Cat in a Jeweled Jumpsuit

He sat there, listening, exhausted by the strong feelings pro and con the topic of Elvis raised, growing more concerned that this outbreak of emotion would driveaway the one man who really needed to get on the line: the supposed Elvis himself.

These calls had always come independently of whoever else was calling in and what they were saying. Elvis seemed cocooned in his own world, musing in a sometimes laid-back, sometimes manic monologue. Matt almost got the impression that he didn't listen to the radio show at all, that he just dialed during the proper hour and connected.

Two isolated men, talking, with the world listening in. And the FBI.

Matt shifted in his seat, interrupting a denouncement of rock 'n' roll music. "The music can't talk back. And neither can Elvis."

“Yes, he can!" the next caller argued. "He's been talking here."

“We don't know who that is. Was," Matt said, suddenly sure. "I don't think whoever he was will be calling in again."

“Why, is his contract up?" a snide-sounding man demanded.

“I think he's shared as much of himself as he's going to. Didn't you notice his call last night had a . final . . . air to it?"

“Aw, he won't ever go away, not really." The woman sounded more anxious than certain. "You can't mean that was it. That he'll just stop."

“He did before.”

But the calls didn't stop. Someone even asked everyone not to call in, "so that the King could get through.”

Matt smiled to see Leticia's face solidifying into horror on the other side of the glass barrier. Nobody wanted Elvis to stop calling.

Except Matt.

“It's over," he said, voicing his thoughts.

The big hand on the schoolhouse clock sliced the line that stood for twelve fifty-nine. The roulette wheel of time was running out tonight, and even Leticia's will- ingness to let the show run overtime meant nothing if the main attraction failed to show.

“He's skipped a night before," a woman's thin voice pointed out just as the minute hand clicked into place on high noon, or high midnight.

Matt heard his rush of closing words. Thanksforcalling, we'llhavetowaitandsee. Waitandsee.

Reluctantly, Leticia's falling hand cued Dwight to run the scheduled ad.

Matt pulled off the headphones before he could hear some inane jingle for a furniture rental place or a car dealership or a Laundromat. Advertisers at the midnight hour expected a young and restless audience in need of credit and consumer goods. What a role model Elvis was for them.

“Sorry," Leticia told him on the way out.

He didn't want to admit that he wasn't sorry.

Maybe his long session last night had exorcised Elvis. He hoped so.

The group outside was bigger than ever, up to nine people. All women.

“He didn't call us," one wailed as soon as she saw him.

“Don't take it personally. If he's standing anybody up, it's me."

“Nobody would stand you up, Mr. Midnight.”

Matt stared, nonplussed, into devoted eyes that would look right on a basset hound.

“How did you all get here so fast?" he wondered aloud.

“We came early and listened on the car radio," a pair of plump night-shift nurses said, almost as one, proud of their initiative.

“Maybe he'll call tomorrow." Another woman handed him the usual photograph to sign.

Leticia had given him a pen that wrote in silver, so it would show up on the photo's darker surfaces. She had a whole box of the things, brand-new, and had beamedlike Santa Claus bestowing an electric train instead of a producer anticipating many nights of numbing ritual outside the radio station door that would soon become tiring and then an imposition.

Once the novelty wore off, so would the ease.

“You might want to sign this on something solid.”

Matt had been so busy autographing his photos that he hadn't noticed the quiet woman come up. She looked more businesslike than the average fan, and her tote bag still had shipping folds in it. Elvis's face on the black background was drawn and quartered right through the Pepsi-Cola smile.

Matt took the thick fabric pen she offered—do their research, the FBI—to the newspaper vending machine, slipping the one set of tapes from his jacket pocket and into the bag.

He wrote "Sincerely, Mr. Midnight" in big loose letters across the rough surface.

Her mumbled "thank you" vanished into the pressing crowd, who weren't many, but who all wanted to be in the first row of his admirers.

“Maybe if Elvis doesn't call any more, you won't have to sit out here at midnight listening to your car radios," he joked, signing as fast as he could.

“Oh, no. We'll still be here for you," they promised in a ragged chorus.

They were fans. They would always be there. For somebody.

Chapter 51

It Wouldn't Be the Same Without You

(A song Elvis recorded during an early Sun session, without much success)

Temple's phone rang eight times before she answered it, and it was after noon.

Matt was too weary to have much imagination after a sleepless night haunted by Elvis clones, but he couldn't help wondering if Max Kinsella was back in town, keeping Temple up late.