Cat in a Jeweled Jumpsuit

So my target is not this plentitude of dudes, but the lone little doll among them, and I am not referring to Miss Temple. Once she has led my friends to the Elvis concession and turned them loose, the subject fades out into the hall, where I am waiting.

A classic line in crime detection is French: cherchez la femme.

In plain English, this means tail the frail.

So I pitter-patter after Miss Priscilla, aka Quincey.

Frankly, I do not expect much to come of this. I expect to end up back at her dressing room, where she will resume obsessing about the state of her resemblance to a woman who at least is still alive, even though this particular semblance of her evokes the Bride of Dracula.

I can understand the King's fixation on the color black, however.

No wonder he dyed his wimpy golden locks to the color of soot. I am glad that my rival for the cat food spokespurrson role, Maurice, has not thought to turn his yellow coat black like mine. Elvis, I heard Miss Electra holding forth, dyed his hair because even from the first he wanted a film career and he felt dark-haired dudes had a stronger screen presence. Dudes like Marlon Brando in The Wild One, or James Dean. Well, James Dean was a little wishy-washy in the hair color department, but Tony Curtis was another favorite of Elvis, and he was black as Midnight Louie.

Another thing Elvis was into was black leather. I come by mine naturally: nose, footpads and eyeliner, only I do not have to apply mascara like some Adrian Actor dude.

So I cannot fault the guy for changing himself around to look like me. Maybe not me personally, but my kind of cat. We are considered tough hombres, let me tell you, and the ladies really go for that macho look.

Why he wanted his Miss Priscilla to also look black tothe max, I do not know. I myself prefer a bit of variety in my private life. But everyone is entitled to his little quirks, and Elvis, a born collector of everything from cars and 'cycles to girls and horses, was dealt a full hand of little quirks too.

So there I am, only a few steps behind these cute chunky old shoes, and I almost run into Miss Priss's pale hose when she stops at a door that is not hers.

It is all I can do to keep my whiskers from tickling her calves. I do not manage to keep from gawking up her Aline skirt to check out a garter. Nobody wears garters anymore but snakes. Sure enough, Miss Quincey has been accurate enough to Miss Priscilla's era to be wearing a garter belt. I am impressed by her acting verisimilitude.

She does not notice me, though, not even my vulgar surveillance.

She opens this door, darts in, and turns to close it so fast she leaves me standing in the hall extracting my whiskers from the doorjamb. I have just received a most unexpected and unattractive crimp in my facial hair.

Now I am really curious! Just what is so secret behind that door? I retreat to a nearby trash container, hunker behind its cola-streaked side, and wait.

When Miss Priscilla comes out, I will be ready to dash in, or my name is not Mr. Lucky.

Actually, my name is not Mr. Lucky, but there are times when it should be.

Chapter 18

King Creole

(The title song from a 1958 film)

"And I thought that Mike and Jerry were a twin act," Matt said, staring at the next-door dressing room chockfull of burning hunks of Elvis.

“I guess their dressing room was unusually deserted," Temple said. "Say, wasn't Elvis a twin?"

“Not exactly. He was a surviving twin. His brother was delivered dead about a half hour before he was born. Why do you ask?"

“I just wondered if anyone here did a twin act."

“I suppose it's possible." Matt didn't add that the ever-expanding boundaries of bad taste could encompass almost anything nowadays. "His twin was named Jesse Garon."

“And Elvis was Elvis Aaron?"

“A lot of people in the South used rhyming names for twins, if not first names, then middle names." Matt studied the mirror-magnified mob of Elvises. "Psychologists say that twinship bonds are formed in the womb. Surviving twins like Elvis never seem to recover from the loss of that exact double. They say twins touch in the fetal stage, even kiss."

“Ooh. Creepy."

“And suicide rates for surviving twins are much higher than normal."

“So maybe not just drug abuse killed Elvis?"

“No one was willing to go on record that drugs did it. Heart failure was the ostensible reason, the diagnosis for all sudden deaths. It was also used for his mother, but later sources say her death at age forty-six was caused by cirrhosis of the liver."

“Mother drank?"