Saguaro Riptide

THREE

Ellis hit the brakes a second too late. The scar-colored Caddy fishtailed, balding steel-belted radials spitting up rocks on the shoulder of the road as the car powered past the turnoff to Ellis’s mobile home.

That was what he got for daydreaming about Komoko’s money. Miss the damn turn.

Not that he was going to back up. To hell with that. He swung the wheel hard to the left and kept on going, tires kicking up sand now, front bumper gobbling cholla and prickly pear and any other damn thing in his way. He’d make his own damn road-that’s exactly what he’d do. And to hell with anything or anybody who got in his way.

If he’d seen a tourist pissing behind one of the sixty-two saguaros that dotted his property, he would have run him down without a second thought. That’s how shook up he was. Be you man or beast, woman or goddamn miserable desert vegetation. . you’d better leave ol’ Ellis Aaron Perkins a wide berth this evening.

Because Ellis hadn’t found one thin dime of that missing money. Not in the ruins of Graceland, not out in the desert. Must have been he’d covered three or four square miles searching for a spot where Komoko might have buried something, but he hadn’t seen a single sign-it was like the whole goddamned place hadn’t been disturbed since the days when dinosaurs had walked the goddamned earth.

But it had to be that the money was out there somewhere.

It had to be.

Maybe it was just that Komoko had hidden it damn good. Some place you wouldn’t notice right off.

Ellis pressed the gas pedal to the floor.

Maybe he’d never find Komoko’s money.

Maybe no one would.

Man, that was a hell of a note.

Ellis pulled to a stop in front of the trailer. He knew that it would be hotter than Ann-Margret inside but didn’t really care, because that’s where the beer was.

He climbed out of the car. His goddamn leather coat was a mess. All covered with white dust. He looked like a goddamn ghost. And sweaty-man, there wasn’t even a rumor of the Old Spice he’d used to wax down his pits that morning.

Manly odor wasn’t his only concern, though. He hoped his pit-juice hadn’t short-circuited the batteries for his vibrator throat-buzzer. That would be a damn shame with him having to go on the road tonight and all. He didn’t have time to play Mr. Fixit.

Didn’t have time to get the coat cleaned, either. And he wanted to wear it, because all his jumpsuits were at the cleaners. Hell … he didn’t have time for any of this shit. He’d just beat off the dust, run a quick check on the throat-buzzer, dump some Hai Karate on the coat, and hope for the best.

Now that he was going. No avoiding that. He had to go on the flea market trip, because he was about busted. Of course, if he’d found Komoko’s goddamn money, he wouldn’t have to go anywhere at all.

Heat waves shimmied on top of the trailer like the ghosts of frenzied go-go girls. The place sure wasn’t any Graceland. Just a leaning hunk of tin in the middle of nowhere. Tinfoil on the windows just the same way the King had done it, both because he was nocturnal and also needed his privacy. But Ellis Aaron Perkins was up in the middle of the day and nobody was begging for his autograph, and on this cracker box tin-foiled windows just looked like that much more tin because Ellis hardly had a goddamn dime to his name.

Ellis studied on it until he couldn’t stand it anymore. Then he reached into the backseat of the scarred Caddy and grabbed the shovel that had been so goddamn useless and threw it as far as he could.

“Goddamn,” he said, and with all that plumbing missing out of his throat the word couldn’t even be called a whisper.

He sure needed that beer.

Ever since that Vegas doctor had cooked him straight through with all that radiation, his throat had been drier than a popcorn fart. Always had a taste in the back of his mouth like he was gagging down a hunk of burnt tinfoil, and he could never wash that taste away. Just couldn’t get enough spit up, no matter how hard he tried.

He couldn’t help but try, though.

Grimacing, Ellis swallowed dry. It wasn’t any good. He slammed through the front door.

Priscilla was standing right there, waiting for him, a can of Coors in one hand. She popped the top and handed it over.

He didn’t quite know what to say. The way he’d left her this morning … he figured she’d be sulking.

He took a deep swallow, then jammed the vibrator against his neck, “THANK. . YOU NUNGEN,” he said.

Elvis Presley had always called his Priscilla Nungen.

Ellis figured Priscilla might have smiled when he thanked her, but he couldn’t really tell with the duct tape on her mouth.

Ellis wondered what she was thinking about-him, or Komoko, or maybe Jack Baddalach.

Or maybe she was thinking about Komoko’s money, the same way Ellis was.

She turned before he could get another look at her face and headed for the kitchen.

Ellis stepped away from the open door. A slash of sunlight slapped Priscilla’s backside, lit up her dark hair real nice.

She moved away from the light. It caressed her, traveling down her backside like Ellis’s hand sometimes did, real slow, glinting on the leg-iron around her right ankle just as she disappeared into the shadowy kitchen with its tinfoil-lined windows.

She was gone. Ellis watched the chain playing out from the eyebolt drilled in the living room floor.

She could only go so far.

The living room was done up kind of like the Jungle Room at Graceland. Lots of furniture with leopard spots and zebra stripes.

Ellis put a record on the turntable. Moody Blue. The King’s very last album.

The heavy-gauge plastic sofa cover made a crinkling sound as he sat down. He sipped the beer and set it on the coffee table. He wasn’t crazy about having plastic covers on everything. But Priscilla said that they needed them if they were going to keep so many cats in the house.

Ellis liked the cats. There were twelve of them, each one named after a different member of Elvis’s Memphis Mafia. Charlie Hodge and Lamar Fike were fluffy Persians, while Joe Esposito and Gene Smith were calicos. Red West was a big old tabby with a flame-colored belly. Sonny West was blacker than the ace of spades. Dave Hebler was a Siamese. Ellis liked the last three best, even though in real life they had betrayed Elvis by writing the first tell-all book, the one that had been published just before the King’s death.

Elvis had wanted those boys to kill Mike Stone, the karate expert who stole Priscilla Presley’s heart. But those boys refused to do it. After all the things Elvis had done for them. . they wouldn’t even do him a little bitty favor like that.

Besides the cats, Ellis didn’t have an entourage. Still, he knew some folks who didn’t have a problem when it came to committing murder. Wyetta and Rorie. Not that they’d intended to murder Komoko for him, of course. That was just the way it had worked out.

Wyetta and Rorie had done him a big favor by chopping Komoko. He wondered if they’d do him another favor, maybe chop this Jack Baddalach character. Hopefully the boxer would get in their way and end up dead, just the way Komoko had.

Damn. That would sure enough simplify the situation. With Baddalach dead, there wouldn’t be anyone left to phone Priscilla.

Purring, Lamar Fike rubbed against Ellis’s legs. Ellis bent down and scratched Lamar’s big ol’ tomcat neck. Lamar was always hungry and took the opportunity to whine for a treat.

Ellis figured he should open a can of food. But the cat food was in the kitchen, and so was Priscilla. Suddenly Ellis was real nervous about being close to her. The way she’d given him the beer … he just didn’t feel right about it, what with her having the tape on her mouth and the chain on her leg and all.

Kind of guilty. That’s how he felt.

He knew what Elvis Presley would have done. Elvis would have gone out and bought Priscilla a fancy car or some expensive jewelry or something. The King always gave expensive gifts as a way of apologizing. Never said he was sorry or anything.

But Ellis couldn’t afford to apologize that way.

He couldn’t say he was sorry, either.

And why should he?

She had cheated on him, running around with that Komoko fella every chance she got. She’d been perfectly happy doing that until she figured out the guy was an asshole who never intended to run off with her. Then she called up her sister and her sister’s dyke lover, and together they figured out how to cash in the asshole’s chips.

Maybe Ellis could live with that. Really. If he was the one to find Komoko’s money, he could pretend the whole thing had never happened. Pretend he hadn’t heard the velvet-voiced asshole say all those things to Priscilla on the telephone tapes. Pretend, when he lay with his wife in their bed, that she didn’t have anyone else on her mind.

If he found the money, he’d tell her that he’d made a big score with the cellular phones or something. Give her a wink like there was something more to it that he couldn’t talk about.

She’d buy it. Sure she would.

And he’d have that damn money.

Two million bucks. He could get the hell out of Pipeline Beach. Take Priscilla back to Vegas. Get her away from that goddamn sister of hers.

He’d buy a new house, something in North Vegas. Air-conditioned. And he’d still have money left over. Enough for a whole mess of authentic Presley-size “I’m sorrys.”

Ellis got cleaned up. Took a shower. Waxed down his pits with that Old Spice Stick. Doused the black leather coat with Hai Karate.

Sometimes he thought that everything would be okay if he could still sing. Sit out there on the porch at night and serenade Priscilla, look her dead in the eye, watch her shiver as he ripped her up with “Loving You” or “Treat Me Nice.”

He thought about it. It would sure be nice. He really missed being able to sing. But even two million bucks couldn’t buy you a voice if you were missing half the plumbing in your goddamn throat. Ellis knew that.

He combed his hair and wandered to the kitchen. Caught the smell of dinner cooking.

Couldn’t believe it.

First the beer at the door and now this-the unmistakable aroma of fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches.

The King’s favorite meal.

It seemed like someone was turning over a new leaf. .

. . or someone was feeling real guilty.

Ellis loaded the cellular phones into the trunk. He wouldn’t have to do any legwork this trip-he was getting a reputation and had buyers lined up all over Phoenix.

He had a long drive ahead of him.

But he couldn’t quite get moving.

Because he couldn’t stop thinking.

A beer at the door wasn’t a gold bracelet. And a peanut butter ’n’ ’naner sandwich sure wasn’t a new Cadillac.

But add ’em together and they sure as hell seemed to be some kind of apology.

Or maybe they were a sign of guilt.

Ellis thought it over. He’d stripped the tape off Priscilla’s mouth so she could eat dinner. But she hadn’t said a goddamn word, except to ask him when he’d be back from Phoenix.

He said he’d be home soon enough. And then he made a trip to the living room, put a CD on the stereo. Some of Elvis’s Vegas stuff.

When “Suspicious Minds” came on, Priscilla wouldn’t look at him at all.

Ellis slammed the Caddy’s trunk and glanced over at the shed next to the trailer. He kept his tools in there.

The tape recorder was in there, too. The one he’d spliced into the phone line.

Maybe he should check the recorder before he left.

See if anyone had called while he’d been out treasure hunting. See if his wife had dared to peel that tape off of her mouth.

He wandered over, real casual, and opened the door.

It was dark in the shed.

The flashing red light on the tape recorder was the size of a pinprick.

But there was no way he could miss it.

Or what it meant.