Cat in a Jeweled Jumpsuit (30 page)

“
I knew he was the bridge bringing black music into
the mainstream. Those books you lent Matt pretty
uni
versally agree on that, if on almost nothing else." Tem
ple stared at the simple storefront now glitzed up
with
neon signs in the windows and
above the door. "Yup,
they have
Elvis clothes for sale there, blue suede shoes
and pink-and-black pegged
pants, ascots, karate
gis,
Ha
waiian shirts, inexpensive but noisy jumpsuits in sizes
infant to
4X."

“
Oh!" Electra stopped to stare as tall, square
white
pillars loomed out of the neon
mist pulsing above eye-level all around the Kingdome. "Gladys's Home Cook
ing. This place is like Wonderland, slightly
kinked.
Graceland is a restaurant here."

“
Clever marketing," Temple agreed. "You
can have
anything you want at Gladys's Restaurant: fried-banana
and-peanut-butter sandwiches, even burnt-black
bacon,
some of it really only low-fat
turkey. Would that Elvis had access to such healthful food! That's how they got
around duplicating Graceland. They
used parts of it and
called it Gladys's."

“
The gladioli are a nice touch. Elvis loved
puns."
Electra paused to admire dramatic stands of the vibrantly
colored tall flowers massed around the restaurant's
slop
ing "front yard."
"But they always make me think of
funerals."

“
Not inappropriate here. You should see the Medica
tion
Garden."

“Medi-ca-tion
Garden?"

“
All herbs, you see. Not like the Meditation Garden
at Graceland, where the family is
buried now. This garden isn't officially on display yet. It'll open the night
of
the Elvis competition, when the
winner comes over here
to cut the ribbon."

“
Oh, Elvis loved the Meditation Garden. Can't I peek
now?"

“
Security would get its nightsticks in a tangle over
that."

“
Were
they able to suggest the family graves at all?"
"I don't
know. I didn't look into this area, just back
stage."

“
Please," Electra
begged, voice quivering. "The gar
den
is the best part of the real Graceland. I'm dying to
see how they evoked
that without violating any estate prerogative."

“
Well ..." Temple looked around. The discreet
path
that led to the Medication
Garden would probably be
lined with
spotlights by the formal opening night, but
now it was definitely a path less trodden. In fact, it
looked
like a dead end.

She
herself was dying to know how the hotel would
produce
what people expected to see without treading
on a copyright or a
trademark. How do you construct a Disneyland without Mickey Mouse?
So she led Electra past the
DO NOT ENTER
sign and through a winding, foliage-edged route that
reminded
her of the Enchanted Forest in Oz.

“
The Meditation Garden is so impressive at Grace-
land," Electra was still recalling. "Do
they have the
lovely stained-glass panels and fountains here?"

“
I did hear that there's a pool, but no graves. I
guess
graves aren't considered
commercial in Las Vegas. I
heard they
did something spectacular so you can visit
and meditate on the many
stages of Elvis.”

The
path flared like a bell-bottom pantleg into a sem
icircular stage scene. A kidney-shaped pool whose wa
ters were that ultrasweet pastel aqua-sky color
Matt
Devine had called Virgin Mary
Blue lay in the back
ground like a
parenthesis curving around a colonnade of
white pillars. Between the pillars, jewel-toned stained-
glass Elvi shone like Saturday-night saints. Amid
the
flower beds offering an incense
of pungent herbal aro
mas lay a smaller
semicircle of what, at first glance,
resembled
a quintet of Sleeping Beauties in their glass
coffins.

Temple gazed down on the display, at first not aware
that instead of actual figures, jewel-emblazoned jump
suits lay in state. Despite the priceless opportunity to
see
the costumer's art so close at hand,
Temple had the
sudden, sinking vision of the
man who had once worn
such creations.
She saw him melting like the wicked witch in Oz, until only these empty suits,
these aban
doned carapaces were left.
He had probably died long
before he had ceased to wear and perform in
them.

“
These jumpsuits are even more exquisite than the
ones in the dome." Electra bent to study the
jewel-
encrusted emblems. "Are these real gemstones—?"

“
Careful! Whatever they are, there are probably
pres
sure alarms all over the place,
like in museums. Stay on
the path.”

Temple felt a chill beyond the mere worry of tripping
some exotic security system. She had recognized the
middle suit, a simpler, street-model suit: It was covered
in solid white rhinestones, like one of Liberace's grand
pianos dressed in mirror tiles, but the shirt beneath it
was pale blue, and a white rhinestone tie dissected the
vacant chest like the bottom Y of a coroner's autopsy
cut. Strip the suit of its skin of glitter, and Temple rec
ognized
the simple ensemble Elvis had been laid out and
buried in almost twenty years to the day after he had
hysterically seen his mother to her own rest: the
white
suit Vernon had given him, blue shirt, white tie. Temple suddenly
thought of the dead twin buried in an unmarked
Tupelo grave forty-one and a half years before Elvis was
laid out in Graceland; what had he worn to be
buried in,
Jesse Garon?
Electra
grabbed her arm and squeezed hard. "Look!
What can they be trying to do there? Why is that jump
suit floating
in the pool?”

Because
one was, front-side down, floating like a giant
dew-begemmed lilypad riding the azure of Hawaiian
coves, sparkling
and spinning in the gentle current of recirculating chlorinated water.

Only this jumpsuit was inhabited. A man's dark hair
floated
free above the high Napoleonic collar.

And a man's bloated white
fingers, choked with
chunky gold rings,
spread like dead starfish at the ends
of the glittering jumpsuit sleeves.

And
_,
a man's bare heels protruded from the flared,
floating bell-bottom pantlegs.

Electra
shrieked, but not at the sight of the dead man.

Temple stopped herself from following suit, also
glimpsing a long rope in the water. No, not a rope, just
the pool creepy-crawler, an automated vacuum on a
length
of hose that kept the water clean.

Then the hose twisted up as if animated and entwined
with the real beast that had been loosened on this garden
of Elvisian Eden. Temple finally joined Electra's
vocalizations.

A huge, mottled snake coiled around the floating
corpse and dragged it down into the crystal-clear water,
a snake as big around as a fireplug, as long as a living
room.

A snake right out of Graceland's Jungle Room, a
South American constrictor as big as the Ritz, the Circle
Ritz.

Chapter 30

Crawfish

(A highlight
duet from
King Creole,
1958)

There I am, the intrepid
investigator, pinned belly-down
in the dirt by an allergy attack.

An overwhelming scent of lemon and mint (not my
odors—or colors—of choice) has hit me like a wall
of
Kryptonite blocking Superman's heroic powers.

This place looked like an ordinary, innocent garden
of
Eden. How was I to know it was
packed with pharma
ceutical
flower beds? All I need to fully incapacitate myself would be a wave of
coconut-scented tanning lotion.
Luckily,
no human hide is sunning near the swimming
pool, and the chlorinated fumes it dispenses act on
me
like smelling salts did on
ladies of yore. Nothing like
strong
chemical odors to disperse a fit of the vapors one
can ill afford.

Meanwhile, my two lady friends—imagine seeing them here!—continue to
caterwaul.

In Miss Temple's case, I am sure the appearance of
the
gigantic reptile is far more responsible for her unusual
screaming fit than the mere presence of a dead body
floating in the pool. Miss Temple is
on familiar terms with
dead bodies.
Even the fact that this one is so garishly
attired should not be sufficient to launch the current hys
terics.

On the other hand, that is one big mama of a water
snake. No doubt it has done body-double work for Nessie
of Scotland fame. Me, I am not afraid of snakes unless
they carry concealed poisons. Otherwise, they make
charming playthings. I do love how they slide across the
floor
like a bit of yarn dangled to challenge my mitt-eye coordination by humans
hoping to amuse.

Still, despite my high opinion of Miss Temple's intre
pitude, I have never told her of the family of garter
snakes
that found their
way under the French doors while she was gone. Of how I discovered them rooting
in her as
sorted sundries
drawer and was forced to herd them off.
It took the better part of the afternoon for me to escort
them to the patio and then down the
palm tree trunk.
Since these were
mere . what does one call baby
snakes?
Snakelets? . . . youngsters, I delicately nipped
each one up by the neck and transferred it to the tree
trunk, from where it wiggled down into the waiting, er,
presence
of Mama.

But yonder ophidian is not on quite the same scale,
excuse the pun, as a string of garter snakes. I have not
seen such a large specimen since the movie
Anaconda!
came
and went faster than a whipsnake.

Yet despite the presence of a snake capable of stran
gling King Kong and the debilitating weeds contaminating
my immediate area, I realize that I have an emergency
job of herding to do: my two dear ladies had better shut
up and skedaddle before they are caught raw-throated at
the
scene of a crime.

Ere I can leap from my cover, sneeze for their atten
tion,
and drive them out of this wonderland of weirdness,
I spy the suspicious character I have been tailing emerg
ing from behind a stained-glass representation of
Elvis
crucified against a cloak of gold.

The newcomer has not the mythic appeal of Elvis's concert
pose, despite being appropriately dressed in
black from fedora to his suede shoes. All I can think of
is
that the Circle Ritz ladies must not
be discovered alone
with the corpse, whoever or whatever it
is.

The figure in black is headed right toward their unsus
pecting
backs, so I head right for its unsuspecting feet.

This is what they call a "sacrifice play" in
certain sports.
I sacrifice my
well-being and get a good kick in the ribs,
while my opponent plays right into my hands, or feet, and
goes tripping toward the edge of the
pool without even a
pause to doff the sunglasses.