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They regarded the story silently, until Matt spoke again. “You’re the media expert. What should I do now?”

“I bet this is Crawford Buchanan’s work, even though the story doesn’t have a byline. It’s tawdry, cheap, and despicable … but I think it’s a good idea.”

“Seeing that the so-called Elvis is kept off the air?” “No! Letting the listeners call in and try to stump him. Bet Leticia could kiss the guy who wrote this article, even if it is the Awful Crawf. It’s great marketing.” “That’s just it! I don’t think we have a right to ‘market’ a sick man.”

“Maybe not, but maybe he’s not so sick.”

“How can you say that? I’ve heard genuine hurt in what that man says.”

“Then help him. Help him understand himself; that could do him good, whoever he is. And maybe connecting him with his ‘fans,’ even indirectly, will help him more.”

“Listen to yourself, Temple! ‘His fans.’ That’s what I’m worried about, people being so crazy themselves wanting to have the King back that they’ll buy any scheme or delusion.”

Temple shrugged. “That’s the great American public at its best. They want to believe, even if they know deep down it’s a snare and delusion. That’s what all entertainment is about: erecting illusions, fulfilling wishful thinking. Build it and they will come. You know there’s a whole world of Elvis worshippers out there hoping he isn’t dead. Maybe he can live a little, love a little again, through your show.”

“ ‘Live a Little, Love a Little …’ Even you, Temple, have sold out! This is insane. I can’t counsel a dead man through a delusional go-between. This guy might be suicidal, and if the ‘fans’ call in grilling him, who knows what he might do?”

“Good point.” Temple frowned down at the Las Vegas Scoop. “You should be the go-between for the fans. Don’t let them call in directly, just relay their questions, or bring up the issue when you talk to him.”

“He might not ever call again.”

“I doubt it. The King performed up to the very end. That’s the only thing that kept him going even as it destroyed him. He’ll call again.”

“I don’t like it,” Matt said.

Temple frowned again. Saleswomen at cosmetic counters cringed in agony if they caught her doing it, but it was one of her best expressions. Anyone who couldn’t frown couldn’t express uncertainty, and anyone who couldn’t express uncertainty in this world was doomed to disappointment.

She sighed. She knew Matt was terribly sincere, which made him such an excellent foil for the insincere of the world. If he had sensed honest turmoil in his caller, then it was there. Therefore the caller wasn’t a cynical user, at least not totally, no more than Elvis had been once the bloom had blushed off the rose of his naive country-boy youth and upbringing.

“It wasn’t your Elvis”—Matt groaned at her use of “your”—“that brought me to the Kingdome, you know. This whole Elvis thing does involve me, professionally, in a way.”

“What way?” Matt was sounding suspicious and hard-nosed. Good; progress. Lesson one from Life’s Large Instruction Book: Trust no one, especially those you trust most of all.

“There’s been a construction holdup at the Crystal Phoenix. I went over to investigate, then ended up at the Kingdome.”

“What could an Elvis attraction have in common with the classiest little hotel in Las Vegas?”

“That was the construction holdup. They’re excavating the Jersey Joe Jackson action attraction mine ride.” “So?”

“The workmen were balking at digging any further.” “More money?”

“Less shock waves.”

“Shock waves? Underground tremors?”

“Of a sort. They were seeing things.”

“Well, it is a ghost attraction, isn’t it?”

“Yes, but not for this ghost.”

“What ghost?““They’re convinced it’s Elvis.”

“Elvis has gone underground? At the Crystal Phoenix?”

“Do you see any reason someone trying to hype the Kingdome would put in a guest appearance at an underground attraction at another Vegas hotel?”

“Only if he was trying to tunnel his way out of a crypt, and Elvis is very definitely buried in Memphis, at Graceland, in the Meditation Garden, along with his mother and father, and grandmother.”

“If he’s dead.”

“Temple! Things are weird enough without you jumping on the ‘Elvis lives’ bandwagon.”

“I agree that it’s unlikely, but let’s give Elvis a chance. Let his fans, or detractors, call in with itsy-bitsy facts about his life that could trip up an imposter. You relay them in a nonchallenging way, crediting the person who asked the question. Maybe the station could give a trip to Graceland to whoever comes up with the question that stumps the King.”

“Temple, that’s so tawdry, cheap, and despicable. If I weren’t looking at you right now, I’d think you were a Crawford Buchanan imitator.”

“I agree. But … this kind of bad publicity in the Scoop could put your newborn career in jeopardy. You have to demonstrate somehow that this phone-in from Elvis isn’t a put-up job. You have to give the public a shot at proving that he’s a phony.”

Matt ran his fingers into his Fantastic Sam’s low-cost haircut.

“My career,” he said as if naming a new enemy. “Suddenly I’m getting some decent money. I seem to be naturally good at this talk radio stuff, I’m getting a following, I’m getting criticized by the press—”

“Oh, puh-leeze.”

“By the tabloid press, such as it is. Everybody has a stake in me, Leticia, the station, the public who believes I’m a good guy because of the baby incident, only now I’m maybe a bad guy because I might be a colluding fraud. I don’t know what to think and do.”

“Ever think that’s how Elvis began to feel?”

“No. I’ve never really put any effort into thinking how Elvis got the way he got, until now. If this is just a taste of the price of fame, it’s pretty bittersweet.”

“That’s why you can’t stop now. It’s not just the public you owe something to. And the story doesn’t really have to have a pat ending. Let me put it another way: you have to give this man who sounds like Elvis a shot at proving he’s who he says he is.”

Chapter 26

Let Me Be There

(A “sugary pop confection” says one biographer, that Elvis sang in a 1973 concert as he began to retreat from the musical ground gained during his post-comeback touring schedule)

“Have you considered the advantages of an expert assistant?”

Temple considered Electra Lark first.

Her landlady had rung the bell and spent the past fifteen minutes sitting on her sofa bruiting about her qualifications as an Elvis expert, ranging from attending the vital February 14 concert in Carlsbad to avid perusal of virtually every Elvis book published.

“I know, I know,” Temple finally said, interrupting the flow of fannish enthusiasm. Electra was looking more like a toy troll than an Elvis freak today, with her white hair tinted a clownish carroty red.

“Have there been any more manifestations in the Crystal Phoenix underground zone?” Electra asked eagerly.

“‘Manifestations’ implies an incorporeal presence,”

Temple said uneasily. “All I had for witnesses were some workmen more likely to see Elvis in a shapeless blob of light than Princess Diana.” She squinted her eyes at Electra. “It’s hard to picture you in a poodle skirt with a ponytail and anklets, screaming over Elvis. Now that’s a manifestation.”

Electra surprised Temple by blushing, very faintly. “You never saw the man perform live. He put his whole heart and soul into it. You could see it. It was like he was singing just for me, and even if he wasn’t, you felt united with everybody else there. I guess the word for Elvis live was electric.”