When the first beats of Elvis Presley singing “You ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog” crashed out of the jukebox, Anemic Annie threw open the front door and Oleg Gridley waddled in.
He was wearing a white satin shirt with collars bigger than his head, a remnant from his disco days. He was wearing the tightest pants he could find from when he still weighed seventy-five pounds and hadn’t ballooned up to eighty-three. He had on a drum majorette’s sequined boots that Annie had borrowed from the daughter of a hairdresser at Edna’s Salon, and on his head was a black pompadour wig with sideburns drawn in black mascara over half his face.
He carried what looked like a midget-sized eight-string guitar but was actually a ukulele borrowed from Ruben, the bartender at the Mirage Saloon.
“ ‘You ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog,’ ” Elvis sang while Elfis himselfis lip-synched the words, driving the crowd mad with delight.
Oleg Gridley had all the moves. He did a bump. He did a grind. He’d turned his back to the raucous crowd and shook his booty. He was, to Portia Cassidy, adorable.
“This, ladies and gentlemen,” Ruth bellowed over the horn, “is show business!”
Bitch Cassidy jumped off the bar stool and wildly applauded her relentless suitor.
Toward the end of his number, Oleg Gridley parted the crowd and waddled right up to Bitch Cassidy showing her the best miniature Elvis impression the Coachella Valley was ever likely to see.
He lip-synched, “ ‘You ain’t never caught a rabbit and you ain’t no friend of miiiine!’ ”
And Portia Cassidy nearly swooned right on top of the midget. Ruth the Sleuth was so proud.
The detectives had to sit through one more lip-synched Elvis classic. Oleg stood on a bar stool and “sang”
“Love Me Tender” to Bitch Cassidy who was drunk enough to get all teary-eyed, resigning herself to a midget in her bed.
Only Beavertail Bigelow, drunk and surly as usual, didn’t get a bang out of Oleg’s performance. In fact, he looked downright mad. He staggered out of his chair while the crowd was screaming “Encore!” and demanding a curtain call. He strode right up to the midget and accused him of larceny: “That’s Clyde Suggs’ uke! Where’d you get that uke, you little thug?”
“Get away from me less you want it in your hat!” Oleg warned. “They don’t serve Beefeater highballs in the intensive-care unit!”
“He stole this uke from Clyde Suggs,” Beavertail announced to the crowd, who lost interest since Beavertail was obviously in his fight-picking mode, and in these parts that was as predictable as big wind.
“I found this uke out in Solitaire Canyon,” Beavertail Bigelow accused. “I sold this uke to Clyde Suggs.”
Of course, by now nobody in the saloon was even listening to all this bullshit. Everyone had returned to drinking, dancing, griping, lechering. Except for Officer O. A. Jones, who gave up trying to seduce a Palm Desert bankteller and approached the surly desert rat.
“Where in Solitaire Canyon did you find it, Beavertail?” O. A. Jones asked.
“By the road that goes up the hill. Past the fork.”
“Can I see that, Oleg?” O. A. Jones asked the angry midget who said, “Sure. I don’t know what this rat’s talking about. We borrowed it from Ruben over at the Mirage Saloon. Ruth and Annie were with me.”
“Then he stole it from Clyde Suggs,” Beavertail said, looking for justice somewhere in this miserable fucking world.
“Why don’t you go back to your table, Beavertail,” O. A. Jones said. “I’ll take over this big larceny investigation.”
“Probably let that rich pygmy bribe you outta doing your duty,” Beavertail complained, but did as he was told.
“Be right back,” O. A. Jones said to Oleg Gridley, who was now snuggled up to Portia Cassidy, basking in all the attention, wondering how he could drink the freebies that were being bought by his admiring public.
“See, you don’t have to be an evil disgusting pervert when you put your mind to it,” Portia Cassidy cooed to the now popular midget. “You can be awful sweet and nice.”
“Portia,” Oleg said somberly. “I do have a confession to make. I got a real ugly dingus. One night last year Maxine Farble slammed the window on it when I was sneaking outta her bedroom cause her old man came home early. And the biggest woody I ever get might look to you like a belly button.”
“Size and beauty ain’t important,” said Bitch Cassidy, nuzzling up to the brand-new celebrity, Elfis himselfis. “I don’t care if you gotta jerk off with tweezers.”
Sidney Blackpool was about to tell Otto Stringer that they could get started for the canyon when he looked up and saw the surfer cop holding a ukulele.
“This might be the banjo,” O. A. Jones said.
It took ten minutes to trace enough of the Mineral Springs ukulele odyssey to get an idea that this could indeed be the stringed instrument heard by O. A. Jones one day last year when he discovered the burned corpse of Jack Watson.
“It sounded like a banjo,” the young cop explained.
“It’s a strange-looking uke,” Sidney Blackpool said. “Wish I knew something about ukes. Eight strings. What would a regular uke have?”
“Four, I think,” Otto said.
“Maybe it’s got nothing to do with the case,” O. A. Jones said. “Maybe somebody just lost a uke sometime, back there in the canyon.”
“It’s at least worth checking out,” Sidney Blackpool said.
It was a finely made old instrument. There was a maker’s tag on the head of the ukulele that read C.F. MARTIN amp; CO., NAZARETH, PA. Sidney Blackpool recorded that information in his notebook.
“Tell you what,” he said to O. A. Jones. “Let’s keep an evidence chain intact in case this amounts to something. You hold on to this uke personally. Tell the bartender at the Mirage Saloon you’re going to borrow it for a couple days.”
“I better call Palm Springs detectives tomorrow,” O. A. Jones said.
“Don’t do that … yet,” Sidney Blackpool said, and this caused Otto to do a take. “The detective that worked on the case’s outta town. Don’t tell anyone about this. I’ll make a few calls and if it seems promising I’ll notify Palm Springs. We can book it down there as evidence if and when the time comes. Okay?”
“Okay.” O. A. Jones shrugged, strumming the uke a few times. “Maybe I oughtta try this out on that sexy little bank teller who keeps shining me on. It worked for Oleg.”
“I’ll contact you in a couple days about the uke,” Sidney Blackpool said. “Remember, don’t talk about it to anyone.”
“By the way,” the surfer cop said, “I heard an old-time singer on the Palm Springs station that sounds like the voice I heard that day. Guy named Rudy Vallee.”
Suddenly, Maynard Rivas who had been almost into a crying jag because so many scum buckets were suing cops these days came very close to his first Indian war whoop. “There’s a cricket in my chili!” he screamed at J. Edgar Gomez.
“That’s a dirty lie!” the saloonkeeper yelled back, up to his elbows in slimy water at the bar sink. “There ain’t no crickets in my freaking chili!”
“It’s got a big ugly mouth, a wimpy body, and hops around like a speed freak!” cried the outraged Indian. “It’s either a cricket or Mick Jagger!”
“Lies! Lies!” J. Edgar Gomez hollered.
“My whole life’s nothin but crickets in my chili! Well, I had enough! I’m hirin me a ruthless Jew tomorra morning. I’m gonna own this fuckin joint!” the Indian promised.
They were halfway out the highway toward Solitaire Canyon before Otto spoke. “I don’t like this, Sidney.”
“I’m not fond a driving out here myself, but …”
“I don’t like the way we’re going about this.”
“Whaddaya mean?”
“This is a Palm Springs homicide all the way. If that uke has anything to do with it, they should be told. I don’t like withholding evidence. It makes me real nervous.”