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But Leticia’s expression was rapt beyond the glass window, and her hand was making the circling motion that meant: keep it going.

“What can I do to help you?” Matt asked.

“Well, son, I came up the hard way, never got much education … not that I wasn’t plenty sharp. I made me, and don’t let anyone tell you different. But it all just hit so fast when I was so young, and before you know it I’m hidin’ out from fans. Though I never did manage to hide out from the pretty ones, you know what I mean?”

Matt disliked the complacent womanizing tone. “So you only care about attractive fans.”

“No, man! You don’t know me. I love ‘em all, and they love me back. But there are … side benefits, all right? But that was before I got in touch with my spiritual side.”

Matt rolled his eyes at Leticia. This guy sounded about as spiritual as a tire iron.

“I had my fun,” the caller admitted. “More than any one man has ever had, I’ll bet. But I lost my mama when I was young, and we were real close. Couldn’t buy her all the things she’d never had, she was gone that fast. Couldn’t buy her anything then, but at least she had that pink Cadillac. She didn’t drive, but what’s money for but spendin’? Wish I’d-a watched who was spendin’ what, though. I had to work too hard on my movies and stage shows to wanta do much but have fun when I wasn’t workin’. Guess I shoulda been watchin’ the purse strings, like they say. I made a lotta money, but a lotta people made too much money off me. It makes me mad, to tell you the truth, when I lie here after a show and everybody’s gone and my mind goes round and round,and nothin’ can touch that feelin’ and I can’t sleep no matter what I take. I shoulda watched out for myself more. But I thought I was payin’ them to watch out for me. And they did, as much as I’d let ‘em. Maybe I didn’t let ‘em much.”

“The problems you describe are very real, except for the scale you live your life on. You’re too pampered, that’s the problem. You sound too isolated. If you have so many people around taking care of your every want, why do you need to call me?”

“That’s just it. Seems like they’re not around anymore. First my mama gone, then my little-girl wife and my little girl, then some of the boys turned on me. I don’t know what to do. I try to go on with my shows, but they take so much out of me, and it gets harder and harder to live from show to show. Oh, they say, see a shrink, but I’m not gonna have no guy rootin’ around in my head where no one can see it. I’m in a rut and I don’t know how to get out of it. I need to talk to somebody I don’t pay, and you’re the only one I could think of.”

Matt caught sight of Leticia’s flailing arm, hand pointing to her wrist watch. Almost out of time.

“You have big problems all right; more than a few minutes on a phone can solve.”

“Maybe I can call again.”

Matt devoutly hoped not, but this show was like an old-fashioned confessional: you couldn’t stop anyone who wanted to from walking in, keeling down, and confessing all their sins. Here, at least, you could cut them off the air if they took too much time, and this guy definitely had.

“You can always call again,” Matt said reassuringly, but he had already grown cynical enough to add mentally, if anyone lets you through.

“That’s good. That’s all right.” The man sounded genuinely relieved, and Matt felt a stab of pity for him. “Thank you. Thank you verra much.”

Matt rolled his head on his shoulders while taking off the headphones, reducing the muscle tension. The fading rant of a local car dealer commercial was still droning in his ears when Leticia burst into the studio.

When a woman has the face of an archangel, the energy of a whirling dervish, and a three-hundred-pound body, any place she enters is a breakin.

“I know. I let this guy run on too long.”

“Too long? Didn’t you recognize his voice?”

“Recognize his voice? The only celebrity I ever counseled before was at ConTact, and this wasn’t him. This voice was baritone, all right, but with a slurry kind of accent.”

“A Southern accent, maybe.”

“Yeah, but it was, ah, softened, like he’d been out of the South for some time.”

“Oh, he sure has, honey chile. That man has been off the planet for twenty-two years.”

“He’s that far gone mentally, huh? Sorry, I guess I’m not up on the entertainers at all the hotels. Should I have known him?”

Leticia said nothing, just came over and enveloped him in a smothering, industrial-strength hug.

“Matt, baby, you are the sweetest, out-of-the-loop thing, bless your heart. Don’t you even have a clue who that was? Watch our numbers soar now! That was the Hillbilly Cat, Mr. Las Vegas, the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll, E. the P., the no-longer-late Elvis Presley, or I’m just ninety pounds of soggy grits and chitlin’s.”

“But … he’s dead.”

“Not on WCOO-AM he isn’t. Ohhh, baby!”

Chapter 14

Louie,Louie

(Elvis recorded the 1898-composed “The Whiffenpoof Song,” which mentions a Temple Bar and Louie the bartender in 1968; it was used in 1969’s The Trouble with Girls)

Okay, Elvis never recorded any version of my eponymous song, that venerable drinking anthem that has so enliv-ened the past couple decades.

But he did record “The Whiffenpoof Song,” another, far older drinking song in which I and my Miss Temple Barr are mentioned. (Indirectly, of course, but we always were discreet. Or rather, I was. I cannot speak for Miss Temple Barr, especially during her obscure years before she met me.) The King recorded Whiffenpoof back in ‘68, and it was used a year later in one of his films, The Trouble with Girls. Not that the King had any trouble with girls other than beating them off.

This is how I know so much about the ultimate E. We have a lot in common.

After my undercover visit to the Kingdome. it is natural that Elvis should be on my mind. I have retreated home to the Circle Ritz overnight, so Miss Temple finds me innocently sitting on her sofa or her bed, whichever will lnconvenience her most at the moment, apparently lazing away my days and nights. Like Nero Wolfe, my mind is most active when I appear most physically inactive.

It is clear that any hijinks involvlng Elvis, whether at the Crystal Phoenix or the Kingdome, will require a vast insight into the man, his life, and times. For me, this is a snap. We have a lot in common.

You could say that Elvis Presley and I are synonymous with Las Vegas.

True, he did not appear to recognize the concept of “low-profile,” and I am a master of blending into my environment, but we share a certain raw animal magnetism and a taste for exotic dishes both voluptuary and culinary.

Neither of us went for health food, that was for sure. I am certain all are familiar with E’s adoration of burnt-black bacon, hard-fried eggs you could use as blackjacks, buttermilk biscuits, and the infamous fried bananapeanut-butter sandwiches. To him, fruit and vegetables were major abominations, as the Free-to-Be-Feline food pellets that resemble health-store pills are to me.

I do lack E’s flair and passion for dressing up, and I do not need the services of his later, ever-present sunglasses. My sunglasses, like my concealed weapons, are built in. I have these laser-fast pupils that contract to shut out too much light. I bet Elvis would have really grooved on my eyes, could he have begged, borrowed, or bought them.

And he would have tried

Chapter 15

Heartbreak Hotel

(Written by Tommy Durden and Hoyt Axton’s mother Mae, snapped up by Elvis in November 1955, and recorded in January 1956; Elvis’s first million-seller)