Free Cat in a Jeweled Jumpsuit by Carole Nelson Douglas

been fifties Elvis. What would explain seventies Elvis?
    “ How did you get this gig?" Temple asked.
Merle had told her, but she wanted to
hear Quincey's version. Mother and
daughter were each at an age, and a stage in their relationship, where the chances of anything about them
jibing were nil.
    Quincey
sighed. "Crawf, who else?"
    “
`Crawf?' That's what you call him?"
    “Yeah.
What's it to you?"
    “I
call him 'Awful Crawford' myself."
    “ `Crawf' sort of sounds like
barfing.""Especially if you have a cat."
    “You have a cat?"
    “As much as anyone ever
does."
    “Crawf hates cats."
    “ I'm not surprised. You
can't trust anyone who doesn't like cats.”
    Quincey' s Egyptian eyes lowered to the gaudy faux body on the floor. "Did Elvis like cats, I
wonder?" "Don't you know, with all that
reading?"
    “ No . . . he had a few dogs and horses, but I never heard
of a cat.”
    Temple
nodded sagely. Sometimes the most important things about people never made it
into the history books.
     
    Chapter 10
    The Hillbilly Cat
Scat
    (Elvis
was called the Hillbilly Cat in tribute to his mingled country
and rhythm and blues persona
early in his career)
    Did
Elvis like cats? Does your daddy not dance
and your mama not rock 'n' roll? I thought so.
    I have made it over to the Kingdome hard on my little doll's
heels.
    And
my little doll's heels are usually hard on her and anybody who gets in her way.
    So
I am discreetly eavesdropping from the hall when this discussion over the fallen, fake-dead Elvis takes place.
    There
are so many fake-live Elvi in the world, not to mention just in this hotel right now, that a dead Elvis, fake or
not, has by now become a novelty.
    Like
all of my breed, I thrive on investigating novelty. That is why I cannot resist
following Miss Temple to this emporium of all things Elvis, and my instincts
prove true, given the shenanigans I am (over)
hearing about. While a punctured jumpsuit hardly has the makings of a
federal case, a punctured Priscilla Presley impersonator sniffs of nefarious deeds to come. My expert help is now at
the service of one and all, whether they know it or not.
    And I know a thing or two about the cool cats of the
world. That is how I am aware that when Elvis Presley first burst onto the music scene, they did not know whether he was black or white or blues or country, so they
called him the Hillbilly Cat. See, hillbilly music was all-white whining, and rhythm and blues were only wailed in black bars then, so combining the two sounds
was something daring.
    It was so new and daring that it would eventually get that Hillbilly Cat named the King of Rock 'n' Roll, which is what everybody decided to call the new blend once it was
rolling off of every radio in the country.
    What do I know about music? Listen, I have been a backyard one-man band all of my life. All of us down and out sorts, whatever the color of our coats, like to get
to gether for a good community wail now
and then. Not that my breed has ever been
much chased by record com panies throwing big-money
contracts at us, just by irate sleepers
hurling shoes and chamberpots. Not everyone has an ear for music. And,
luckily, almost no one has a chamberpot these days.
    I must say that I am glad to see my Miss Temple get ting out of the house and into a new environment. She has spent far too much time around the Circle Ritz these days, worrying about the care and feeding of this one human
dude or the other, when there I sit needing a fresh bribe on my dry pile of
Free-to-Be-Feline nuggets.
    But I see that shenanigans of a sinister sort have lured her from the domestic front to the center of the newest action
on the Strip, and that cannot be a bad thing.
    As
for someone who would find it necessary to create his—or her—own murder victim
before plunging in the fatal dagger, what can you expect in a town that is
all show and go and no substance? I see that the age of the Virtual Victim is upon us,
es pecially when someone has gone
to the