Cat in a Jeweled Jumpsuit

“Right," Izzy said, munching on a burger. He had skipped the burned bacon. "It's Freudian. Symbolic. If there's any one symbol of Elvis, it's those damn jump- suits. We impersonators—pardon, according to the estate, we're now 'tribute performers.' La-di-dah! La-didah-dah. La-di-dah-dah." He was jiving in the booth, drumming his fingertips on the mint-green Formica tabletop and Temple was thinking Elvis would be sixty-four ... when I'm sixty-four. Need me, feed me. Fried bananas and peanut butter. Comfort foods, every last one of them.

“Izzy?"

“Yeah, kid?" Drum, drum, drum-drum-drum. Doowap, doo-wap.

He was like some uncle she had never had, the one you could ask about anything. He was cool for an old dude.

“Izzy? Would Elvis really be exactly like you today?"

“I hope not, honey." He leaned toward her, his dark eyes set in baggy, wrinkled bezels like elephant knees. "I hope Elvis today would be sleek and toned, flat-bellied, and that his coiffure would be dark and smooth as semi-sweet chocolate. I hope he'd be everything that I'm not. Eternal almost-youth at no more than ... urn, fifty-six, a well-preserved, hale and healthy fifty-six. With lots of plastic surgery and hair transplants and maybe Viagra; you think?”

She laughed. "If he isn't like you, he should be so lucky.”

He inclined his snowy head. Like a king. "Thank you."

“Izzy. Could Elvis still be around? If he was, what would ... could he look like? Really?”

Izzy sighed deeply. "If he didn't look quite like me? What are you asking?"

“Could he pass as himself? Could he still be out here? Somewhere? What would he really look like?

“You tried one of those police department computer imagining things?"

“No, and I don't have access. I only have access to speculation. To you, Today Elvis."

“You're serious. You think Elvis could be out there. You . . . have a notion."

“I have a wild idea.”

Electra, who had sat back to luxuriate in Temple's learning to appreciate Izzy, stared dreamily at the grille of a fifty-eight Oldsmobile embedded into the soda fountain. "I'm getting the weirdest feeling. Like Elvis is everywhere, just like Mojo Nixon said. Just . . . open your mind's eye, and see for yourself.”

Temple's mind's eye saw senior citizens, even if they used to rock 'n' roll. But who could channel Elvis better?

“Izzy, is there anybody in this competition who could really be Elvis?”

He shook his head. "No contest. I'm probably the closest thing to reality, and I'm a far cry. A far cry. Hey. Young lady. You just reminded an old man how inadequate he is."

“No. I just reminded you how close you are. No one else?"

“Well ... I've seen most of the acts rehearsing." He shook his frosty head. "Naw. Maybe . . . that guy they call the King of Kings. Maybe him. Maybe. Heck, lil' darling shiksa. He looks too young, but then you kinda hope Elvis would be Forever Young. He's got the power. Part of it, anyway."

“Do you think he could still be out there?"

“Sheesh! Where'd this kid learn to ask questions? No. Elvis is dead. He killed himself after everybody around him let him down, after he let everybody around him down. He's better off dead. He had too much pain. He had too much . . . too much. The man makes me cry. That's why I 'do' him. He makes me feel. That's a luxury at my age.”

Electra took his hand.

“I'da saved him if I could," Izzy said, "but no one could. And especially not you, kid. Especially not you.”

Temple, chastened, thought. She thought, rebelliously. Elvis was out there somewhere, or all of this wouldn't be happening.

Elvis was out there somewhere.

Chapter 47

There Goes My Everything

(Elvis recorded this song about a broken marriage in June of 1970; it did well on three charts)

"Isn't Izzy something?”

Electra had scrunched down in her theater seat to stare at the dark stage of the Kingdome showroom.

“You sound like the teenager you're dressed as. He's an interesting man—"

“And were you really serious with all those Elvis questions? Do you think the real King might be around?"

“I don't know what I think, but when you figure in that Matt is getting very credible calls from a possible Elvis . . . and that Quincey was seriously harassed, something sinister besides murder is going on, but it seems so scattershot.”

Electra's eyes were still only for her new beau. "Izzy doesn't really expect to win," she explained. "He just does this to have some fun. Who's gonna let a realistic-looking Elvis win? Everybody wants Elvis at his peak, even on stamps."

“I guess he was something in his prime, to go by the Fontana brothers." Temple eyed the awesome clot of mostly early Elvi at stage left, near the band.

“They are so cute! I don't know if the judges would let a whole litter win, but I'd vote for those boys any day.”

Temple scanned the seats in front of them in the house's raked tier. Shiny black helmet heads pockmarked the burgundy velvet seats like beetle backs.