You're saying he wanted to
be martyred."

“
He wanted to end what
had become too hard to keep
up. He
didn't see any honorable way to desert the field.
So he performed
himself to death."

“What
about the Colonel's role in driving Elvis into mediocre movies and debilitating
tours?"

“
Oh,
Colonel Parker. The villain of the piece. Every
body was responsible but Elvis Presley.
Did you ever
notice how the least likely
suspect in a murder case al
ways turns out to be the killer?"

“
Who's the least likely suspect in the Elvis saga?”

Lyle's tiny shrug made the gold threads on his
gi
shimmer and shimmy. His lower lip curled up before he
gave a half smile that lifted the left side of his upper lip,
just
like Elvis's.

“
How about the victim
himself?"

Chapter 42

Elvis
and Evil

(Elvis recorded the song, "Adam and Evil," for
the 1966
film,
Spinout)

"What
a weirdo guy," Temple reported to Electra, after Full-spectrum Elvis had
escorted her through the throngs waiting to bedevil Lyle, aka the KOK.

They all made proper farewells—bows, kisses, ca
ressing
scarf moves—and left, leaving Electra in an even greater girlish tizzy.

“
How can you say that about the Elvis of the nine
ties?"
she demanded of Temple when they were alone.

“
What's the Elvis of the next decade going to be:
the
King of Zeroes?"

“
I thought you had seen a bit of the magic that made
Elvis the biggest star of the
twentieth century. I thought
you were becoming converted."

“
Converted to a particular impersonator being good,
yes; to Elvis, no. Besides, this Lyle guy said
something
so bizarre at the end of our interview. He implied that
another Elvis impersonator
killed the Elvis in the pool.' "Professional jealousy?"

“
How could that be? The
dead Elvis isn't even
missed. If it
had been Lyle Purvis himself, okay. But
a nonentity Elvis isn't worth killing. Besides, Lyle
sounded about as clear as Elvis was during one of
his
spiritual meanderings. It was like
he was describing
some mystical sort
of murder, as if Elvis somehow had
killed himself.”

Electra's sweet-sixteen sixties face—today Temple
had glimpsed the madcap teenager inside the not-so
dignified matron's exterior—grew radiant with inspira
tion.

“
Temple! Elvis could kill an Elvis . . . but only if
the
real one is out there somewhere."

“
'Out there' like 'the truth' on the
X-Files?
Over
the
edge and into Paranoid Country? I'm
sorry, Electra. I
will never buy that 'Elvis lives' scenario."

“
Oh, you little hard-headed cynic! That notion
doesn't
have to be taken literally."

“
What other way is there to
take it?"

“If you need to ask, I don't
need to tell you."

“
Huh? Oh, that this too,
too solid delusion would
melt, dissolve into a dew—"

“
When you're done spouting, could we meet some
body
else?"

“
I'm sorry you couldn't go in to meet KOK Elvis. It
would have blown my cover."

“
Well, I can meet one pseudo-celebrity without
blowing your cover." Electra took Temple's arm
firmly.
"Now. Show me Miss Priscilla.”

Quincey was in and receiving visitors in her dressing
room.
"Hi," she tossed over her shoulder and around her flowing hair at
Temple. "I heard a whole lot of stomping going on upstairs. Did somebody
off Elvis onstage?”

Electra stepped around Temple, which was never hard
to
do. "No, dear. We just saw an Elvis performance that
rocked the roof off the Kingdome. A pity you were
con
fined down here."

“
I'll see plenty of Elvis acts at the real
show." Quin
cey's long, pale
fingernails poked at her towering hair, which leaned a little to the left, like
the edifice at Pisa.
"I'll have
to sit there for hours and hours, dying of bore
dom. But my gown arrived, thanks to the hotel. Isn't it
cool?”

She led the way to the costume niche, where a white
column
of silk and lace and beading hung like a frozen fountain.

Temple, who had been known to glance at a bride's magazine
gown layout when killing time in front of a
magazine stand, was stunned by the high-necked, long-
sleeved design of Priscilla's wedding gown, a world
away
from the strapless bustier styles modern brides preferred.

She
was stunned that Quincey, with all her teenage eagerness to equate beautiful
with bad, actually liked this virginal froth of fabric.

Quincey lifted an empty sleeve as if introducing a
friend. "It's not a perfect replica. I guess the
estate owns
that. I'll wear it
when I present the winning Elvis with
the
championship belt."

“
That's scrumptious, dear," Electra said with
naked
envy. "Oh, my. I could have fit into that, once for fifteen
minutes in nineteen fifty-two.”

Quincey
laughed. "Don't worry, Everybody gets their fifteen minutes of fame, and I
guess everybody gets their fifteen minutes at fitting into an impossible dress.”

Temple
formally introduced Electra, then thought of
something.
"By the way, you two, with all the Elvis
trivia you must have stockpiled, was there ever any men
tion of a
pet snake?”

Electra and Quincey exchanged coconspirators'
glances:
Was Temple off her rocker?

“
You
have to admit a huge snake is a pretty bizarre
prop for a murder," Temple said.
"It has to mean some-
thing,
it being in the Medication Garden ..."

“
Oooh." Quincey was waxing theatrical. "Like in
the Garden of Eden."

“
The snake is a universal symbol of evil,"
Temple
agreed, "through no fault
of its own except the usual
human superstition.”

Quincey
giggled. "A big snake is the symbol of something else humans are pretty
superstitious about.”

Electra
collapsed onto a dressing table chair, laughing.
Her muumuu turned even more fluorescent in the
makeup lights. "You got that right, girl. Say,
now that we're on the subject. I do recall something about a big
snake."

“
The only strange animal I can think of was the my
nah
in the basement," said Quincey.

“
That was at Graceland," Electra said.
"The snake was
not there. Somehow ... I know!”

Temple
and Quincey came over to Electra like an audience gathering for a revelation.

“
Felton Jarvis," Electra said portentously.
"That ring
any bells for you, Quincey?”

The girl dropped her jaw, rolled her eyes, and other
wise pantomimed deep thought, or what passed for it in
her
set. She shook her head.

“
Nothing?" a
disappointed Electra wailed.

Quincey tried, God love her. "Uh. Felton. Kinda like
Elton. And the last name starts with
a 'J.' " When
Temple and Electra
continued to stare blankly at her,
she
added defensively, "Elton John. His name's kinda
like
Elton John's."

“
Not really," Temple said. "And what about
the
snake? Where's the snake in all this?"

“
Felton Jarvis," Electra intoned, as if she
were chan
neling the man, or calling
up her memory. She smiled
like Buddha.
"Felton Jarvis! He was a record producer
who actually did a good job for Elvis in the sixties and
early
seventies. Worked out of Nashville. And he had a
pet anaconda he took swimming with him in his apart
ment
pool."

“
Did he call it Trojan?"
Temple asked.