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“Forget it.” Nicky waved his Rolex wrist. “You aren’t consulting just on PR stuff, you dreamed up the whole recreational re-do.”

“And,” Van added, leaning across her clear glass desktop, “you inspired that international conceptual artist, Domingo, to design a very arty children’s area for us. I’ve gotten inquiries about the project from Art Forum. We’re reaching an entirely new and upscale audience, thanks to you and your eclectic friends. Nicky’s right. If you feel this poor little Quincey needs a chaperone, you run right over to the Kingdome for as long as necessary. We wouldn’t want a daughter of ours in such a high-stress environment at that tender age.”

Temple refrained from explaining that there was nothing tender about Quincey but her age.

“I’ve never really liked Elvis,” she confessed in a last-ditch effort to stick to duty and sacrifice satisfying her always-insatiable curiosity.

“You’re in good company,” Van said, sitting back. “This is business,” Nicky noted. ” ‘Like’ has nothing to do with it.”

Putt-putting along the Strip in her aging aqua Storm, Temple drove like the legendary little old lady from Pasadena (even though she was cool for an old person; see what turning thirty does for you!), peering at all the “Kingdome is Coming” signs she’d ignored for so long. They were everywhere. Obviously, her head had been in the clouds, probably looking for the single billboard advertising Matt Devine’s midnight radio advice show. Meanwhile, on ground level, Elvis had been stepping on everybody’s blue suede shoes in an attempt to get a little attention for a dead guy.

Temple marveled that the Strip always offered enough empty acreage to support another monument to the Theme-of-the-Moment. The trend had been Euro lately: the suave Monte Carlo, Steve Wynn’s artsy Bellagio, and the equally lavish Belladonna, which Temple had nicknamed the Beluga (after the small white whale) for its vast expanses of white marble, not to mention a collection of European masterwork paintings and sculptures, all of buxom, white-skinned naked ladies. Instead of the Naked Maja, Temple thought of the ambiance as the Naked Moby.

But she had never seen the Kingdome coming. How had she missed this Eighth Wonder of the World building? Blink in Las Vegas nowadays, and you missed the Second Coming. Come to think of it, an Elvis Presley hotel and casino in Las Vegas was a sort of Second Coming.

Temple pulled into the Kingdome’s parking lot and let the Storm throb on idle. Appropriately. This was now the home of rock ‘n’ roll, wasn’t it? Feel the beat? She felt an involuntary frisson of excitement.

Whoever had designed this place, or palace, had not been gun-shy. The Kingdome was a slick, pompadour-sculpted swoop of architecture, mindful of the low, long lines of fifties and sixties cars, and the kinky excesses of seventies fashion. The titular dome squatted like an alien vessel from which Michael Rennie would soon emerge, wearing an industrial-strength silver jumpsuit. Then he would turn into a guitar-licking, foot-stomping, pelvis-swiveling Elvis.

Don’t step on my silver-Mylar space boots.

Still, the all-white compound also radiated an air of antebellum gentility that brought Graceland—and particularly dignified funeral parlors—to mind. How appropriately Elvis. Temple remembered reading that he had visited morgues with his entourage, as fascinated by still-life death as he was by death-defying sports like fast cars, ‘cycles, go-carts, and hot-and-cold-running girls.

She was amazed, sitting here gawking past her windshield visor, liberated nineties woman that she was, by how much she had unconsciously absorbed of the Elvis legend.

The Kingdome itself implied the wide-legged stance of the King, its nervous pulsing neon reminiscent of his hyperactive left leg. The dazzling white structure even seemed to sweat in the wintery Las Vegas sun and togain an otherworldly aura from that very human failing. Blood, sweat, and tears.

Like the birth of the blues, the King had suffered them all.

Oh, come on! She didn’t even like his music. Or his looks. Or his lifestyle. Or his legend.

Still. They’d built a hell of a hotel in his name. The King is dead. Long live the King.

Viva Las Vegas.

I guess now, Temple thought, they can call it the Valley of the King.

Naturally, you had to pass through the pearly gates to get in.

The huge gates that split in the middle were covered in pearlescent paint, with notes and staffs written in wrought iron.

Walking in as a PR person, Temple was immediately struck by the immense obstacles to such an enterprise. EPE (Elvis Presley Enterprises, aka “the estate”) must control the commercial marketing of every item and image connected to the late, much lamented King. No wonder no one had dared to do the obvious and create an Elvisland in Las Vegas. Graceland had a corner on the market.

That was why, she discovered, nodding sagely to herself, an interior attraction was called “Raceland,” featuring bumper car rides and exhibits of the kind of cycles and cars the King had collected. The real things remained on display at Graceland in Memphis. Everything here was ersatz Elvis.

But … Elvis himself was ersatz culture, so in a sense, this place was even truer to the King than real life had been.

Temple found that sad. All legends eventually become the living sarcophagus in which their original inspiration is entombed.

Death Valley of the King. Not a bad way to put it.

She struck out across the valley floor (a custom carpet littered with images of fifties guitars, cars, and ‘cycles) for what lay under the dome.

The casino’s slot machines chimed with the melodies from a dozen Elvis hits, and Temple spotted blue suede shoes and pink Cadillac convertibles spinning past.

Nowhere, however, was the face of Elvis visible.

While no one could copyright a person’s life, or the artifacts he had surrounded himself with, any representation of a likeness that could be sold for a profit would have to be authorized.

So here in the Kingdome, Elvis himself was like an invisible, entombed pharaoh surrounded by all the pomp and circumstance of his life, except his own image.

While Temple was mulling over the symbolism of the Absent Elvis effect, who should come walking toward her but … Elvis.

He was wearing a white jumpsuit punctuated with gold metallic studs and gleaming gemstones of ruby, sapphire, and emerald.

Temple had seen a lot of extravagant, outré, bizarre, and dazzling effects in Las Vegas. She had always seen the man behind the curtain: the special-effects wizard who pulled the strings and set off the fireworks and who murmured, constantly, “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.” Colonel Tom Parker, if you will.

But there was no curtain here.

There was only Elvis, finally, in the flesh-and-blood form.

Walking toward her.

A movement to the side caught her eye.

There was Elvis, sleek in hair cream and black ‘cycle leathers.

Walking toward her.

She blinked.

Another Elvis at three o’clock high, this one attired in a martial arts gi—white pjs, really—banded here, there,and everywhere in red satin and sashed in black satin at the waist.

On they came, like a mirror image trio of gunslingers: three incarnations of Elvis, the hair and sideburns all of one piece, like a gleaming dark helmet, the garb light and dark, like hero and villain in one and the same form. Then came the fourth Elvis.

He carried an ornate cane and a flashlight (of all things). His belt and his cloak clasp were swagged in chains of gold, his dress vaguely Regency style, the Emperor Elvis. I, Dracula meets the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll. Temple had prided herself on never actually stopping and gawking at anything or anybody in Las Vegas. But now she did both.