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pet Midnight Louie again. He had been as quiet and attentive as Temple had ever seen him.
Perhaps he was interested in Elvis lore.
    “ Well,"
Merle said, "I don't want to be an alarmist, but Quincey is getting death
threats."
    “ How. Telephoned? Written?"
    “ Both. And yesterday, when she was in the dressing room alone putting on all that false Priscilla
hair and couldn't see, someone
sneaked up behind her, grabbed her
around the throat, and cut an 'E' into her with a razor blade, right
where her neck and shoulder meet."
    “Merle,
this is a job for the police!"
    “They
think it's just some Elvis nut."
    “ Nuts
are called nuts because they're dangerous. What do you think I can do?"
    “ The
police are 'keeping an eye on things,' and hotel security swears it's
going to be all over the place, but there
are so many people in costume and weird get ups ... anybody could get around all that officialdom. I thought
it'd be natural for a PR woman to be on the site, and you could, you
know, snoop."
    “ This doesn't sound like a snooping job. This
sounds like a body-guarding job." Temple's eyes opened wide. Merle
leaned forward, hopeful at last. "And that I might be able
to arrange."
    “ Thank
you so much. You're such a good example for Quincey."
    “ I am?"
    “Oh, yes. She said
you really got down and boogied at that
romance cover-hunk pageant. She thinks you're way cool for an old
person.”
     
    Chapter 6
    Blue Eyes Cryin' in the Rain
    (Recorded at Graceland in 1976, the last song Elvis ever sang the day he died, August 16, 1977)
    The
King eyed himself in the mirror.
    His hair. Finally showing the bends from dyin' all these years.
Hair's only human. You bend it enough, it'll break. It'll just die.
    His eyebrows were refusing to grow, like a cotton crop
that had been water-starved
too often. Had to paint 'em on now. Mascara on his baby-blond lashes, dye on
his head and his eyebrows, and even on his
chest hairs now that he was older and
those born-waxed-smooth boyish pecs were growin' moss. He'd gone white when they weren't lookin'. When he
wasn't lookin'.
    But
he hadn't been lookin' for a long time. Too long.
    The
King blinked. At least his eyelashes weren't fallin' out, but they weren't the
thickets he was born with. Born blond. Blue-eyed blond. Wishy-washy. Momma's
boy.
    Fixed that.
    Black. Boot-black dyed hair, eyebrows, lashes. Black
'cycle cap. Black like Brando. Wild Ones. Wild
Thing. Wild
in the Country. One of those damn movies when he'd tried to get serious
about bein' an actor.
    The King frowned at his
reflection. He was an actor now, by God. Actin' like he was alive, still the
King.
    As long as he could animate
this ole bod, he was.
    The
heart of rock 'n' roll wasn't in no damn Cleveland. Or in Motown, and damn sure
not in Nashville. Ever. lt was in Memphis.
On Beale Street. Always had been, even before he got there. No kings in
Memphis, though.
    That's
why he'd always liked the Luxor Hotel, when they put that puppy up. Even
downtown Memphis had its fake pyramid now, a big bow to the Egyptian forerunner.
    He liked those Egyptians. Life after death and all that.
Very mystical.
Sometimes he suspected he was one of them. Death was
just crossin' that river. Over Jordan, over Nile. Let my people go. Did the
Egyptians have music? Must have. You can't have death or a civilization without
music.
    Book
of the Dead. Hah! He was bigger than any ole Phar aoh. He had collected whole Books of the Dead, mystical books on eastern religions and numerology and all sorts
of intriguing things, mountains and mountains of them. Whole pyramids. His entire friggin' life had been a Book of the
Dead. Only no one knew it.
    Except maybe mama.
    Mama.
    Without
her, nothin'. With her, nothin' and everythin' pulling back and forth until he
was a piece of taffy. Blond taffy in a black
wrapper; you know, the shiny little papers with the twisty ends. So
tasty-sweet, like Krispy Kreme donuts, like young
girls. Addictive. Gotta eat more and more of