Elvis Sightings (An Elvis Sightings Mystery)

by Ricardo Sanchez

  Norma’s home was a small green-and-white bungalow on the border of Old Kresge. Morrison and I walked up the welcoming cobblestone path beneath the shady arms of a massive weeping willow. A plump tabby cat relinquished its seat on the porch swing to meet us halfway. She rubbed up against Morrison’s legs, leaving a thin coating of loose fur on his pants.

  “I hate cats,” he said, nudging the friendly feline away with his toe.

  The front drape was pulled briefly to the side as we mounted the front steps. Before I could lift the knocker, the door was opened wide by a striking woman in her 70s or 80s with a three-olive martini in her hand. Her hair was dyed golden blond and swept up and to the right, revealing a slight widow’s peak before curling gently down the sides of her face.

  “Hello, I’m Norma,” she said before taking a sip of her drink.

  Looking at the woman in the doorway, in her tight red sweater and riding boots, it was easy to imagine mod parties with lots of vodka and men in dapper jackets smoking cigarettes fawning over her. I had to give Kresge credit, its retirement community was one of the best looking I’d ever seen.

  “Floyd and Morrison,” I said.

  “Well, Floyd and Morrison, what brings you to my little shack in the sticks? Have you come to sell me an encyclopedia?”

  Norma’s bright red lips parted in a smile that revealed two rows of perfect white teeth, drawing attention to the the beauty mark to the left of her mouth.

  “No. We’re, uh, private detectives,” I said.

  She stepped aside to allow us to pass, raised a penciled eyebrow and said, “Then come on in and do some detecting.”

  I motioned Morrison in ahead of me. As I crossed the threshold Norma leaned in close and let her hand rest on my chest before brushing my shoulder.

  Closing the door, she said, “I just love a well-dressed man,” in a breathless voice.

  Norma walked over to Morrison, grabbing him by the bicep, and led him over to a disembodied boat prow that doubled as a martini bar. The sides were iridescent pearl Formica with chrome-finished portholes revealing high-end vodkas in the larder. The top was a chrome slab with a smaller chrome cabin rising up from it.

  “Why don’t you make up a couple martinis?” She sipped the last of hers, handing the glass to Morrison. “And could you freshen up mine? The olives are behind the bar.”

  Morrison selected two glasses from the boat’s cabin, expertly poured vodka and vermouth into a glass tumbler, and shook.

  At first I’d thought Norma’s voice was the result of emphysema or pulmonary lung disorder, but listening to her now, and watching her hips sway as she walked—assuming the sway wasn’t from a hip replacement—Norma exuded sex appeal, even for a woman older than my grandma. I am not saying that I am attracted to cougars, but if I was Roman’s age, I’d fight him for even five minutes of this woman’s attention.

  “While we’re waiting for those drinks, tell me what you’ve come to detect.”

  “We’re looking for Roman. Zora suggested you might have an idea where we could find him,” I said.

  Accepting her freshened up drink from Morrison, she looked me straight in the eyes. It’s a technique I often employ to get someone to say something they might prefer to keep to themselves, and having it turned on me made me squirm just a little.

  “Millions of people live their entire lives without finding themselves, Floyd. Have you found yourself? Is that why you wear a little cape?”

  “I think I have. Elvis said a person’s eyes tell you more than their words. What do mine tell you?”

  Norma glided close to me and walked her fingers up my chest, caressed my ear, and finally rested her palm on my cheek, holding my eyes with her own clear blue ones all the while. She patted my cheek a few times, broke eye contact to sip her martini, and walked over to her big bay window.

  “Good martini. Not too dry,” she said, her back to us. Looking over her shoulder at me, she wiggled her nose and said, “You’re cute. I like you.”

  “I...like you too,” I managed to blurt out.

  Norma let out a sexy, giggly laugh and sat down on a pale yellow leather and chrome couch, patting the space next to her. “And sweet, too! Come join me. James, would you be a good boy and bring in DiMaggio? He’s in the front yard somewhere. I think my pussy-pussy needs a saucer of cream.”

  Morrison tried not to grimace. “Sure,” he said, handing me a martini and heading for the front door to bring in the cat.

  Norma giggled again. “He’s silly. Now sit.”

  I could hear Morrison outside, unenthusiastically calling for DiMaggio, as I sat down next to Norma.She reached out and put one hand on my knee.

  “Roman was here a few days ago. He won’t be coming back.”

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “Oh, I learned a long time ago that men are chiefly the best lovers when they are betraying their girlfriends or wives. Let’s just say Roman got a lot...better lately. And I’d rather be unhappy alone than unhappy with a cheating boyfriend.”

  “Any idea who she is?”

  “No,” she said, running her fingers through my hair. “But she’s a lucky woman. A real man can thrill you by touching your head or smiling into your eyes or just staring into space. Roman was like that. I wonder if you are?”

  “Uh, Norma...”

  Norma pulled her hand back from my head and set it on my knee with a friendly pat. “You’re a silly one, too. I’m just having some fun. You’re a wee bit too young for me.”

  She rose with a wink and sashayed over to the bar to retrieve some more olives for her martini.

  “I told Roman when we first met that I used to think it would be easier to avoid old age, to die young. Stay pretty. But you’d miss out on so much of life.”

  She put an olive between her teeth and bit down on it.

  “He told me he felt the same, that he’d never felt more alive than he did now, as an older man. I think that’s why he can’t stick with any one woman for too long.”

  “So you don’t know where he is?” I asked.

  She turned around to face me. “No.”

  “Did you and Roman ever go to the zoo?”

  “Ooh! All the time! He likes the furry little critters.”

  She washed down the olive with a sip of her drink and let out a sigh. “When you find him, tell him I said hi. And he should drop by for a drink. Roman’s the kind of guy that makes a gal forget about her convictions.”

  I set my glass down on the coffee table and stood up. “I’ll do that, Norma.”

  She giggled, showing me those perfect teeth again. “It’s too bad you’re not thirty years older. Go find your man, Floyd. I don’t think your friend is ever going to round up DiMaggio and it’s well past time for his cream.”

  * * *

  “Get in the car,” I told Morrison, shutting the door to Norma’s bungalow behind us.

  “What about DiMaggio?”

  “Do you really want to catch the cat?” I asked.

  Morrison was on his hands and knees trying to coax the animal out of a hedge. He stood, brushed off his pants and walked to the Camaro.

  “I hate cats,” he said. “Did you get anything from the sexpot?”

  I opened the driver’s side door. “Roman definitely has a new love interest. I am starting to think he’s just buttoned away with her somewhere.”

  I fired up the engine, setting off a deep rumble in the tail pipes.

  “Where to now?” Morrison asked.

  “We’re down to our last lead. The zoo,” I said, pulling away from Norma’s and kicking up some dirt.

  “Do you think we’re going to find him there, strolling arm in arm with his new bird?”

  “No.”

  “So why are we going?”

  “
I like watching monkeys eat the bugs they pick off of each other.”

  I turned left onto Maple Street and watched Old Kresge shrink in the rearview mirror. “And once we’ve exhausted the search for Roman, we can look for Jon Burrows. I’ve put that off long enough.”

  “I’m not surprised you like watching monkeys,” Morrison told me.

  * * *

  Elvis loved animals. He loved them his whole life, but he wasn’t allowed any as a child. Once he became a star, and money and space were no issue, Elvis embarked on a love affair with all creatures great and small that was trumped only by his passion for music.

  His first dog was a mutt named Boy. Later, he had a Collie named Baba that came to Hollywood with him. You can see Elvis and Baba together in Paradise, Hawaiian Style. When Elvis disappeared, he had a Pomeranian named Edmund. One of the main arguments that the “Elvis is dead” believers like to use is that Elvis would never have left little Edmund behind. But that little dog became Lisa Marie’s pet, so I don’t think Elvis would have minded too much.

  Elvis wasn’t just a dog man though. At one point he had a mynah bird, some peacocks and a pet chimp named Scatter. After dogs, Elvis mainly loved horses. He once said, “It’s surprisin’ how much you can look forward to the morning when there’s a horse waitin’ for you.” In 1967, Elvis bought the Circle G Ranch because he’d run out of room for his 18 horses at Graceland.

  I like neither horses nor dogs. I’ve seen too many dogs bite their masters’ hands and too many horses throw their riders. If I were going to have a pet, it would be a rock. You don’t have to feed it, water it, or take it to the vet.

  “Monkey Island is kind of a misnomer, don’t you think?” asked Morrison.

  Zoo was a misnomer. The Kresge menagerie—I refused to call it a zoo—was about an acre square, surrounded by a ten-foot-high stucco wall. The perimeter was divided into a series of habitats for former animal stars of the Kresge circus. In the center was Monkey Island.

  In my mind, a Monkey Island really was an island. There would be a moat surrounding it, and in the middle of the island a large tree, or treelike structure, with a dozen or more of our evolutionary cousins hanging from it.

  This Monkey Island was a grassy knoll with a small jungle gym, a garish, red-painted, wooden-wheeled mechanical organ grinder, and a single monkey in a red cap and jacket with a tin cup. The organ grinder was automated, like a player piano, and banged out a tinny song that inspired the monkey, cup in hand, to prance and hoot and holler. A long leash kept the monkey from straying too far from its exhibit space.

  “He’s kinda cute,” said Morrison.

  The monkey, trained by years with the circus, tuned into Morrison’s interest. She stood up and strutted over to us, cup out, waiting for change.

  “Give the monkey a coin,” Morrison said.

  “I don’t have any coins.”

  “Really?”

  “Really,” I said. I did have coins, but wasn’t about to give one to the monkey. He could give the chimp his own money.

  Morrison squatted down to pet the monkey, who pushed into his hand with each stroke.

  “Sorry girl, no tip today,” he said, scratching her head.

  The monkey climbed up onto Morrison’s shoe and held up her cup again.

  “I don’t have anything for you, little lady.”

  The monkey bared its teeth and let out an angry squeak. Then she turned around, still sitting on Morrison’s shoe, giving him the cold shoulder.

  Morrison stood and looked down at the dejected animal.

  “Come on, like I’ve never had a girl mad at me before. I don’t have any change for you, monkey.”

  The chimp let loose a hot stream of urine on Morrison’s shoe and then ran back to the jungle gym, chittering out monkey laughter all the way.

  “These were new shoes,” Morrison complained, trying to shake the fluid off his foot.

  “Should have given her some money.”

  “I hate monkeys,” he said.

  “Let’s walk around. Maybe we’ll run into somebody who’s seen Roman.”

  I’d hoped my search for the missing council member would be a quick one, but the Lothario of Kresge was proving as elusive as Jon Burrows. The last thing I needed was another rabbit hole to follow with time running out for Buddy. One thing I was sure of is that if Cougar Watts was in town, he wasn’t spending time with retired circus performers.

  The rest of the animals at the zoo were, at most, ambivalent to our presence. The lion had a habitat all to himself with a massive slab of meat lying on a nearby rock, drawing flies. The gray-around-the-muzzle tigers were licking each other under the shade of a tree. Their menagerie did have one animal I hadn’t even known existed—a zonkey. According to the placard outside its pen, the zonkey is a cross between a male zebra and a female donkey. The resulting offspring is sterile like a mule, and basically looks like one, with black and white stripes and a shaggy mane.

  I put a quarter into a gumball machine filled with animal feed and offered the green pellets to the zonkey, who lapped them up with a practiced tongue.

  “I thought you didn’t have any change,” said Morrison.

  “Not for a monkey.”

  “I’m charging you for the shoes.”

  “We’ll take it out of your half of our non-existent retainer for the case.” I handed him a quarter. “Feed the zonkey,” I said. “He’s friendly.”

  Morrison got a handful of feed and fed the animal. He pulled back a hand covered in zonkey drool.

  “Damn thing slobbers more than a dog,” he complained.

  “Someone just came out to feed the seal,” I said. “Let’s see if she can tell us anything.”

  A woman in a zoo uniform was tossing fish into a small seal pond, where the sole inhabitant was working his way through a series of tricks to earn his meal.

  “Hi,” I said as we approached. “Can I ask you a question?”

  The zookeeper turned around, smiling, then gave me a once-over from head to toes. The smile disappeared.

  “Sorry, we’re not selling any of the animals. Their performing days are over.”

  “I’m not buying,” I said, returning the smile she’d given me. “I’m a private detective and I’m looking for this man.” I held up Roman’s picture. “Have you seen him around here?”

  The seal, meanwhile, was standing on his tail fins, balancing a ball on his nose, and generally doing everything he could to earn his next salty snack.

  The zookeeper peered at the photo for a moment before saying he looked familiar, but she couldn’t place him.

  “You should ask Gus, up at the front counter,” she added. “I mostly just work with the animals.”

  Morrison held out his still slimy hand. “You know where I can wash this gunk off?”

  She laughed at Morrison’s disgust. “You’ve been feeding Buster. He gets a bit excited. Bathroom is over there.” She pointed to a small, squat brick building by the entrance, under a pair of coniferous trees.

  Morrison thanked her and jogged off. I thanked her, too, and went to the information desk.

  The zoo was admission free, so we’d just gone straight in when we arrived. I hadn’t even noticed the wrinkled-up little attendant sitting inside the information booth. When I approached, Gus had his feet up on a desk, his chair tilted back and his eyes closed. With every exhale, he made a “puh-puh-puh” sound beneath the whiskers of his thick, brushy mustache.

  “Excuse me.”

  The puh-ing stopped and the little man opened one eye.

  “Howdy, mister!” he said. “Just let me get outta this here chair and I’ll be right wit’cha.”

  Gus laboriously got his legs down from the desk, using his hands to lift first one by the knee pit, then the other, lowering each slowly to
the ground. He stood up, stretching all of his limbs for a few seconds. Then he lifted a blue denim jacket off the back of his chair and shrugged it on. Finally, he pulled a pair of thick, wire-rimmed spectacles out of a shirt pocket with an embroidered zoo logo on it, and slid them over his ears and up onto the bridge of his nose.

  Ritual complete, he came up to the window and leaned back a bit, gazing down his nose and through his glasses to get a better look at me. He cleared his throat noisily and said, “None of these animals are for sale, mister.”

  “I’m not here to buy animals. I’m a private detective helping the sheriff.”

  “That sweet little gal Wanda? Why I was bouncing her on my knee when all she had was a bit of peach fuzz on them rosy little cheeks of hers!”

  Everybody on this side of town seemed to know and love Wanda.

  “Great! Maybe you can help us out, then. This is the guy I’m looking for.”

  I pulled the picture of Roman out of my pocket and showed it to the geezer.

  He took it from me, held it out at arm’s length, and peered at it down his nose the same way he’d looked at me. After a few second he handed the picture back.

  “So, have you seen him before?”

  “Oh sure. All the time. Feller loves this here zoo. Comes by almost once a week. Likes the, uh, ladies too.” The old man winked at me and made tck-tck sound, smacking his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “Has a new one on his arm every few months.”

  “He comes here with a lot of different women?”

  “You betcha! Just a week or two ago he was here with a pretty little filly, blondest hair ya ever did see! Strutted about the place like the queen of Sheba!”

  Morrison was walking up to us now, holding both hands out in front of him, dripping wet.

  “Hey, pal,” he said to Gus. “No hand towels in the men’s room.”

  “It’s good for the environment. Just shake ’em off or dry ’em on that coat a yours.”

  “Hicks,” mumbled Morrison under his breath.

  Shaking the water off his hands, he wandered over to the side of the information booth and started reading the list of donors displayed on the wall. Gus noticed and pointed toward the top of the list.