The New Elvis (23 page)

“We’re Hollywood, Ms. Coffey,” the shortest detective, whose name was Fraser, said.

Marilyn was incredulous. “So you never mix it up between divisions?”

“Do you have the device?” the middle detective, named Lauder, asked.

“No, but my friends said it was was definitely official.”

“And what would constitute a
definitely official
tracking device?”

Marilyn was distraught. “Some kind of number on it.”

Detective Fraser’s voice was heavy with sarcasm. “Why don’t you bring it by the department and have us take a look-see?”

Marilyn was ready to punch the wall, but Tom grabbed her and held her tight. Logan crossed the room and sat at the top of his bed, where his pillow had rested. He looked down between the bed and the table and felt a flood of relief. The vial of Elvis’s hair and the framed photo of Professor X had fallen on the floor. He could see the edges of both peeking out from beneath the bed.

“Anything down there?” Hume asked.

Logan sat up quickly and stared at him, an impassive look on his face.

Hume looked at the other two detectives and sighed. “We’re done here.”

“What are you gonna do about this?” Marilyn demanded.

Hume shrugged. “We’ll run the prints we got and see if they match any in the system.”

Her voice was shrill. “That’s it?”

Detective Fraser stepped forward, still in a sarcastic mood. “Ms. Coffey, what would you like us to do?”

Ryan and Seth pored over the Beatles songbooks left in the music room. They had half an hour until the vocal coach arrived, and then, depending on who worked out with the coach first, the other one would have additional time to choose which song to sing in the next show. The two women left in the competition had a different coach and were practicing next door. They could hear “Yesterday” faintly through the wall as Noelle sang it with heartfelt emotion.

Ryan turned to Seth.

“There’s something Redd said that made me think. ‘His dad must have really loved the King.’ Past tense. Do you think my dad is dead?”

Seth thought about it for a moment, closed his buggy eyes, and sighed. “Sometimes he sees people that are still alive, I think. Good mediums can see all sorts of things, past, present, future.”

Ryan persisted, “But he said
loved
, not love.”

Seth smoothed his dark blond wavy hair with his hands to flatten it down. “But when Redd did the reading on my grandfather, he described what he died from and how he crossed over, and he didn’t go into that this time.”

Someone knocked loudly on the door to the music room.

“Shit,” Ryan cursed. “We haven’t picked our songs.”

Seth called out, “Come on in!”

A woman with such a short neck her head seemed to spring directly from her torso waddled in. She was dressed in an orange floral print cocktail dress that fell below her knees, and her carefully coiffed hair was a silvery ash. Her hazel eyes sparkled, and her smile was warm. As Ryan and Seth watched her make her way across the room, her gaze seemed fixed on Ryan. Seth gave him a sidelong glance and a half smile, as if to say,
it figures
.

“I’m Corinne Crowley,” she said, grabbing at Ryan’s hands, causing him to drop the Beatles songbook he was holding. “I’m the producer of
All Of Our Days
.”

“It’s a daytime soap,” Seth said.

“Yes,” Corinne said, barely giving Seth a glance, “and my daughter is seriously infatuated with you. She has been begging me to put you on the show, and it just so happens, we need to complicate the Jennifer Flurry storyline by adding a new love interest, and you, my dear, are it.”

Ryan started to speak, but she cut him off. “No need to audition and sweat it out. The part is already yours. You won’t have to leave L.A. We tape in Studio City. You’ll be asked to sign a six-month contract, and you’ll be paid ten thousand a week to start.”

“What about
It Factor
?” Seth asked.

“This is a contractual obligation, too, so we’ll expect him to show up at the studio as soon as he’s done here.” She studied Ryan a moment. “Well, maybe not immediately. If you need two days after the
It Factor
finale to rest up, that’s fine.”

Seth laughed, and Ryan’s cell phone rang.

He got up and had to squeeze out of the bubble of personal space Corinne had created so he could answer the call.

It was Bea’s mother. She had found Bea in her room that morning, dead from an overdose of painkillers.

After the break-in at Logan’s apartment, they repositioned Marilyn’s couch so it was closer to the dining room area and brought in desks so he could move in upstairs. Now that Tom was sharing Marilyn’s bed, the couch that used to be his sleeping spot was delegated to Logan, who washed his sheet and blanket, bought a new pillow, packed his stuff in shipping cartons, and crated it all up to his new domicile.

No current stories, photos, contact information, or leads had been left on the computers before Logan left town for his uncle’s funeral. Everything of importance had been Dropboxed to Peter Corcioni in Chicago. There were no external hard drives anywhere in Logan’s apartment containing anything a rival could use. In that regard, they had been careful, but they were not prepared for the next onslaught.

The first thing Logan did after he logged onto his new computer upstairs was visit
dailycelebrity.com
, the website he maintained that offered tidbits of gossip, photos from past issues, Marilyn’s weekly blog, and a message board, where a host of alarming messages had been posted from visitors within the past seventy-two hours.

“What happened to
Daily Celebrity’s
official fan page on Facebook? It’s got to be a joke,” a regular visitor commented.

“That photo of Marilyn is disturbing. Why would you post it?” asked another.

“Not pretty, guys,” said a third.

Logan went to Facebook but couldn’t log into the
Daily Celebrity
account. He went to his Logan Lockhart account instead, typed
Daily Celebrity
in the find window, and saw what the readers were talking about. The banner across the top of the
DC
account, which had been a panoramic shot of the Hollywood sign, had been replaced by words in 36-point typeface that screamed, “Marilyn Coffey is a lousy tabloid reporter. She’s much better at other things!” The profile picture of Marilyn, from back in her glam platinum days, was gone as well, replaced by a picture of a toilet that hadn’t been flushed.

Logan found Tom in the kitchen, stirring honey into his tea. Logan waved at him, and Tom followed him back to the computer in the living room, where the
DC
Facebook page was displayed on the monitor.

Tom sat down heavily in Logan’s chair and composed his thoughts before sharing them. “I’ve seen Facebook accounts hacked before. It’s a pain in the ass getting things straightened out, but I know someone who can trace the IP of whoever cracked the password and changed it. Is the website still secure?”

Logan nodded and Tom got up.

Marilyn wandered out from the bedroom, where she’d been on the phone, and noticed their irritated expressions. “What’s wrong?”

Tom shot Logan a warning look. “Nothing.”

He headed back toward the kitchen, and Marilyn padded after him in the new bunny slippers he’d bought her. “You want some tea? I just made some.”

“You know better than to ask. Only coffee for Coffey.”

“I was just being polite.”

Marilyn had encouraged Logan to rehang his Elvis art upstairs, so he had filled the living room walls with his collection. Now he looked across the room at his Chris Consani art print entitled
Legendary Crossroads
, a black and white with spot color composition of Elvis seated on the bumper of a car Marilyn Monroe was leaning against, listening to him sing and play guitar. It wasn’t as famous as Consani’s
Java Dreams
of James Dean, Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe, and Humphrey Bogart at a bar, but
Legendary Crossroads
was Tom and Marilyn’s favorite piece in Logan’s collection.

Marilyn and Tom entered the living room with their cups of coffee and tea. Before they reached the couch, Tom was ready to play his guessing game again.

“Which story is true? One, Dena Newton hides in a large suitcase backstage after performances to avoid her fans. Two, Lisa Pollack keeps a collection of her taxidermied pets at home. Three, Josh Guthrie has no testicles as a result of a hunting accident he had in Africa while shooting
Savannah at Sunrise
.”

Marilyn sat down on the couch that was now Logan’s bed.

“Three is true, and it’s gross.” She picked up the TV remote and began flipping through channels, stopping when she got to
It Factor
. “Oh, this is home week. I
adore
home week.”

Tom moved Logan’s new pillow and joined her on the couch.

“What’s home week?”

Marilyn sipped her coffee. “That’s where the top four contestants return to their hometowns to see their families and fans. It’s good stuff.”

Logan looked up from his monitor. Ryan Wyatt was on the screen, wearing the blue scarf Bea had finished knitting for him. His father, identified on screen as Eugene Wyatt, sat to his left, and his mother, identified as Zella Stuart Wyatt, sat on his right.

Ryan was openly crying, and his eyes were bloodshot.

“I guess the worst thing that’s happened this year is that we lost Ryan’s dear friend, Bea Edwin,” Zella said, her hands folded in her lap.

“This is the scarf she made me,” Ryan told the audience, looking down at it, then back at the camera.

Logan thought he would stop breathing. His hands froze on the keyboard, and he stared at his fingers. He went back in time to when he’d met her at Uncle Wendall’s home in Vegas, and he could still picture her with her glorious blonde curls, standing only a few feet into the foyer area. Professor X was circling their legs, and he watched as Bea slowly lowered herself down so she could see him better. She had looked up at Logan and told him his cat was beautiful and even bothered to ask his name. He remembered her as she’d looked at Bar Fifty-Six that night, when Ryan was surprised they all wanted him to sing and she had laughed and said that was why they were there. Blinking back tears, Logan looked back at the TV screen, but seeing Ryan so grief-stricken made him feel worse.

“She had Rheumatoid Arthritis and then developed neuropathy,” Zella explained. “It got so bad, she lost feeling in her feet and legs. She was taking so many different drugs, it was hard to keep track. Her mom found her in her room. She died of an accidental overdose. Or maybe she mixed the wrong things.” She looked at Ryan. “Was that ever made clear?”

Ryan shook his head and wiped his wet face with the heels of his hands. Zella squeezed Ryan’s shoulder. The trio onscreen faded as a montage of photos of little Bea and Ryan performing together onstage in school productions over the years filled the screen.

Logan got up from his seat and started to leave the room.

Marilyn looked over. “I’m sorry, Logan. Is the show too loud?”

Tom was still glued to the screen. “Damn, that kid looks just like a young Elvis.”

Seven weeks passed, and working non-stop since his return from Uncle Wendall’s funeral in Vegas while adjusting to sharing space with Marilyn and Tom had taken its toll. Logan needed a day off to clear his mind and think.

The evening he made the decision to ask for some “me” time, Marilyn was preparing a Mexican feast in the kitchen under Tom’s direction. On top of his other stellar qualities, from the time he was old enough to hold a spoon until he left home at the age of eighteen, Tom had taken cooking lessons from his family’s personal chef. Dan and Ron had been invited to join them that night, and when Tom opened the door, the ferret cousins entered, bearing gifts of wine.

Dan handed Marilyn the white, and Ron gave the red to Tom before they plopped down on the couch without moving Logan’s pillow and kicked off their shoes like they were finally home after a hard day’s work.

Marilyn raised her eyebrows and stared at their socked feet. “You can move in next Tuesday.”

“Dinner is served,” Tom announced.

Dan groaned. “We’re just getting settled.”

Ron got up. “No problem. I’m starving.”

A big bowl of guacamole had replaced the fruit bowl in the center of the table. It was too large to pass, so they took turns leaning in to scoop spoonfuls. With the cousins’ arrival, the energy in the room was heightened. Tacos, Mexican bean salad, sweet corn tomalito, steak quesadillas, chicken enchiladas, and chiles rellenos were piled high on serving platters that Tom started passing counterclockwise. Logan filled his plate with two pie-shaped slices of quesadilla and a pile of salad. After everyone had something to eat, Tom poured the wine.

Ron threw a forkful of bright yellow tomalito into his mouth. “So we were at the Hollywood North Mall because Dan needed new sunglasses. We wanted to go to SunEyes, but Ron wanted to stop first at the bookstore for the new Richard Kadrey.”

Marilyn took a sip of wine. “Oh, my God. I loved
Sandman Slim
.”

Dan was busy picking the chicken out of his enchiladas, eating only the shredded bits of tender poultry. “So, we go into the bookstore, and they’re decorating the front window with clear globes. It’s all beautiful and trendy, and we’re in there when we hear a bunch of pops out in the hallway.”

Ron put down his fork and took a gulp of red wine. “We thought they were fireworks.”

Dan pushed the enchiladas aside and poked a relleno with his knife. “Someone was shooting up the mall. People started running out the emergency exit, but we stayed put with the managers.”

“A mom and pop team,” Ron interjected.

“The gunman came in and took the four of us to the back, but then he had us guys go up front and form a barricade while he held on to the lady.”

Ron wiped his mouth. “We did a phony job of securing the front, obviously. Then he had us all sit in the back room.”