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Not to mention a whole raft of other Elvis impersonators.

Full Spectrum Elvis was not in the below-stage area, so Temple was forced to clomp up the backstage stairs to hunt them down.

She found them massed in the wings at stage right, watching a sincere but uninspired Elvis perform the difficult American Trilogy medley of “Dixie,” “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” and “All My Trials.”

“Speaking of ‘trials . ” Motorcycle jerked his head at the guy onstage as soon as she spotted them. “We gotta run through our act after that. Anything going on downstairs? We heard, ah, whining.”

“You heard right. Quincey had another crisis.” Elvi gathered around, glittering.

“How so?” Rhinestone Lapels wanted to know.

“The Priscilla wedding gown was slashed to smithereens, well, rags, anyway. Quin’s mother had heard about the murdered impersonator and took the attack on the dress as a last straw. She was ready to jerk Quincey from the show.”

“Aw,” came the chorus. The brothers Fontana, even in unrecognizable guise, at least had the grace to sound disappointed.

“But Quincey talked her out of it,” Temple added quickly. “And you have someone more vital to guard now.”

“How so?” asked Oversized.

“Your endearing emcee, Crawford Buchanan, is convinced the late Elvis impersonator was really the late Elvis, that someone killed Lyle Purvis because of it, and that now that someone will kill him, Crawford, because he too ‘knows’ it.”

A silence greeted this theory, during which they could all hear a really dreadful version of “Suspicious Minds” filling the stage.

“You want us to watchdog the Crawf?”

Temple laughed at their hound-dog-long Elvis faces. “Guess you heard Quin discussing her adored stepdaddy. Yeah, watch to make sure he doesn’t fall apart on stage and ruin the show for all the genuine impersonators who are not Elvis, really.”

“Purvis.” Cane-and-Cape lifted the former, and tossed back the latter. “Not such a farfetched idea. The guy had something.”

“Maybe, but do you think someone would kill to win a contest, or to keep Elvis dead?”

“In this crowd,” Fifties said, surveying his clones backstage, “anything is possible, including the impossible.”

“Do not worry,” Oversized assured her. “We will watch the little weasel like hawks.”

“Are you going to stay now to watch our act rehearse?” Karate asked eagerly.

“I can’t. I promised a friend I’d stay out of the field of fire,” she answered mendaciously.

Mendaciously was one of those long, not-readilyknown words that made lies sound like something naughty but noble. The fewer people who knew who the real fake Priscilla was tomorrow night, the better. That was where she disagreed with FBI-man Bucek.

“Meanwhile, once you get off, do you think you can dig up a new bridal outfit for Quincey?”

“We got these swell costumes in no time flat, didn’t we?” Rhinestone Elvis waggled his glittering lapels. “I want that cut down to my size after this is over,” Temple said, narrowing her eyes.

“I don’t know, Miss Temple.” Oversized twinkled his Elvis-blue eyes. “We might be too fond of our personas to pass them on.”

“Just pass on the name of your tailor, which I already know. But I’ll see you in all your onstage glory tomorrow night. I’m sure I won’t be able to keep Electra from dragging me to the actual show. What exactly is your act?”

“We do a medley of song titles.” Fifties struck a guitar-twanging pose.

“One Elvis, one title,” said Karate, leaping into a deadly stance.

“Oh, really.”

Temple couldn’t picture it, but perhaps originality counted. Then again, she thought—waving good-bye to the guys and hustling offstage and through the empty house, gazing at Elvis to the umpteenth power—maybe when it came to Elvis impersonation, originality did not count.

Chapter 54

Double Trouble

(The title song from Elvis’s 1967 film)

Temple sat staring at the morning paper.

An illo on the top front above the masthead showed a pseudo-Elvis in full writhe. “Night of 100 Elvises,”

read the teaser head.

The Kingdome should be happy for this plug for its imminent six-hour opening extravaganza of Elvis, Elvis, Elvis.

But the local highlight of the day wasn’t what had riveted Temple’s eyes to 9.3-point Roman type.

What had done that was the one-column crime story below the front-page fold that announced “Elvis imitator iced.”

The headline was crude and would drive advocates of the term “impersonator,” and even “tribute performer” nuts.

But that wasn’t what had Temple staring like a zombie at the tiny type.

No, it was Lyle Purvis’s name, right there in blackand-white. She was sure the reporter had gotten it right. “Lyle Pervisse.” It was too odd to be a misspelling.

A rollerball pen drooped from her nerveless fingers.

She wasn’t sure she had done her task right, so tried again: The “le” from Lyle, and the “vis” from Pervisse equaled Elvis. That left the “Ly” from Lyle and the “e” from isse for “Ley. That mean the “Pers” from Pervisse, combined with the Ly and the e, added up to PresLey.

Oh, my.

Lyle Pervisse’s name was an anagram for Elvis Presley. Elvis (“lives”) Presley had loved anagrams. Of course, everyone who heard the name “Pervisse” thought of the more common, phonetic spelling, Purvis.

Could the unthinkable be? Had the Crawf been right? Had Lyle Pervisse really been Elvis? No.

He had been an Elvis fanatic. As a protected witness, he could take any name he chose. He chose an anagram of Elvis Presley. If anybody noticed, he was certified as an Elvis nut, not a rat fink on the run.

And he had to have been a rat fink on the run from the Mob to need the witness protection program. Simple.

Even a crook could have an Elvis obsession. Maybe especially a crook.

Temple looked up at her computer screen. She was in her second-bedroom-cum-office. One of dozens of Web pages on Elvis was frozen on the screen.

It described a seventeen-million-dollar armored-car heist in North Carolina. The crooks were caught, and their ill-gotten gains were seized and sold at auction. There were more than a thousand items, including fifteen vehicles from minivans to a BMW convertible. There were rows of tanning beds and big-screen TVs.

But the lone star of the auction was a velvet painting of Elvis.

The loot went to prove, said one bidder, that you can steal millions of dollars, but you still can’t buy taste. Still …

The item that attracted the most interest, that everyone wanted his or her picture taken with, that made it into the single photo used to illustrate this cornucopia of ill-gotten gain up for sale, was … the velvet painting of Elvis.

It went for $1600 to a pawnshop owner who intended to display it with a plaque describing where it came from.

Because that was the point. Elvis did one extraordinary thing with his life of fame and fortune and talent and lost opportunities: he never left his roots. He never stopped being a poor boy from Memphis. He never went Hollywood or St. Tropez, and never reinvented himself as a banner boy of Taste.

An Elvis is an Elvis is an Elvis, as the poet said about the singular and lovely rose.

He was a King even a crook could aspire to. And maybe more than one had.

Chapter 557

Scratch My Back (Then I’ll Scratch Yours)

(In 1966’s Paradise, Hawaiian Style, Elvis sang this seductive number with pussycat Marianna Hill)

I am still on self-assigned duty in the Kingdome.

It seems that guys in black suits do the security detail around here, so I figure I might as well stick around too until I see my little doll through her descent into Elvis-mania and back onto solid ground again.