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The rest of them were trim, foxy-looking dudes with their naturally dark hair moussed, fluffed, and tousled, wearing their blue suede shoes or miniboots, and their various intensity of sideburns, from eyelash-thin to Bigfoot-sized radiator brush.

“How are more Elvis imitators going to do anything to guard me?” Quincey asked a bit less sullenly. She was the age when somewhat older men were intriguing. In fact, at sixteen, she was already a bit old for the real Elvis.

“That’s easy,” Motorcycle Elvis said, stepping forward so his neck-to-ankle black leather suit squeaked. “We are muscle first and musicians second.”

“And,” Cape-and-Cane Elvis added, sweeping aside the cape with his cane to reveal a sidearm, “we follow Elvis’s sterling example in accessories. Or perhaps I should say ‘steel-blue’ example.”

Quincey’s pale hazel eyes widened enough to push back the raccoon rings of eyeliner surrounding them. “Elvis was a gun nut. You guys could get into trouble for carrying concealed weapons.”

“Only if you tell on us, little lady,” Fifties Elvis said with an off-center smirk.

“Now.” Gold Lamé Elvis made a fingernail-buffing gesture on his rhinestone lapels that must have scratched his knuckles. Maybe they itched. “At least one of us will be with you at all times. The others will blend among other Elvis types and see what they can learn about whoever might have gone after your lovely neck with a razor blade.”

“I guess that’s all right,” Quincey allowed. “You guys don’t drag down my Priscilla outfit. Some of these Elvis costumes are so cheap and cheesy.” Then a girlish storm threatened. “Except him.” She pointed a perfectly manicured pale pink fingernail at Oversized Elvis. There was an awkward pause. “Really, Priscilla was out of the picture by the time Elvis got so gross. I’m only pointing this out for reasons of historical accuracy.” She eyed every one of them except Oversized Elvis. “It’s not like I have anything against Old Elvis.”

Of course she did, Temple thought. And so had the millions of people who voted a few years ago for the Young Elvis postage-stamp image, not the Mature Elvis likeness.

Oversized Elvis ebbed diplomatically to the back of the entourage. He also serves who only stands and waits.

After some discussion, it was decided that Fifties Elvis and Motorcycle Elvis should share the first-shift duties of shadowing Priscilla.

Temple retreated into the hallway with the remaining seven Elvi.

“You look terrific, guys!” she told them. “How did you rustle up such high-class King duds so fast?” She hadn’t a prayer of telling who was who behind the assorted Elvis facades and decided to refer to them as their costumes dictated.

“No problem,” said Tuxedo Elvis, his curly shirtfront ruffles matching the boyish wave in the locks that brushed his forehead. “We had the hair already, Super-glue provided the sideburns.”

“Hair is easy to duplicate. What about the costumes?” There was much blue-suede shoe shuffling.

Fifties Elvis bashfully tapped his shoe-toe on the concrete, then shrugged. “The hotel has this ‘see yourself as Elvis’ photo booth. They have everything but the suit he was buried in.”

“That would be tasteless,” Oversized Elvis said. “Even Elvis wouldn’t have liked that pale suit with the blue shirt and white tie.”

Temple was not assuaged. “Wait a minute! A photo booth does not explain how you all got duded up in period so fast.”

Karate Elvis launched himself into a fighting pose. “It’s like this, Miss Temple. We know the operator and know how to encourage cooperation.”

“Moolah.” Cape-and-Cane Elvis nodded knowingly. “And then we got Minnie the Miracle-worker to fit everything and gussy up the outfits—”

“The theatrical seamstress, Minnie Mabel Oliver. I remember her! I met her during the Darren Cooke case.”

“Was that a case?” Gold Lamé Elvis asked. “Or was it an accident?”

“The jury’s still out,” Temple said grimly.

“Just like it’s still out on Elvis’s death.” Karate Elvis executed a leap that landed him nearly on top of Temple.

“I don’t think so, boys. Besides, we don’t have to worry about a dead Elvis on the premises. It’s ‘Priscilla’ I’m concerned about. Apparently everybody around Elvis disliked her.”

“Well, she wasn’t one of the boys, was she?”

Temple stared at Blues Brothers Elvis, whichever Fontana brother he was. “That’s very true. It was a primal battle for control of Elvis: would his shy, sensitive private side win, or the adolescent bad boy that the world idolized?”

Motorcycle Elvis executed a pelvis move that left no doubt which side of Elvis he was voting for.

“Either way, I guess he was charming as a prince.” “You got that right,” Cape-and-Cane Elvis said. “A Prince of Darkness.”

“Well, you guys are all princes for taking on this bodyguard detail. You’re not actually competing, I hope.”

Motorcycle Elvis managed a devilish grin that lifted his upper lip, left side, just like the original’s. “Why not? Where else can we learn who might be pestering our little Priscilla? Elvis wouldn’t like that.”

“He was very protective of her.”

“She was his bird in a gilded cage, and that chick was not gonna fly away on him.”

“But she did,” Temple said. “And a lot of people blame her defection for his decline and fall.”

“Enough to kill even her image?” Tuxedo Elvis asked.

“That’s what Elvis was all about, wasn’t it? Image. In that kind of world, even a jumpsuit isn’t too inanimate to hate.”

They nodded soberly.

Someone who would stage the killing of a costume was not operating with all hinges screwed in tight.

Chapter 25

Fame and Fortune

(The first song Elvis recorded after leaving the army in 1960)

“I can’t do it,” Matt said. “I can’t play games with a sick man.”

He was staring at the front-page headline on the Las Vegas Scoop that lay across Temple’s coffee table: IS IT ELVIS, OR IS IT EYEWASH? Matt had brought the tabloid journal here. It was more of an advert than a newspaper. Temple’s coffee table wouldn’t be caught dead upholding the sleazy daily that took Las Vegas’s pulse at its most diseased. Other cities had their artsy “alternative” weeklies that covered the arts. Las Vegas had the Scoop (what she considered short for Pooper Scooper) whose motto could be: “All the dirt that’s fit to sling.”

The subhead was even worse: “Talk Jock Shoots Breeze with the King.” Then the story: Hot new after-hours air-head Matt Devine at WCOO-AM has held a couple post-midnight tête-à-têtes with the purported King of Rock ‘n’ Roll, worth mentioning only because said purported King is also purported to be dead.

Elvis, don’t be cruel! Tell us if it’s really you waxing melancholy at length—at Long Playing length, maybe; remember those good ole LP days?—in conversation with Mr. Midnight.

On the other hand, our spies (and we have countless spies everywhere, thank you, loyal readers) tell us that local radio’s recent hero—he talked a homicidal new mama into sparing her infant until the cavalry could get there—was seen hobnobbing with the Elvis imitators in town for the Kingdome’s gala opening next week.

Could our local hero be craving more publicity and making sure that he gets it with the collusion of an out-of-town Elvis? Makes you wonder. But then maybe that’s what the radio shrink and WCOO-AM want: all of us wondering and tuning in.

How about opening the air waves to the skeptics, Mr. Midnight? Viewers should call the Midnight Hour with some hard questions for the show’s most famous (and surely phony) guest. Think you’re enough of an Elvis expert to stump the supposed King himself? Call WCOO-AM from midnight to 1 A.M. and put Mr. Midnight to the test. Maybe you’ll be a local hero for putting a faux Elvis to rest.