Free Daniel Klein by Blue Suede Clues: A Murder Mystery Featuring Elvis Presley

look-see?”
    â€œSure do,” Elvis said.
    This end of the shack was as clean and uncluttered as the other side was a pig sty. Not a thing on the floor except wall-to-wall gym mats which extended a couple of yards up the wall as well. The centerpiece was a nylon cable which hung down from a beam at the apex of the A-frame ceiling. Swaying from the bottom of the cable was a leather chest and shoulder harness, a formidable-looking crosshatch of belts and buckles that laced up in the back like an old-fashioned corset.
    â€œThis here’s Nelly, the stuntman’s mistress,” Cathcart laughed, giving the harness a push that sent it in a wide arc which grazed the wall. “Gotta treat her sweet or she’ll drop you faster than a lead balloon.”
    Elvis grabbed the harness as it swung toward him. “Use it for jumping?”
    â€œMostly for climbing,” Cathcart said. “Say you’re scaling the side
of a building or up a stony ledge. Like one of the old-timers was in a picture where this guy had to climb up George Washington’s face on Mount Rushmore. They brought a crane up there, hung a cable from the end, and attached it to old Nelly strapped under his shirt. I seen the movie. You can spot the cable if you know where to look, even though they tried to fool you by painting it sky blue.” He grinned at Elvis. “Want to take her for a spin?”
    Elvis hesitated. Only a few weeks back he’d told the Colonel that he’d like to do some of his own stunts in his next picture. He thought it might help keep his interest up if he was going to do anymore sleepwalkers like Kissin’ Cousins. Of course, the Colonel had said absolutely not. “Son, you’ve got a face like a Botticelli angel,” Parker had said. “We can’t be jeopardizing a thing like that.”
    â€œSure, why not?” Elvis said to Will Cathcart.
    Elvis removed his shirt and put on a T-shirt that Cathcart picked randomly off the floor on the other side of the shack. It was a bit snug, especially across his mid-section, but Elvis barely noticed after the kid buckled and laced him into the stuntman’s mistress; the harness itself was so tight it chafed against his ribs with every inhale.
    â€œI’m going to take you up a couple feet, okay, Mr. Presley?”
    â€œWhat do I do?”
    â€œWhatever you please, Elvis,” the boy said. “You could act like you’re climbing up George Washington’s face if you wanted. Nellie will do all the real work.”
    The boy vanished from Elvis’s sight. “Here goes!” he called.
    Elvis was yanked up so fast his head snapped forward and his insides churned. The straps under his shoulders pinched his skin so viciously that his eyes smarted. But the worst part was the dizziness—the dizziness and the feeling of vulnerability. He felt like a puppet. And that was surely a feeling he did not like at all.
    â€œSure hope you know what you’re doing, Will,” Elvis said, forcing a little laugh.
    â€œOh, I know what I’m doing, all right,” Cathcart chimed back. “I learned from the master.”
    â€œThe master?”

    Abruptly, Elvis was hoisted up another five feet. He was now more than halfway to the ceiling, and he started to spin and sway like a dead-weight pendulum. Automatically, he extended his hands in front of him.
    â€œThat’d be me, Pelvis,” a voice below him cracked. “The stuntmaster supreme.” Somebody else was down there.
    Elvis craned his head down to try to see who it was, but suddenly he was swinging so wildly and twirling so fast that his hands were no help in preventing him from colliding with the wall. First his right shoulder hit, then, careening back, his buttocks took a smack from the opposite wall, and spinning back again, his left hand scraped against a wood strut, grazing the skin on his knuckles. Along the way, the blond wig tumbled off his head and