Cat in a Jeweled Jumpsuit

Temple took in the outfit and the lonely ambiance of the deserted dressing room. Being the only peahen in a clutch of male peacocks couldn't be described as fun. "I'm not sure anybody started this way, including Priscilla Presley. Have there been more threatening notes?""To me? No." That fact seemed to further dispirit Quincey. "I am the forgotten woman at this thing," she announced, "now that somebody has offed an Elvis." "The death hasn't been labeled a homicide yet." "What else could it be?"

“An accident. A suicide."

“Suicide. Now that I can buy. This whole gig is suicidal." She threw a tube of Daddy Longlegs's Centipede Sweetie mascara onto the scuffed tabletop. It rolled all the way to the other end, like a ball down a bowling lane, where it crashed into a bumper of scratched Formica. "I mean, I am bored to death! It's all sitting around, waiting for the guys to get ready to run through their acts. Like, I've been forced to bring homework and even look at it here.”

Temple eyed a slim book with one lined sheet of notepaper stuck askew between its pages. This did not look like serious study.

“That's show biz," she said matter-of-factly. "Waiting for your time to come. In fact, Michael Caine once said he got paid nothing to act, but a very lot of money to sit around and wait.”

Quincey stared at her, as if riveted by this gem of theatrical wisdom. "Who's Michael Caine?" she finally asked.

“Oh, nobody. The Brad Pitt of several generations back."

“Brad Pitt. Yuck. Totally retro. He's really let himself go."

“Oh. I guess Elvis holds the record, then. He kept his fans for over twenty years, and even death did not them part."

“But they're all crazy." Quincey sighed. "I guess crazy fans are better than no fans."

“You could quit, you know. They can find another Priscilla.”

Quincey seemed to consider the idea. "It is a drag going to school during the mornings and then coming over here to sit around in case someone needs me to stand there while they rehearse the awards ceremony. Like anyone cares who wins best scarf-tosser and biggest belt buckle." Her eyes grew suddenly calculating. "But if I quit, I wouldn't have a chance to meet any cute Elvises."

“I didn't think there were any."

“Well, the bodyguards aren't bad."

“The Memphis Mafia? I thought those old guys in hats and suits creeped you out."

“Not those guards. The ones you got me. They're the best-looking Elvises in the place."

“Ah. They're still a little old for you."

“Please, moth-ther, give me a break. I like older guys if they're not really old, like thirty or something.”

Before Temple could get into basic arithmetic with Quincey, obviously a subject she'd skipped in school, the dressing room door banged open against the wall. A phalanx of suits filled the doorway.

Three abreast, this particular outcropping of the Memphis Mafia resembled Siamese triplets. The black suits melted into one vague blob, and their three pale faces protruded like mushrooms under three very black caps ... that is, fedoras.

“Okay, lady," one addressed Temple. "Up against the mirror. What is your business here?"

“Ah, I'm Quincey's manager.”

When they looked blank as well as menacing, she pointed to the seated Quincey, managing to impale her finger into a rat's nest of Clairol's blackest embrittled with hair spray. Yuck.

The Mafia guys were not distracted.

“You haven't been around before," one said.

With their eyes narrowed into tough-guy slits, the guys looked even more like Siamese triplets. Temple couldn't tell which one had spoken. Of course they spit out their words between almost immobile lips, like Bogart on a laryngitis day. Must have been that damp andfoggy ending of Casablanca. Poor guy. Paul Henreid got the girl, and he got the upper respiratory infection.

Temple coughed discreetly. "Managers come and go. I have other clients, you know."

“That right? She got a right to be here?" one asked Quincey.

A rebel glint brightened the tiny eye-holes between Quincey's quintuple-strength false eyelashes. With one word she could rid herself of a voice for maturity and prudence.

Also a cohort in a hostile world.

“Sure." Quincey punctuated her casual response by snapping her bubblegum. It echoed in the empty room like a gunshot.

The boys stiffened and clapped hands to armpits. Then they began clearing their throats, shuffling their feet, and backing out of the room before they looked even more foolish. Pulling firearms on two lone women would look like overkill.

“Were those the real Kingdome Memphis Mafia, or shills?" Temple wondered aloud.

“You mean there are fake hotel security guards?" Quincey paled a little. "Who can you trust around this place?"

“Regard it as the real Graceland, and trust no one."

“You know, that's true. Elvis had closed-circuit TVs in his bedroom so he could watch people around the house and decide whether to come down and play. So many people came around, it got so he couldn't see them all.”