Cat in a Jeweled Jumpsuit

Matt's pale eyebrows lifted. "The cynical teenager. Should be interesting. Can I expect tattooed and pierced flesh?"

“Only razor-burned.”

This time no screams led the way to Quincey's dressing room.

In fact, a uniformed Kingdome security guard blocked the backstage route to the dressing rooms below.

A Kingdome security guard uniform was the same Men in Black outfit Crawford had affected yesterday: white shirt, black suit, narrow black tie, fedora, and ultradark sunglasses.

“Sorry, folks." He laid down the law with an in- character smirk that wasn't at all obsequious. "This is off limits."

“We're here to see Quincey Conrad," Temple said briskly. Brisk always sounded businesslike and, more important, legitimate.

The guard's head shook.

“Perhaps I should say 'Priscilla.' "

“You may be here to see her, but she's not ready to see you. We don't let in tourists, only people connected to the performers."

“We're connected. Check with Crawford Buchanan, the emcee. He knows the value of publicity.”

The sunglasses kept her from reading any loosening of presumably narrowed eyes, but the guy extracted a cell phone from the suit and punched in a predialed number.

“Yeah. Fiorello here. You know a—" During a long pause the impenetrable sunglasses so reminiscent of the latest fashion in alien eyes seemed to wordlessly interrogate them. Then the guard extended the phone so Temple could speak into it.

“Temple Barr with Matt Devine from WCOO radio.”

The guard clamped the phone to his ear for the reply.

In a moment he nodded grudgingly and stepped aside, but barely enough to let them pass.

They brushed by itchy-scratchy mohair into the same claustrophobic stairwell Temple had used the day before.

“This is so much nicer without the sound effects," she told Matt.

“You mean Quincey's screams.”

Temple nodded, surprised to find the hallway that had been so empty yesterday full of colorful foot traffic. Elvi in various stages of development (Young, Come- back, and Jumpsuit) and undress (no shirt, open shirt, navel-reaching jumpsuit vee) hustled by, too busy to give them a glance. Matt rubbernecked like someone at a tennis match

“They sure have the look down," Matt said. "No wonder rumors started that Elvis was alive and well and imitating himself.”

Temple darted toward an open dressing room door. "Quincey is expecting us. I told her that I was bringing media and needed an Elvis tour.”

She vanished, and Matt hesitated before following her. This place looked like a rabbit hole of the first water. Entering such illogical Wonderland worlds had put Alice through a lot of trauma as well as adventure. He wasn't eager to disappear into another unreal world like talk radio. Investigating Elvis gave the man who had called him more legitimacy. It put Matt in the business of dealing with the lunatic fringe. It meant he was making money off other people's weaknesses. But so was every Elvis imitator in the hotel, and so Elvis himself had done.

Matt shrugged and followed Temple into the room. She was a much more reliable guide than the White Rabbit, not to mention more attractive.

Then there she was, Miss Teenage America, a petite female figure dwarfed by a full bridal-veil fall of jet-black hair. Her eyes played hide-and-seek in a blur of furred lashes, painted eyebrows, and kohl liner. A black Madonna. Elizabeth Taylor as Cleopatra without the aura of seduction. She also reminded Matt of another teasingly familiar image from the sixties, or even the fifties, but he couldn't quite place it. Certainly she was a revenant of the orchestrated image Priscilla Beaulieu had donned when she had lived at Graceland with Elvis from the ages of seventeen to twenty-six, more than half the time without benefit of marriage.

“Quincey Conrad," Temple introduced this apparition. "Matt Devine.”

If the eyes beneath the awning of lashes could have narrowed further, they did. "He'd never pass as Elvis,”

she commented as if Matt weren't there, or were hearing impaired.

Obviously, her current assignment had narrowed her world to the Elvis and the not-Elvis.

“I'd never want to," Matt said. "Elvis had a very troubled life, and death."

“I'm not so sure." Quincey sat back down at the dress- ing table mirror to fine-tune her mask of makeup. "That he was troubled?"

“That he's dead."

“Really?" Temple interjected. "What makes you question that?"

“It'd be so cool, that's all." Quincey blotted her tearose-pale lipstick. "Okay. You guys ready to go on an Elvis tour?" She stood up and eyed Matt again. "What's his cover?"

“It's no cover," Matt said a little indignantly. "I've got a radio show. I might be interested in having some of the Elvis imitators on."

“Local?" Quincey's tone dripped boredom.

“Syndicated." Temple sounded like someone laying down a royal flush on a poker table.