Unknown - Douglas_Carole_Nelson_Cat_in_a_Jeweled_Jumpsuit_Bo

“You ever read any G. K. Chesteron?” he asked.

Temple shook her head. “Not an Elvis impersonator, I take it.”

“British writer. Created the Father Brown mysteries in the nineteen-teens and -twenties. Ever read those?” “Not that I can remember.”

“Guess they’re considered old-fashioned these days. Chesterton was a writer with a theological bent. He used Father Brown as a vehicle for his ideas about God and good and evil. Father Brown was this utterly overlookable little man who just happened to understand the human soul in all its extremes.”

Temple nodded politely, as she did at all impromptu lectures, but she was wondering when Frank Bucek would get to the point. She could see him holding forth before a class of seminarians. No wonder so many had left the priesthood.

“Anyway,” Bucek said, sensing her restlessness, “Father Brown once asked Flambeau the thief ‘Where do you hide a leaf?’ `In a forest,’ Flambeau answered. The case involved an officer who died on a battlefield.”

“And you think the killer here is hidden among the Elvis impersonators. Makes sense.”

Bucek’s smile grew patronizing without his realizing it.

Temple felt anger flare, as it did whenever she detected men patronizing her, which they did more than they realized, in no small part because of her petite appearance.

Yet her anger suddenly illuminated the other side of the same equation.

“And someone else was masquerading as an Elvis impersonator! That’s redundant, ‘masquerading as an Elvis impersonator.’ Wasn’t there a rumor after Elvis’s death that he went underground with the witness protection program because his antidrug stance angered the Mob?”

“That’s farfetched, even for conspiracy buffs. Elvis had nothing to do with illegal drugs, except for some LSD he tried once, and a little pot, also a brief experiment. He loved playing power roles, though; that’s why the Memphis Mafia. But it was all play. Nothing to take seriously.”

“Except as a cover at the Kingdome.”

Bucek nodded. “Unfortunately, that works both ways. We have a few real players running around here in shades and suits, just enough to confuse the issue.”

“So. How long had Lyle Purvis been in the witness protection program, if he wasn’t really Elvis?”

“He wasn’t, but he was a lifelong Elvis fan. We went along with the cover because it was the perfect identitywithin-an-identity for him. It’s hard for these guys to drop out of their previous lives, move, get new identities, worry about jobs, all that. Lyle was a loner, divorced, no children. He decided to indulge his secret passion for all things Elvis. It embarrassed him, but no one knew about it. He already had the perfect hobby to hide in, even made pretty good money at it. And the notion that surfaced now and again that he was really Elvis, well … Elvis is a larger-than-life figure. He makes a pretty good screen, just obvious enough that everybody looks right past the impersonator to Elvis. But somehow the players had figured out where he was. We don’t take kindly to breaches of the witness protection program.”

“Poor Lyle.” Then Temple snapped herself out of the lonely life and pseudonymous death of a former crook. She didn’t even want to know what he had done, and she was sure Bucek wouldn’t tell her anyway. “But poor Lyle is dead. And what about Clint Westwood? He wasn’t in the witness protection program?”

Bucek’s head shook. “Remember the question about hiding the leaf?”

“You were hiding a witness among the Elvises, and the Mob was sending in their own Elvis impersonator to find and kill your witness. But more than that, the Mob was hiding its real target behind a flurry of other incidents. The attacks on Priscilla, the bizarre killing in the Medication Garden, with a snake in tow no less. You’retelling me they’d kill other people to hide the fact that they had hit Lyle? That’s vicious.”

“That’s why they’re the Mob. They don’t know we’re onto them, and we don’t want them to know that until we can build a case not only against the hit man, but against the family that ordered it. So they don’t know that there’s any reason to stop their original plan.”

“Another killing. Turn the whole thing into a three-ring circus: Clint, Lyle, and … oh, no!”

“You’ll have all the protection I can get.”

“It didn’t help Lyle, as I so presciently mentioned before.”

“We didn’t know Lyle was the target. We knew something was up when Westwood turned up dead, and you know that there’s an ongoing mob scam in this town tracing back to the Goliath and Crystal Phoenix hotel casino deaths tied to the late Cliff Effinger, our friend Matt’s noxious stepfather. If we don’t blow our cover now, we may be able to net years’ worth of illegal activities, perhaps on an international scale. So we need to catch the killer in the act. We think he has no reason to stop his plan now.”

“I have no evidence to believe you guys could stop a flea from biting my cat, much less a hit man from killing me.”

Bucek’s smile was apologetic. “You have reinforcements, don’t forget.”

“Reinforcements.”

“Full Spectrum Elvis. The only reason they didn’t keep Quincey’s dress from getting trashed was that they had to be onstage to run through their number. We expect the last murder to occur during the show. We’ll all be onstage, and you can have it the way you set it up for Quincey: Priscilla with her personal bodyguard around her at all times. The Fontana brothers are as apt to spot the perp as we would be. Just tell them you’re the target of a hitman, and they’ll be better than a pack of watchdogs. Plus, we’ll be there.”

“I don’t know. I’ve been attacked on stage before, but I’ve never gone on knowing someone was going to attack me. Talk about stage fright!” Temple shivered and looked around the dressing room. All the laid out cosmetics reminded her of a mortuary preparation room. Tomorrow night Poor Priscilla could go from wedding to grave.

“Besides,” Temple took a last stab at eluding the role of sacrificial lamb, “poor Priscilla doesn’t have a thing to wear anymore.”

Bucek stood. “Are you telling me there isn’t a fairy godmother in this town who can get you a gown by tomorrow evening?”

“I suppose it’s possible.”

“You’ll be as safe as in your own living room. We’re fully on to this scheme now. I wouldn’t ask you if I weren’t sure we could protect you.”

Temple read absolute conviction in his eyes, but no one could promise immortality. She nodded. She had a horrible feeling Quincey would try to resume her role if Temple didn’t take it, and Temple had promised Merle to look out for Quincey.

She just hadn’t expected to do it in the persona of Priscilla Presley.

Chapter 53

Catchin’ on Fast

(From 1964’s Kissin’ Cousins)

Temple poked her head in the various dressing rooms, hunting Full Spectrum Elvis and casting her eye over likely suspects: Velvet Elvis, for instance, looking like the Melancholy Dane. She was big enough to manhandle an unwary Elvis, and big enough to be a transsexual. Now that was a thought. Maybe she was, somebody had found out, and she’d been blackmailed into murder to avoid being disqualified from the competition, though Temple didn’t quite see why or how transsexuals would be barred.

Mike and Jerry were still best buddies despite the looming pressure of competition, exchanging grooming essentials, and looking nervous. Wasn’t Jerry from New Jersey, a storied if stereotypical Mob bastion? Sometimes stereotypes, like fairy tales, can come true.

Oh, and there was Kenny, eager-beaver Kenny, so quick on the scene of the jumpsuit murder.