by Blue Suede Clues: A Murder Mystery Featuring Elvis Presley
“Then I suppose you remember a gal named Connie Spinelli who used to work down here,” Elvis said, trying to keep it casual.
“Yup,” Madge replied, not missing a beat as she patted Elvis’s face with a cotton ball to soak up the excess foundation.
“Whatever happened to her, you know?” Elvis went on as if he was just passing the time of day.
“Couldn’t say,” Madge said. Then, “Going to do your lashes now, honey, so don’t squeeze so tight, okay?”
Elvis did as he was told. “Couldn’t say or wouldn’t say?” he said.
“Just not saying,” Madge said, giving the ends of Elvis’s lashes a smart upturn. She’d once told Elvis that he had the longest lashes of any man she’d worked on since Clark Gable.
“I’d sure like to talk with her, Madge,” Elvis continued.
“Connie was a talker, all right,” Madge said. “And that’s a terrible quality for people in our line of work. We hear it all down here, you know. Something about sitting in this chair and being fussed over makes people open up like they were in confession. And that’s why we learn to keep our own mouths shut. Most of us, that is.” She fitted a net over Elvis’s head and tied it tight. “It’s wig time, sailor,” she said.
Elvis opened his eyes to see himself in duplicate in Madge’s hinged mirror—that blond hillbilly, Jodie Tatum, again. So which twin was he? The one out in the world doing the right thing? Or the other one balancing the good deeds with iniquity.
He rose from the chair, clutching the makeup towel around his neck. There didn’t seem any sense in pressing Madge any further about Connie Spinelli. Truth was, Elvis felt a grudging respect for her after all the blabbermouths who had served him a hamburger or filled his gas tank and then gone running to the nearest phone to call the newspapers and repeat every little word he had said to them.
“Thank you, Miss Madge,” he said, going out the door. He paced down the hallway toward the wardrobe room.
“Mr. Presley?”
Elvis turned his head. For a fraction of a second, he couldn’t see who it was who had called his name. But then he spied a tiny Chinese woman huddled between the water cooler and the wall. She looked frightened.
“Ma’am?”
“I know Connie,” the woman whispered. “I hear you ask.”
Elvis walked up close to her. Now he remembered where he’d seen her before; she was in charge of clean-up detail in the makeup room.
“Do you know where she is?” Elvis asked.
“Atlanta. Atlanta, Georgia,” the woman replied, still whispering. “She work in beauty salon there. Don’t know name.”
“How do you know she’s there?”
“She send my boy a birthday card,” the woman said. “She love children. Very good person, Connie.”
They both heard footsteps coming up behind them—it was a young man lugging an open box full of cowboy hats. He had that cocky air of most of the go-fers who worked on the lot, a look that said it was merely a matter of months before he’d be running the studio.
“Always happy to sign an autograph, ma’am,” Elvis intoned loudly for the go-fer’s benefit, patting the Chinese woman on the shoulder. He waited until the young man had passed, then thanked the woman for her help.
She looked up at Elvis beseechingly. “Please, Mr. Presley,” she said. “Do not say I tell you. I need job very much.”
“Cross my heart,” Elvis said. “And God bless you, ma’am.”
Five minutes later, Elvis walked on to Sound Stage G in full Jodie Tatum regalia. “Beg your pardon, folks,” he called out to the actors and crew who’d been waiting for him since morning. “Something came up.”
A chorus of “That’s okay, Elvis” and “No problem” came back at him. They were an obliging bunch, even if a sizeable part of their goodwill came from the fact that they were being paid in full for loitering on the set half the day. The assistant director saluted Elvis and called for everyone to hit their marks for the first take. They were just going to do four pickups from the hoedown sequence for coverage, he said, then he signaled a technician to start running the playback so they could get the rhythm in their bones. And there it was again, that god-awful singsongy riff on a Virginia reel, but this time it didn’t grate on Elvis the way it had every time before; it was simply background noise for a job to get done and over with as quickly as possible.
Wayne LeFevre was in army uniform playing Josh Morgan today. As he sauntered past Elvis to take up his position, he gave Elvis a sardonic grin and said, “Been playing hooky again, pal?” Then Gene Nelson stepped out from behind the camera and gave his pithy directorial instructions: “Listen up, people. Look happy as pigs in clover, okay?”
They rewound the tape with the speakers still on; played backward, the piece had an eerie, Oriental sound—an improvement, Elvis thought, but nonetheless he readied himself to dance with a smile and a twinkle to rival any hog’s. Gene called, “Action!” and off they went. Elvis jumped to it like a teenager at a state fair, swinging and spinning and leaping over hay bales with his head tossed back and his hips swiveling. It felt good to throw himself into it completely. Funny how not giving a hoot about the whole thing freed him up. They were done, close-ups and all, in less than an hour and half.
As Elvis was leaving, LeFevre fell in alongside of him. “I’m going to miss this, partner,” he said, winking. “I just love being you, man.”
Elvis gave him a bemused smile. On location up in Big Bear, LeFevre had made a pass at every female he came within ten feet of, regardless of whether she was attached or remotely interested in him—even pretty much regardless of how she looked. He’d beam that hundred-watt grin of his, tell the girl in question that she was the most delectable little thing he ever did see, and then, often as not, suggest that he was already seriously considering marrying her. If he struck out—which seemed to happen nine times out of ten—he’d just bow and grin and say that it was surely a terrible waste of a divine opportunity, then turn to the next one and start all over again. More than once, immediately after Elvis had politely spurned the advances of some chorus girl on the set, LeFevre had appeared in a flash, telling the girl how badly he felt for her, but to cheer up because he, himself, was her consolation prize. “Hey, I’m almost Elvis anyhow,” he’d tell her. “Except I got all the time in the world for you.” When it came to chasing women, one thing old Wayne had going for him was an utter lack of pride.
“See you again sometime, Wayne,” Elvis said.
“Hope so,” Wayne replied. He angled his large head—the exact same size as Elvis’s—to Elvis’s ear. “But not soon, I figure. You’re going back East tomorrow, right?”
Elvis shot him a quizzical look. “Oh, I’ll be around for a bit,” he said.
Wayne appeared distressed for a second, but then quickly resumed his boyish grin. “Well, you just keep sending the overflow in my direction, okay, pal?”
Back in his dressing room, Elvis closed the door and slid the bolt shut. He picked up the phone and gave the switchboard operator a number in Alamo, Tennessee. A minute later, he heard a young woman’s soft Southern voice say, “William Jackson Clinic. How may I help you?”
Elvis couldn’t speak. It was not Selma’s voice. Of course, it wasn’t. But at that moment, those words and that soft voice warmed his blood and cradled his heart as if it really were Selma DuPres on the other end of the line, as if the one woman he had ever loved fully and unconditionally were still alive and working in his good friend Billy Jackson’s medical clinic in the colored section of Alamo. Elvis tried his best not to think about Selma any more. But truth to tell, he thought about her every day.
“I’d like to speak with Doctor Jackson, please,” Elvis said at last. “If he’s not too busy, that is.”
“Who’s calling?”
“Just a friend,” Elvis said. “An old friend.”
“It’s Mr. Presley, isn’t it?” the woman said. Elvis could hear the easy smile in her voice and it made his hear
t ache even more.
“Yes, Ma’am, it is,” he said.
“I’ll get him for you,” the woman said.
While he waited, Elvis heard the familiar sounds of Billy’s waiting room in the background—the crying babies, the laughing mothers, even the rolling snores of the elderly folks who lined the chairs along the wall, folks who came in every day just because it made them feel safe and comfortable to be there. Probably even more of them were showing up since the air conditioning had been put in—Elvis’s gift to the clinic last Christmas.
“Well, as I live and breathe,” Billy said as he came on the phone. “How are you doing, Mr. P.?”
“Okay, Billy. How about yourself?” Elvis said. God, it was good to hear Billy’s voice again.
“Middling to fair,” Billy said with a laugh. “We’ve got ourselves a new strain of flu down here. Virus must come from all those Northern kids buzzing around town registering us colored folks to vote.”
“The bad with the good, huh?”
“Bad’s worth the good in this case,” Billy said.
“Amen to that,” Elvis said. Then, “I see you’ve got a new nurse working for you.”
“That I do, Elvis,” Billy said softly, a tenderness in his voice. The man knew instinctively how hearing the new girl’s voice must have affected Elvis. “I put flowers out in the cemetery every week like you asked,” Billy went on. “And I speak your love to Selma.”
“I truly appreciate that, Billy,” Elvis said, his eyes spontaneously filling up.
“So what can I do for you, Mr. P.?” Billy asked, sounding sunny again.
Elvis swallowed hard. “I want to ask a favor,” he said.
“Shoot.”
“I need to locate a woman named Connie Spinelli,” Elvis said. “She’s in Atlanta working in a beauty parlor. That’s all I know. But I’d like you to find her and tell her to call me immediately. Collect, of course. Or get her number and I’ll call. Tell her it’s important. Somebody’s life depends on it.”
“I see,” Billy said.
“I know you’re busy, Billy,” Elvis went on. “So you just tell me if you can’t do it and I’ll understand.”
“It sounds like something I could make the time for,” Billy said.
“I appreciate that, Billy,” Elvis said. “I’ll wire you money for the fare and expenses.”
“Could be one little problem though,” Billy said. “Miss Spinelli is white, I imagine. And it’s going to take more than a few hundred Northern kids to change the way they do business in Atlanta. I’m not sure how welcome a black man is going to be in a white woman’s beauty salon. I’m willing to try, though.”
“That’s all any of us can do,” Elvis said. “Try and try again.”
“So tell me, Mr. P., does this mean you’re back in the detective business again?” Billy laughed.
“Just playing at it,” Elvis said, feeling a tinge of embarrassment. “You know, Billy, one time when I was feeling awful foolish about snooping around those fan-club murders, I told Selma that the worst thing about doing detective work was that it made me feel so good. So alive, you know. And Selma said to me that working for you made her feel good for the same reason. Because doing things for other people has a way of getting you outside yourself, and the more outside yourself you get, the more alive you feel inside. I’ve never forgotten that.”
“She was one wise woman,” Billy said. “God bless her.”
“I miss her terrible, friend,” Elvis said softly.
“I know that, Elvis. But tell me honestly, how are you doing otherwise?”
For some reason, tears welled up in Elvis’s eyes again. He had to wait a couple of seconds before answering.
“I’ll tell you, Billy, it’s not just Selma’s sweetness I miss,” Elvis said quietly. “It’s the sweetness in my own soul. Sometimes … sometimes I think it’s all dried up on me.”
“I know that feeling,” Billy said, and then, “Say, you want to hear a song?”
“A song?”
“Yup, a new one to me. Heard it in church last Sunday.”
“When did you start going to church, Billy?”
“I just go for the music,” Billy said, laughing.
“Let’s hear that song,” Elvis said.
Billy cleared his throat. Then, in his spring-clear tenor he began to sing a gospel song:
“There’s a dark place, Lord,
A hidden place no light can reach,
No sound can breach,
No preacher preach.
There’s a dark place, Lord,
A hidden place so deep in my heart,
In the deepest part,
In the saddest part.
Shine on me!
O Shine on me!
O Shine on me!
O Shine on me!”
Elvis was crying full out now, the tears streaming down his face. “Thank you, brother,” he said.
“You take care of yourself, Elvis,” Billy said. And they hung up.
7
The Stuntman’s Mistress
It took a good ten minutes for all the tears to flow out of him. Where did all that sorrow came from? Missing Selma? Missing his mother? His lost twin, Jesse? Or was it something else too, a hidden place in his soul desperately seeking light.
Finally, Elvis stood up, went to the sink and splashed his face with cold water. He took a deep breath and let it out, then took another and another. He looked at his watch: almost four o’clock. Priscilla would be high over the Midwest by now. There was no denying he was relieved that she was going back to Memphis. The film was now completely finished and he would join her soon. But not yet. No, not just yet.
Elvis dialed the MGM operator again. “I’m looking for a woman named Nancy Pollard,” Elvis said. “What department would she be in?”
“Miss Pollard? Why, she’s head of development, Mr. Presley.”
“Would you connect me to her, ma’am?”
The extension rang just once before it was picked up and a bubbly voice said, “Development. Miss Aronson speaking.”
“Hello, Miss Aronson. This is Elvis Presley and I’m looking for Miss Pollard.”
“Why, hello, Mr. Presley,” Aronson gushed. “Nancy, uh, Miss Pollard, was wondering if you would call. I must say, I didn’t think you would.”
“She was expecting to hear from me?” Elvis asked warily.
“She was indeed,” Aronson bubbled on.
“Why would that be, ma’am?”
“Because of the search you’re on, of course,” Aronson said.
What the devil was going on here? He had only seen Littlejon last night and Clifford this morning—how could word already be out that he was looking into the case? Who had blabbed? Warden Reardon? One of the prison guards? Madge Dickerson, in spite of her riff on the makeup artists’ honor code? Or maybe the MGM operator had been listening in on his calls—that would explain it. When it came to gossip, Los Angeles was about the size of Tupelo.
“What exactly do you know about my search?” Elvis asked tersely.
“Just what I read in the papers,” Aronson said. “That you’re looking for a story with some real substance. A script that can reach way down and inspire. A quality film.”
It was all Elvis could do to keep from bursting out laughing. “That’s right, Miss Aronson,” he said. “That’s why I want to talk with Miss Pollard.”
“Well, I don’t want to step on anybody’s toes,” Aronson said in an intimate whisper, “but personally I have some marvelous properties that would be just perfect for you. Serious things. James Dean kind of things.”
“Glad to hear that,” Elvis said. “But I’d like to meet with Miss Pollard. May I speak with her?”
“Oh, she’s still out at lunch,” Aronson said. Four o’clock and still at lunch—Nancy Pollard certainly had come up in the world since she was Nanette Poulette. “I could set something up for tomorrow though. Are you free for lunch?”
“I guess I am,” Elvi
s said. “But I don’t much like eating out in this town, if that’s okay.”
“I’ll order in,” Aronson said. “You like baby back ribs, if I’m not mistaken.”
“When they’re done right,” Elvis said reluctantly. He didn’t add that the few times he’d tried ribs in California restaurants they had tasted more like Swiss steak out of a pressure cooker than the real, smoked thing.
“One o’clock then. All right, Mr. Presley?”
“I’m looking forward to it,” Elvis said.
He set down the phone and walked to the window. Out on the lot, an entire battalion of extras in World War I infantry uniforms was ambling by. Several had bloody-looking bandages bound around their heads; one was naked to the waist with a half-dozen simulated bullet holes in his chest; another was on wooden crutches with one pant leg pinned up to the knee. A one-legged man could probably make a decent career as an extra in Hollywood. Like Squirm said, Everybody’s got a God-given, special talent, but it’s only the lucky ones who figure out what it is.
Elvis took the stairs down to the first floor and was strolling on the lot before he realized that he was still wearing Jodie Tatum’s hillbilly costume and blond wig. Not that it mattered. One good thing about life in this dream factory was that no one took any notice of you whatever you were wearing or not wearing, or whoever you were. It was an unwritten rule on the lot that nobody could approach you for an autograph or a handshake. Actually, the extras and chorus girls and boys seemed to like that rule: for at least a few minutes each day, it put them on equal footing with the stars.
Elvis figured it for the stunt shack the minute he saw the small building at the far end of the lot. It looked a lot like a moonshine hut back home—no windows, low on one side and high on the other where the still would be—and leaning against the side wall were all manner of weapons: muskets, machine guns, lances, Samurai swords. But the telltale clue was the mini trampoline in front. A rangy, unshaven man in a cowboy shirt, leather vest, dungarees and chaps was bouncing up and down on it in stocking feet, effecting a half turn while drawing two six-guns from hip holsters on every other upward vault. It was a marvel to behold. The man had the easy grace of a dancer, but the weathered face and muscular build of a Green Beret. Elvis watched until the stuntman finished up with an airborne somersault and landed on his feet, right in front of Elvis, his six-guns pointing straight at him.