Cat in a Jeweled Jumpsuit (31 page)

Into the chlorinated drink the thing in black goes, with
a
yowl that would do a Siamese queen in heat proud.

In one agile move I have accomplished two things: I
have distracted the newcomer from the presence of my
lady
friends, and I have managed to achieve their instant silence.

My distraction thrashes in the water, screeching in
panic. This unfortunate shortly realizes that it is
sharing
a small, artificial
body of water with a corpse and a giant
snake, not exactly the human's idea of a picnic. Appar
ently, it is also howling because of something it knew,
and I did not realize. The creature cannot swim. Oops.
That
snake will owe me one.

Of course all my heroics are for naught. Once the
Misses Temple and Electra realize that a live person has
joined the bridge mix thrashing up the waters, they go
into
action.

Miss Temple kicks off her shoes. For a dreadful mo
ment, I fear that she is going to do something utterly
fool
ish like leaping
into the feeding frenzy now boiling up
bubbles in the water like something from
Jaws
you
really
do not want to see up close and personal.

But instead of diving in, she kneels at the pool edge
and stretches out her hands, while Miss Electra sits down
and
grabs her ankles.

I am still recovering from my self-sacrificial loss of
breath and cannot lend assistance, although I do not for
the life of me see how I can be of any further service.
No
doubt the individual in the water (the one who is not
dead) would agree with me. Certainly the anaconda, or the boa
constrictor, or whatever variety of overgrown
jungle snake
it is, would second that opinion.

I
hear grunts, howls, groans, and then coughs.

I also hear the onrush of feet pounding the sodded
path.
The imitation Memphis Mafia, otherwise known as Kingdome Security, has arrived
in a panting pack.

One can only conclude that too many unauthorized
personnel are cluttering up this crime scene already. I
retreat
back into the herbal hothouse, smothering uncon
trollable sneezes. Miss Temple will just have to talk her
self out
of this one without me.

Chapter 31

In the Garden

(Recorded at Elvis's first session with Felton
Jarvis as producer in
1966)

"He's
dead," Temple sputtered, shaking off the water the
rescued drowning victim had shaken on her the moment
all three had hauled themselves back from the
pool's
edge on hands and knees.
"Why did you rush in to res
cue him?"

“
Ohmigod!" shouted a Memphis Mafioso who had
just arrived poolside. "That jumpsuit is
ruined. We're all
in the soup.”

Publicity-phobic
hotel security staff in Las Vegas al
ways
possess a big heart.

Other men in black fedoras and suits were arriving,
bearing aluminum pool hooks like lances. They began
gingerly hauling the resurfaced suit, and its contents, to
the pool's shallow end. Other men in
brown work jump
suits arrived, bearing bigger metal
hooks, and began fish-
ing in
the deep end for the coiling ropes of agitated
serpent.

“
I tripped," the soggy person in their grasp
admitted.
"I wouldn't have gone
for a dip with that sea monster
to save my life."

“Who
are you people?" a disgustingly dry Mafia man
asked, looming above them. "And what happened to the
man in
the suit? Did he fall in?"

“And
how did the snake get loose?" another Mafioso demanded.

“
The snake is supposed to be here?" Temple
asked,
amazed.

“Not
here. Nearby.”

Electra cleared her throat. "Could you gentlemen
lend
me a hand to get
up? Thanks." They grunted, whether
from effort or acknowledgment of her gratitude it was
hard
to say.

Temple scrambled up on her own power, despite skid
ding on the wet pool coping. Her emerald-leather J. Re
nee sandals were so water-spotted they resembled
snakeskin.

She watched the security men lift the thoroughly
soaked figure that had dashed into the pool. She was
getting an awful feeling that her shoes had been ruined
for naught. That choked, water-logged voice had a fa
miliar
ring and now she knew why .

“
Let me go! I'm all right," Crawford Buchanan
spat,
quite literally, so damp was he from head to toe.

“
But he sure isn't." A workman with a hook
gazed
on the snagged jumpsuit.
"No point in even trying CPR.
This guy's been floating here long
enough to turn colors. Don't look, ladies!”

Temple
and Electra stared avidly toward the pool, but
Crawford Buchanan averted his face, pushing his sun
glasses more
firmly onto his nose.

“
So he's been dead for some time?" Temple
asked.
"And how long could the
snake float? Swim? Hang
out?"

“
The police coming?" the workman asked,
ignoring
Temple. "We can't hold
this guy against the side forever,
and
I guess they won't want us bringing him out of the
pool."

“
What about Trojan?" a workman across the pool
asked plaintively. "I don't want
him getting contami
nated by any, uh, decayed stuff."

“That
chlorine would purify a cesspool," a Mafioso suggested.

“
Oh, God," wailed the Crawf. "I can't
believe what I
might have inhaled. I'm going to puke.”

Temple
minced back, leaving Crawf to the disgusted mercies of the Memphis Mafia.

Electra had retreated to a curved concrete bench from
which one could contemplate the glorious lucite
entombed
suits, so Temple joined her.

“
I guess we're witnesses." Electra couldn't
conceal a
slight tone of pride.

“
Yeah. Also suspects."

“
Oh. I hadn't thought
of that. Why did that foolish
man blunder into the pool like that?"

“
I don't know, other than 'fools rush in,' and Craw
ford Buchanan is certainly one not to suffer
gladly, in
both the passive and active
grammatical sense. What I'd
like to
know was why dear old 'C. B.' was lurking
around here."

“
Also the snake."

“
That is so bizarre. Elvisdom can embrace almost any
eccentricity, but I don't see why massive South
Ameri
can serpents would be among them."

“
It's the other exhibit." A brown-jumpsuited
attendant
who was not busy holding
something against the pool
wall with a
hook had overheard them, and now ap
proached. He lit a cigarette.

“
Better not do that: contaminating the crime
scene,"
Temple warned.

“
Who are you? The
coroner?"

“No, but unless you don't
want the police to think
that you were lurking here
smoking cigarettes until your
victim showed
up and you pushed him into the pool with
the snake you had brought in, I wouldn't smoke around
here.”

This
was obviously a guy born to trample
Don't
walk
on the grass
signs. "I'll
take my butt with me when I
leave,"
he said with a sneer.

Temple didn't point out that everybody usually did
that, and other people took their heads with them too.
"You'll leave ashes, trace DNA maybe, who knows
what?
The police love that sort of high-tech evidence
nowadays; saves them from doing a lot of legwork find
ing the perp.
Now, what 'other exhibit'?”

The
man, busy jamming his cigarette back into a half-
empty pack, jerked his head to the left. "Over there. It's
not open yet. 'The Animal Elvis,' " he
declaimed sar
castically. "Duplicates of the horses at Graceland:
Rising
Sun, the palomino horse he rode.
Priscilla's Domino.
Then there's
Elvis's chow-chow. And Priscilla's poo
dle."

“And
an anaconda named Trojan?" Temple prompted. "How does that fit into
the Elvis bestiary?"

“
Wow, lady. Elvis was into a lot of strange things,
but
I didn't hear he was into that."

“
Never mind," Temple said. "I'm asking how
the
snake fits into the Animal Elvis exhibit."

“I
just handle the stock. Must have some connection. Maybe Elvis dated a belly
dancer."

“They
don't work with snakes."

“
I don't know. All I know is that scaly mother is
gonna be a truss-buster to fish out of that water.
Who
ever got it here didn't work alone.”

Temple allowed the information to sink in. An interesting
observation. But who would go to all this snake-
toting trouble to off an Elvis impersonator? A jealous
rival,
or several? A crazed fan, or several? Animal rights activists?
And why the snake? Such a cumbersome set dressing.
Or was it the murder weapon?
Or, if it
was just set dressing, what was the message?
A twenty-foot-long anaconda
named Trojan.

Oh.

Temple
finally got one message.

Why
the anaconda was named Trojan.

And that gave her one connection to the King right
there.
As Electra had just pointed out, Elvis had loved puns.

Was
Somebody Up There laughing at them? Or was Somebody Not Up There who should be?

Chapter 32

I'm Gonna
Sit Right

Down and
Cry

(Over
You)

(One of the first songs Elvis recorded for RCA
in early 1956)

Crawford
Buchanan was shaking like a willow in a
windstorm.

He
looked worse than a drowned rat, huddling under
the
"Kingdome" decorative blanket that had been rushed
in from the hotel gift shop.

He sat
alone on his own Medication Garden bench,
teeth chattering
too much to talk. Thank goodness,
Temple thought.

She
preferred the bench she and Electra occupied out
side of Crawford's talking range, where
she could catch
phrases of officialese when
the interior air-conditioning
drafts were right.

“
. .. least it wasn't one of the damn display jump
suits," a
Mafioso muttered.

“
Bet they'll be checking the Elvis impersonator ros
ter,"
another speculated.

The body lay by the pool
edge, clothed in a garbagebag-green body bag. Temple wondered why that deep
black-green color was considered appropriate for
disposal
of everything from orange
rinds to corpses, and who de
cided such things.

Perhaps it wasn't quite as
chilling as dead black.