Cat in a Jeweled Jumpsuit

Although the "Fat and Forty" Elvis of the tabloids had only had a short run at the very end of the performer's career, this version of Elvis was present everywhere in the dressing room. Where else could broad-bellied, middle-aged Everymen find a role model who had remained beloved and sexy to legions of female fans to the bitter end? Seeing these out-of-shape Elvises reflected in the facing mirrors and each other made Matt understand one reason for the entertainer's life after death: such imperfections and failings had only further endeared him to his fans. Reading of Elvis's Messiahlike appeal had puzzled Matt until today. Here, the degraded Elvis image was embraced as enthusiastically as the idealistic one of endless youth and fitness and energy, most of it running on amphetamines.

Christianity had been the world's first religion to worship a God with a vulnerable face: one facet of the Trinity was divinity made flesh. In a sense, like a shaman who takes upon himself both powers beyond ordinary humans and failings even greater than ordinary humans face, Elvis had become larger than his life. And Matt, from his reading, guessed that he knew it, which explained his thirst for spiritual enlightenment, even his grandiose belief that he could inspire young people to avoid street drugs when he himself gobbled prescribed drugs at a rate that stunned medical experts after his death.

“Awesome, isn't it?" Temple commented under her breath. "The essence of Las Vegas. Or old Las Vegas, anyway, before the Bellagio and the Beluga came along to turn this old town into a literal cultural oasis."

“The Beluga?"

“My nickname for the new Belladonna hotel-casino. Though it could describe some of these guys in jumpsuits."

“That's what's so interesting. Elvis was slim for most of his career, but because middle-aged guys emulate him, he's like a fly trapped in amber or a tabloid photograph: immortalized at his least flattering moment."

“Maybe that was his most average moment.”

Matt nodded. "He'd always had a prodigious appetite.

He was almost hyperactive. That's how the performance moves started. His left leg was always jiggling off excess energy even in high school, and onstage it kept time to the music and started the whole pelvis thing when the girls began screaming. He could tuck away enormous amounts of fatty fried food that would send any heart surgeon into cardiac arrest just to hear about it. When he got past forty, he was too used to conspicuous consumption to stop. I think his high metabolism also allowed him to tolerate large doses of drugs. But in a way, fat killed him. The first evidence I can find of him taking any kind of prescription drug was his mother's diet pills; she wanted to lose weight when his career began to take off, and she didn't like her appearance in photographs."

“What kind of diet drugs?" Temple asked. "Like fen/ phen?"

“No, no. Amphetamines. Speed. Doctors handed them out to everyone in the fifties and sixties before anyone knew much about the physiology and psychology of addiction. Then when Elvis was drafted into the army, he was given Dexedrine to stay awake on night guard duty—"

“And uppers and downers when he started working in Hollywood, I bet. I have heard about that.”

Matt nodded. "I can even sympathize now that I'm on a night 'performance' schedule. It's a lot harder to un- wind at two A.M. after the Midnight Hour live, than after anonymous private counseling sessions at ConTact." "So what do you do to relax?”

Matt laughed uneasily. "Lately? Like last night? Stay up until five A.M. reading Elvis books."

“You know, this is the first time I've ever found Elvis interesting. Who'd think stuff like a nervous tic and a few of your mother's borrowed diet pills could both make you and break you?"

“Yeah. As I read this stuff, I keep wondering, when did it go wrong? What, or who, could have saved him? If anyone could have."

“And if they had," Temple added with a sweeping gesture, "would we still have had all this?"

“I don't know. I don't even know which one of these guys, if any, might be my Midnight caller."

“The only way to find out is to look, listen, and ask a lot of nosy questions. I'll play PR frontwoman. Follow me.”

Matt wouldn't have known who to approach. Face it; he wouldn't have approached any of these intent men busy being born-again in the image of a dead superstar.

But Temple just kicked her snappy heels into high gear and clicked over to a neighboring pair of white-suited Elvises who were exchanging a small tube of glue.

On the concrete floor, the heels' approach was as arresting as the sharp stutter of castanets. Temple's pred- ilection for politically incorrect footwear was a subtle way of knocking on people's doors as she approached them. Then they saw her red hair and were as good as snagged by her elfin charm.

Like all small creatures, she couldn't afford to be in- visible.