Carole Douglas - Cat in a Jeweled Jumpsuit

“You nailed Elvis when you were just fourteen," he accused back, "and he was away from home with his mama just dead and gone. Snared him like a Mississippi Delta catfish in a net. Like Dee Stanley snagged Vernon. Elvis was never free after he met you. The Colonel and your father made him marry you finally in sixty-seven, and that was the beginning of the end. You broke his heart when you left him.”

Obviously, Kenny had imprinted on the image of Priscilla the way a racing greyhound is trained to imprint on the helpless cats and rabbits used as bait to get it running.

“You loved Elvis," Temple said. "You really hated to see that Elvis jumpsuit destroyed. Yet you must have commissioned it, brought it here, and it wasn't even a design that Elvis had worn. It was totally invented."

“Well, you don't want the estate to get its trademarks in a wad, and it owns just about everything Elvis. So some of us make up our own designs. That was a great one. I never planned to trash it, but I needed distractions, and ... it had to go."

“Why the horse motif?" Temple wondered.

“Why not?”

Bucek suddenly spoke. "Wish we'd known about that earlier. If you knew Kenny's background, it would make sense.”

Temple turned, puzzled.

“I don't know whether your big ego or your small brain is more trouble to you, Kenny." Bucek joined Temple at the chickenwire barrier and shook his head. "Now that you mention it, Kenny left a clue the size of horse hockey."

“You mean burying the suit?"

“That, but what was on the suit is more telling." Bucek kept his eyes on Kenny, but he spoke to Temple. "Kenny has a nickname in the Mob. Most of them do. His is 'Kenny the Horse.' Comes from starting out as a mule for heroin deliveries, before he moved up to hit man. No matter how much he was into impersonating Elvis, he couldn't help letting some braggadocio about his Mob connections creep in. Now he gets to take his victim's place, and we get to hide him and protect him and call him our very own, until we can make a good case on the whole organization.”

Kenny listened, never taking his eyes off of Temple/ Priscilla.

“What happens to my suit?" he wanted to know. "Who gets custody of the suit?"

“What about the chimp?" Temple wondered indignantly. "Don't you care what happens to him?"

“That stupid animal! Blew my cover. He was good for a few laughs, but nobody better step on my jumpsuits."

“Don't worry," Bucek said. "That jumpsuit will be on display like the rest of them, as Exhibit A in court someday. You'll be reunited before a federal judge, but I doubt anyone will sentence a jumpsuit to the prison term you'll get.”

Kenny shrugged at this dire prediction of the future. "Jailhouse Rock. One of E's best films. He did real well in prison stripes.”

Bucek shook his head and took Temple's elbow again, escorting her to the door.

“That man has an unreal sense of values," she commented."That's what makes hit men tick."

“So ... how does this case get settled? Publicly?"

“For now, everything, of course, will be denied, lost, brushed under the rug. There was no one here but Memphis Mafia hotel security. One Elvis impersonator cracked and was ... institutionalized. A mysterious Elvis impersonator tried to steal the show. Life goes on, murders go unsolved, local police hate the outside agency's guts. We try to keep Kenny alive to testify and bring down the bigwigs behind it all. Are you happy, Miss Barr?"

“I'm happy to be alive," she said when they stood out in the hall again. The onlookers had thinned, bored by the lack of action. "And so, I imagine, is Elvis."

“Right." Bucek escorted her back to Quincey's dressing room so she could change back into herself. "By the way, there's one member of the press we haven't been able to muzzle. Luckily, no one would believe him in a million years. I'm sorry.”

He left the room, shouldered through the remaining spectators, and vanished.

The Fontana brothers made a daisy chain in front of the door, but a slight, agile figure dashed through, under their arms.

“T. B., are you all right?"

“Fine," she said.

“Tell me about it." He came close, crouched beside her chair.

“About what?"

“About Him! The Elvis who disappeared. I was wrong. Thank God I was wrong." Crawford trembled on the brink of tears. "Lyle wasn't Him. He didn't die. He came, and saved, and went again. Tell me about him, please."

“Well," said Temple. "The first thing I noticed was how blue his eyes were, and how they ... glowed. Like electricity. In fact, everything about him ... glowed.”

Crawford nodded, at peace. Not even taking notes.

Temple drew in another hit of caffeine from the big cup on the dressing table, even though the contents were stone cold, just like Elvis. She was riding on the high of survival and the joy of imagination. Elvis had saved her, yes, he had. In one form, or another.

Viva Las Vegas.

One-twelve A.M.

Matt was gliding away from the radio station on the Hesketh Vampire. Leticia was annoyed that the results of the Elvis competition at the Kingdome hadn't been available in time to announce at the end of the Midnight Hour.

He was relieved it was all over. Elvis had not called since Lyle Purvis had died, whatever one event had to do with the other. Only three women had been waiting for Matt after the show. Maybe his fans were all over at the Kingdome, cheering the ersatz Elvi on.

Even the Vampire seemed subdued tonight, its motor running smooth and relatively silent for a change. Leticia was busy preparing "Elvis tapes" for sale, but Dwight had raised the issue of the estate objecting to merchandising any unauthorized shred of Elvis.

Matt could see their point.

Matt could almost see Elvis, a distant, lonely figure riding a predestined track, a human being lost in the meteoric dazzle of his own contrail.

Could you ever reach deep into another human being and know him? Could you ever reach deep into yourself and know him? Matt glanced in his right side mirror.

Moon at twelve o'clock high.

Moon, or falling star? He was tired.

He might be tired of himself.

And then he saw that cyclops of dogging light, just like the other night, that phantom in the mirror, that mo-torcyclist's nightmare, that buzz at the farthest range of his hearing.

The part of himself he could never escape, because it had somehow become Other.

Matt pushed the Vampire, pressed it into higher speed. It grew throaty, as if growling protest, then it leaped forward.

Still. A light in the mirror.

A pursuer.

A Hound of Heaven.

Or Hell.

Well.

He knew how to ride this thing at last.

He wasn't afraid to tilt almost horizontal.

He didn't fear the noise and the speed.

Speed King.

He wasn't going to get caught.

Not here.

Like this.

By ... whom? An anonymous splinter of himself. The eternal judge. The Wild Card Incarnate. Elvis on the half shell? No.

Sometimes you move and it's zen. The hand, the eye, the soul in mindless syncopation. Maybe it's rock. Maybe it's roll. Maybe it's delusion.

Matt was in that state. The machine moved with him. He moved the machine. The needle said they did ninety. The moon and the asphalt said they were waltzing in three-four time.

But finally the whirr and the scream behind them caught up. The light in the mirror was a star gone nova. Some hounds you can't outrun.

Matt slowed, breathed, pulled over.

In the mirror, the single light focused, stopped, hung there like a spotlight.

The sound of silence was deafening after the rush.

He waited, balancing the weight of the Vampire on the balls of his boots.

Leather creaked in the dry desert air.