“I’ve got special gels for the stage lights, kind of like black-light gels.”
“Oh,” Temple blurted, “like the strippers use.”
“Right on.” Shana eyed Temple with new respect, as if she had grown a half foot in her estimation. “It casts this white-purple glow and then this thing comes alive like a landing strip in Oz. Unbelievable.”
Matt nodded. “So they know you’re ‘Velvet Elvis,’ but they don’t know yet just how spectacular you are.”
“Right. Not until dress rehearsal. The thing is, the jumpsuit is everybody’s secret weapon. Some of the veterans don’t care, but the rest of us keep our outfits under wraps until we have to show them off.”
“So any number of you could have a costume no one’s ever seen before?” Temple speculated. That might explain why no one had claimed the mutilated jumpsuit.
Shana nodded.
“And that’s why us asking about jumpsuits might get the cold shoulder.”
Shana nodded again.
“Isn’t it hard,” Temple asked, “being the only woman?”
Shana shook her head. “No. And, after all, I’ve got a pal in Priscilla, right?”
“You and Quincey get along?”
“She’s an okay kid. Notice I did not say ‘good.’ That girl’s got a lot to prove and no one to show her the right way to go about it. But we get along. I haven’t shown her my Elvis suit, though.”
“Why did you show us?” Temple asked.
Shana shut and locked the case and resumed her chair by the mirror before she answered.
“Doing an impersonation is different from any other acting job on earth. You’re not digging into a character through the lines the playwright gave him; you’re digging into a real person through the life he lived, and in this case, died. It’s a commitment. It’s an education. If you’re any kind of actor, it’s a transformation. Even if you’re a bad actor, and there are a bunch of those here, you get caught up in the challenge, and maybe the privilege. You are an interpreter, and you want to be the best damn one you can be. So, you’ve got a vested interest, in the end.”
She leveled a glance at Matt, and Temple noticed that her eyes were a clear, strong, undrugged Elvis blue. Contact lenses, again? Ever the cynic.
“Whoever you’re talking to,” Shana went on, looking hard at Matt, “even if he thinks he’s a fraud, is in trouble. Elvis-sized trouble. King-sized trouble. I’m riding on his image. So I owe it to Elvis to help.”
Chapter 21
Ya-kitty-yak
(Elvis never recorded “Yakety-yak,” but it was written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, who wrote other songs Elvis did record)
I guess I never paid attention when those Tarzan movies came on.
I find jungle life fairly boring, not to mention hard on the ears: all those exotic birds and monkeys shrieking in the trees, the stampeding elephants trumpeting like they have just been drafted into a mariachi band, natives jumping up and down chanting, drums beating to beat the mariachi band … not my scene.
Still, now I wish I had picked up a tip or two on relating to the most intelligent life form outside of Homo sapiens himself (and that is not saying much). See, these things chitter. They chatter. They screech. It is very hard to decode their ravings. Oh, they have those big brown eyes that everyone finds so expressive. So do dogs, and you know how many of their lightbulbs are on permanent dim. They also are blessed with those blasted opposablethumbs that have become the sine qua non of civilization. (This means that you are nobody without them.) But most of the time those flexible digits are only good for curling around the bars of a cage, and I do not see how that makes the species so intelligent. You will not find my pinkies curling around the bars of any cage. They will instead be kneading in fascinating rhythm into whatever soft surface is available: a mother’s milkwagon, a pillow, or whatever human epidermis is most unprotected by distracting layers of clothing.
It is while gazing on the almost-naked ape (this critter is wearing the obligatory diaper) that I happen on the discovery of my life. Why are cats superior to all other species? We know that they are, and that they have attained this high station despite lacking the prized opposable thumb or even the disgusting bark so hailed in the canine species.
I have it. Call me Darwin! (But only as a middle name. It is an extremely wimpy name and I only claim it in the abstract sense.) The chimpanzee before me betrays the clay feet of the entire human race.
Diapers. This creature is wearing that so-undignified banana bandana that marks a creature who is hopelessly retarded in its elimination. The feline, on the other hand, is notable for its neat personal habits indoors or out (unless subjected to intolerable emotional stress). This has made us a boon to humankind from time immemorial. No other animal species is so remarkably tidy. This makes us King of the Beasts. Or Queen, if Midnight Louise is listening in.
Once the innate inferiority of the creature before me is clear, despite its agile fingers and brain, I sit down and take charge.
“All right. Settle down, Chiquita-chomper. I suppose I should know if you are a dude or a dudette. Well?”
The thing chitters at me in monkeyese. I scratch my nose in puzzlement. It repeats the gesture.
What a silly mug! Naked as a slug, despite the hairy coat that would do honor to a goat. And the thing smells to high heaven. No wonder it is locked up far from human sniffers.
I speak slow-ly and clearly. “Me Louie. You … well? Me Louie, you—”
“Chitter, chitter, chitter, chatter.”
“Enough of the chit-chat. Me Louie, you … ?”
The big ape starts pounding itself on the chest. Big hairy deal. If I had wanted a drummer, I would have asked for one.
Then I finally tumble. The critter is trying to use sign language. He is not saying “chitter chitter bang-bang” on his chest, he is saying his name. So I listen harder during the next outburst and come to only one conclusion. Am I a seasoned investigator, or what?
“Or what?” may describe my role as translator for a juiced-up monkey.
“Chatter?” I say, not believing my own words. “That is your name? Chatter?”
“Chitter chitter.” Head nod.
By George, I think he has got it. “All right, ah, Chatter.”
Grin grin, nod nod. Show teeth. Ugh! So square and dull and regular, no interesting predator peaks and valleys. No wonder humans seek out orthodontists. I would too if I had that in my family tree. Fortunately I go back to Ole Sabertooth Tiger, and there was nothing filed down about that Jurassic dude.
“Okay, Chatter. G0000d monkey-wonkey. Ah … can you explain why you are locked up in here?”
Chitter chitter, blink blink. What is this guy, a hairy semaphore? I see that there is nothing to do but for me to forsake the sophisticated signaling system of my breed and descend to sign language as well. These crude charades offend my feline soul, but the dedicated investigator must sacrifice even dignity in the pursuit of an honest answer.
So I walk to the door. I walk back to the cage. I leanmy forelimbs up to the padlock, and pantomime a twisting motion. Then I sit down, do my best to impersonate an owl and force my purr into a trilling “Whoo-whoo-whoo.”
The big monkey tilts his ugly head and eyes me inquisitively. I am not about to repeat the performance, but I do repeat the question: “Whoo-whoo-whoo.”
Suddenly light dawns in those ancient brown eyes. The creature leaps up, assumes a bow-legged stance, and begins playing the air guitar as if he were auditioning for Saturday Night Live.
Naturally, I am startled by this unsuspected talent and leap back, in case this is St. Vitus dance and it is catching. Of course the conclusion is obvious. An Elvis imitator has incarcerated this poor benighted being behind these cruel chickenwire walls.
Verrry interesting.
But why was Miss Quincey Conrad paying surreptitious visits to the imbecile and calling him Baby? Is she perhaps acquainted with the hairy little fiend? Might there be some plot involved.