Cat in a Jeweled Jumpsuit

Matt's muscles seized up as if he had turned into an instant corpse.

“Are, uh, you there, sir?”

Leticia had come alive like a football fan whose team had just scored two points by running over the goal line from a faked point-after position. Her smooth cappuccino features all tilted up, as if her head was a helium-filled balloon that would lift her entire 300-pound body out of her chair.

Matt had become enough of a media personality to realize that the sight of such an ecstatic producer was nothing to trifle with. He surrendered to show biz.

“Yes, I'm here. You wouldn't be Elvis again?"

“Well, sir, that's kind of a funny way of puttin' it. I've always been Elvis, so I don't have to be him again, if you get my drift. Once has been enough, let me tell you."

“You had a lot of good times."

“Oh, yeah. But before and after . . . they weren't sohot. You know, a guy gets to thinkin' when he's all alone—"

“Are you all alone, Elvis?"

“Guess so. Ain't seen nobody around lately. 'Course, they know enough to leave me alone when I want to be alone, and to be there for me when I want 'em to."

“Sounds handy. Like a light switch."

“What do you know about my flashlight?”

Matt hadn't been referring to a flashlight, but he recalled a famous photo of Elvis carrying one like a baton. "Oh, saw some photographs of you with one dangling from your wrist. That would be in the seventies, wasn't it?"

“Uh, yeah. Sounds right."

“Why did you carry that flashlight, Elvis?"

“Well, I got eye problems. One-eye problem, I guess. Had to wear dark glasses. And I liked to know what was going on. Out there, in the dark."

“You were being vigilant."

“Yeah. That's it."

“You were something of a lawman, in a way, weren't you?"

“Hey, you musta been a fan, Mr. Midnight, is that right?"

“I guess everybody was your fan."

“Not ever'body. I had my naysayers. You can't do anything unusual in the world without naysayers. But I could handle that. Hell, I had 'em in high school; didn't like me wearin' my hair long or dressing like I did, wanted to beat me up. They weren't gonna beat me up when I had law enforcement badges from almost every place in the country. Even one I got from drug enforcement, through President Nixon. He was very happy to meet me. I was a Jaycees Outstanding Young Man of the Year in seventy ... one. Two? Somewhere in there. Didya know that?"

“I knew that, Elvis," Matt said soothingly.

The caller seemed not to have heard him. "Naysayers.

Naysayers who sit in your own living room and then go out and take money from some New York publisher to make you look like a fool . . . make you look bad to your little girl . . . those kind are hard to take.”

Matt was silent for a moment too long. Dead air time was the bane of talk shows. But the man had sounded genuinely upset just then. Poor soul, did he really believe his own impersonation?

“That was rough," Matt said. "When those guys got fired and wrote that tell-all book about you. You got . pretty sick after that.”

Pretty sick? He had died only a couple of weeks after the release of the scandalous Elvis, What Happened? book in 1977.

“Daddy done fired 'em. First definite thing my Daddy ever did in his life, and it ended up gettin' that awful book written. I talked to Red. He called, and I kinda asked him to stop it, but he said he couldn't. He even tape-recorded me without my knowin' and put that in his damn book! I couldn't believe one of my guys would do that to me. Red was with me from high school. Why'd he do that, Mr. Midnight? Why?”

Matt glanced at the clock, pointed a forefinger at his wrist so that Leticia couldn't miss it. She didn't. Past one A.M. They were in overtime. But she just kept rolling her fingers in the gesture that meant keep going. Apparently, to continue the football metaphor, they were in sudden death overtime. Matt mentally scanned his skimmed reading material for the relevant response.

“Well, Elvis, he was mad, and Red always had a hellacious temper. He couldn't believe he'd be fired after all those years with you, and his cousin Sonny had been fired too."

“But to say those things in public, those private things—"

“You were rough on the people around you. Demanded all their time anytime you needed them." "I had to! Good God, man, you don't know what aperforming schedule I was on, from the earliest days when me and my two band guys was driving ourselves around, doin' up to three shows a day. Then later, it was the movies, and those are long, long hours. Then later the tours. Colonel kept me hoppin' with those two back-to-back Vegas shows a night, and road tours night after night, week after week. It's a wonder I made it as long as I did."

“As long as—how long, Elvis, until—?" Matt thought he had him.

The King sounded confused for the first time. His words slurred slightly. "Until I-I I just wore out, and, and I I. . . I took some time off."

“Nothing happened, did it? Nothing bad?"