Ellis liked the cats. There were twelve of them, each one named after a different member of Elvis’s Memphis Mafia. Charlie Hodge and Lamar Fike were fluffy Persians, while Joe Esposito and Gene Smith were calicos. Red West was a big old tabby with a flame-colored belly. Sonny West was blacker than the ace of spades. Dave Hebler was a Siamese. Ellis liked the last three best, even though in real life they had betrayed Elvis by writing the first tell-all book, the one that had been published just before the King’s death.
Elvis had wanted those boys to kill Mike Stone, the karate expert who stole Priscilla Presley’s heart. But those boys refused to do it. After all the things Elvis had done for them. . they wouldn’t even do him a little bitty favor like that.
Besides the cats, Ellis didn’t have an entourage. Still, he knew some folks who didn’t have a problem when it came to committing murder. Wyetta and Rorie. Not that they’d intended to murder Komoko for him, of course. That was just the way it had worked out.
Wyetta and Rorie had done him a big favor by chopping Komoko. He wondered if they’d do him another favor, maybe chop this Jack Baddalach character. Hopefully the boxer would get in their way and end up dead, just the way Komoko had.
Damn. That would sure enough simplify the situation. With Baddalach dead, there wouldn’t be anyone left to phone Priscilla.
Purring, Lamar Fike rubbed against Ellis’s legs. Ellis bent down and scratched Lamar’s big ol’ tomcat neck. Lamar was always hungry and took the opportunity to whine for a treat.
Ellis figured he should open a can of food. But the cat food was in the kitchen, and so was Priscilla. Suddenly Ellis was real nervous about being close to her. The way she’d given him the beer … he just didn’t feel right about it, what with her having the tape on her mouth and the chain on her leg and all.
Kind of guilty. That’s how he felt.
He knew what Elvis Presley would have done. Elvis would have gone out and bought Priscilla a fancy car or some expensive jewelry or something. The King always gave expensive gifts as a way of apologizing. Never said he was sorry or anything.
But Ellis couldn’t afford to apologize that way.
He couldn’t say he was sorry, either.
And why should he?
She had cheated on him, running around with that Komoko fella every chance she got. She’d been perfectly happy doing that until she figured out the guy was an asshole who never intended to run off with her. Then she called up her sister and her sister’s dyke lover, and together they figured out how to cash in the asshole’s chips.
Maybe Ellis could live with that. Really. If he was the one to find Komoko’s money, he could pretend the whole thing had never happened. Pretend he hadn’t heard the velvet-voiced asshole say all those things to Priscilla on the telephone tapes. Pretend, when he lay with his wife in their bed, that she didn’t have anyone else on her mind.
If he found the money, he’d tell her that he’d made a big score with the cellular phones or something. Give her a wink like there was something more to it that he couldn’t talk about.
She’d buy it. Sure she would.
And he’d have that damn money.
Two million bucks. He could get the hell out of Pipeline Beach. Take Priscilla back to Vegas. Get her away from that goddamn sister of hers.
He’d buy a new house, something in North Vegas. Air-conditioned. And he’d still have money left over. Enough for a whole mess of authentic Presley-size “I’m sorrys.”
Ellis got cleaned up. Took a shower. Waxed down his pits with that Old Spice Stick. Doused the black leather coat with Hai Karate.
Sometimes he thought that everything would be okay if he could still sing. Sit out there on the porch at night and serenade Priscilla, look her dead in the eye, watch her shiver as he ripped her up with “Loving You” or “Treat Me Nice.”
He thought about it. It would sure be nice. He really missed being able to sing. But even two million bucks couldn’t buy you a voice if you were missing half the plumbing in your goddamn throat. Ellis knew that.
He combed his hair and wandered to the kitchen. Caught the smell of dinner cooking.
Couldn’t believe it.
First the beer at the door and now this-the unmistakable aroma of fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches.
The King’s favorite meal.
It seemed like someone was turning over a new leaf. .
. . or someone was feeling real guilty.
Ellis loaded the cellular phones into the trunk. He wouldn’t have to do any legwork this trip-he was getting a reputation and had buyers lined up all over Phoenix.
He had a long drive ahead of him.
But he couldn’t quite get moving.
Because he couldn’t stop thinking.
A beer at the door wasn’t a gold bracelet. And a peanut butter ’n’ ’naner sandwich sure wasn’t a new Cadillac.
But add ’em together and they sure as hell seemed to be some kind of apology.
Or maybe they were a sign of guilt.
Ellis thought it over. He’d stripped the tape off Priscilla’s mouth so she could eat dinner. But she hadn’t said a goddamn word, except to ask him when he’d be back from Phoenix.
He said he’d be home soon enough. And then he made a trip to the living room, put a CD on the stereo. Some of Elvis’s Vegas stuff.
When “Suspicious Minds” came on, Priscilla wouldn’t look at him at all.
Ellis slammed the Caddy’s trunk and glanced over at the shed next to the trailer. He kept his tools in there.
The tape recorder was in there, too. The one he’d spliced into the phone line.
Maybe he should check the recorder before he left.
See if anyone had called while he’d been out treasure hunting. See if his wife had dared to peel that tape off of her mouth.
He wandered over, real casual, and opened the door.
It was dark in the shed.
The flashing red light on the tape recorder was the size of a pinprick.
But there was no way he could miss it.
Or what it meant.
FOUR
Wyetta took one last swig from the JD bottle and threw it into the desert behind her house.
Three silhouettes waited among the towering saguaros. Three pairs of unblinking eyes were trained upon the sheriff of Pipeline Beach.
Wyetta stared them down. She was alone. Rorie had gone home. Said she needed some rest. Wyetta had said okay, because what she had needed was a drink and she didn’t want Rorie looking at her with sad puppy-dog eyes while she had one.
Or two.
The sun slipped behind the jagged horizon to the west, painting the desert with fresh shadows. Black shadows over white sand-the same palate of colors that had shaped the generation weaned on Have Gun Will Travel, Rawhide, and The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp.
The three figures came clearer in the soft shadow of twilight. Standing stiff and straight, expressions set as if for eternity, waiting for the sheriff without a word.
No words were necessary. Wyetta knew why they were here.
A sawed-off shotgun lay on the picnic table to her left. Wyetta held her left hand aloft, smiled at the figures, then reached down slowly and took hold of the shotgun. Eased it off the table, aiming its barrel at the ground as fast as she could.
And then she came at them, not too fast, not too slow. Like a knight without armor in a savage land. Moving into range. And she didn’t blink once. Her gaze traveled everywhere. From their guns to their hands to their unblinking eyes.
Wyetta said what Wyatt had said a long time ago: “You sons of bitches have been looking for a fight.”