Unknown - Douglas_Carole_Nelson_Cat_in_a_Jeweled_Jumpsuit_Bo

It was the design embroidered on the back of his martial arts gi: from where she sat, it looked remarkably like a rearing stallion. (She had read enough about Elvis by now to sit back and free associate. Rising Sun was the name of Elvis’s horse, and also a bow to Eastern mysticism and Japan, the land of the Rising Sun. It even could refer to Sun Records, his first recording house. He had called the ranch where the horses were kept the House of the Rising Sun.) Around the equine rampant radiated stylized sunbursts of gilt and red embroidery: fireworks, if you will, also an Eastern invention, whence came the rising sun every morning. And of course dawn was the symbol of rebirth.

Just how old was this guy under the iconistic disguise? Could he possibly be a fit sixty-four … oh, Temple, get a grip! Still … his performance had given her chills.

And she didn’t even like Elvis, or his music, or his looks, or his lifestyle, or his legend.

Chapter 40

Bossa Nova Baby

(From Fun in Acapulco, another of Elvis’s “travelogue” movies)

My first notion is to panic. Here I am, entrapped in the dark by person or persons unknown.

Except that I have a pretty good clue to the identity of my captor, especially when I inhale deeply to keep from having the breath squeezed out of me, and smell banana breath.

“Well,” I growl, “you have already answered one of my questions. I now know that you like to wander at will if your master forgets to latch your cage.”

I am dropped like a hot potato, or more accurately, a mashed one.

“You not human,” the creature manages to spit out between indecipherable syllables of high-pitched chatter. “Human come. Feed. Human come. Talk. You not human.”

“That is good to hear.” I shake myself to repair theflattened hairs. My coat of choice may not be Memphis Mafia mohair, or Elvis jumpsuit wool gabardine, but it is a decent set of threads, even if they are home-grown. “I had thought you had to exist here alone in the dark all the time.”

I get a long drum-roll of chatter in its native language. Then it settles down to tell Louie all.

“Only for surprise,” Chatter says. “Chatter big surprise. Must wait in dark. Be patient. Be patient.” I can tell the poor monk is repeating the mantra some human has put in his head. “Chatter perform soon.”

I suddenly have an inspiration. “Hey, Chatter. Jump up at the wall there next to the door. Yeah, right there. See where the crack of light from the outside ends. Right. There is a small switch on the wall. Pull it down as you descend.” No use exerting myself when there is someone else around to do the dirty work, that is, any work at all.

Amid screams of excitement, Chatter manages to follow instructions, and after several upward bounds hailed by arpeggios of awful squawking, fluorescent light suddenly floods down on us like a jungle rainstorm.

Chatter’s hairy little form is now in full display. I examine his long arms and the naked fingers at the end of his large hairy hands. His naked face is repellent to one of my breed. Chatter is like a halfway house between the animal and the human, and I find this cross-species appearance and behavior unsettling. One should either be four-or two-footed, I feel, but Chatter proceeds to canter around the storage space, his legs doing the leaping and his dragging forearms dipping now and then along the ground like oars.

“What is it that you do when you perform?”

“I play the … the—” The chimpy chump makes sounds like a machine gun gagging.

After about five minutes of close interrogation, I determine that Chatter plays a musical instrument. Yuk-yuk-yuk-yuk.

I finally realize that Chatter is not doing a bad Curly of Three Stooges fame imitation, but is trying to articulate the name of his instrument of choice. A ukulele. What a word! He plays this tongue-twister instrument wearing, of course, the miniature Elvis jumpsuit I spied hanging from his cage on my first visit.

Now that we have light, I head for the cage, jumping atop some piled boxes and then climbing the chicken wire side to inspect the costume hanging high above the concrete floor.

I am not thrilled about performing this high-wire act, but I need to investigate the ape suit. I had noticed that this jeweled jumpsuit included a built-in diaper, which would not have been a bad idea for the original wearer, given the sad state drugs had put him into during his last months. To my expert eye, and I have in the past discovered smuggled diamonds, the stones begemming the suit are purely glass and plastic. I bat at the low-slung seat to see if the built-in diaper is suspiciously heavy. (It would be an excellent hiding-place for smuggled goods, since who is going to inspect a chimp diaper but the keeper?) Nothing but the usual absorbent padding.

And, by the way, if chimpanzees are supposed to be the next thing to human, give or take an australopithecene this or that discovered hither and thither, how come they have not the basic elimination skills you can find in an alley cat? A much overrated species, in my opinion, and Chatter is doing nothing to change that conclusion.

“Louie climb good,” he comments, leaping up and down on his knuckles from below.

“When I have to.” I let my built-in pitons relax and drop back onto the box top.

Then I turn my attention to Chatter’s cage latch. No doubt about it, the critter has excellent motor control in his fingers. And that damnable opposable thumb .. .

“I see you’ve figured out a way to let yourself in and out of confinement,” I note.

Chatter jumps up and down, screaming, which I assume is his way of taking the Fifth.

I jump down to the concrete to join him.

“I like visitors,” he screeches. “I like Cilia.”

This is not surprising. I knew the beauty was sneaking in to visit the beast, but I never knew why.

“Is she your friend?”

“Friend. Cilia pat Chatter. Cilia talk Chatter. Cilia bring presents.”

“Okay. “Fess up. Who is your master? Who brought you here?”

“Master?”

“Do not play dumb. I am not your usual gullible human. You are an impersonator as much as all those Elvis clones running around out there. You represent Elvis’s pet chimp Scatter. You were brought here for a purpose. Was it just to play second banana to some Elvis impersonator? Or something else?”

Chatter hides his ugly mug behind his funky fingers, just his bright beady eyes peeping out, looking oh-so-coy. “Chatter play tricks.”

“I know. The ukulele.”

“More! Chatter run around.”

“So does a gerbil.”

“Chatter run around and look up the lady skirts. Big laugh.”

“Nasty trick. I bet the original Scatter was a peeping Tom too. Is that all you can do, act like a deviate?”

He may not know the word, but he is smart enough to recognize an insult when he hears one. Chatter screams at me, monkey invective. “Chatter clever. Chatter smart. Chatter open cage and no one knows.”

“Hah. Louie knows.”

“Not just here.”

“Not just here? Then where?”

Chatter’s marble-round eyes squint shut, just like a human suspect when he is feeling shifty. “Upstairs.” “You got loose upstairs?”

“I get loose.”

“And did you let anything else loose?”

Chatter plays peekaboo through his fingers again.

I quash a spasm of annoyance. I am getting the picture. This lethal weapon with the opposable thumbs is a loose cannon on a very big deck.

“Did you let Trojan out of his container?”

“Trojan?”

“The big snake.”

“Biiiig snake. Jungle creature like Chatter. Big snake like to get out of cage.”

“So who put you up to it?”

“I not put up. I jump down to open latch.”