Free Cat in a Jeweled Jumpsuit by Carole Nelson Douglas Page B

doing."
    “Paranoid?"
    “Naw,
eager to learn. After all, there's no one like us, right?"
    “How
many are running around the hotel?"
    “Gosh,
maybe a hundred."
    “A
hundred?"
    “ This is the biggest Elvis-impersonator competition ever. Everybody's here from the Grand
Old Men who invented the art to the rawest new kids on the block."
    “And
where do you rank?"
    “ Somewhere in the middle." Kenny grinned.
"But anything can happen. It's a competition, right?"
    “ Competitive
enough for somebody to ice somebody else's jumpsuit?'
    “ Gee, Elvis was red, white, and blue suede shoes. I'd hate to think someone would get petty in his name.
None of us would be doing this if we
didn't revere the man's talent and
what he stood for. So, no, I can't imagine one of us sinking that low. Besides, any competition's a crapshoot. It'd be better to attack the judges than
some poor innocent jumpsuit."
    “ This looks like a pretty spectacular one. I'd hate to duplicate
it on short notice.”
    Kenny
shook his head mournfully. "I couldn't feel worse seeing that
destroyed there, other than seein' some guy in it. God, I
put in every spare minute and nickel for the past three years to get myself
here. When I first started
performing at karaoke clubs around Philly, I got laughed off the stage until I got good enough to laugh back.
Someone who'd ruin any Elvis imitator's mainstay deserves to be stabbed in the
back too."
    “But your suits are
safe."
    “ Better be. I got two. A lot of guys only got one and they put all their hopes and dreams and their best
buddies' cash into it. Families, friends, they gotta support your Elvis
habit, or you wouldn't make it this far.”
    Temple was actually starting to choke up over the ruined
jumpsuit.
    For an
Elvis impersonator, she saw, a jumpsuit was a costly second
skin. Designing and underwriting one was the single biggest commitment he made
to his avocation. Whoever had thrust the
gaudy dagger through the rhine stone
stallion had also stabbed a metaphorical blow into the owner's heart.
    Malicious mischief wasn't quite strong enough to de scribe
the ruin wreaked here.
    “ It could be dirty tricks before the
competition," she said.
    Kenny nodded. "Or it could be someone who hates the
King, in any form.""That would mean you all were in danger.”
    Kenny's
bright blue eyes squinted almost closed. "He did get a lot of death
threats when he was alive. You'd sorta hope that would stop when he was
dead."
    “I
thought he was still showing up here and there reg-ularly."
    “So
the tabloids say. That's always been the big joke."
    “What?"
    “That
Elvis faked his own death because he was tired of all the hoopla. That he's out here somewhere, mas querading as
an Elvis imitator."
    “He'd
be . . . how old?"
    “Almost
retirement age. Sixty-four."
    “ Do you think he could pass
as himself at that age?"
    “I've seen dudes that old
pass as Elvis at thirty-five.
    I even
saw a woman do a great Comeback Elvis." "Why would a
woman want to imitate Elvis?" "Same reason we all do: loved the sound and the songs; loved the King.”
    Kenny's
voice had sunk to a reverential hush.
    “What
kind of work do you do, Kenny, when you're not doing Elvis?”
    He
hung his head a little. Maybe he was shy, or maybe the
helmet of hair was too heavy a burden to carry. "Shoe salesman in the mall. And
no, they don't make blue suede shoes anymore, least
not for guys. Say, those are some sharp heels you got on there."
    “That's
the general idea," Temple said. A three-inch heel was a portable dagger.
     
    Chapter 12
    I Forget to
Remember to Forget
    (A
catchy song Elvis recorded for RCA in 1956; record execs were
much higher on it than his next
recording, "Heartbreak Hotel")
    He'd look at the old photos
now and then.
    Where
had he gone, Young Elvis? And Middle Elvis—didn't those damn
Egyptians have a Middle Kingdom or somethin'? He didn't count for much, Middle Elvis.
A flash in the devel oping pan: for a few
blinks of the camera's eye lean