Tales of Tinfoil: Stories of Paranoia and Conspiracy

by David Gatewood (ed)

  “I’m twenty-six.” She gave a mock scowl. She wanted to grab his wrists and pull them around her waist.

  “That is definitely still young enough to do whatever you want.”

  “Oh yeah?” Anna flicked her gaze to Dolores. “What do you suppose Elvis would have reinvented himself as?”

  Nick held her gaze for a few seconds, but then shifted infinitesimally. “Maybe he became an electrician. The point is, it’s never too late to start fresh, and the leg thing might just have been the path you had to take. Poet Nick says it’s all part of your journey to self-actualization and realizing your full potential.”

  “So you are a poet?”

  Nick smirked. “I’m an apprentice poet of sorts. Anyway, I got some work to do on the boat. Go enjoy the rest of your vacation, and stay out of trouble.”

  The push away again. Anna gave a faint nod and smile, then turned and walked slowly down the pier to where Dolores stood talking with great animation to some poor young guy who had probably just happened to be out for a walk.

  Dolores clearly didn’t think age had anything to do with doing what you wanted.

  It’s never too late to start fresh—like Elvis.

  Anna paused for a second mid-stride and almost laughed out loud. Now even she had started to believe that Elvis was alive.

  * * *

  “Where are we going?” Anna said for the third time. Dolores had spent the afternoon calling every number in the phone book where the name bore even the slightest resemblance to some name Elvis had once gone by. She had come up empty-handed as far as Anna knew, although after having remained hidden for so long, it seemed unlikely that Elvis would slip up and cop to being Elvis if some old lady called him up. Anna just hoped that Dolores hadn’t been reported to the police for making crank phone calls.

  They had just finished dinner and were weaving in and out of the Hamilton streets on foot, in search of something. Anna just prayed it wasn’t the local drug dealer. After all, if Elvis was in drug enforcement, he might vault off the roof of a building and arrest them—or at eighty, he might wheel up in his scooter and shake his dentures at them. Although, Anna had to admit, Dolores was an eighty-year-old, and she was setting a pretty good pace—in pumps no less, if fairly sensible hot pink ones.

  But the streets grew grimier and the storefronts emptier, and the partygoers who spilled out onto the streets from nearby businesses looked to be of a rougher sort than they had encountered in the tourist quarter. In her vibrant magenta silk skirt and top, Dolores wasn’t exactly blending in.

  Anna stopped walking. “Dolores, I’m not going any further unless you tell me where we’re going.”

  Dolores blinked in surprise. “We’re just going to a lounge to listen to some music. The waiter recommended this one while you were in the bathroom. I thought it would be nice. It’s just one more block. We can take a cab back to the hotel.”

  “A lounge?” Visions of watching a brass ensemble, a barbershop quartet, or Barry Manilow striding around stage skated through Anna’s head.

  “You’ll love it. We’re almost there.” Dolores took off again, and Anna was forced to scramble along behind her. Keeping up with an eighty-year-old wasn’t exactly the physiotherapy she had imagined.

  Dolores rounded a corner. “There it is,” she gestured, pointing to a neon sign that read Black Velvet in swirly purple cursive, with a martini glass tipping over the word “Velvet.”

  Anna stopped abruptly again. “That doesn’t look like a lounge. It looks like a bar.”

  Dolores shrugged. “Bar, lounge, what’s the difference? We’re both legal. They have live music.”

  “Yeah, but you might be…” Anna managed to stop herself before she said the words too old. “I mean, you might find it loud. Bars are loud.”

  “It’s okay, dear. I’m half deaf anyway. So it’ll be perfect.”

  They descended a narrow set of stairs into a dimly lit hallway. If the long-haired, toque-wearing, mustached man collecting the cover fee was surprised to see Dolores, he didn’t show it.

  They proceeded into the bar, a small room with dark walls and eclectic furniture; assorted kitchen chairs and couches were gathered around mismatched tables and a small empty stage at the front. It was comfortably full, but not packed, and the room hummed with a buzz of expectation. Dolores drew some interested glances and smiles in the room of mostly twenty and thirtysomethings, but she sashayed past them with her head held high.

  People in their twenties were unlikely to come to see Barry Manilow or a barbershop quartet, Anna thought, so there was that. She looked around to see if she could find any indication of who was about to play for them, but there were no posters. They took seats near the back, and she was just about to ask Dolores if she knew who was playing when the bartender arrived to take their order.

  When Nick appeared on the stage alone, holding an acoustic guitar, Anna nearly tumbled to the floor in shock. He wore a fitted turquoise and grey plaid shirt and jeans, and he looked mind-bendingly hot. And under the lights, which accentuated the blue-black of his thick hair, and now wearing a broad stage smile, a sharp contrast with his familiar sneer, he appeared almost identical to Elvis.

  Nick sat on the lone stool on the stage and balanced his guitar on his thigh. Dolores patted Anna’s leg and whispered, “I don’t like to make suggestions, dear, but you might want to close your mouth.”

  Anna snapped her mouth shut.

  When Nick started to play, Anna expected him to sound like Elvis, to be Elvis. But he wasn’t at all like Elvis. His gravelly voice cut through her and soared, his fingers carving out a haunting accompaniment. The style was fresh and modern, but there was an edge of rockabilly to it that was more Johnny Cash than Elvis. She had to remind herself to keep her mouth closed several times.

  After his seventh song, he announced that the next two songs would be his last and he thanked everyone for listening. He sang an up-tempo number about starting fresh after loving and losing the girl next door. Then he launched into an acoustic version of a song Anna had heard before about there being a season for everything. In the older version, the song was fast and sort of chipper, but Nick had turned it into a ballad that made her ache.

  When he was finished, the room broke out into enthusiastic applause, and Nick left the stage. Then the curtain behind him opened and stagehands began setting up a larger set of band equipment. Nick had been the opening act.

  Dolores patted Anna’s leg again. “Ready to go?” she said.

  Anna nodded numbly and drifted out of the bar behind Dolores, her emotions in a tumult. She was finding herself far too attracted to Nick, a man she barely knew, a man who lived in another country and who—apparently—was a skilled and at least locally famous singer. In fact, as she was stumbling up the stairs to the outdoors, she was almost sick with desire for the man. It was the singing, she decided. It had deluded her mind and made him far sexier than he actually was. Although he was pretty sexy.

  She had always found the theatrics that women engaged in around male singers—the screaming, the grabbing, the fainting—to be absolutely ludicrous. But as she and Dolores made their way into the cool dusky night, she had to admit that her knees did feel kind of wobbly. At times, it had felt like he was singing right at her, looking right into her eyes. But that’s what all crazed fans thought.

  She tipped her head up to look at the Black Velvet sign, which glowed in the deepening dark. Crying in the aisles, indeed.

  “Did you know Nick played here?” she demanded.

  “He told me in the boat this morning,” Dolores said. “I thought it might be fun to see him sing. Support an up-and-coming artist. He’s quite good, don’t you think?”

  “You wanted to see if he sang like Elvis.”

  “I’ll admit I was mildly curious. There is a resemblance, you know, except of course Elvis dyed his hair black, and I think young Nick’s hair is naturally black. But perhaps with a mother with dark hair…”

  “You don
’t think…”

  “All leads have to be followed. Elvis is a crafty one. He would not have been able to fake his own death and stay out of the public eye for so long if he wasn’t.”

  “Unless he really is dead,” Anna mumbled.

  They started walking in the direction of the hotel. If they were going to flag a cab, they would need to go to a busier street anyway. Or they could just walk. Anna needed some air after the stuffy bar, and she needed to excise Nick from her whirling mind. Hamilton seemed like a safe enough city, although two women, one half lame and the other elderly, would be an easy mark.

  “Anyway,” Dolores said, “I was thinking. Nick is a very attractive young man, but he seems lonely. He might be shy. He’d probably be thrilled if you asked him out to dinner.”

  Anna shook her head. “Oh, no. No. No way. I’m not asking some guy out on a date so you can figure out whether Elvis is his father. No way.”

  Dolores didn’t reply, and they walked for a few minutes in silence.

  “Why do you want to find him so much, Dolores? If he is alive, and did manage to just disappear, then obviously he really wanted to get away if he went to the difficulty of faking his own death. Why would you want to track him down and out him now, so many years later?”

  “Who said I was going to out him?”

  “Then why are you doing this?”

  Dolores was uncharacteristically silent. “I just want to know that he’s okay. That he’s been happy all these years.” Her voice cracked a little. “He meant a lot to me. He meant a lot to a lot of people. I know that sounds ridiculous. He was just a celebrity. But it’s really important to me that Elvis is okay.”

  They continued on through the streets, which were now comfortably busy with night revelers. Anna relaxed a bit. She flipped a quick glance over her shoulder, but saw only a blond man in a blue business shirt and chinos and a couple holding hands.

  “When I was talking to Nick and I mentioned you were looking for Elvis, he made a joke that Elvis was living with Princess Diana, John Lennon, and Andy Kaufman,” Anna said. “I know the first two of course, and I know that Andy guy was mentioned in an R.E.M. song, but he also mentioned another name: Jimmy Ellis. Who was he?”

  “Dear, Andy Kaufman was the star of Taxi—my Harold just loved that show. His main claim to fame is certainly not R.E.M. Some believe he also faked his death. As for Jimmy Ellis, I’m pretty sure he’s dead, pour soul, so I doubt Elvis lives with him.”

  “Yes, but who was he?”

  “Well, that’s a complicated story. Back when the world was devastated about Elvis, some people sought to make money off a man who could sing exactly like Elvis. They dyed his hair, put him in a mask, and sent him out on stage under the name Orion. He could sing so much like the real Elvis that some people allowed themselves to be deceived that it was the real Elvis—or that the real Elvis slipped in after a break sometime during the show. But they looked nothing alike. Jimmy was taller and had a different nose. But he seemed like a nice man, and he was a talented singer in his own right. He kept trying to go straight, to perform as Jimmy, not Orion, and be accepted. But he mostly only got attention when he was wearing the mask. It’s a real shame what happened.” Dolores stopped talking and heaved a deep sigh.

  Anna gritted her teeth. Dolores definitely had a flair for the dramatic. “What happened?”

  “He was shot in his pawn shop in 1998. It was the second time someone had tried to take his life in the course of a year. Odd, don’t you think?”

  “A little, yes.” Anna darted a look behind them again. The chino man and couple still sauntered along fifty yards back.

  “I mean, why would Jimmy, who was famous and was still doing performances in 1997, suddenly buy a pawn shop? I think there was a cover-up of sorts. Jimmy knew something.”

  “Or he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. It happens.”

  “Hmm,” Dolores said, noncommittally.

  They covered another few blocks, zigging and zagging up the dark streets, while Dolores prattled on about her favorite Jimmy Ellis and her favorite Elvis songs. As they turned a corner, Anna caught sight of the chino guy still behind them. His gait was unhurried, but he had matched them turn for turn since they’d left the area of the Black Velvet.

  “Don’t you think it was strange that Jimmy’s and Elvis’s names only differ by one letter?” Dolores said. “Elvis was a big believer in numerology. That’s why he had his name spelled wrong on his gravestone, by only one letter. He didn’t want to tempt fate. Anyway, I find it interesting that Ellis and Elvis only differ by one letter.”

  “Dolores, I want you to turn and go into that restaurant there. The Olive Tree.”

  “But we’ve already eaten. Are you hungry, dear?”

  “Just go in the restaurant.”

  Dolores gave Anna an accommodating smile, as if she had gone completely crazy, and stepped inside the crowded restaurant. The hostess looked up from her post. “We’re full, I’m afraid. The wait is thirty minutes. You can sit there if you like.” The woman gestured at some chairs near the front entrance.

  “That’s fine,” Anna said.

  The man in chinos was passing in front of the restaurant now and gawked in the window at them.

  “Looks like you’ve got an admirer,” Dolores said. “Listen, if you want to hang out here and find some younger people to go out with, I’m fine going back to the hotel by myself.”

  “I think we should stick together. I’m going to call a cab.”

  Anna rose to approach the hostess to ask to use the phone when her own cell phone rang. She jumped. Not many people had her new number—just Gramps and a few friends. For most people, that would be the hardest part of faking their own death and starting completely fresh, she thought—leaving behind their friends and family, and knowing that they were probably devastated. Not her, though. She had nobody, except Gramps. But she couldn’t ever leave behind Gramps.

  She hit talk, and before she could say anything, Charlie Rooney’s voice came over the line. “Anna, is that you?”

  “Yes, Gramps, it’s me. Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Gramps, this is costing me like ten dollars a minute. Couldn’t you call us at the hotel?”

  “Sorry. It’s a bit of an emergency.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “Well, someone put through a charge on the credit card that Dolores and I share, you know, so we can jointly pay household expenses.” Charlie hesitated, as if Anna might be inclined to ask questions regarding his and Dolores’s finances. When she said nothing, he continued. “Anyway, someone put through a charge for the Higgins Private Detective Agency in Bermuda for quite a large sum of money. Is Dolores there?”

  Dolores had risen and was standing a few feet away. She appeared to be studiously looking out the restaurant window and into the street.

  “Yes. Do you want to talk to her?”

  “Is she okay?”

  “She seems fine.” Anna decided not to mention the potential chino stalker.

  “Did you know about this detective?”

  “No, Gramps. Dolores is an early riser, and you failed to mention she moves like a cat.”

  “What? Like a cat, you say? Why is she like a cat?”

  “Forget it, Gramps.”

  “Can you try to talk some sense into her? I’m not going to be around for much longer anyway, so my Depends and Alka-Seltzer budget doesn’t have to be that high, but Dolores could live for another twenty years. I know this is important to her, but she needs to think about her future.”

  “You want me to talk to Dolores about her future?”

  “If you wouldn’t mind.”

  “Gramps.”

  “Just give her the talk and have her call me tomorrow on a land line.”

  The talk. The talk was what Gramps had given Anna many times while she was growing up, after her parents had been killed in the accident and she’d had nothing to hang on to except Cha
rlie. And he had been alone too; Grandma Rosemary was already long gone from cancer when Anna arrived on his doorstep, a scrawny eleven-year-old girl.

  The talk.

  In the early years, the talk was about acceptance, about knowing how much she was loved, and believing that her parents would want her to be happy and live a full life.

  In her rebellious teenage years, the talk was about investing in her future, saving for a rainy afternoon, never coming home ass over tit, and keeping her pants on. Anna was pretty sure that by the latter, Gramps did not mean for her to remain calm, but rather to avoid sex.

  When she made the Olympic Team, when she was training and counting calories and taking body fat measurements day in and day out, the talk focused on smelling the petunias, following your dreams but also learning how to type, and focusing on personal wins, which in Gramps’s mind did not necessarily involve a gold medal.

  After she hurt her leg, and Stephen dumped her in favor of another teammate who could train with him, the talk was about how most men are weasels and there were plenty of fish in the stew.

  Gramps always did have a habit of mixing metaphors.

  Now, Anna wondered which talk Gramps wanted her to give Dolores.

  She called a cab from the restaurant and they rode back to the hotel in silence, Dolores subdued after Charlie’s call. Anna considered all the variations of the talk, but ultimately came up empty-handed.

  “Is he mad at me?” Dolores asked tremulously in the elevator.

  “Gramps doesn’t get mad. He’s worried about you. That you’re going to spend all your money looking for a ghost. What exactly have you hired this detective to do?”

  “I thought he could follow up on a few leads.”

  Anna squinted at the older woman. “Like what? Do you have any leads?”

  “Well, I thought he could check into Nick for one, and maybe follow up on some of those numbers I called.”

  Anna snorted and reached for the door handle. “I’m sure Nick will be thrilled. Gramps and I just want you to be careful.”

  Dolores offered a quivery sort of smile. “I know. It’s just that… this is my dream. You know how important Elvis is to me. And I’m not getting any younger.”