Cat in a Jeweled Jumpsuit

Temple shook her head. "Was that in his later years? Paranoia seems to be the last stage before complete breakdown."

“Maybe I'm being paranoid." Quincey clasped her narrow white arms and shivered. "I'm sure not going to be voted Miss Congeniality here. Do you suppose the guy in the pool had his throat cut? With a razor?"

“No! Definitely not."

“How do you know?"

“There would have been blood, for one thing." "In a big pool like that?"

“Good point, Quincey. The large amount of water would dissipate any blood. But why slit someone's throat and throw him into a pool? Overkill, if you ask me."

“Las Vegas is an overkill kind of place," Quincey said earnestly. "I mean, I wasn't going to freak because of some funny notes, and whoever wrote the 'E' in my neck could have just as easily slit my throat, but didn't. But now there's a really dead guy—and I'm getting a little worried.”

Temple leaned against the tabletop. "So that's why you were so cool about that razor incident. You'd already figured out it wasn't a serious attack."

“I figured it was some publicity stunt. And hanging around here hadn't gotten so boring yet."

“Well, hang in a little longer. As your 'manager,' I'm going to visit the other dressing rooms and see if they're talking about you.”

Quincey tossed the immovable edifice of her hair and used a pick as long as a chopstick to torture the topmost strands even higher. "They better be talking about me. I'm not wearing this creepy crepey polyester dress just for my health, you know.”

Temple nodded and left, refraining from mention of the seventies urban legend that polyester caused cancer. Quincey had enough to worry about.

Chapter 37

From a Jack to a King

(One of Vernon Presley's country favorites, recorded by Elvis in 1967)

"Gotcha!"

“You idiot! Get your hands off me." Temple had pulled away from whoever grabbed her and adapted a battle-ready martial arts stance.

Crawford Buchanan, dry but otherwise as slimy as ever, was leaning against the wall where he had suddenly appeared.

“What's the matter?" he taunted. "Snake got you a little nervous?"

“No. Not that snake, anyway. Why are you here pestering me, anyway? I thought you had major news stories to write. 'Elvis Dies!' Really. Are your trying to build the death in the pool into some kind of Elvis legend?"

“I'm not here to pester you," he answered, shoving himself off the wall and batting his naturally dark-lashed eyes. Temple thought unhappily of Daddy Longlegs's Centipede Sweetie mascara. "I'm here to keep an eye on Quincey."

“The way you were doing when she got slashed." "I can't be around here every second."

“I haven't seen you around here at all, until now." Temple glanced down the empty hall beyond him. Nothing that way but storage rooms. "And what were you doing up in the Medication Garden? And why the twenty-foot dash into the pool?"

“You sound like the police. I'm a reporter as well as an emcee, right? So I have to check things out. My being in the Medication Garden when the corpse turned up was just a piece of good luck. I tripped over one of those damn critters from the Animal Elvis exhibit when I saw the body after you and the landlady noticed it. Believe me, I had no urge to share a pool with that snake and its prey."

“I see you've got your followup article written." Crawford grinned. " 'Giant Snake Gets Elvis All Shook Up.' How does that grab you?"

“Not much better than you did just now. The autopsy results aren't even in. It's irresponsible to blame the death on the snake."

“Maybe, but it's sure spectacular. My next piece will be Elvis's resuscitated career all washed up now."

“You're not going to try to turn the dead man into the real Elvis, are you?"

“Why not? Any dead Elvis could be the real one in disguise. Why do you think Elvis is the story that won't die? It's classic. It's beautiful. You can speculate on anything and it's impossible to prove different. It's even better than Amelia Earhart."

“It's the story that won't die because irresponsible so-called journalists like you keep beating a dead horse."

“Irresponsible? You think I'm irresponsible?" He edged nearer again, his anger turning him from a laughable pest into a sobering threat. Temple retreated despite herself, until her back was hugging the wall. "I'll showyou! I'm sitting on a story so hot that it'll make me the journalist responsible for the biggest story of the Millennium.”

She didn't know what to say in the face of Crawford's angry but impressive conviction.

She didn't have to say anything. Jumpsuit Elvis had appeared behind Buchanan like the Caped Crusader. He caught up the Crawf by the scruff of his black mohair suit coat and practically lifted him off the ground.

“Hey, there, son," he intoned in a passable imitation of Elvis's laid-back jovial country drawl, "you don't want to scare the ladies, and you sure don't want to make me mad.”