“So how’d you hook up with Snake?”
“Well, by the winter of ’75 I owed a hundred grand.”
“That’s some debt.”
“Oh yeah, it was a fortune back then. Hell, I had a hit put on me,” he said with a swell of pride. “My wife took our little girl and left me.”
“So what happened?”
“I went on the run is what happened. Then one night I was passing through Vegas and saw that Elvis was supposed to perform at the Sands. I had lost my last fifty bucks at the blackjack table, when some guy comes up to me and says, ‘Whatchu doing here, boss?’ That was the first time I met Snake Major. He said, ‘Shit, anyone ever tell you you look like Elvis?’ I told him what I had learned, that he was my identical twin brother. After I told him the whole story, he said, ‘How’d you like to tell Elvis that yourself?’ When I said I’d love to, he led me upstairs. Five minutes later I’m walking into a hotel room and shaking hands with the King of Rock and Roll.”
“Wow!”
“By that time, the poor man was a total mess—bloated, sweaty, lying on his bed having difficulty breathing.”
“Did you tell him you were his twin?”
“I took out my driver’s license and showed him my date of birth. We talked and just compared notes. He was impressed about all the details, but …”
“Didn’t you offer to submit to a test?”
“They didn’t really have DNA tests back then. I mean, we looked alike, but so what? I couldn’t exactly sue him for twin support. People were always trying to scam him. For my part, in addition to being grateful that he’d even meet with me, I was just amazed by all our similarities.”
“Like what?”
“My wife had divorced me. I had a little girl. I wasn’t doing great, being on the lam and all. I even had a substance abuse problem, but nothing like his.”
“Then what?”
“Well, he still had some time left on his tour, which wasn’t going very well, in terms of his health. Supposedly he got so tired he laid down on the stage during his previous show. So when Snake asked me if I could carry a tune, I belted out a couple bars of “Don’t Be Cruel” and even the King thought it was good. It was funny cause he actually stood alongside me giving directions about how to hold the mic and other little secrets about singing.”
“Wow, you got notes from the King himself.”
“About an hour later Colonel Parker came into the room and auditioned me. I actually thought I did a crappy job, but he was just tickled pink. I was probably about fifty pounds lighter than Elvis. Even he said I looked and sounded better. I mean the poor son of a bitch had just been used up.”
“So you toured in his place?”
“You heard of lip syncing, well I did body syncing. Ended up doing two of his shows.”
“Then what?”
“Then I got two grand, which was the most I ever got paid per hour. Unfortunately, it wasn’t nearly enough to get me out of debt, but it was a real blast. Elvis thanked me and said he’d call if he ever needed me again, but you could see he didn’t like it. He loved his public and he wasn’t trying to con anyone. He was stuck in a jam and I helped him out. I wish I had given him his cash back.”
“And that’s it.”
“That’s everything. Two years later, in August, I was working at an auto plant in Detroit when it came over the radio that he had died.”
“How did you wind up looking like … you do now?” If Elvis Presley had looked into a mirror that was shattered into a million pieces and reglued upside down and backward—that’s how Jeeves looked.
“On August 29, 1979, about two years after the King’s death, I was speeding drunk as a skunk when I slammed my Chrysler LeBaron into a retaining wall. I was going about a hundred miles an hour. The accident burned over 90 percent of my body, and shattered many of my bones including my lower spine and skull. I died on the operating table and was brought back. That’s when I realized there really is a God.”
“I guess something like that would make a believer out of anyone,” I replied, not meaning to sound disparaging.
“It was more than that. While lying in recovery, I was told that my heart had also stopped. The doctors worked and worked, and I came back at the last moment. See, that’s what I realized. God took the both of us, my twin and me, but for some reason he returned only me. God gave me the second chance.”
“Sounds like Elvis died for your sins.”
“In a way he did, and since I got out of that hospital, I pray to God and my brother by taking care of myself—no drink, no drugs, no fatty foods. I walk thirty-three minutes a day.”
“You still have drunken sex with strangers,” I pointed out.
“Hey, darling, every Christian is a hypocrite. Besides, womanizing was never an affliction for me. I just didn’t get any.”
“How’d you get involved with Snake again and open the Blue Suede?”
“I bumped into him just after I got out of the hospital. He had a small bar in Memphis. When I told him that we met once, years ago in Vegas, he just said he didn’t know me. Then when I said I was Elvis’s twin, his jaw dropped. He said he didn’t believe me. I looked … well, like I do now. But he saw that I was down on my luck, and apparently not many people knew about that event, so he gave me a mop and bucket and told me if I wanted to clean up the bathrooms at night, no one else would touch them. I did that for a few months, and then he let me clean up the bar. I couldn’t work behind the counter cause no one would order drinks from this face. Gradually, though, it became clear that he believed me. I think it was my voice. That didn’t change and I still did the best Elvis covers.” In perfect Elvis pitch to the tune of “Suspicious Minds,” he sang, “I’m Elvis’s twin, I can’t change that, I was born with his baby …”
“Wow.”
“Anyway, after about five years, he took me aside one day and handed me a check and a proposal. It was for twenty grand. He said that he knew Elvis would want me to have it. Elvis was always about family.”
“Amazing that he believed you.”
“I think the fact that I didn’t go to the tabloids with the story and try exploiting him for every possible cent made me credible.”
“He’s right,” I said. “That would’ve been a million-dollar story.”
“Truth is, I would’ve tried doing that, considering all the circumstantial evidence and whatnot, but I still had a contract on my head. Before handing over the check, Snake made a generous offer. He said he wanted to get out of Memphis, go back to good country living, and he’d found this old barnhouse up here. If I wanted, he’d keep the twenty grand and I could partner up with him. I think he wanted the Elvis imprimatur that only a twin could provide.”
“How’d you get the mansion?”
“It’s his mansion, I really am just the groundskeeper,” he said. “Snake bought a newer house so he let me live here. He was always quite generous if you played ball with him.”
I chuckled and confessed that I still didn’t fully believe any of this.
“Hey, I hope you don’t believe me.”
“Okay,” I countered, “let’s just say hypothetically that Elvis did discover a twin or someone who kind of looked like him, but this was in the mid-’70s when his drug-addled lifestyle had spun out of control. And he desperately wanted a way out …”
“Please don’t suggest something stupid, like Elvis killed his own twin just so he could—”
“I was going to suggest that the twin actually overdosed. I mean, what proof do you have that you’re the copy and not the original?”
“Being Elvis’s twin is like being the very small moon to a very large planet. Every day I feel his gravitational pull. And my pulling back is all I have to make me me.”
“Have you ever considered how much money you can get just telling your story?”
“Didn’t you say the story you came down here for was that little piece of tail from Memphis who ran off with Snake’s son?”
“Who?”
“You know: the girl from Memphis who all you reporters are writing about …”
Despite all he was saying, I strongly sensed that I was looking at the living, breathing King of Rock and Roll. He was only bringing up Missy Scrubbs because he wanted me to overlook a much bigger story that would be far harder to prove.
Revealing this small-town bar owner as Elvis Presley—or even his twin—would make me an easy million. It would get me endless assignments and thrust me permanently into the limelight of tabloid writing. At the end of my life, it would be the lasting detail emblazoned on my obituary. Every bone in my body said, Go for it, but the little squiggly tadpole still inside my womb said otherwise. If this pregnancy did actually go to full-term, how would I tell my child that I sold out his daddy?
“So where’s Missy Scrubbs?” I asked to bring it all to an end.
“Hiding out with Roscoe Major, living off the ransom money they took from that poor accountant husband of hers down in Memphis.”
“And where exactly are they hiding?”
Jeeves said he’d find out first thing tomorrow. When I drowsily plunked down into a recliner, he offered to let me spend the night. It was around three in the morning and I could never get a full night’s sleep at Vinetta’s, so I agreed.
Several hours later I awoke to the sound of a police walkie-talkie. Sheriff Nick was moving up over the hill with one of the Evils, inspecting the site of poor Snake’s recent hunting accident. When I peeked out, I could see one of the barflies handing over Vinetta’s gun as his own. I returned to sleep only to be awakened about an hour later when my cell rang. It turned out to be Vinetta asking why the heck I hadn’t returned home yet.
“All is fine,” I told her, still too tired to elaborate. She let me return to sleep, but I didn’t. All I could think about was what I could do for her and those seven needy little children. They were looking for some miracle and I was supposed to provide it.
The phone interrupted my worries. This time it was Ludmilla. Before I could ask to call back, she said that last night she and Bella had been watching a local variety show, which this week was the Sing the King contest, and to their shock they saw me performing onstage.
“You’re supposed to be in New York raising seven kids!” she reminded me. “What the hell is going on?”
When I asked her where she was, she said she was still at Rodmilla’s house.
“We’re waiting for the agents,” she explained.
“What agents?”
“Real estate agents, about selling the home and store.”
I told her to drip some hazelnut decaf, I’d be there within the hour to explain everything. As I headed out, Elvis’s alleged twin walked me out near my car and said, “Give me your cell number?”
I scribbled it down for him.
“I’m having a bit of trouble finding Roscoe’s whereabouts, but I’m heading down to Memphis to get it for you.”
“You’re not going to vanish on me, are you?”
“You know I’ll always be with you, darling,” he said in perfect Elvis pitch, then he was gone.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Forty-five minutes later, hastily dressed and still groggy, I was pulling into the gravel-crunchy driveway of Rodmil-la’s house in Mesopotamia.
Bella greeted me at the door and led me inside where I could see the place had been cleared out and cleaned impeccably. Many of the little personal flourishes acquired over a lifetime had been thrown out or packed in boxes. Most of the furniture was piled in the rear, close to the driveway.
“We’re donating it all to whichever organization sends a truck soonest,” Bella explained. “An agent came by yesterday and made an assessment.”
“ZigRat’s too?”
“We’re closing it next week to sell off whatever stock we can. Poor Pete’s taking it the hardest.”
“What the heck’s going on with you?” Ludmilla came flying down the stairs. “Why were you on that show, and where are your kids?”
“Would you like something to drink?” Bella said, a little more relaxed. “I just mixed a mint julep.”
“Oh, I can’t,” I said. “I’m pregnant.”
“You’re kidding! An eighth baby?”
“I have a slight confession,” I said. “Those weren’t my kids. I was babysitting when you called, so I told them to say they were mine.” The two sisters exchanged glances.
“We kinda figured as much,” Ludmilla replied, chuckling.
“Really?”
“Sweety, you’re of Asian extraction and you show up with seven of the blondest Aryan children I ever saw outside of Germany. We might be dumb, but we’re not stupid.”
I started giggling with embarrassment.
“What we really want to know is why you pulled a stunt like that.”
“I know it was dumb, but I just felt so inadequate with you both, and the fact that Mom died and neither of you even called me—I felt you were trying to squeeze me out.”
“That doesn’t explain what you’re doing in an Elvis Presley look-alike contest,” Ludmilla responded.
“Actually, I was working on a story regarding several murders down here—”
“Who’s their real mother?” Luddy interrupted. “Where does she live?”
It was then the flash strobed across the wide synapses of my pickled brain, sparking the great idea: this big old home would be perfect for Vinetta. Not only would her kids have a great space where they could grow up, but she could run the old store out front, which always earned Mom a decent income.
“How much did the agent think this place could go for?”
“She thought that a small successful store and a big house out here could fetch somewhere between two-fifty and three hundred thousand.”
“She said the local real estate market hasn’t been too strong since the mine went under.”
“Cassandra, if you’re worried that we’re going to cut you out,” Ludmilla said, “I guarantee you’ll get your third.”
“No, I just think I might have a prospective buyer, but she’s not exactly rich. She’s the mother of all those kids.”
“Where do they live?” Ludmilla asked with her typical maternal concern.
“In a broken-down trailer in Daumland,” I said. “If I could get two-forty—that’s eighty thousand dollars apiece—would you guys consider it?”
“I’d need some time to think about it,” Ludmilla responded.
“Me too,” Bella said, but then added, “I’d be more inclined to say yes if they agreed to keep Pete on.”
“Absolutely,” Ludmilla said, giving me a spark of hope. My sisters were both genuinely concerned about the man who had spent his entire life helping mom.
“Do me a favor and don’t donate any of the furniture until you decide,” I said. “In fact, hold onto everything except for Mom’s personal effects.”
“Why?”
“Vinetta will probably need them.”
“Okay.” Both had to make some calls in order to undo plans to scatter possessions, but they were willing to help.
I used the time to go to the store, which had about half a dozen people inside purchasing heavily discounted items.
“I’m so sorry about your mother’s passing,” Pete said when I greeted him.
I heard an annoyed cough behind me. One of the locals was holding a bag of nearly brown apples and a dusty carton of spaghetti. I stepped to one side and let Pete tally up and bag the purchase.
“How are you fixed for cash?” I asked.
“Between my disability, my savings, and Social Security, I’m okay,” he said. “But what will I do with my days other than just sit in my room?”
“Well, I know a young woman who might take over the store. She has a bunch of kids and could use someone of your expertise, though she doesn’t have much money.”
“We can work that out.” Pete was always kind and patient with us when we were growing up.
“She really does
n’t know anything about the business.”
“Well, I don’t know anything else but this business, so we’d be a pretty good match.”
I spent the afternoon chatting with my sisters, resisting the temptation to drink and smoke. For the baby’s sake, I had to be good. Around four o’clock my cell phone chirped.
“Okay, write this down,” Elvis Presley’s twin said. “Snake’s son Roscoe is staying at a private bungalow on a beach in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.”
“Go on.”
“I don’t know if he’s still there or how much longer he’ll be there for, so if you hope to do this, you had better move it.”
“I’ll leave at once.”
“A serious word of warning: Roscoe’s a horny nitwit, but he’s as fierce as his daddy. If he finds you, he’s going to try to figure out who told you he was there before he kills you.”
“I’ve done this a bunch of times and haven’t gotten killed yet,” I assured him. He gave me an address on some street called Costera a Barra de Navidad, then wished me Godspeed. I thanked him and said I’d call him when I returned.
“Careful, and good luck.”
I called United Airlines and made reservations for a flight leaving that evening from Nashville to Mexico City with a one-hour wait for a connecting flight on Mexicana Airlines to sunny Puerto Vallarta. My sisters were staying at Ma’s house till the middle of next week, so I told them I’d see them in a few days.
In addition to my laptop, I packed a couple articles of clothing including a bathing suit. In the trunk of my car, I looked through Gustavo’s suitcase of high-tech photographic gear—some dramatic shots of Missy the runaway bride would be vital. I took his longest zoom lens and his tiny digital camera. Then I sped over to Nashville International Airport and made it through security just as they announced that my gate was open. As I dashed through the long accordion-like passage to the airplane, my phone chirped.
“What’s going on?” Vin asked frantically. “Are you okay? Did he give you any cash?”
“He feels that Floyd was trying to extort him and he’s sorry Floyd was killed but an extortionist is an extortionist.” The airline stewardess grabbed my ticket and pointed me to a seat. “So the bad news is he’s not paying us.”
Mesopotamia Page 18