Jack Yeovil - Comeback Tour

There had been fifteen of these Blotto Lotto give-aways in the past five years. Three of the winners were still alive, and one of them was in a shock-trauma coma surrounded by the best medtech money could own.

Mantle was getting bored with the interview, Lola could tell. His implant glands were shooting a recipe of amphetamine, testosterone and adrenalin into his blood. He would have to get back to the party before, like the winner before last, his head and scrotum simply swelled until they burst. The small print of the winner's contract stated that if the Blotto Lotto superluck champion were to die within a year of receiving the prize, the unspent portion of the cash, plus all of the assets purchased with the windfall, would revert to the GenTech subsidiary that organized the contest. It was incredible, when you came to study the figures, how difficult it was for the unimaginative to fritter away a hundred million dollars.

The last question flashed in Lola's eye.

"And how did it feel to win the Blotto Lotto?"

"Well," he grinned with his new Rod Rambone teeth, "it was kinda a lot like sex, y'know. I was watchin' the teevee like usual, waitin' for My Pal, the Biosurgeon to come on. I love that show. Nurse Nookie is such a fox, don't you think? I wonder when she and Doctor Bob will get it on. Anyway, I wasn't really watchin' Blotto the Clown as he was openin' the envelope from RaLPPH, but out of the corner of my ear I hear somethin'. At first, I don't believe I'm hearin' it. Like, y'know, I thought it was Clodagh yellin' my name from the kitchen. Only she never uses my full name. You know, 'Gavin Mantle.' She usually calls me 'Big Stud,' for reasons which are pretty damn obvious. Anyway, I couldn't believe it when it sank in. There was like this earthquake, and it was like suddenly…"

Lola sneaked a look at her wristwatch. This was boring crappo, and she'd ream the producer's ass when she got back to the studio.

"It was like a bolt from the sky, y'know, and then, WHAM-BAM-ZAPPO, like…"

As she nodded, Lola imagined a flash of light.

And there was a pile of smoking ashes on the air cushion, which was hissing as it sank into the pool.

"Elvis? Elvis Presley?"

The 'gator man couldn't believe it.

'"All Shook Up'? 'Hound Dog"? 'Heartbreak Hotel'? That Elvis Presley?"

The Op nodded. "Uh huh, sir."

'"Baby, I Don't Care'? 'A Big Hunk o' Love'? 'The Girl of My Best Friend'?"

Hiroshi Shiba was an unnervingly strange creature. His extended snout was that of a swamp 'gator and his grey tail hung down from his black pants, but otherwise he was every inch the perfect Japcorp exec. He wore a sober suit, with a white shirt and a discreetly striped tie. His English was perfect as far as syntax and vocabulary went, but his accent was heavily Japanese and even more heavily alligator. Elvis couldn't help liking the mutant.

Elvis stood quietly, no longer even surprised at the latest off-the-wall twist this gig was taking.

Shiba paced his office, tail lashing, a hungry grin showing in his snout. The handkerchief in his top pocket was folded into a perfect triple point, and he wore emblems of his company and national decorations in a medal ribbon.

"'King Creole'? 'Blue Christmas'? 'Teddy Bear'?"

Elvis always had been popular in Japan. He still got the odd royalty cheque, although most of the money seemed to trickle towards Colonel Parker. There were a few odd little clauses in the original contracts Elvis had not bothered to read back in the '50s, and he was still paying heavily for them.

"This is a great honour," said Shiba, clapping. "A great honour."

Raimundo Rex, the hispanic dinosaur, was less impressed. He was picking his teeth with a breadknife, dislodging fragments of food. Elvis didn't want to know what they had been before they became a meal. The big mutant was practically wild.

The guitar 'Ti-Mouche had given him was on Shiba's neatly-ordered desk, along with his other personal possessions. Money, guns and documentation.

The creature's grin glistened. "'Dirty, Dirty Girl'? 'Your Cheatin' Heart'? 'Blue Suede Shoes'?"

Elvis looked down at his swamp-smeared boots. The mud had dried and fallen off, but he was still dusty. He was feeling light-headed from swamp gas.

The Suitcase People weren't turning out to be the monsters he'd expected. In fact, some of them were proving downright hospitable.

"Get Mr Presley some food, Reuben," Shiba told a black-skinned reptile indentee. "And anything else he wants."

The exec hummed "Tutti Frutti," and laughed. His yellow eyes gleamed, blinking.

"Uh, excuse me, sir…?"

"Yes, Mr Presley?"

Shiba bowed honourably, displaying the bony ridges that had risen from his scalp.

"Uh, I don't like to ask, but, uh…well…am I a prisoner?"

Raimundo snarled, tiny nostrils flaring, huge jaws grinding. Obviously, dinosaurs didn't dig rock 'n' roll.

Shiba lashed his tail airily. "Oh, no. Much misunderstanding. Most regrettable. We mistook you for some other parties. Enemies have been attacking. Hunting platoons comb the swamps. They come from the coast. From Cape Canaveral."

"The Josephites?"

"Even so. How do you know?"

Elvis wondered if he could recruit any help here. He had the impression that, without Krokodil, he might well need it.

"My friend. The girl you lost in the swamp…"

Raimundo snapped the blade in his mouth and did his best to pout sullenly. It didn't look right on him. His face was too big for such petty expressions to register.

"…we were heading for the Cape. She had business there. The Josephites are our enemies too."

Shiba was delighted. "Good. Of course. They are crazy people."

"Los locos," Raimundo agreed, spitting a fist-sized green ball at the floor.

Elvis wished he knew exactly what Krokodil had wanted to do at the Cape. She had more or less admitted that her salvage story was a cover, but she hadn't confided fully in him. He knew that he had some part in the game that was being played out, but he wished someone had bothered to explain it properly to him.

"They are dangerous," he agreed. "Some of them ain't human."

He realized immediately that hadn't been a tactful thing to say, but Shiba took no offence. Elvis wondered if the Japanese quite realized what had happened to him.

"You are free to go any time, Mr Presley," said Shiba. "Although we should like you to stay and enjoy our hospitality." He laid a scaly hand on the guitar, twanging a chord. "Of course, if you would care to perform for us, it would be most appreciated…"

Elvis had played some strange shows before, back in the barroom and hootenanny days. But this would be the living end. He picked up the guitar and strummed a few chords. Shiba's mouth stretched into a toothy smile. Elvis sang the first few lines of "Mystery Train"…

"Train I riiiiide…sixteen coaches long…train I riiiide…"

The music took over, and his fingers found the notes. The words reemerged from the void in his memory into which he had cast them forty years earlier, and meant something to him. He sang about loneliness, desolation and the darkness at the end of the track. The long black train sped from nowhere to nowhere, carrying him along with it. The words of the song were vague. He remembered an argument in the old studio, about whether the mystery train was reuniting the singer with his girl, or speeding her away from him. He had always sung the song neutrally, but there was a persistent despair that crept in. He imagined Colonel Parker in a Casey Jones hat pulling on the whistle, Mr Seth leering like a skull as he wandered through the carriages punching tickets for dead men…and he saw Krokodil standing on the observation platform, waving to him as the mystery train vanished into the tunnel that fed into the depths of the earth and never rose again to daylight.