Cat in a Jeweled Jumpsuit

“Ah . . . Frank?" Matt's mind once again had to merge the image of his long-ago spiritual director in seminary with the FBI agent he had become on leaving the priesthood. That always took a leap of the imagination, if not of faith. "I don't get it. Why are you—"

“Calling? Combining business with personal business, I guess. Just to say I'm in town, and to ask a favor."

“Sure."

“I want tapes of your Elvis interviews."

“Tapes. How did you—?"

“Hear about them? You're famous. Or maybe I should say infamous."

“But why do you need them?"

“Don't know that I do, but I can't really say." "It's about a case?"

“Can't really say. Can you get me the tapes?"

“Sure. I'll call the station right now; ask them to make a set."

“Don't say who for."

“Okay."

“I'd rather go through you. It's more discreet. You could say they're for your mother."

“I will, but I don't think I'd ever send her them. She'd think I had gone seriously weird."

“What's your take on this guy?"

“As a counselor?"

“Anyway you want to read it."

“I don't know. He could be completely immersed in the Elvis personality. He could be self-promoting in some way, not yet clear. If he comes forward and turns out to be a shill for the Kingdome, we'll know."

“But he's credible?"

“He knows his Elvis trivia, but so do thousands of Elvis fans. I pick up a genuine confusion. He may have absorbed some of Elvis's characteristics from sheer obsession. Has he really 'become' Elvis? It's easier to believe that than that the real Elvis could have lived and hidden out so successfully all these years."

“So he's credible."

“Yeah. As credible as a voice over the airwaves can ever be."

“Interesting."

“How will you get the tapes?"

“Someone will pick them up after the show tonight. You have your post-game groupies. One will ask you tosign a tote bag; you can slip the tapes in there."

“Big Brother's been watching me? This that urgent, and that covert?"

“Always, Matt. Always. Elvis mania may be good for a laugh, but we've got some grim business going on here."

“FBI business."

“You said that. Talk to you later, if I get time before I leave town.”

A brisk good-bye ended the exchange.

Puzzled, Matt dialed the station and got Dwight, technician and jack of all trades. His request for tapes was met with a belly laugh.

“You and two hundred others. Leticia's working up a sales program, but I'll run you some free. You want more than one set?"

“Yeah. Give me ... three?"

“Fine. Freebies for you, but Leticia's thinking twenty-nine ninety-five for the public."

“Can you do that, without the caller's permission? Without mine, for that matter?"

“What's to object about? Anyone could have taped you guys from the air. And by calling in, these folks put themselves into a public arena."

“I'd have a lawyer check it anyway."

“Leticia will. She doesn't let much get past her. Including gold mines."

“What a wimp," the caller said. "Holing up in his bedroom like a spoiled kid just because the world wants too much. If he had any guts he'd come out of hiding."

“Why are you so angry?"

“Because if he really was the King, he wouldn't have left us like he did, and if he did survive and go into hiding, then he cheated us another way."

“It's not like you owned him."

“Yeah, we did. We made him."

“A bunch of things made him . . . the music, the times, his own instincts, all the people who cried 'lewd' and made him notorious, all the people his death shocked into an orgy of mourning. But I don't think he owed you anything. He had a right to just stop.”

Another voice had taken the airwaves. "That man is wrong. We didn't just make Elvis, we made him sick. We made him stand in for our sense of rebellion and freedom and wanting to live so high we'd be legends. He was our . . . what do you call it?"

“Scapegoat?" Matt suggested.

“Stand-in," another male voice said. "She had it right. He was our stand-in. But he's gone, and we don't need to listen to any version of him asking for answers on the radio. We don't need stand-ins anymore. You fans who won't get over it, get a life!”

The debate was high-octane tonight.

“Couldn't you tell the poor man is just looking for peace, whoever he is?" The woman's voice was teary. "We can give it to him if we just stop expecting him to be anything any more, even alive. That was so sad, Mr. Midnight. What Elvis said last night. I hope he's all right now."

“He's all right, mama. He's probably calling in from some money-laundering island in the Caribbean, laughing at how gullible we all are. He's probably got a secret deal with the estate to stay dead, so they can milk his image better. Who wants to see Elvis a senior citizen? I hope you radio people expose the bastard who's been pulling the wool over everybody's eyes. If he comes on again, I dare you to let me ask him a few questions."

“You'd scare him away! You probably already have. Guys like you were just jealous of Elvis.”

Matt was playing referee tonight. He hardly had to put a word in as Leticia conducted the bristling switchboard like a bandleader.