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“We didn’t really think he’d call himself a dumb coyote.”

“He was too cool a guy.”

Temple nodded, reminded how fast the plays and songs of the one day fade into the fads of the next generation, and how remarkable it was that no one was letting Elvis turn the same sepia-brown of memory.

Not while anyone was alive to don a jeweled jumpsuit and another man’s dream, anyway. Another man’s dream-turned-nightmare.

“Hey, Miss Temple, don’t look sad. I got some news that will perk you right up.”

“What is that?” she asked. They answered serially. “The scuttlebutt.”

“Around here.”

“Snake’s off the hook.”

“Didn’t do it.”

“Naw, the guy was throttled, all right, but the snake would have crushed his chest, not his throat.”

“So the snake is as innocent as a lamb.”

“Who’s guilty then?” Temple asked.

“We don’t know.”

“We do know that the so-called Memphis Mafia is crawling all over this place.”

“Hotel security.” Temple nodded.

The Fontana boys shook their heads until Elvis forelocks drew cocky, dark commas on every brow. They gathered even closer, lowered their voices to a softer, conspiratorial level.

“See, we know a bit about Mafia guys.”

“Just comes with the territory.”

“What territory is that?” Temple wondered.

“Being Italian, of course.”

“So what do you know?” she persisted.

“There’s Mafia here, all right. The real thing. Blending right in.”

“Since the death?”

Their weirdly inappropriate blue eyes exchanged fur-live glances.

“Since before. It’s a good thing we’re undercover. Otherwise, some wise guys would be giving us guff.” “And we’d have to give it right back.”

“Guff, that is.”

“Guff.” Why did Temple think that “guff” came with a caliber?

“The way it is, we’re in a perfect position to watch them watching everyone else.”

“You’re saying these are heavy players,” Temple tried to clarify.

“Yeah. Not any of Boss Banana’s local muscle-heads. These are outa-town dudes. Guys from the garbage and cement-mixing business. Old school.”

“Bet they could dig up Jimmy Hoffa in two minutes flat if they wanted to, and dump him on the main stage of the MGM-Grand to do a soft shoe.”

“Oooh.” Temple’s active imagination was about to make her sick.

But the brothers Fontana pressed so close they held her up, stiffened her spine, and maybe her upper lip, which had never been known to sneer.

“We also think—”

“Some of the suits—““Are passing as hotel security—”

“But are into security in a lot bigger way.”

“Like for the whole U.S. of A.”

Temple blinked. She thought. She thought like a gangster, which was a stretch a custom limousine would aspire to.

“Feds?” she whispered in disbelief.

Six blue-black helmets of Elvis hair nodded. “She’s fast for an amateur,” one said.

“What kind of feds? ATF? Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms?” Elvis had drunk occasionally, had always smoked little cigars, and was a major gun collector, and carrier, during his later years. “DEA? Drugs were really his Waterloo. IRS?” He had overpaid his taxes, to a ridiculous point. “Urn, what else is there?” Or maybe it had nothing to do with Elvis at all.

Their faces were impassive.

“We don’t know exactly. We just can smell shills on both sides of the law among the usual dopey hotel muscle. You know, you put on one of those uptight black suits, a white shirt and shades, and you could pass for a Blues Brother or a presidential bodyguard or an enforcer out of any northern city like Chicago.”

“Used to be a big Chicago connection to Vegas. Who do you think did in Bugsy Siegel?”

“But that was really decades ago. Way back beyond Elvis,” Temple objected.

“The Mob has a long memory,” Blues Brother Elvis said, his eyes hidden behind his shades.

“And so do we.” There was nothing hidden about Oversized Elvis’s expression.

Chapter 35

Animal Instinct

(This song was cut from 1965’s Harum Scarum and never heard or seen again)

When a really heinous crook is characterized as too evil to live, usually all and sundry describe him as “an animal.”

That is human nature for you, always looking for some other part of nature to take the blame for the bad stuff.

Sometimes they will call the offender “an insect,” but that is usually for piss-ant, penny-ante stuff.

I have long taken exception to the human tendency to attach their own kind’s worst actions to the animal world. It implies that we of the furred and haired and hided sort have no morals. And we do not. Morals are a cross that humans give themselves to bear. We merely have “behavior” and “instinct.”

And more brains and nicety than we are given credit for.

So I realize early on that the unfortunate serpent who was dunked into the pool with the corpus delecti is nowa suspect du jour. I also realize that the usually tongue-tied snake (and it has the forked tongue to tie) might have something relevant to say, and that I am the very one—the only one—ready, willing, and able to unlatch this snake’s two-way tongue.

Now this is no easy assignment. I have not conversed with serpents before, although I have had words with a lizard or two. Snakes are notoriously tight-lipped, as well as being a clannish sort. I can only imagine what a lone tropical snake imported to the concrete-and-neon jungle of Las Vegas might wish to keep to itself.

There is no good way to cozy up to a snake.

But I thrive on challenge, and Chatter has lived up to his name and been full of palaver but not much solid information, so I hie myself off to the Animal Elvis exhibition area behind the Medication Garden that proved so unhappy an experience for the two little dolls from the Circle Ritz, and for some benighted Elvis wannabe before them.

My little dolls need my usual stalwart assistance, though they do not know it, which is also usual. Besides, I am catching Elvis fever just like everybody else. Enquiring minds want to know who is messing with the King’s new playground.

I am not sure what I should expect besides dogs, horses, and. the serpent. I have never interrogated a zoo before. With horses I am on good, if somewhat distant, terms. I am a city lad and more inclined to hitching a ride on a passing pickup than on a horsehair hammock.

Dogs are always touchy. I have been chased for my very life too many times in my early days as a gentleman of the road. Although my species is adept at bullying the bully-boys, when we are young we are often not aware of our powers and may be intimidated. I am sorry to say that my forays with canines have left me with an understandable disdain for the breed. I will have to proceed delicately with the dogs, so as not to betray my natural dislike.

Luckily, the attraction—although I cannot see how a compound of animals not including any felines could possibly be termed an “attraction”—is not open for business yet.

I should have free run of the place.

I decide to hie up top to interview the noble equine first. I have never known a horse not to talk sense, and find it outrageous that such a mild and useful breed has been so badly misused by humans. Although I have been known to dream that I am the size and incisor-level of the awesome saber-tooth tiger so faint in my ancestry, I have never regretted being too small to ride or to bear or to drag burdens. It is one supreme advantage the domesticated branch of my species has.

The animals are kept, of course, in an outdoor park that I imagine evokes Graceland’s rolling acres.