Elvissey

by Jack Womack

  The hotel's guards wore eyeshading hats; they stonefaced, listening to Malloy. The shortest bore scars running along each cheek from lipedge to ear, as if at an early age he'd attempted to widen his mouth enough to eat melons without having to chew. "Key," I replayed. "An actual key?"

  Malloy nodded. "Historical Accuracy's iron fist slamming as it will."

  The deskclerk ran my listing; once my name onscreened, she handed me my key. Its metal chilled my hand, and I imagined they must be kept refrigerated when not in use. Stepping through a doorway to the right of the desk, we climbed the winding, shoeworn stairs.

  "Are there elevators in London yet?" I asked, trailing Malloy as he huffed ahead, bashing my bags wallways with every step.

  "We're lifted at Dryco, certainly," he said. At the second landing we crossed a new threshold, and stumbled down another hall. "Here we go," he said, shoving himself against a corner so that I'd have space enough to reach round him, and unlock my door.

  "Period pieces," I said, thinking as we entered that we'd mistakenly museumed ourselves, seeing furniture made two hundred years earlier. An oversize window overlooked the rear court's ficus and pine, and the chimneypots of other houses; beyond, topping all some blocks distant, was an old postmodern tower, inscribed at its brim with the word CENTRE. The ceiling-fan lowered the temperature; mosquitonetting creamed the sunlight until I could bear its diffusion against my skin.

  "Lovely," I said. "So much cooler. So historicized."

  "The tube's secreted within the chiffarobe," said Malloy, unlatching its high mahogany doors. "View as desired, or flip the button beneath to telecom." Setting down my bags, holding the control, he onswitched the set. Its eye at once imaged a whitecloaked man dissecting a fetal pig. "Infomercial, likely." Malloy gestured left, toward the bath. "Your facilities." Most of that room housed the tub, which was marble, and held a meter's depth; it resembled nothing so much as a sarcophagus, and appeared designed solely to lull its bathers into a sleep more relaxing than they might have wished.

  "Leverett's scheduled you in advance?" Malloy asked; I nodded. "His eminence assumes the moon, doesn't he? He attempted to draw my hours for me; listed me out before we'd left Heathrow. Had me plotted like a Taiwan vid. Fruitless, his tries. So long as Dryco and I enjoy correlated moments at wide intervals, I'm content and told him so."

  "I'm not optioned," I said, windowgazing; hummingbirds bombarded flowering ivy enwrapping the nearest pine.

  "Tomorrow evening, you are," Malloy said. "The social graces demand we dine you well. You've that ElCon this eve, I gather, and of course his coming-out ball the next night. Would you like a moment's rest now? I can lobby myself, and haunt the maids."

  "I'm appointed to head to the office upon arrival," I said, headshaking, wondering why I couldn't loose myself of its new ache.

  "Pity. Spending days accomplishing hours isn't our model for productivity over here. Let's hotfoot it, then. Sooner you adjust to the air, the better."

  "Leverett and E are already there?" I asked, locking the door after us as we reentered the hall.

  "Lying in wait," said Malloy. "Their security, as well. He's working with Willy. Willy's our beefeater. There's been none of that goodgoodying here, mind you. This side of the tub's still beset with footpads and countercults at every turn. Old world, old ways."

  I muted; before leaving I'd ascertained the company Leverett and E would keep, flying over a day earlier. John and I had talked most evenings since we'd split, awaring each other of our respective states, neither of us changed; though we had seemed to calm-he had, in any event, or so I perceived. It didn't surprise when Leverett awared me we'd all be back together while in England, one family seeking prey.

  The heat flattened me again as we streethit; my collar damped my neck before we moved three meters. Dryco's London HQ was on Broadwick Street, reachable from the hotel through a labyrinth of byways. Malloy's black wrap billowed behind him as we strolled; his shirt and trousers were black as well, so black as his boots. He wore a string tie, its strands secured by a gold slide cast in our logo's look. "You're cool?" I asked, wishing, doglike, to shake my head dry.

  "The gene pool tells all," he said. "My great-grandfather served in India, wrote one of those books about it after he cashiered. Regaled all with tales of how marvelous the weather was. Did nothing whilst he was there but look for the yeti and assault little boys, my uncle told me. You've been to London before, Isabel?"

  "Fifteen years past," I said. "I came with Madam and sightsaw while she conferred."

  "I was outlanded in Barcelona then," he said, shouting over motorcycle's roar. A cab came whirling upstreet, and we paused long enough to fasten ourselves onto a tree-stand as it passed. Its wind cooled me, if but for a moment. "Removed here ten years back and found myself sliding up the greasy pole. Didn't know where my hands were leading me. You've always worked the central office?"

  "Always."

  "I went to New York once, not long after Madam and OM exed the Drydens. A cadre of us were sent to see where we stood under the new management. Two of my mates were piecemealed in daylight, right on Broadway. Perpetrator said he didn't like our accents."

  "London's changed, too-"

  "Weather's had its effect. We've not flooded as you have, what with the Thames Barrier, but with conditions as they are it's no longer to daytrip the Med each summer now." We stepped between three cannon-muzzles set into the slate pavement; thin lianas spiraled around their lengths after emerging from their bores. "Statesiders tell me we've successfully blended the worst of New York and LA. Utterly happenstance."

  Two bobbies stood near a bicycle rack, espying us, holding tight to their lemon-yellow plastic machine pistols. A large building overhung the street on our left, a thatched medieval hut inflated into twelve times trad size. What appeared, at first look, as mauve thatch evidenced, on closer inspection, as acrylic fiber. "Cornwall Tourist Council?" I said, reading its sign.

  "A recent improvement," Malloy said. "Historical Accuracy demands, once again. Makes you feel flung headlong into Shakespeare, doesn't it?"

  "Cornwall's still part of England?"

  "Can't support themselves on pasties, can they? But each to their own country, so long as all stay fragmented within the greater madness. Citrons in a pudding, that's the Euro way. "

  That Europe so perpetually underwent disintegration while clinging to its shroud of union long troubled Dryco; seventy-four separate offices and a Continental HQ in Berlin were demanded if thumbs were to be readied all times to plum appropriate pies. Expenses perpetually overran: no sooner would a restructured Serbian branch open than Voj- vodvina would redeclare independence; Thum might divorce itself from Taxis, for a week, or a month; Transylvania would be tossed, ball-like, among Wallachia, Rumania, Hungary, and Slovakia. I remember Judy being so angered, sometimes, that she suspected certain nations in which Dryco opened offices had, in truth, no actual citizenry, but only an endless series of gauleiters forever lining up to take their bribes.

  "What remains of England, then, within the EC-?" I asked.

  "By my estimation," Malloy said, "England qua England presently consists of scattered territories betwixt Ealing and Cockfosters. Everything else's balked. Wales, Yorkshire, Guernsey, Norfolk, Scotland High and Low, all of them spinout for a time before closing in long enough again to rifle the coffers as they need. Levels of inefficiency have been reached only dreamt of, heretofore. Thank Godness they've ceased passporting, otherwise we'd never cross a street without having to show need for leaving the empire."

  In the midst of the next street over was a marketplace. Sellers from Asia and Africa hawked knockoff desktops, djel- lebas with obscene phrases threaded into their patterns, carved ensembles of frog musicians, brassieres portraited with the Royal Couple on their cups, neckties jacquarded with skull designs and other such arcanities. Dozens of camera-necklaced tourists burrowed through the lot seeking the best of old England. Malloy eyed a rack of frying meat hanging above a glow
ing cooker.

  "There's Tibbles," he said. "Kitty kitty kitty. Here, now. There's Big D." Dryco's London HQ, a block distant, was a five-story structure built to resemble a country house, cloaking its true tenants well save for the yellow logo attached to each chimney. "Used to be cover offices for MI.7, my sources say," Malloy said. "Odds on, many a plot hatched there by souls fancywarped and dreamwoofed, and not adverse to a bit of tappage with the smackers if need be. After you, Isabel."

  He pushed the door; it remained shut. "Fuck me," he said, booting its latch, swinging it open. The lobby was no larger than my office would have been in Judy's suite, had I been enabled to retake my position. A stairway curved up and overhead; beneath its broad spiral a dead date palm stood, flecked round by brown leaves.

  "Thought we'd install our own greenery but neglected the method by which it might be watered," said Malloy. "Lasted a week before it withered." On our left were two elevators; both were out of service. "Not to mind. It's first-floored. So you've been dealing with Boy E direct since snaring him?"

  I gripped the smooth bronze rail, hauling myself upward. "He trusts no one else-"

  "With reason, I'm sure," said Malloy. "It's an uncanny resemblance, and the attitude seems right. The period he's modeling at present's a bit unexciting, but kitsch as kitsch can. I figured you'd deck him with the yak's hair quiff and a pair of great black buggers' grips stuck on his cheeks. The suit they'd fitted him for's a sight, all the same. I'd think that'll pass muster."

  "He hates it-"

  "Understandable," Malloy said, opening heavy French doors at the second landing; most of the panes were pocked with bullet holes. "Here we go, then. Dryco East."

  Closet-sized enclosures ringed the floor's central open space; I trailed Malloy as he steered between desks, aiming for one at the far side of the building. Though I'd readied myself to see my husband waiting there, he wasn't; one of their guards secured Leverett and E. The man was twice John's width, and as tall; his neck's diameter was greater than that of his head.

  "What's buzzed?" Malloy asked. Willy worded in return with an accent so thick as to disallow understanding.

  "Gessa break," he said. "Am no partial to be settin' daylu- ing.

  "Stick to your place, Willy. Where's John, my man? Where's Leverett's guard?"

  "Loo," Willy rumbled. "N'ofally nice bitta crump y'got there, Mester M."

  "Behave. She'll not suffer the prints of Gaels upon her-"

  "Spikkin' fuh masel', nae more."

  Malloy leaned his head back and lowvoiced me, as if that could keep Willy from overhearing. "Used to be a tight end with the Aberdeen Maulers. Banned for life first time season fatalities topped forty. The coach tossed him to us on a forward pass and we ran."

  Each cubicle's infacing wall was partially glassed; staring past Willy's head, I saw Leverett and E within. Leverett was desked, shouting something at a man telecom-imaged. He'd epauletted his shoulders with phones. E sat in the windowledge, streetgazing, his knees chinresting, his hands shankclasped. Malloy opened the door, knocking as he entered.

  "Interrupt," Leverett said, freezing his communicant in midsentence. "Isabel, at last. You landed four hours ago-"

  "Traffic," I said; turned from him to speak to E. "How are you?"

  He eyed me momentslong; redirected his look outward, as if he were debating whether to throw himself through. "Good as they tell me, I guess."

  Leverett stood, interposing his body between us. "All's nearly finalized, at last. There's much, still. You slept inflight?"

  "I tried." Slept little, actually; sat openeyed for kilometers, feeling myself so cottonwrapped as the world below me. As E, during the months past, had come to know clockround his predecessor's isolation sans the joys and glory which may have attended, so I, too, had been cut loose, bereft of work, of friendship, of love, allowed only to devote life and time to readying one in whom I didn't believe for one I couldn't believe to lull those who, against reason, did believe. I'd nullified myself at Leverett's demand; while I was walled away from Judy I was optionless. Now, having had in my brief inflight separation time apart from the two of them, I allowed my mind to return to my body, and my soul to return to itself. Somewhere over the Atlantic I did sleep; coming to in London as we landed, I reawakened full.

  "The hotel satisfies?" Leverett asked; his hands shook, and he akimboed them against his hips, that none would see. "Are you lagged? Time essentials-"

  "You're so quiet, E," I said. "What's felt?"

  "He's fine, fine-"

  "Let him tell me, then." E unfolded himself, flooring his feet. He wore an earthtoned coverall such as a mechanic or driver might wear. Each week he'd been fortifying himself a little further, disassociating from all of us, as if every new assignment or insult simply mortared another brick. "E?"

  "I just wanta get to it," he said, staring past me. "See what it's gonna be. Where've you got me goin' tonight?"

  "The annual London ElCon," Leverett said. "You've seen your schedule-"

  "Hell, I don't know if I'm asleep or awake. Haven't since I got here-"

  "I empathize," said Malloy, smiling as he interjected. "It's a useful confusion, you'll find."

  "We arrive incognito at eighteen-hundred, allowing you to firsthand your followers," said Leverett. "Tomorrow you'll be prepped for your appearance Sunday night-"

  "Isabel's dining with me tomorrow eve, by the way," Malloy said.

  "If the schedule permits-"

  "You've got her doing nothing but attending, daylong. She's sparable for an hour or two."

  "Possibly," Leverett said; admitting that another might adjust the timetable he'd drawn for anyone else was something I imagined he was no longer able to do.

  "The coming-out's at New Wembley?" I asked, attempting to recall what I'd been given to memorize.

  "Sunday's special, I've been awared," Leverett said. "Quite special."

  "By Act of Parliament, the C of E, England, is allowed to hold its biennial Elvissey at St. Paul's," Malloy said. "Not in the church proper, mind you, but on the steps without and in the facing plaza. First time out they were given access to the innards but Elvii blackened half the monuments with their dirty hands. Took months to clean, afterward."

  "What's an Elvissey?" I asked, never having heard the term.

  "The eternal search for the home with the King," said Malloy. "The cry unto heaven that he be dropped back into their midst, appearing older but wiser, and scaring the dogs to death. The expression of the wish that he return, to assure that theirs will be perfect lives hereout. All sects unite on that night, as though through numbers they can rouse Godness to let loose her minion. Literal power through numbers, like the notion of all the Chinese leaping as one, knocking the world off axis as they land... ...

  "Timing's everything," Leverett said, smiling for the first time since I'd arrived.

  "Security's assured?" I asked. "For him and for us?"

  "John will oversee our safety," said Leverett. "Crowd control rests in the capable hands of locals, and Dryco's British Security forces-"

  "Such as Willy?"

  "Precisely," said Malloy. "That is, those who aren't among the worshipers."

  "As undercovers?" I asked.

  "As believers," said Malloy. "It is counted as a religious holiday after all, both by the court and by the union. Half of Security has the day off."

  "That many?" Leverett said, underbreathed; added nothing as Malloy nodded.

  "These beliefs aren't to be toyed with in England," he said.

  "The others are generally of Willy's ilk?" I asked.

  "Even those who aren't Scottish."

  "Security's assured, as told," Leverett said, loudvoicing as if to convince himself.

  "A hell of a weekend, all the same," said Malloy. "The freaks' ball tonight, the Elvissey on Sunday, the Guy's day inbetween-"

  "What guy?" E asked.

  "Guy Fawkes' Day," Malloy said, grinning. "You don't know the story?

  " `Rememb
er, remember the fifth of November,' " he recounted. " `The gunpowder treason and plot. I know of no reason why the gunpowder treason should ever be forgot.' The Guy tried blowing up Parliament, some time back. Didn't succeed. We adore a good failure over here, mind you, just in the event that-"

  "All's controlled and will go as scheduled," said Leverett, his voice rising enough to lend a squeak to his sibilance, causing him to sound as if he needed a lube. "It's accounted that these assemblies are invariably cable-covered live across the continent. By midnight Greenwich time news of the reamval will have globed. By morning, New York time, Dryco's hand will have been shown."

  "How's that to be accomplished?" I asked.

  "We'll be branching the news through all info trees. Our media'11 circulate suitable image and the event itself will be rebroadcast as essentialled. To verify our claim at the opener, we've a presentation arranged which should overwhelm so long as forecasts hold-"

  "Forecasts? You mean an environad? Isn't that chancing-?"

  "This from one who told me how oldtime my posters were?" Leverett said, greasing sarcasm with petulance as he shot his words from his mouth. "Bestill yourself, Isabel."

  "How long will he onstage?" I asked.

  "Ten minutes. Enough to show, sing, and say he's back. Then he'll be sped away, to lessen interaction with the crowd."

  "Otherwise he'd be furled, likely," Malloy said. "Drawn and quartered by his beloving multitudes. There's no S and M like that between worshipers and god."

  "Elvis," Leverett said, taking note of our charge's silence. "What's troubling? Stage fright?"

  "Bellyflies, I'd think," Malloy said. "All before you's dust agleam in starsheen, E. Make-believe's mites and motes dance before you as you will."

  "It's too much," E said, his voice so distancing that, against reason, I couldn't be sure that someone unseen wasn't ventriloquizing his words for him. "I wanta go home. Never shoulda brought me here-"