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“Oh, Elvis loved the Meditation Garden. Can’t I peek now?”

“Security would get its nightsticks in a tangle over that.”

“Were they able to suggest the family graves at all?” “I don’t know. I didn’t look into this area, just backstage.”

“Please,” Electra begged, voice quivering. “The garden is the best part of the real Graceland. I’m dying to see how they evoked that without violating any estate prerogative.”

“Well …” Temple looked around. The discreet path that led to the Medication Garden would probably be lined with spotlights by the formal opening night, but now it was definitely a path less trodden. In fact, it looked like a dead end.

She herself was dying to know how the hotel would produce what people expected to see without treading on a copyright or a trademark. How do you construct a Disneyland without Mickey Mouse? So she led Electra past the DO NOT ENTER sign and through a winding, foliage-edged route that reminded her of the Enchanted Forest in Oz.

“The Meditation Garden is so impressive at Graceland,” Electra was still recalling. “Do they have the lovely stained-glass panels and fountains here?”

“I did hear that there’s a pool, but no graves. I guess graves aren’t considered commercial in Las Vegas. I heard they did something spectacular so you can visit and meditate on the many stages of Elvis.”

The path flared like a bellbottom pantleg into a semicircular stage scene. A kidney-shaped pool whose waters were that ultrasweet pastel aqua-sky color Matt Devine had called Virgin Mary Blue lay in the background like a parenthesis curving around a colonnade of white pillars. Between the pillars, jewel-toned stained-glass Elvi shone like Saturday-night saints. Amid the flower beds offering an incense of pungent herbal aromas lay a smaller semicircle of what, at first glance, resembled a quintet of Sleeping Beauties in their glass coffins.

Temple gazed down on the display, at first not aware that instead of actual figures, jewel-emblazoned jumpsuits lay in state. Despite the priceless opportunity to see the costumer’s art so close at hand, Temple had thesudden, sinking vision of the man who had once worn such creations. She saw him melting like the wicked witch in Oz, until only these empty suits, these abandoned carapaces were left. He had probably died long before he had ceased to wear and perform in them.

“These jumpsuits are even more exquisite than the ones in the dome.” Electra bent to study the jewel-encrusted emblems. “Are these real gemstones—?”

“Careful! Whatever they are, there are probably pressure alarms all over the place, like in museums. Stay on the path.”

Temple felt a chill beyond the mere worry of tripping some exotic security system. She had recognized the middle suit, a simpler, street-model suit: It was covered in solid white rhinestones, like one of Liberace’s grand pianos dressed in mirror tiles, but the shirt beneath it was pale blue, and a white rhinestone tie dissected the vacant chest like the bottom Y of a coroner’s autopsy cut. Strip the suit of its skin of glitter, and Temple recognized the simple ensemble Elvis had been laid out and buried in almost twenty years to the day after he had hysterically seen his mother to her own rest: the white suit Vernon had given him, blue shirt, white tie. Temple suddenly thought of the dead twin buried in an unmarked Tupelo grave forty-one and a half years before Elvis was laid out in Graceland; what had he worn to be buried in, Jesse Garon? Electra grabbed her arm and squeezed hard. “Look! What can they be trying to do there? Why is that jumpsuit floating in the pool?”

Because one was, front-side down, floating like a giant dew-begemmed lilypad riding the azure of Hawaiian coves, sparkling and spinning in the gentle current of recirculating chlorinated water.

Only this jumpsuit was inhabited. A man’s dark hair floated free above the high Napoleonic collar.

And a man’s bloated white fingers, choked with chunky gold rings, spread like dead starfish at the ends of the glittering jumpsuit sleeves.

And, a man’s bare heels protruded from the flared, floating bellbottom pantlegs.

Electra shrieked, but not at the sight of the dead man.

Temple stopped herself from following suit, also glimpsing a long rope in the water. No, not a rope, just the pool creepy-crawler, an automated vacuum on a length of hose that kept the water clean.

Then the hose twisted up as if animated and entwined with the real beast that had been loosened on this garden of Elvisian Eden. Temple finally joined Electra’s vocalizations.

A huge, mottled snake coiled around the floating corpse and dragged it down into the crystal-clear water, a snake as big around as a fireplug, as long as a living room.

A snake right out of Graceland’s Jungle Room, a South American constrictor as big as the Ritz, the Circle Ritz.

Chapter 30

Crawfish

(A highlight duet from King Creole, 1958)

There I am, the intrepid investigator, pinned belly-down in the dirt by an allergy attack.

An overwhelming scent of lemon and mint (not my odors—or colors—of choice) has hit me like a wall of Kryptonite blocking Superman’s heroic powers.

This place looked like an ordinary, innocent garden of Eden. How was I to know it was packed with pharmaceutical flower beds? All I need to fully incapacitate myself would be a wave of coconut-scented tanning lotion. Luckily, no human hide is sunning near the swimming pool, and the chlorinated fumes it dispenses act on me like smelling salts did on ladies of yore. Nothing like strong chemical odors to disperse a fit of the vapors one can ill afford.

Meanwhile, my two lady friends—imagine seeing them here!—continue to caterwaul.

In Miss Temple’s case, I am sure the appearance of the gigantic reptile is far more responsible for her unusual screaming fit than the mere presence of a dead body floating in the pool. Miss Temple is on familiar terms with dead bodies. Even the fact that this one is so garishly attired should not be sufficient to launch the current hysterics.

On the other hand, that is one big mama of a water snake. No doubt it has done body-double work for Nessie of Scotland fame. Me, I am not afraid of snakes unless they carry concealed poisons. Otherwise, they make charming playthings. I do love how they slide across the floor like a bit of yarn dangled to challenge my mitt-eye coordination by humans hoping to amuse.

Still, despite my high opinion of Miss Temple’s intrepitude, I have never told her of the family of garter snakes that found their way under the French doors while she was gone. Of how I discovered them rooting in her assorted sundries drawer and was forced to herd them off. It took the better part of the afternoon for me to escort them to the patio and then down the palm tree trunk. Since these were mere . what does one call baby snakes? Snakelets? … youngsters, I delicately nipped each one up by the neck and transferred it to the tree trunk, from where it wiggled down into the waiting, er, presence of Mama.

But yonder ophidian is not on quite the same scale, excuse the pun, as a string of garter snakes. I have not seen such a large specimen since the movie Anaconda! came and went faster than a whipsnake.

Yet despite the presence of a snake capable of strangling King Kong and the debilitating weeds contaminating my immediate area, I realize that I have an emergency job of herding to do: my two dear ladies had better shut up and skedaddle before they are caught raw-throated at the scene of a crime.

Ere I can leap from my cover, sneeze for their attention, and drive them out of this wonderland of weirdness, I spy the suspicious character I have been tailing emerging from behind a stained-glass representation of Elvis crucified against a cloak of gold.