Officer Elvis

by Gary Gusick

  On his way back to the apartment, he stopped in the parking lot, bent over and puked, his mouth tasting of bananas and rotgut that was sweet and sour at the same time.

  Clearing his head, he started thinking things through. He wasn’t going to go after her. That would be crazy dangerous. But she might think he would. So she wouldn’t take the time to stop and call until she was someplace she thought was safe. A bar or a convenience store. Something like that. Then she’d call herself a cab or maybe call a friend to come pick her up. Would she go to the police? He didn’t think so. He didn’t think she saw him with the Glock in his hand. And he didn’t hit or threaten her. Best of all, he didn’t share his plans with her.

  Only when he had finally accomplished what he’d set out to do, and had his rightful place and was famous the world over as the true King, she’d start bragging about how they’d spent the night together, and how she’d recognized him right off.

  All that said, he couldn’t stay where he was. Not even for the night. The apartment was rented through the end of the month. It didn’t matter. There were plenty of furnished apartments in Jackson.

  He blew out the candle and took apart the shrine, wrapping the photos and drawings in toilet paper to make sure nothing got damaged. He packed the photos in the middle of his suitcase, and he was gone.

  Chapter 20

  The Man with Big Hands

  For the first hundred years of its history, Mistletoe, Mississippi, was famous for the large oak trees with mistletoe growing in the town square. The trees served as the centerpiece of the town’s yuletide kissing celebration, held every year on December 22. At its apex in 1962, the Kissing Under the Mistletoe celebration attracted more than twelve thousand kissers from the world over—including a small contingency of Inuit who celebrated by rubbing noses. Popular as it was, the celebration was canceled in 1969 when an influx of hippies from the North most believed to be from San Francisco and Greenwich Village—took over the event and did a lot more than kissing under the mistletoe.

  For the next nine years, Mistletoe, Mississippi, all but disappeared from most tourist maps. In 1979, two years to the day after Elvis Presley’s death, a gentleman named Robert Harris, already one of the town’s more eccentric citizens, purchased a 1,200-square-foot, two-story wood-frame house in the middle of town. The day after closing on the property, he installed plaster pillars in front of the wooden façade and set about painting the entire structure a color he called Cadillac pink. He then painted large gold stars on the front of the building at key points, and hung a flashing neon sign announcing the building’s name and purpose, PRESLEYVILLE. EVERYTHING ELVIS. Two days later Robert Harris legally changed his name to Eap Harris. His third official act was to transfer nine truckloads of Elvis-related photos, news clippings, videotapes, books, knickknacks, and doodads from three weather-regulated storage units in Memphis to their new home. The debris was jam-packed into the four rooms that made up Presleyville. The museum, if one could call it that, officially opened its doors to the public the very next day. Initially, Harris charged a dollar a visit. As his collection of Elvis and Elvis-related items grew, the price of admission also grew. The current fee was five dollars a visit, which included a nonoptional guided tour of all four first-floor rooms. “Nothing’s for sale, so don’t ask,” Eap barked at visitors. “But if it has to do with Elvis, I’m a buyer.” Eap was said to have kept the top floor for his personal apartment, though no one had ever seen him climb the stairs.

  It was 10:30 p.m. by the time Darla and Rita had arrived. The town was shut down for the night, but Presleyville shined like high noon, thanks to the large floodlights surrounding the structure. The façade’s marble stoop was flanked on the left by a five-foot-tall plaster statue of Uncle Sam and on the right by a similarly sized plaster statue of the American eagle. Both statues were encased in barbed wire, as was a wooden replica of a Civil War cannon in the front yard. The cannon’s barrel was pointed toward the entrance to the front yard.

  “Don’t try to figure any of this stuff out, would be my advice,” said Rita as they pulled up. “Just kind of go with the flow.”

  “Desperate times call for desperate measures,” said Darla, unbuckling her seat belt. Her phone rang. A call from Uther. “Hey, Uther,” she said.

  “Ah, Detective. I have further information which might prove useful.”

  “Hold on,” said Darla. “I’ll put you on speaker so Rita can hear.” A second later. “Go ahead, Uther.”

  “A very good evening, Detective Gibbons,” Uther said, a little nervousness coming out in his voice. “I hope you like the information I have for you.” Uther sounded like a man bringing candies to his sweetheart.

  “I’m sure I, ah, we will, Mr. Pendragon Johnson,” said Rita, like she was curtseying.

  “The serial killer?” said Darla. “Remember him?”

  “Ah, yes,” said Uther, “the information. A young woman, a resident of Jackson, saw the image of the man from the convention center and called the Jackson Police Department. She went on a date with him earlier this evening. He identified himself as Bill Daniels, though we have no records of a man with that name. Despite just meeting him, she went for drinks with him, and subsequently accompanied him to his apartment.”

  “They were going to have sex,” said Darla.

  “Quite right, Detective,” said Uther. “But prior to his initiating the intimacy, the gentleman insisted the young lady perform some sort of ritual with him before a mirror in his bedroom. According to the lady, the man seemed to believe that the image in the mirror was real. To quote her, ‘It was like Bill and the guy in the mirror had some big plan, and he wanted me to be part of it.’ In addition, the mirror was surrounded by photos of the man as he looks today, but, strange as it sounds, the young lady seemed sure that the photos were taken decades ago.”

  “It’s the man we’re looking for, and he’s had plastic surgery,” said Darla. “He had himself cut up to look like someone from the past. That’s why you couldn’t find his photo in any of your databases.”

  “We are of one mind on this matter,” said Uther. “Thus, I have taken the liberty to expand our data search to include public figures going back to just after World War Two. I believe this will enable us to determine who this man looks like.”

  “And how did the woman react?” asked Darla.

  “She became anxious and fled the apartment,” said Uther. “The gentleman in question followed suit but eventually gave up the chase. The Jackson Police Department sent a patrol team to the apartment but the man had since moved his belongings. However, forensic did collect quite a few a clean prints.”

  “Get back to me as soon as you have an ID.”

  “As you wish. Goodbye, Detective, and goodbye to you as well, Detective Gibbons,” said Uther, hanging up.

  “Every time I think I have this part of the world figured out, somebody ups the ante on weirdness,” said Darla.

  “Who do you suppose he’s trying to look like?” asked Rita.

  “Maybe your friend here can tell us,” said Darla.

  —

  The front door to Presleyville was ajar. Darla knocked and waited and knocked again.

  “What are you looking for?” asked a voice, not exactly friendly, but not quite unfriendly.

  “We’re with the Mississippi Bureau—” Darla began, but was cut off by Rita, who said, “We’re looking for Elvis.”

  “Elvis,” the voice said back, “is everywhere. On earth and in heaven. Now and forever.” Then he added, “Come on in. I’m feeding the cat.”

  “We may have come to the right place,” said Darla.

  It could have been the setting for an episode of the TV show Hoarders. The walls, the ceiling, and much of the tiled floor were covered with posters, photos, news clippings, cardboard cutouts, bobbleheads, and untold miscellaneous paraphernalia—the majority, but not all of it, having to do one way or another with you-know-who. An open doorway led to a room in the rear, which appe
ared to be stuffed with more of the same. The doorway to the left was blocked by a red velvet drape, with a gold-glittered portrait of Elvis standing next to Ed Sullivan. The room smelled of musty newspapers, cat food, and cheap aftershave.

  Darla sniffed. “I’m guessing the owner is an Aqua Velva man.”

  Thanks to a gas heater on the far wall of the entry, Presleyville screamed fire hazard.

  “This is my second trip,” said Rita, her eyes, like Darla’s, scanning the room, trying to make sense of the sea of funk. “I came here with a couple of girls when we were in college. It was after midnight. The place kind of creeped me out.” She looked at Darla. “We were stoned at the time. That might have been part of it.”

  The source of aftershave parted the velvet curtain. He was somewhere past seventy, medium build, but with puddles of loose and sagging skin covering his frame. His slicked-back hair, which Darla guessed had once been blond, was now a ghoulish yellow-white. He regarded her with milky blue eyes that had been dilated from decades of living in darkness. His face was closely shaven and his skin was a faded pinkish white. He was dressed in black cargo pants and a black T-shirt. Except for the silver cross that hung around his neck, he might be mistaken for a vampire.

  “Okay,” Darla said to Rita. “I get the creeped-out part.”

  “Elvis Presley,” the man said, as though he was beginning a lecture, “was born January eighth, 1935. You want to tell me who else was born on January eighth?” He looked at Darla for an answer, but didn’t wait for her to reply. “Elvis’s twin brother, Jesse Garon Presley, stillborn. There are people who’ll tell you I’m Jesse Garon reincarnated. I’m not saying I am, and I’m not saying I’m not, but I might be. Or you might be,” he said, looking Darla up and down.

  “You want to tell me who else was born in January?” he asked Rita and tapped her on the arm, like a schoolteacher hitting a kid with a ruler. “Richard Milhous Nixon,” he said, and pointed to the rear wall, where among a hundred or so paper clippings was a photo of Elvis and Nixon in the Oval Office. “See those plastic bins?” The right side of the room was lined with bins, one on top of the other, waist high. “Videos of Elvis’s performances in Las Vegas. I got seventy-two hours and forty-five minutes. In 2002, a former world leader—I can’t repeat his name, or he’d put a curse on me—he came in with his wife and offered to let me sleep with her if I’d show him Elvis’s performance at the MGM Grand on February nineteenth, 1973. That was their wedding day. I told him, I do this for you, I’ll have to do it for everybody. Look”—he tapped Darla on the arm this time—“my name is Eap Harris; I’m not an Elvis impersonator.”

  “Tribute artist, don’t you mean?” asked Rita.

  Eap, ignoring her, said, “I don’t sing a note but I know the words to every song Elvis ever made. I can recite the dialogue from most of his movies, even the other people’s parts. I’ll tell you another thing: I remember every person who has ever visited Presleyville. You, young lady”—he tapped Rita on the arm again, even harder this time—“you been here when you was still a girl. With purple hair even.”

  “It was a phase,” said Rita.

  He moved a step nearer to Darla, stood on his tiptoes, and bent his head in to get an extreme close-up of her face, his blurry eyes an inch from her chin, looking up at her green eyes. “You never been here, or I’d remember you, with those headlights. I had a cat with eyes that shade of green once. It hated to be petted.”

  Darla started to say something, but Eap jumped in over her. “How many Elvis artifacts do I have? Never mind. You’re not supposed to know. Could be two million. A busload of students from Ole Miss came here last year and offered to count it all so I could get in Guinness World Records. I said you do that and you’ll miss your graduation ceremony.” His eyes darted back and forth between the two women.

  They offered a polite smile.

  He picked up an open can of RC Cola. “I drink twenty-two twelve-ounce cans a day, every day. RC Cola only. I’ll die of thirst before I’ll drink Coke or Pepsi.” He bent his head back and took a long pull.

  It’s now or never, thought Darla, realizing Eap might not take another pause for some time to come. She held up her cellphone and showed him the image of the unidentified man from the convention center. “Has this man ever been to Presleyville, Mr. Harris?”

  Eap leaned in for a better look, nodding his head almost immediately. “Nice fellow. A gentleman. He had big hands. Like two of mine would make one of his.”

  “When was he here?” asked Darla.

  “He come twice,” Eap said, without hesitation. “Once just a couple of years after I opened. The second time, I think it was 19-and-86. Of course he was much older then than in that photo there. He and Elvis were contemporaries. Actually, he was a couple of years older than Elvis.”

  Rita looked like she’d been hit with a brick. “I know who it is,” she said.

  “What’s his name?” asked Darla.

  “Who recorded ‘Blue Suede Shoes’?” asked Eap.

  “Elvis Presley?” said Darla.

  “Three times,” said Eap.

  “Carl Perkins recorded it first,” said Rita.

  “Wrote and recorded it for Sun Records,” said Eap. “Carl sold a million copies. But Carl got in a car wreck and was in the hospital, so Elvis sang ‘Blue Suede Shoes’ on TV three different times as a tribute to him. Elvis was the greatest friend a man could ever have. The audiences went crazy when Elvis did his version. So Sun Records, they let Elvis record Carl’s hit for Capitol Records.”

  “And now most people think ‘Blue Suede Shoes’ was Elvis’s song,” said Darla, putting the piece of the puzzle together.

  “Poor old Carl Perkins, nicest man you’d ever want to meet,” said Eap. “He never had another number-one hit but he never blamed Elvis. Of course, Elvis had a gazillion hits. Elvis is the most famous person in the history of the world except Jesus Christ. And you know Elvis read the Bible every day. He knew the Bible by heart, every word of the Old Testament. People don’t know this but Elvis had a photographic memory.”

  Ignoring Eap, Darla turned to Rita. “Our guy thinks he’s Carl Perkins or is channeling Carl Perkins. And he blames Elvis Presley for stealing ‘Blue Suede Shoes.’ ”

  “Elvis never stole a thing in his life,” said Eap. “I’d sue any man alive who said different. He was the most honest person that ever lived, next to George Washington.”

  Rita nodded. “The killer’s got a grudge. He thinks Elvis ruined his, well—Carl Perkins’s—career.”

  “Let me ask you this,” said Eap, who seemed not to have heard them, “does this man in the picture have big hands? If he don’t have big hands, more like a basketball players, he’s an imposter. You come back with a picture of his hands, and I’ll tell you one hundred percent.”

  Darla took out her phone and called Uther.

  “You know who the first person ever to make a cellphone call was?” asked Eap as Darla was waiting for Uther to answer.

  “Elvis Aaron Presley called Richard Nixon in 1971,” said Eap, answering his own question. “They talked for eighteen minutes. Nixon wanted Elvis to spy on the Beatles, but Elvis refused ’cause he said they were his friends.”

  Darla kept silent, even though she thought the Beatles had broken up by then.

  “This is Uther Pendragon Johnson,” she heard Uther say, sounding like a groggy Sidney Poitier. “How may I assist you at this late hour, Detective?”

  “Walk over to your computer, Google the name Carl Perkins. When his photo comes up do an overlay, with the photo of the man at the convention center.”

  Uther was back on the phone in a matter of seconds. “A near-perfect match. Quite remarkable, Detective.”

  “The killer idolizes Carl Perkins. He had plastic surgery to look like Perkins. And he’s out to punish Elvis because he thinks Elvis stole ‘Blue Suede Shoes.’ ”

  “You’re referring to the song?” asked Uther, still sounding a bit groggy.

&nbs
p; “The song, yes. Not the actual shoes,” said Darla.

  “If I may ask, how did you happen upon this breakthrough discovery?”

  “Rita and I did a Hail Mary,” said Darla.

  “The detective is Catholic?” Uther asked.

  “Get ahold of Shelby and Henry and fill them in. When will we have any update on the prints?”

  “By morning.”

  “Call me when you get a match. Sorry to wake you.”

  “My regards to Detective Gibbons,” Uther said, and hung up.

  “The next room on the tour, I call it Elvis’s velvet room,” said Eap; seemingly unaware that Darla had been on the phone.

  “Because of the red velvet curtain covering up the doorway?” asked Rita, trying to be nice.

  “Great minds work along the same lines,” said Eap, pulling back the curtain.

  Darla stepped in front of Eap, took out her badge, and showed it to him. He dropped the curtain and put his hands up.

  “It’s that speeding ticket, ain’t it?” he said. “I meant to pay it, honest I did.”

  “Put your hands down, Mr. Harris,” said Darla. “I just wanted you to know that I’m about to make an official request.”

  Eap let his hands fall. “I don’t accept requests. I told you I’m not an Elvis”—he looked at Rita—“tribute artist. I don’t sing a note. If I did I would only sing songs Elvis sang.”

  “You’re going to need to close Presleyville, just for a few days,” said Darla, “until we catch this man who thinks he’s Carl Perkins. I’m sorry but it’s for your own safety.”

  “Presleyville never closes,” said Eap. “We hold the world record for the longest round-the-clock celebrity attraction there is. On Nine/Eleven we was open twenty-four/seven. Hurricane Katrina, same deal. We didn’t even close when Dale Earnhardt was killed.”

  “You aren’t gonna have any luck with that one,” said Rita.