Lawrence Block - Enough Rope

There was a gold rope across the mirrored staircase, and what looked like an electric eye a couple of stairs up. “We don’t allow tourists into the upstairs,” our guide chirped. “Remember, Graceland is a private home and Elvis’s aunt Miss Delta Biggs still lives here. Now I can tell you what’s upstairs. Elvis’s bedroom is located directly above the living room and music room. His office is also upstairs, and there’s Lisa Marie’s bedroom, and dressing rooms and bathrooms as well.”

“And does his aunt live up there?” someone asked.

“No, sir. She lives downstairs, through that door over to your left. None of us have ever been upstairs. Nobody goes there anymore.”

“I bet he’sup there now,” Holly said. “In a La-Z-Boy with his feet up, eating one of his famous peanut-butter and banana sandwiches and watching three television sets at once.”

“And listening to Dean Martin,” I said. “What do you really think?”

“What do I really think? I think he’s down in Paraguay playing three-handed pinochle with James Dean and Adolf Hitler. Did you know that Hitler masterminded Argentina’s invasion of the Falkland Islands? We ran that story but it didn’t do as well as we hoped.”

“Your readers didn’t remember Hitler?”

“Hitler was no problem for them. But they didn’t know what the Falklands were. Seriously, where do I think Elvis is? I think he’s in the grave we just looked at, surrounded by his nearest and dearest. Unfortunately, ‘Elvis Still Dead’ is not a headline that sells papers.”

“I guess not.”

We were back in my room at the HoJo, eating a lunch Holly had ordered from room service. It reminded me of our in-flight meal the day before, luxurious but not terribly good.

“Well,” she said brightly, “have you figured out how we’re going to get in?”

“You saw the place,” I said. “They’ve got gates and guards and alarm systems everywhere. I don’t know what’s upstairs, but it’s a more closely guarded secret than Zsa Zsa Gabor’s true age.”

“That’d be easy to find out,” Holly said. “We could just hire somebody to marry her.”

“Graceland is impregnable,” I went on, hoping we could drop the analogy right there. “It’s almost as bad as Fort Knox.”

Her face fell. “I was sure you could find a way in.”

“Maybe I can.”

“But—”

“For one. Not for two. It’d be too risky for you, and you don’t have the skills for it. Could you shinny down a gutterspout?”

“If I had to.”

“Well, you won’t have to, because you won’t be going in.” I paused for thought. “You’d have a lot of work to do,” I said. “On the outside, coordinating things.”

“I can handle it.”

“And there would be expenses, plenty of them.”

“No problem.”

“I’d need a camera that can take pictures in full dark. I can’t risk a flash.”

“That’s easy. We can handle that.”

“I’ll need to rent a helicopter, and I’ll have to pay the pilot enough to guarantee his silence.”

“A cinch.”

“I’ll need a diversion. Something fairly dramatic.”

“I can create a diversion. With all the resources of the Galaxy at my disposal, I could divert a river.”

“That shouldn’t be necessary. But all of this is going to cost money.”

“Money,” she said, “is no object.”

“So you’re afriend of Carolyn’s,” Lucian Leeds said. “She’s wonderful, isn’t she? You know, she and I are the next-closest thing to blood kin.”

“Oh?”

“A former lover of hers and a former lover of mine were brother and sister. Well, sister and brother, actually. So that makes Carolyn my something-in-law, doesn’t it?”

“I guess it must.”

“Of course,” he said, “by the same token, I must be related to half the known world. Still, I’m real fond of our Carolyn. And if I can help you—”

I told him what I needed. Lucian Leeds was an interior decorator and a dealer in art and antiques. “Of course I’ve been to Graceland,” he said. “Probably a dozen times, because whenever a friend or relative visits that’s where one has to take them. It’s an experience that somehow never palls.”

“I don’t suppose you’ve ever been on the second floor.”

“No, nor have I been presented at court. Of the two, I suppose I’d prefer the second floor at Graceland. One can’t help wondering, can one?” He closed his eyes, concentrating. “My imagination is beginning to work,” he announced.

“Give it free rein.”

“I know just the house, too. It’s off Route 51 across the state line, just this side of Hernando, Mississippi. Oh, and I know someone with an Egyptian piece that would be perfect. How soon would everything have to be ready?”

“Tomorrow night?”

“Impossible. The day after tomorrow is barely possible. Just barely. I really ought to have a week to do it right.”

“Well, do it as right as you can.”

“I’ll need trucks and schleppers, of course. I’ll have rental charges to pay, of course, and I’ll have to give something to the old girl who owns the house. First I’ll have to sweet-talk her, but there’ll have to be something tangible in it for her as well, I’m afraid. But all of this is going to cost you money.”

That had a familiar ring to it. I almost got caught up in the rhythm of it and told him money was no object, but I managed to restrain myself. If money wasn’t the object, what was I doing in Memphis?

“Here’s the camera,”Holly said. “It’s all loaded with infrared film. No flash, and you can take pictures with it at the bottom of a coal mine.”

“That’s good,” I said, “because that’s probably where I’ll wind up if they catch me. We’ll do it the day after tomorrow. Today’s what, Wednesday? I’ll go in Friday.”

“I should be able to give you a terrific diversion.”

“I hope so,” I said. “I’ll probably need it.”

Thursday morning Ifound my helicopter pilot. “Yeah, I could do it,” he said. “Cost you two hundred dollars, though.”

“I’ll give you five hundred.”

He shook his head. “One thing I never do,” he said, “is get to haggling over prices. I said two hundred, and — wait a darn minute.”

“Take all the time you need.”

“You weren’t haggling me down,” he said. “You were haggling me up. I never heard tell of such a thing.”

“I’m willing to pay extra,” I said, “so that you’ll tell people the right story afterward. If anybody asks.”

“What do you want me to tell ’em?”

“That somebody you never met before in your life paid you to fly over Graceland, hover over the mansion, lower your rope ladder, raise the ladder, and then fly away.”

He thought about this for a full minute. “But that’s what you said you wanted me to do,” he said.

“I know.”

“So you’re fixing to pay me an extra three hundred dollars just to tell people the truth.”

“If anybody should ask.”

“You figure they will?”

“They might,” I said. “It would be best if you said it in such a way that they thought you were lying.”

“Nothing to it,” he said. “Nobody ever believes a word I say. I’m a pretty honest guy, but I guess I don’t look it.”

“You don’t,” I said. “That’s why I picked you.”

That night Hollyand I dressed up and took a cab downtown to the Peabody. The restaurant there was named Dux, and they had canard aux cerises on the menu, but it seemed curiously sacrilegious to have it there. We both ordered the blackened redfish. She had two dry Rob Roys first, most of the dinner wine, and a Stinger afterward. I had a Bloody Mary for openers, and my after-dinner drink was a cup of coffee. I felt like a cheap date.