Unknown - Douglas_Carole_Nelson_Cat_in_a_Jeweled_Jumpsuit_Bo

“How did you get this gig?” Temple asked. Merle had told her, but she wanted to hear Quincey’s version. Mother and daughter were each at an age, and a stage in their relationship, where the chances of anything about them jibing were nil.

Quincey sighed. “Crawf, who else?”

“ `Crawf?’ That’s what you call him?”

“Yeah. What’s it to you?”

“I call him ‘Awful Crawford’ myself.”

“ `Crawf’ sort of sounds like barfing.““Especially if you have a cat.”

“You have a cat?”

“As much as anyone ever does.”

“Crawf hates cats.”

“I’m not surprised. You can’t trust anyone who doesn’t like cats.”

Quincey’ s Egyptian eyes lowered to the gaudy faux body on the floor. “Did Elvis like cats, I wonder?” “Don’t you know, with all that reading?”

“No … he had a few dogs and horses, but I never heard of a cat.”

Temple nodded sagely. Sometimes the most important things about people never made it into the history books.

Chapter 10

The Hillbilly Cat Scat

(Elvis was called the Hillbilly Cat in tribute to his mingled country and rhythm and blues persona early in his career)

Did Elvis like cats? Does your daddy not dance and your mama not rock ‘n’ roll? I thought so.

I have made it over to the Kingdome hard on my little doll’s heels.

And my little doll’s heels are usually hard on her and anybody who gets in her way.

So I am discreetly eavesdropping from the hall when this discussion over the fallen, fake-dead Elvis takes place.

There are so many fake-live Elvi in the world, not to mention just in this hotel right now, that a dead Elvis, fake or not, has by now become a novelty.

Like all of my breed, I thrive on investigating novelty. That is why I cannot resist following Miss Temple to this emporium of all things Elvis, and my instincts prove true, given the shenanigans I am (over) hearing about. While a punctured jumpsuit hardly has the makings of a federal case, a punctured Priscilla Presley impersonator sniffs of nefarious deeds to come. My expert help is now at the service of one and all, whether they know it or not.

And I know a thing or two about the cool cats of the world. That is how I am aware that when Elvis Presley first burst onto the music scene, they did not know whether he was black or white or blues or country, so they called him the Hillbilly Cat. See, hillbilly music was all-white whining, and rhythm and blues were only wailed in black bars then, so combining the two sounds was something daring.

It was so new and daring that it would eventually get that Hillbilly Cat named the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll, which is what everybody decided to call the new blend once it was rolling off of every radio in the country.

What do I know about music? Listen, I have been a backyard one-man band all of my life. All of us down and out sorts, whatever the color of our coats, like to get together for a good community wail now and then. Not that my breed has ever been much chased by record companies throwing big-money contracts at us, just by irate sleepers hurling shoes and chamberpots. Not everyone has an ear for music. And, luckily, almost no one has a chamberpot these days.

I must say that I am glad to see my Miss Temple getting out of the house and into a new environment. She has spent far too much time around the Circle Ritz these days, worrying about the care and feeding of this one human dude or the other, when there I sit needing a fresh bribe on my dry pile of Free-to-Be-Feline nuggets.

But I see that shenanigans of a sinister sort have lured her from the domestic front to the center of the newest action on the Strip, and that cannot be a bad thing.

As for someone who would find it necessary to create his—or her—own murder victim before plunging in the fatal dagger, what can you expect in a town that is all show and go and no substance? I see that the age of the Virtual Victim is upon us, especially when someone has gone to the trouble of offing the mannequin of a dead man. Pretty soon there will be a computer game available for this scenario.

But for now, the outré spectacle of a murdered costume is real-time, in the here and now.

Only in Las Vegas, of course.

Chapter 11

Any Way You Want Me

(A million-selling hit Elvis recorded in his Golden Year of 1956 at RCA)

A head poked around the dressing room door.

“I heard about the deceased jumpsuit and came to see it if was one of mine.”

The face was cherubic under a gleaming helm of high, wide, and handsome dark hair, with the heavy sideburns resembling the hinged metal side-flaps on a knight’s helmet.

Temple had never pictured Elvis Presley as Sir Lancelot, but these stylized wigs sure made the comparison apt. The hair looked lacquered enough to resist a direct hit by a medieval mace.

“Hi, Kenny,” Quincey greeted him.

The Elvis imitator sashayed into the room, still gazing at the fallen jumpsuit with fascinated disbelief. “Man, that’s one of those wool-gabardine numbers out of De-troit. Must be worth three grand … or was before the blood got on it.”

“Nail polish,” Temple said, drawing his attention for the first time.

“Say, this must be a shock for you, kid, coming over to visit your classmate and running into a ruined Elvis suit.”

Most gainfully employed women of thirty would be thrilled to be taken for a high-school senior. Temple, at five-feet-three tops in high heels, considered it a declaration of war.

“I do PR for the Crystal Phoenix,” she said as crisply as a military officer giving rank. “We’ve had a … manifestation at a construction site and I came over here to look into it.”

Kenny frowned, which did not budge his hairline a centimeter. “Why would you come over here to check out a problem on a work site all the way over at the Crystal Phoenix?”

“The disruption was apparently an Elvis sighting.”

“Whoo, boy! There’s a few of those in town right now, and I bet that’s always happening.” He nodded at the suit. “Wow. This thing has been laid out, excuse the expression, in the position of a chalk body outline from a crime show on TV. D’you suppose the suit was out for an unauthorized walk, got attacked at the Phoenix, and made it back here before collapsing?”

“Anything is possible,” Temple said, meaning it.

Standing here talking to a five-feet-six Elvis clone (the real one had been around six feet, she guessed) with a sixties Priscilla Presley looking on was more than a trip down memory lane, it was a trip, period. And trips like that, Temple had supposed, were mostly of seventies vintage, when LSD was the operating system of choice.

Quincey must have decided that too, because she sat down and returned to arranging her layers of false eyelashes in the mirror, using a straight pin to strip the excess mascara off each one. There was a lot of excess mascara to lose.

Kenny shook his head sadly at the dead jumpsuit. “I’m glad it isn’t one of mine. Bet it wasn’t insured either. We put a lot of time and heart and soul into our acts, but we put our cash into the jumpsuits. And the hair.” He pointed upward, as if anyone could miss the Hair.

“So word about the ruined jumpsuit is getting around,” Temple said, encouraging further confidences.

She wanted to figure out if there was any reason an Elvis imitator would make an unscheduled appearance at the Jersey Joe Jackson Mine Ride-in-progress. Or if anyone might have a motive for laying someone’s expensive costume low. Anything that touched the Crystal Phoenix was her business.

Kenny pulled out a wooden chair, flipped it around and sat so he could cradle his forearms on the back. He was a bantam Elvis, chunky, with overdeveloped muscles rather than fat, his high hair like a brunet coxcomb. Despite his rounded features, no one would mistake him for a high-schooler. Temple guessed that he was a decade older than she.