Cat in a Jeweled Jumpsuit (42 page)

“I
get loose."

“And
did you let anything else loose?”

Chatter plays peekaboo through his fingers again.

I quash a spasm of annoyance. I am getting the pic
ture. This lethal weapon with the opposable thumbs is a loose cannon on
a very big deck.

“
Did you let Trojan out of his container?"

“Trojan?"

“The
big snake."

“
Biiiig snake. Jungle creature like Chatter. Big
snake
like to get out of cage."

“
So who put you up to it?"

“I
not put up. I jump down to open latch."

“But
who told you to do it?"

“No
human tell Chatter to do anything."

“
A human tells you to put on your Elvis suit and
strum
the ukulele.”

The chimp shook its head. "Not same. That
work.
Other play. Chatter play."

“
When did you release the snake?"

“When
Chatter did it, Chatter did it.”

I question the creature further, but it has no
sense of
time other than when it is performing
"work." Sometime
before the
anaconda was discovered doing the back
stroke in the pool by my lovely
roommate, this devious
chimpanzee was on an
illegal scouting expedition and
released
the snake from confinement. Chatter would
have me believe that was
merely a mischievous prank.

It does not have the brains to realize it might have been used. If its
unknown owner did not encourage this stunt,
perhaps
Miss Quincey Conrad did, for reasons of her
own.

I have never trusted dames who play the submissive
sort, and the young Priscilla
Quincey impersonates is cer
tainly one of that ilk. Are alt these resurrected Elvises
strolling around reviving old vendettas too? Maybe
against Priscilla, as my roommate fears, and maybe
against one particular Elvis,
whoever or wherever he
may be.

Chapter 41

Moody Blue

(Recorded in 1976 at Graceland, during a period
in
which Elvis could hardly be dragged into
recording
sessions, it made three charts, reaching
number
one on the country chart and number
two on the easy-listening chart)

For the
first time in her life, Temple ran nose-first into
what it was like to
be a fan, and, indirectly, what it was
like to be a star.

The
backstage area thronged with shouting, milling
people, all bent on seeing the Elvis of
the moment.

And
these were not amateur fans; these were professional fans with a personal stake
in other Elvis imper
sonators.
Their presence here was flagrantly disloyal.

But
they didn't care. The entire object of the Elvis
imitation exercise
was to evoke the presence of the King,
and this man evidently had.

Not only
did his rehearsal hall performance and its rapt reception skew the very idea of
a competition, it made every other Elvis impersonator into excess bag
gage. Who could hope to
compete with this triumphal performance? Maybe not even the real Elvis.

“
Having trouble, Miss Temple?”

She
turned, looked up, smiled to see Oversized Elvis
looming behind her. "I'd like to get into the dressing
room to see that incredible Elvis
impersonator," she told
him, "but everybody else seems to have
the same idea."

“
No problem." Aldo turned and whistled sharply
once,
as if hailing a cab.

In a couple of minutes eight tall Elvi converged on
them
both.

Then they made like the Memphis Mafia, surrounded
her and wafted her through the mob, through even the
narrow birth canal of the dressing room door, and into
the room itself and the presence of the new King. She
could
get used to this.

Tuxedo
Elvis handed her a tiny tape recorder.

“
Miss
Temple Barr," he announced to a man sitting
before the mirror. "She is doing a
feature for, ah,
Vanity Fair.
The hotel would appreciate your cooperation.”

The brothers Fontana ebbed back to the door, serving
as
a phalanx to keep out the rest.

Temple felt a stab of guilt about standing between a
man and his true believers, but she squashed it like a
bug. She had finally become utterly fascinated by the
Elvis legend then and now. She also still wondered why
an
Elvis apparition had visited the Crystal Phoenix excavation, and why a man
seeming to be Elvis was calling
Matt on the
radio. Something was going on, and it was
more than it seemed to be. She couldn't resist a mystery,
and Elvis was a double mystery. There was the man
himself, and there was how someone could be using
him,
or his persona.

The performer seemed exhausted now, as well he
should. He was oddly passive, going along with what
ever promised an island of calm in the frenzy his per
formance
had created.

Right now, that was a phalanx of Elvis Fontana broth
ers guarding the door, and the fraudulent notion that a
major
national magazine reporter was asking for an in
terview. Actually, Temple was thinking, having a tape recorder meant she
could maybe write an article about
this
phenomenon and sell it to
Vanity Fair.
Well, per
haps some more modest
magazine. She didn't have the connections to sell to a major rag.

So by the time she asked her first question, Temple
was actually feeling quite honest and justified. Amazing
how
easy it was to impersonate someone and, even more incredible, to be believable
in that role.

“
I know you're exhausted," Temple said.
"Do you
need anything? A glass of
water? Something stronger?
I can have one of the ersatz Elvises get it.”

He glanced to the door, and smiled wearily. "I've
never seen a multiple Elvis act before, except for the
Flying Elvises they concocted for that
Honeymoon in
Las Vegas
film. No. I'm fine. Actually, I could use a
quiet conversation to take me down." He lifted the
white
terry cloth towel
hanging around his neck and patted at his sweaty face, as actors will who don't
want to smear
stage makeup.

A pro, Temple thought. What else? "Did you expect
to
make such a sensation here?"

“Not
at the rehearsal."

“
You're the 'King of Kings' Elvis, aren't you? The
other
impersonators were wondering why you weren't
registered
for the pageant, especially since you live in
Las Vegas.”

He nodded. His eyes were dark blue. Temple tried to
catch a glint of colored contact lens edges shifting on
his eye whites. Of course, if they were soft contact
lenses,
they would be harder to spot.

“
I . debated coming out for this. I'm basically re
tired.
I've had my hour in the sun."

“Ken
... is that your name?”

Another weary smile. "Fleeting fame strikes again.
My name is Lyle. Lyle Purvis. I'm from Alabama orig
inally, ma'am. I don't know where anybody got the idea
my
name was Ken. Guess Lyle's a different name. Par-
ents like different names for their kids, and then the kids
spend the rest of their lives living it down.
That's what first made me feel for Elvis. That was even worse than
Lyle. At least there was this actor, Lyle Talbot.
There
wasn't no Elvis Talbot, that's
for sure. Now, of course,
there's Lyle Lovett, the country singer."

“
I know
what you mean about names. Temple?"
"It's real fine for you."

“
Thanks. So is that what
impersonation is all about,
feeling for the person you're evoking?”

He thought, dabbed sweat, drank from a half-empty
bottled water container. "Maybe so, yes. Most of us
started as Elvis fans, plain and simple. And, for me, it
helps
to have a Southern soul to understand Elvis."

“When
did you become an Elvis fan?"

“
Well, now, ma'am, are you tryin' to find out my
age
in a nice way here?"

“Maybe.
We reporters like to pin down hard facts like age."

“And
name, rank, and serial number, right?" His laugh
was loose and infectious. "Can't help you there. Never
served my country in the military. Not that way.
Not
that I wouldn't have, if it had worked out. I'm a loyal
American."

“
Does being an Elvis impersonator require being a
loyal
American?"

“Yes,
it does. That boy, he was Mom and apple pie personified."

“What
about the rest of it? Babes and barbiturates?"

“
Aw, now, Miss . . . Barr. The boy was under tremen
dous pressure. Sure he went overboard, but those
girls
were throwing themselves at him. He was young, he was
breaking free from a very strict religious
upbringing ...
you know, he didn't
touch a lot of those girls. Sometimes
all
he wanted was someone to sleep with, like those
teddy bears he collected. In a lot of ways, he was just a
scared
seventeen-year-old country boy."

“
In some ways, he was the wicked, rebel King of
Sex."

“
Yep. He had that charisma. But that type of thing
works better from the stage and screen than it
does in
real life."

“You
have some of it."

“
Very kind of you to say that, a sophisticated
profes
sional lady like yourself. But
it's a stage thing. It isn't
real.
That's where Elvis went a little haywire. He
thought he had to live up to his stage image. See, Elvis only felt
really free when he was onstage. That was his
biggest love affair, with the audience. Nothing else could
live up to that. It's hard to explain. I've heard
dozens
and dozens of other people who
saw him perform live.
He was like
nothing else they ever saw. Some folks like
to make fun of him, or put him down, but they were
fighting against the tide. Even in their hardest
hearts,
they must of seen the
phenomenal pull he had on people.
It
was like one big mass—can I say this? If not, please
don't print it. I'm tired and I'm not thinking
sharp
enough to defend myself .. .”

Temple nodded. "I won't use anything harmful, that
you
don't mean to say."

“
It was like one big mass orgasm, is what it was
like.
Only spiritual. An emotional
release like you've never
had before."

“You
obviously saw him perform live.”

Lyle nodded. "In the seventies, of course. I came
late
to the
banquet." He paused. "I even saw him in the last
couple years, when he was just pitiful. He was like a
puppet on those drugs. It made grown men who knew
him cry. The fans cried, but they never stopped loving
him. Unconditional love, isn't that what you call it? It
was like he couldn't do anything to make them not love
him, and sometimes I think that's what he was trying to
do, putting himself onstage when he was too drugged to
stand up, or to remember lyrics or anything. He was
trying
to make them give up on him, so he wouldn't
have to bear the burden anymore. If
they would just stop
loving him . . . but
they couldn't, any more than he could
stop
hating himself at the end. He was ready to leave.
That I know. He was ready. Everybody around him
knew it. He died standing up, with his boots on, not
in
that bathroom at Graceland. That was just the actual fact.
The real death was earlier. We were all watching a
dead
man walking for a long time."