Cat in a Jeweled Jumpsuit

“I use just a little. If the spotlight catches the shiny part, it looks like sweat."

“Sweat is good?"

“Sweat is great. Elvis perspired like a sprinkler system. It showed he was giving his all. Had guys onstage bringing him water and towels. In with one, out with the other. Did you know that some of his costumes weighed thirty pounds?"

“Figures. Opera costumes are awfully heavy, and Elvis was his own opera company, wasn't he, with the elaborate costumes, and giving away scarves and kisses?"

“His jumpsuits were made of wool gabardine from Milan, Italy. Most guys here, we can't afford that, not even for what it cost Elvis twenty years ago."

“You know, the more I hear about Elvis, the more I get this sense of a heavy weight pulling him down. Literally, like the costumes, but also in the retinue he collected, the superstructure he had to support of people and debts, and then his own spending sprees."

“You're right. The man just finally sank under the weight of everything everyone put on him, and everything he needed to keep himself going, holding up the movies and the tours and the relatives and the fans and the employees. Like that world guy, you know—?""Atlas."

“Right. Atlas. And the biggest thing to hold up was mostly the expectations, including his own." He glanced down at the white silk scarf around his neck. "A lot of people have the real thing of these, not just soaked with Elvis's sweat, but in a way his blood and tears too. When I do my act, this ends up wringing wet. I'm a basketcase. High, too, but a basketcase. I can see it myself, just pretending to be him. It was just too much for any one person to do alone. And Elvis was alone. He always kept lots of people by him, but he was always alone."

“No one from the pageant is obviously missing, though?"

“One of us? Not that we can tell. There is one rumor going around. That it was KOK. You remember, the King of Kings we were talking about the other day? Nobody's seen him around, and since he lives in Vegas that's kind of unusual. Frankly, a lot of us were worried about the competition. He usually makes all the major Elvis events. Not that anybody would want the dead guy to be him. Still, we figure if he hadn't shown up yet, he probably just wasn't going to. So . . . the man in the pool could be anybody, even a fan who just wanted to wear an Elvis suit to the hotel opening. Of course a thing like this attracts a lot of wild cards. Real amateurs, first-timers, craaaazy folks. Hey, I know what you're thinking: as if the rest of us Elvi weren't.”

Temple absently watched the flood of Elvi in the hall ebb and flow. "No one ever claimed the suit that was trashed either, right?"

“I haven't heard that anyone did."

“Heard what happened to it?”

Mike shook his head. "Remember. Hot Heads. Probably tomorrow night. I should be on.”

He waved and dove back into the multitude, the jewels on the back of his jumpsuit flashing like a semaphore that turned red, yellow, and green all at once.

“Mine eyes dazzle," Temple muttered.

Elvis had died young, but he certainly hadn't stayed that way.

She wandered among the many faces of Elvis. Most of them didn't look like they had started out resembling Elvis. No, first had come the admiration, then the imitation.

She would bet that most of them hadn't done any more performing than at a local karaoke bar before donning sideburns and low-slung belts like glitzy holsters.

A slight Asian man danced through the crowd, on his way somewhere in a hurry. Five-feet-three, lean as stir-fried chicken, he caught the look of the young, mercurial Elvis better than the heavyset Caucasian men who outnumbered him forty to one.

Someone tapped her on the shoulder. Temple spun around, ready to snarl.

“Electra! What are you doing here?"

“I got invited back," Electra said smugly, shaking her shoulders. "By Today Elvis."

“Today Elvis?"

“You must have seen him around. The only guy with white hair, like Elvis's father Vernon had before he died. He's the same age Elvis would be today: sixty-four. Poor Elvis, he won't have to wonder if we'll still need and feed him at sixty-four. Anyway, Today Elvis was pretty impressed by my Elvis collection. Course, you don't know with these guys if it's you or your sweat-stained scarf, but I never could resist a younger man."

“Elvis would be sixty-four?"

“Don't look so amazed. He's still pretty young. Clint Eastwood is pushing seventy."

“It's just that I've been looking at the photo-bios and you get to thinking that's reality. So you have a, like, date with Today Elvis?"

“He invited me to watch the rehearsals."

“Really. I should do that."

“I'm sure you can hide behind my muumuu when I present my pass. If anyone spots you, I can say you'remy twelve-year-old granddaughter. Just wear your hair in pigtails."

“And ditch the high heels. I know, Granny. Did you hear anything from Today Elvis about the identity of the dead man?"

“No one here has a clue. They counted noses and they know it's not one of them, that's all."

“So when's the rehearsal?”