Daniel Klein

by Blue Suede Clues: A Murder Mystery Featuring Elvis Presley

  Tears of joy suddenly appeared in the corners of Maryjane Aronson’s eyes. In just about any place else in the world, you would have looked at her beaming face and thought this woman had just been proposed to by the man of her dreams. But this was Studio City and the woman in question had just closed the movie deal of her dreams.

  Aronson abruptly spun around, darted to one of the cardboard boxes against the wall, pulled out a typewriter, and then unearthed a sheaf of paper. In two minutes flat, the typewriter was on the card table and Miss Maryjane was typing up a contract between Timeless Films and Mr. Elvis Presley for a two-picture deal based on scripts to be agreed upon later. At the bottom, she typed her name and his with spaces for their signatures. She whipped out the paper and presented it to Elvis.

  “Looks good,” Elvis said. “We can work out the fees and points and stuff like that later. Got a pen?”

  Aronson reached inside her blazer and produced a Parker fountain pen. Elvis removed the cap and placed the contract on the table in front of him. He raised the pen, then halted.

  “Of course, to make it legal and all, money’s got to exchange hands,” Elvis said. “My daddy taught me that.”

  Aronson looked up at him apprehensively. “How much did you have in mind?”

  “Oh, just a token, ma’am, so it looks serious. Say five hundred dollars? Cash, of course, so it’s a done deal right here and now.”

  Bait and switch.

  Aronson didn’t hesitate for a second. She had oh so cleverly gotten everything she wanted. The movie deal of a lifetime. She walked briskly to the safe and kneeled down in front of it, Elvis following soundlessly behind her. She twirled the combination lock forward and back and forward again, then pressed down on the handle and swung the door open.

  She was reaching for the steel money box on the bottom shelf when Elvis clamped one arm around her neck and cupped his other hand over her mouth. Aronson squirmed. She tried to bite Elvis’s hand. She shot one sharp elbow into his ribs, then the other. Elvis held tight.

  A black notebook sat on the top shelf of the safe, smart snakeskin with a golden clasp like a teenager’s diary. And next to it was a large manila envelope with the words E.P. NEGATIVES printed on it. Miss Maryjane Aronson’s fortune. A two-blackmail deal.

  24

  Look Under C

  What would Mamma say? Putting a woman in a choke hold, robbing her, wrapping her up in duct tape that some workman left behind, and then setting her on top of that big brass safe like some kind of mummified hood ornament?

  Not a gentlemanly thing to do, no ma’am. But then again, Miss Maryjane wasn’t exactly a lady either. She was something else altogether, neither Madonna nor whore. She was the devil herself.

  “Got what I needed,” Elvis crooned to Murphy as he sauntered out of the building. “Next stop, UCLA labs.”

  Elvis considered slipping back into the Corvair’s luggage compartment—he was still a wanted man, maybe even more so now—but at this moment he needed more light than the luggage compartment would afford him. As a compromise, he pulled on Murphy’s white parachute-cloth parka, lacing the hood tight over his head and forehead, and settled into the passenger seat. He glanced at himself in the rearview mirror: the hood revealed a perfect puny circle of face. He looked like a plastic cupie doll, the boobie prize at a county fair’s weight-guessing booth. He looked nothing at all like a rock ‘n’ roll legend. Yup, the line between beauty and beast was a narrow one, all right.

  “You got the names?” Murphy asked excitedly as he pulled into traffic.

  “Think so,” Elvis replied, waving the black snakeskin address book. Actually, he knew so: he’d taken a quick peek on the elevator ride down. Just at the As. Maryjane’s clients were listed alphabetically by last name only, followed by a phone number, then one, two, or three women’s first names in parentheses—their favorite call girls, he figured—and finally some kind of code in capital letters—DOM and WHP and the like, whatever the heck they meant. Elvis had only recognized one of the A last names—a top lyricist at one of the major Hollywood song mills, a steady customer who specialized in sappy romantic ballads.

  “So read to me, Elvis!” Murphy exclaimed. “My mouth is watering like a geyser over here.”

  Elvis opened the address book, then quickly closed it again. In the elevator, he had been unable to make himself peer inside the manila envelope that he’d also extracted from Aronson’s safe. He was afraid that it would not contain what he hoped it would. And even if it did, he was loathe to look at those sickening photographs again. Now, he bit down on his lower lip and unclasped the envelope. Photo negatives, all right. Four strips of them. He pulled them out. Turning his back to Murphy, he held a strip up against the side window. They were rolling past the evenly spaced street lights of Ventura Boulevard, and the negative images popped on and off, Elvis and Ann-Margret in stop action like a Charlie Chaplin reel. Pornographic slapstick.

  “You got a match?” Elvis said.

  Murphy reached into his shirt pocket, pulled out a book of matches, and handed them over to Elvis, who reached behind his back to take them.

  “Thought you didn’t smoke,” Murphy said.

  “Don’t,” Elvis said. “Bad habit.”

  He lit a match and ignited a corner of the strip of negatives. It burst immediately into a blue flame, licking right up to Elvis’s fingertips and suffusing the car with putrid chemical smoke.

  “Jesus, man! What the hell are you doing?” Murphy hollered.

  Elvis rolled down the window with his left hand, still clutching the flaming negatives with his right. It burned the flesh on the first two digits of his thumb and forefinger, but Elvis held on. The pain felt right. Cleansing.

  “You know that expression, ‘burning with shame’?” Elvis said.

  “Stop that!” Murphy shouted.

  “That’s what I’m doing, Murph. Burning with shame.”

  Elvis lit the second strip with the first, holding this one in his left hand and letting it burn right up to his fingertips again. Then the third and the fourth, the final strip of negatives. Despite the open window, the car now reeked with smoke. Murphy was coughing and sputtering and swearing at Elvis whenever he caught his breath, but Elvis was smiling, laughing, and now singing at the top of his lungs, improvising: “I just might turn into smoke, but I feel fine. I’m just a hunk, a hunk of burning shame.” Now there was a darned good idea for a song.

  “You’re a crazy man,” Murphy yelped. “Absolutely crazy.”

  “That’s the truth, Murph,” Elvis said. “You put that in our book too. Elvis Presley is crazy as a coot.”

  “Whatever you say, Elvis, but first read me that book.” Murphy gestured at the black notebook.

  Elvis opened the address book at random. The Rs. First listing, “Radino, 386-3435, (Doris, Virginia)—DOM” Didn’t ring any bells, although Murphy would probably know who it was. After all, that was a reporter’s business—names and faces. Elvis was just about to say “Radino” out loud when he stopped himself. It just didn’t feel right. This Radino probably had a wife. Kids too. A good job he worked hard at. Wouldn’t be a surprise if he went to church too, just like those rich Frenchmen with a wife and a concubine that Regis had told him about. He was a lying man and a cheating man, but was that anybody’s business but his own? It was just like those pictures of him and Miss Ann. Nobody’s business.

  But one of these names was not just a lying and cheating man, he was a murderer. Holly’s murderer. The man who set up Squirm Littlejon. That’s what getting ahold of this notebook was all about. Elvis flipped through the pages with his scorched thumb. There were easily a hundred names in there, maybe more. Miss Maryjane hadn’t put a little star next to one of them to indicate this one here, he’s the murderer. What the devil had Elvis expected?

  At the very least he could check for the names of people he suspected. He flipped to the Ls, scanned down the list, then up again. No LeFevre; it wasn’t Wayne. Next the Fs. No Ned Florbid. T
he Gs. Not even Mickey Grieves was in here. Of course, Mickey had worked out his own personal arrangement with Holly—rent in trade; he hadn’t needed Miss Maryjane’s scheduling services.

  Man, Elvis was no closer to figuring this thing out than he was a week ago. The only difference is that now the police were looking for him. And all that running around catching teardrops was a joke too. Hector Garcia had a mere dozen DNA samples to match with Holly’s last customer and most of those were stuntmen, not Hollywood bigwigs who could bankroll Aronson’s new studio. Who was Elvis kidding? He wasn’t a detective, he was just a fool trying to outrun his own pent-up teardrops.

  Mike Murphy was peering over Elvis’s shoulder.

  “Look under C,” he said softly.

  “What for?”

  “Just look.”

  25

  My Brother

  Elvis could hear Dolores Suarez’s heart-rending wail from the laboratory corridor. With Murphy panting behind him, he jogged to the lab door and opened it.

  Delores was on her knees, bent over, her face in her hands. She was crying uncontrollably, gasping for air, now wailing again, her thin shoulders quaking under her white laboratory coat. Hector stood over her, hopelessly attempting to comfort her by patting her head. Regis was nowhere to be seen.

  “What happened?” Elvis.

  Hector shook his head sadly, said nothing.

  “Where’s Regis?”

  Hector shrugged miserably. Delores let out a heart-breaking moan.

  Elvis swiftly approached them, dropped to his knees in front of Delores. He reached out a hand and touched the side of the woman’s face. Her salty tears stung his burnt fingertips.

  “I’m sorry, ma’am,” he said softly. “Whatever it is, I’m real sorry.”

  “Re … Regis,” she stammered, but she could not go on.

  Elvis gazed up at Hector beseechingly.

  “I … I checked her results,” Hector said haltingly. “Twice. Starting from scratch each time. But always the same. No mistake.”

  Elvis nodded. He was pretty sure he knew what was coming.

  “Delores took a cell sample from Regis too,” Hector went on. “A strand of his hair.”

  “He … He made a joke when I did it,” Delores said, crying more softly now, a painful smile on her fine oval face. “He said, ‘If I go bald, it is your fault.’”

  “We needed it for elimination, of course,” Hector continued. “Like with yours. In case you had contaminated the other samples by handling them. A double check. We had no other reason to take it.”

  “I understand,” Elvis said.

  “It matched,” Hector blurted. “Regis’s DNA and the last man who was with Holly McDougal. The murderer. A perfect match.”

  “Jesus Christ, it is Regis!” Murphy exploded.

  “No. I … I … didn’t know. He … He never told me,” Delores stammered. She began bawling full out again. “I spoke too soon!” she wailed.

  “She accused him,” Hector said softly.

  “I said to him, ‘How could you do this to me? How could you put the proof right in front of my eyes? My eyes! Why mine?’” Delores sobbed.

  “I did not realize immediately either,” Hector said. “I had forgotten that Regis has an identical twin.”

  “What the hell difference does that make?” Murphy asked vehemently.

  “An identical twin has identical DNA,” Elvis said. “Same blueprint, same calling card.”

  “My God!” Murphy cried.

  “That is true, of course,” Hector said. “But already, Regis, he had run.”

  “Where did he go?”

  Hector shrugged.

  “He went to his brother’s,” Murphy blurted. “To LeRoy’s. I bet he’s there already.”

  “You got to be right,” Elvis said. He rocked back up onto his feet, then leaned over and kissed the top of Dr. Suarez’s head. “I’ll go get him for you. It’s going to be all right, Miss Delores. I promise you.”

  Mike Murphy knew precisely where California Supreme Court Justice LeRoy Clifford lived. He also knew the home address of every other State Supreme Court justice, not to mention of every DA and police commissioner; he said a “mental phone book” was what separated the reporters who got scoops from the lugs who ended up covering night court their entire lives.

  Justice Clifford lived in Beverly Hills in a twenty-eight-room estate wedged capaciously between the mansions of Dick Powell and Phil Silver; his Alpine Drive address was accompanied by a rare asterisk for “Not Worth Looking At” on those star maps that celebrity-struck tourists dutifully followed. Murph also knew that Judge LeRoy was married to one Miranda Kurtz, a grapefruit heiress from Palm Beach, that they had two children and went to church every Sunday at St. Brigit’s Celtic Christian Ministries in Costa Mesa. In other words, according to Regis’s profile, LeRoy was just the kind of upstanding citizen who liked a little something strange on the side.

  “Clifford” was the third entry under C in Maryjane Aronson’s little black book: “Clifford, 555-9468, (Holly)—LO.”

  “Holy God!” Elvis had exclaimed. But then he had angrily swung around to Murphy and demanded, “How the hell did you know?”

  “I didn’t,” Murphy had replied. “Just a hunch. The jewelry in Holly’s safety deposit box was insured by the Clifford estate. At least, most of it was. Family heirlooms. My jeweler friend recognized it immediately.”

  “But it can’t be Regis!”

  “I hope to God you’re right, Elvis.”

  “I know I’m right.”

  Murphy was now turning off Santa Monica Boulevard onto Alpine Drive. Elvis loosened the tie-string on the parka hood, then pulled off the entire parka. He was making an unexpected social call in Beverly Hills; for the first time today, it was going to be an advantage to be unmistakably Elvis Presley.

  There was a gate and a guard in front of the palatial home of Justice and Mrs. LeRoy Clifford. Through the gate, Elvis could see a half-dozen limousines lined up in front of the main entrance. Apparently the Cliffords were entertaining. Murphy stopped for inspection, rolling down his window.

  “Your name, please?” the guard asked imperiously. He was wearing the policelike garb of a private security agency, but he carried himself like a Buckingham sentry.

  Elvis leaned over Murphy and looked up at the guard. “Presley,” he said. “Elvis Aron.”

  “Are you expected, Mr. Presley?” the guard said, not blinking an eye.

  “I’m the evening’s entertainment,” Elvis replied, deadpan.

  The guard responded with a patronizing smile that said, “So, Elvis, isn’t it a long way down?” and then opened the gates and waved them through.

  They parked in front of the lead limousine, directly under the portico. This was undoubtedly against the house rules, but neither Murphy nor Elvis were feeling especially rule-abiding at the moment. A butler in a monkey suit met them at the front door. He, at least, seemed more impressed than the gate guard with the evening’s entertainment. He immediately summoned the lady of the house.

  Miranda Kurtz Clifford was a painfully thin and angular woman with overbred pinched features and pale blue eyes that looked as if they had spent a lifetime trying to hide her shyness. She was wearing a lavender silk gown that dipped where her cleavage should have been and a massive diamond necklace hung from her birdlike neck like an albatross; she obviously knew that the forty-carat diamonds were the secret of her attraction. Elvis could not help automatically comparing her with the image of Holly McDougal shimmying on that Moviola screen.

  “Goodness me, another surprise guest!” Miss Miranda gushed. “It’s an honor, Mr. Presley. I’m a big fan, you know, although I don’t tell anybody that.”

  “Your secret’s safe with me, ma’am,” Elvis said. “This here is Mike Murphy, my biographer.”

  Mrs. Clifford shook each man’s hand. “The judge loves his surprises. He didn’t tell me that you—”

  “Oh, we aren’t expected, Mrs. Cliffor
d,” Elvis said. “It’s just a friend of mine told me to meet him here. The judge’s brother, Regis.”

  Miranda Clifford’s aqua eyes turned even paler. Her well-orchestrated dinner party was not going according to plan, and clearly this was a woman who depended heavily on plans, probably for every waking moment of her day.

  “They … The judge asked not to be disturbed,” Mrs. Clifford blurted. She forced another inbred gracious smile. “He said they would only be a couple moments.”

  “Him and Regis,” Elvis said.

  The judge’s wife hesitated. “Yes,” she said finally. “They haven’t seen each other in years, you know.”

  “I know, Mrs. Clifford. Must be very emotional for them,” Elvis said. “Where are they?”

  Mrs. Clifford looked utterly distraught. She was a hostess dedicated to her guests’ gratifications, but she was also a woman who unquestioningly obeyed her husband’s instructions; he was, after all, the Judge.

  “It’s his medication,” Murphy suddenly piped in. “Regis’s insulin. He left it behind. If he doesn’t take it soon …”

  Elvis nodded gravely. That Murphy sure was a gifted storyteller.

  “My goodness, I … I didn’t realize—” the hostess sputtered.

  “No way you could know, ma’am,” Elvis said. “Why don’t you just point the way. I bet your guests are waiting for you.”

  It was probably that last that nailed it, the reminder that Miss Miranda’s guests might be feeling neglected. She pointed up the long curved staircase. “The judge’s study. It’s in the back.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Clifford,” Elvis said.

  “You’re quite welcome,” she replied.

  Elvis was on the first step when Miss Miranda called to him. “It wouldn’t be any trouble at all to set extra places for you and Mr. Murphy,” she said.

  “You’re very kind,” Elvis said. “Why don’t we just play it by ear, okay?”

  “Of course, ‘by ear,’” she trilled, as if “playing it by ear” was the most daring concept she had entertained in years.