Was it his turn to find a corpse on his own turf? His next thought was even wilder. Had his caller ended the silence with a sudden plunge into depression and suicide on Matt’s very doorstep? His footsteps made them turn one by one. The staccato conversation of an agitated group trailed off word by word.
“He’s here!”
Faces focused on him, full of strange excitement. Even Keith who worked the switchboard was out on the parking lot asphalt, looking dazed.
Matt stared past the strangers’ faces to what had occupied their attention.
A parked car, that’s all.
Keith had bought a new car, and Matt’s fans were admiring it. Good, let them bug some guy their own age.
“Nice wheels, Keith,” he said in passing, seeing little more than a sleek silver fender. Silver. Keith had openly lusted after the Vampire. “Sorry, I’ve got to get on the job,” he told the girls who were gravitating toward him like mercury finding ground zero.
Matt waved in passing, smiling at the sincere flattery of imitation, and went into the station.
Ambrosia herself (Leticia in full radio diva persona) was sitting on the deserted receptionist’s desk like a chocolate Buddha wearing the face of Shiva, gorgeous goddess of destruction.
“You’re pretty mellow, man. Considering.” “Considering what?”
She hoisted a dangling plastic tag. “Considering your new car.”
“My new car.”
“That’s what the tag says. Glad to see an employee doing so well. Won’t have to give you a raise for a while.”
“My new car.”
“Sure glad you’re not so repetitious on the air, honey.
You better hurry if you’re gonna look at it, or before Keith kidnaps it.”
Matt took the tag from her hands. It was attached to a set of car keys, all right. And his name was printed on a paper sandwiched between two slices of clear plastic.
Matt exploded out the door, not pausing to ease it shut for once. The crowd of eight women parted like a curtain.
There it sat, illuminated by the nearest parking lot light until it shone like a hologram: an aluminum-silver puddle of metal in the shape of the redesigned Volkswagen beetle.
“Let’s see the inside,” Keith urged.
Matt tried the key, surprised when it opened the passenger door.
Keith, tall and thin as a soda straw, jackknifed into the seat. “Wow. Cool. Look at this stuff.”
“What stuff?” Matt asked.
Keith was caressing the upholstery like it was Sharon Stone. “I think it’s suede.” He leaned close to the driver’s seat, sniffed and squinted. “Blue suede.”
Matt forced his mouth to stay shut and walked around to the car’s sloping front, looking for a dealer name on the license plate holder.
There was none.
There was a license plate, though, It read: 281 ROCK Elvis had just given away his last—or maybe just latest—car.
Chapter 59
Tryin’ to Get to You
(Recorded at Sun Records in 1955, probably with Elvis on the piano)
“I do not see what you need me for,” Midnight Louise complained.
Since we are standing in the bright sunlight near Chef Song’s fish pond, it is especially fitting that she is in her usual carping mood.
“I told you. As a witness. I do not lay the dead to rest every day. Especially a corpse as famous as this.” “I do not like dark, enclosed places.”
“Neither do I.”
“So that is why you invited me along. You are scared stiff.”
“What is to worry about a bit of ectoplasm? I have already glimpsed Elvis in the non-flesh before, at the Halloween séance last fall. Or … it could have been a dear departed Elvis impersonator. It is so hard to tell the real thing from the sham these days.”
“You ought to know about that. I suppose you had something to do with that brouhaha at the Kingdome. Your roommate was in the newspaper looking like a bride of Dracula, cheek to cheek with an Elvis impersonator. She was identified, but he was called ‘a mystery man’ since he disappeared after his act, even though he was the leading contender to win. This is sort of a Cinderella story with dudes. Maybe he left a lone blue suede shoe on the Kingdome steps.
“This incident and the Mr. Midnight tapes have got the Elvis-sighting machine cranked up to maximum. And your friends and associates are up to their sideburns in it. You know what I would do if we did indeed spot some form of Elvis down in the mine attraction? I would do something more pungent than step on his blue suede shoes. I am not impressed by these dudes that cat around and get away with it. Clear? Are you sure you still want me along?”
“Of course, dear Louise.” I refrain from telling her of my key but hidden role in nailing the Elvis killer by loosing the chimp to find his master, in mid-murder, as it happened. “If we do see something, you will make an excellent supporting witness because you are so skeptical.”
“Okay, pops. Let us shove off, then.”
Unfortunately she is right. The only way to get down in the mine attraction is to take the rickety crate that functions as an elevator.
We wait until the workmen are on a lunch break, all above ground and munching on enough tuna fish to feed a cat colony. Then we dart from islands of shade and finally into the elevator.
Unfortunately, it is firmly anchored in the “up” position, so we must shimmy down the ropes, which are big and rough.
I make a four-point landing from five feet above the floor of the tunnel.
Faint work lights diminish into the dark distance. Iswear I can hear the drip of subterranean water, even though this is desert.
Miss Louise has knocked a yellow hard hat off its rack on the way down; this is not the kit’s usual clumsiness, but part of a plan, I discover.
“If we are going ghost-busting,” she says, “I want to throw some light on any apparition with the nerve to take us in.”
“How do we get it down the tunnel?”
“We take turns pushing. All right by you?”
I privately think this a dim idea; a ghost is supposed to glow in the dark. Who needs light? But together we play kick-the-hard-hat and soon we are down where, I figure, the workmen spotted what they thought was Elvis before.
“Will there not be hologram figures in this exhibit?” Miss Louise asks.
“Yup. Of Jersey Joe Jackson, the founding father of the Crystal Phoenix Hotel when it was the Joshua Tree back in the forties. And maybe of some other noteworthy dead people.”
“Sometimes I think all the noteworthy people are dead.” Louise sits down and looks around. “They already have painted glow-in-the-dark paint on some of the walls.”
“The workmen say that is not what they saw. Nor are the holograms installed yet. They saw a figure in a white suit, shining down the dark tunnel.”
“That way?” Midnight Louise stands and begins walking farther down the passage. “Kick on the chapeau light, Daddy, I am going to see Elvis.”
I do as she says. A beam shoots down the tunnel at human ankle-height. I can see Louise’s swaying hindquarters, tail high, sashaying away into the dark.
I do not think Elvis would hurt her, but I also do not think she is aware what strange forces she flouts. I believe she will soon have a rude awakening, which will be very good for her.
So I curl up around the hard hat—the built-in light provides a nice cozy warmth, and yawn. I expect her back in a sudden flurry of haloed hair and hiss and spit. If ever anyone needed to see Elvis, Midnight Louise is it. I yawn. I am getting sleepy, very sleepy.
Then I hear a faint noise far down the passage. I force my drooping eyes open and try to focus.
A white human figure is swaying in the distance, arms working, left leg buckling.
Elvis is pantomiming one of his finest moments on stage, just for me.