11 Joanna

Once a month, the King's Keepsakes hosted a reading and signing by the legendary Joanna Grayson, award-winning actress and Elvis's costar in Easy Come, Easy Go. (The award-winning part was a Golden Globe nomination for a trashy Jackie Collins miniseries in which she had to wrestle Suzanne Somers in a swimming pool.) The souvenir shop wasn't owned by the Presley estate, which was one of the reasons Joanna preferred holding her One Night with You: The Joanna Grayson Story book-signing events there. Over the years, there had been a few squabbles and threats from Elvis Presley Enterprises that she wouldn't even dignify with a response. She only agreed to nonsanctioned events during Death Week and had even attempted to launch a rival event at the Motel 6 by the airport called "Intimate Close-Ups: Elvis's Favorite Costars." It was almost a runaway smash if not for the petty money-grubbers with the estate who slapped Joanna with an injunction for breaking copyright laws.

It was raining that afternoon and Tippi had driven Joanna, per usual, to the shop on Elvis Presley Boulevard, where she was disappointed but not shocked to find only the dirty dozen regulars who always showed without ever buying the book. Was forty-two dollars really too much for a nicely bound paperback? If a fan wanted to know the full and complete story about the making of Easy Come, Easy Go, they'd have to buy the book.

"Call me when you're finished," Tippi said.

Joanna leaned back inside the clunky Ford Fiesta to retrieve her lucky black umbrella. Would this rain ever let up? She felt as if she were back in London.

"And where will you be?"

"Running errands."

"Please," Joanna said. "You're meeting up with that tour guide again. The one with the tattoos and the greasy hair."

"His name is Mark, Mother."

"I don't want to meddle in your affairs, but there's no future there."

"I know," Tippi said. "That's what makes him such a dish. Oh, and please make it at least an hour this time. Anything less is just a waste."

Joanna shook her head and closed the creaky car door. She'd made Tippi pull up deep into the parking lot so no one would see the horror of a car they'd arrived in. But it was too late, the dirty dozen had already spotted her and clapped and whistled, to her mortification. A pimply-faced little young man named Fritz who bused tables at Pete and Sam's held the door, saying "How are you today, Miss Grayson?" as if he'd been the concierge at Chateau Marmont.

A card table covered in a blue cloth had been set up by the cash register with two dozen copies of her tell-all biography. Joanna filled her lungs with air, brightened her smile, and greeted the store owner with a warm hug. He asked if she'd noticed the marquee outside advertising her appearance and said he was sorry about the weather, surely dampening the big crowd he'd been expecting at noon on a Thursday.

"I have you a comfortable chair and a microphone, Miss Grayson," he said. "Unless you'd rather just keep it informal?"

She watched as the dirty dozen and a few new faces filled a smattering of folding chairs. Most of them elderly or morbidly obese. One haggard fellow in a Grizzlies tank top had parked his red Rascal scooter directly in her path to the table. "Excuse me," she said, grinding her teeth into a smile.

"Getting there is half the fun, baby," he said.

She tilted her head.

"It's from the movie," he said. "You remember? That sexy girl had her arms around Elvis's neck while he tried to make his way through that beatnik party. Easy Come, Easy Go. You were in it."

"Yes," she said. "Of course I was. I'll never forget the beatnik scene. Pure magic."

Joanna took her place by the card table to a smattering of applause and instead of starting with sordid tales of Hollywood decided to go straight into autopilot, using the event as more of a therapy session than presentation. She talked of the untimely death of her dear father (the war hero turned abusive alcoholic), her mother (cold, manipulative, but a natty dresser), and then finding herself living in swinging London at sixteen and lying about her age. She lived off fags and thickly poured beer from the pubs, sleeping on the couches of David Bailey and Terence Stamp, who thought she was at least twenty.

"My mother had such an acute dislike for me," she said. "We didn't speak for years. She was jealous of the way men threw themselves at my feet, once telling me she wished I'd died in childbirth."

The room grew very quiet as the rain tapped against the windows fronting Elvis Presley, Tippi probably already shacked up at some horrid motel with that greasy tattooed Mark. Tippi was like a finely tuned Italian automobile that everyone took for a spin.

Feeling the temperature in the room chill, Joanna added, "I think that's what connected me to Elvis. He had such a strong bond with Gladys, and maybe that's why he could never understand the relationship I had with my misguided mother. When I told him this after a very tough day of shooting the comedy bits with Frank McHugh as Captain Jack, he held my hand and wept. I will never forget what he said to me, looking deep at me with his wonderful, soulful blue eyes. Little darlin', your momma may not have been there for you, but deep down you got to know she loved you."

Joanna smiled and looked at the group hanging on her every word. A few of the women were crying, blubbering really. The horrid man on the scooter slipped on a pair of big gold glasses like Elvis wore in the seventies and glanced around like a confused buffoon. A few hands shot up, the crowd knowing it was time to ask the most inane and ridiculous questions that sprang into their tiny minds. Surely the Chinese or Russians had developed a similar torture.

Do you think Elvis was murdered? Was that really you scuba diving, or a stunt double?

What can you tell us more about Elvis's monkey, Scatter? What was he really like?

That's when she'd give the cat with the canary grin and pick up the nearest copy of One Night with You: The Joanna Grayson Story. "Darlings. Darlings. It's all in the book. Even the King's chimp."

As they laughed, even those who'd heard that little joke a million times, she noticed a man who hung back at the far edge of the shop who did not seem to belong with all the outcasts and Elvis Presley acolytes. He was much younger, perhaps early thirties, and extremely handsome. A trim Black man who appeared to be impeccably dressed in a black suit and black tie, wearing mirrored sunglasses despite being indoors on a very gray and rainy day. All she could think about was Sidney Poitier in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner.

After Joanna wrapped her talk and took a few photos, the handsome man wandered over and picked up a book as if inspecting a piece of rotten fruit. He flipped it over and read the back copy. "You really go out with Jerry Lewis?"

"Unfortunately," she said. "He was as clumsy in the bedroom as he was on-screen."

The man set the book down, removed his mirrored sunglasses, and tucked them into his jacket. "You do know it says the exact same thing on the back. He was as clumsy in the bedroom as he was on-screen. Ain't that something?"

"I pull few punches." She looked into the handsome man's brown eyes, giving him the same look she had given Richard Harris, Jerry, and Elvis all those years ago. She lifted her eyebrows, took in a deep breath, and smiled. She patted the edge of his face, noticing a nasty little scar right below his right eye. "Aren't you a dish?"

"Is there somewhere else we can go," the young man said, "and talk?"

"Why not?"

Tippi wasn't the only one who got to have a little fun. She whipped through several more copies, scrawling out her quickie signature. Even though only two people bought the book, scores of people would be in and out of King's Keepsakes and see the pyramid display.

Joanna stood up and smoothed down the hem of her dress. It was a well-fitting slim pink number she had bought at Saks in New York during more heady times. "And who might you be?"

"Carson Wells," the man said. "I've been wanting to meet you for a good long while, Miss Grayson."

Joanna joined the man at the Blue Suede Diner, a sad enterprise across from Graceland that sold little else but burgers, peanut butter and banana sandwiches, Coca-Cola products, and three flavors of shakes. From the window, she watched a line of white tour buses that ferried the devout across the busy boulevard. Even though lunch hadn't been offered, Joanna took the occasion to order a club sandwich and a chocolate milkshake. He had invited her, and she was absolutely famished.

"Do you live here in Memphis?" she asked, eating a neat quarter of the sandwich. "Or are you visiting?"

"Guess you could say I'm here on business."

"And what kind of business are you in, Mr. Wells?" Joanna asked.

"I work for the federal government."

"How exciting." Joanna leaned forward and sipped from her straw. "Doing what, may I ask?"

"I'm with the FBI," Wells said, reaching into his jacket pocket and flipping open a gold badge and ID. "I investigate major crimes."

She wanted to do a spit take but instead swallowed while keeping the easygoing smile. "And yet you had time to attend my book event," she said. "I'm flattered."

"The pleasure was all mine, Miss Grayson," Wells said, reaching out and grabbing a french fry without being asked. "Joyriding with Elvis in that dune buggy sure sounded like fun. Sounds like he and his boys were all just a crew of goofy peckerwoods."

"Elvis was so much more," Joanna said, trying to calm down a little bit. Surely this man, Carson Wells, was here looking into Omar's death. There must have been another security camera at the antiques mall, catching her standing over Omar's lifeless body atop all those lovely rugs.

"This may be blasphemous, being where we are and all," Wells said, "but I never really gave a damn about Elvis."

"The man or the music?"

"Both," he said. "I guess it has something to do with him ripping off Black folks, doing his little minstrel show thing, and then acting like he was the one invented it."

It had been some time, actually decades, since she'd heard anyone say anything remotely bad about Elvis Presley. Especially being in the Memphis Elvis bubble where everyone flat worshipped the man.

"I promise Elvis's love and appreciation for Black artists was quite genuine, Mr. Wells," she said. "I know for a fact that he praised many Black entertainers. I remember him calling Sammy Davis a dear and personal friend."

"No shit," Wells said, flashing that beautiful grin. "Ole Sammy D. This all coming from you knowing Elvis—what—a few weeks? He told you all about how he really felt about Black folks back in sixty-nine?"

"Sixty-seven," she said. "And it was much more than a few weeks. We remained friends until his untimely death."

Wells leaned back into his chair and showed the palms of his hands. "No need to get testy," Wells said. "Just making a little conversation, Miss Grayson. I got nothing against ole Elvis the Pelvis. I just was feeling you out, trying to get to know you a little better."

Joanna hadn't touched the second half of her sandwich. Thinking you might be the target of a murder investigation tended to sour one's stomach.

"Mr. Wells, I worked in Hollywood for a great many years," she said. "And to put it kindly, I'm quite familiar with the smell of bullshit. Is there something you want to ask? My work with the Presley family puts me in contact with a great many attorneys."

"And how do you expect to pay them, Joanna?" he asked, snatching up another fry. "You're living on the edge of the American dream in some shithole apartment with your grown-up daughter. Barely eking out a living. But it's cool. I'm not here to grill you about that poor dead son of a bitch at the antiques mall on Summer Avenue. We both know his dumb dead ass was just collateral damage."

Joanna stopped breathing and offered a most impassive expression she'd picked up from dear Judy Geeson.

"I came to talk about your close and personal friend, Jonathan Devlin."

"Devlin?" she said. "Who on earth is that?"

"Peter Warwick?"

She shook her head.

"Dean McKellar?"

Again, she shook her head. She was beginning to think Carson Wells was as mad as the fans who claim to communicate with Elvis. She motioned for the waiter to please bring her a to-go bag. No use in wasting a perfectly good club sandwich, she thought as she fumbled in her bag for her phone.

"Peter Collinson?" he said.

She stopped fiddling. She looked up at him.

"Ding, ding," he said. "I do believe I have a winner."

"I honestly have no idea what or who you are talking about," she said. "I should have never accepted an invitation from a complete stranger."

"This is no free lunch, lady," he said. "This is a federal goddamn investigation and I'm looking for your Peter Collinson. If you don't assist me, you may be writing a sequel to your book behind prison walls."

"Surely you're joking," she said.

Joanna looked back out into the portico lined with buses, their windshield wipers slapping back and forth. She searched for Tippi but only saw a snaking line of tourists waiting to take a photo in front of a Graceland facade.

"I don't give a damn what he calls himself," Wells said, tossing a business card onto the table. "His ass is burnt. You need to come clean with everything about y'all's little import/export business before this shit hits the goddamn fan. Nobody in his world will come out smellin' clean."

"You can go to hell."

"And here I thought we had a little thing going," Wells said. "Some spitfire cougar action. If I weren't on the job and you were a little younger, I sure wouldn't mind us sliding under the sheets."

"Ha," Joanna said. "Do you really know who I am and the things I've done? I'd leave you in the corner calling out for your dear mother and sucking your thumb."

"Whew," Wells said, standing and leaving the bill on the table. "I sure like the sound of that. Catch you later, movie star."

Joanna paid the bill and walked into the adjoining welcome center to find the phone booths, Graceland one of the last places that still kept working pay phones in their shabby lobby. Her hands shook as she removed an international calling card from her change purse, but she found the first phone as dead as Marley's doornail. Moving onto the next, she heard a ringtone and carefully dialed the number Peter had made her memorize, quizzing her from time to time during their furtive lunches in Memphis, discussing her latest business with the mad Leslie Grimes. The sound cacophonous, almost underwater, the slow droning buzzing of European telephone service. She counted ten rings, deciding on twelve to hang up, when she heard the voice of a very groggy Peter pick up and ask, "What time is it?"

"Thank god," Joanna said. "Peter, is it really you?"

"I told you not to call me."

"Unless it was an emergency."

"Yes," he said. "I must have fallen asleep. What is it?"

"Something horrid is happening."

Peter didn't answer, just the underwater buzzing of the foreign connection.

"Don't worry," she said. "I'm on a secure line at Graceland."

"Graceland?" he said. "Christ. What do you want, Joanna?"

"Omar is dead," she said.

"Yes," he said. "I heard. Is that it?"

"A federal agent just came to my book event," she said. "He was a horrible arrogant man and said he'd put me in jail if I didn't help him find you."

"Calm down," he said. "Jesus. I'm sorry about Omar but that doesn't have anything to do with you. Okay? Everything will be fine. What exactly did you tell this supposed agent?"

Joanna took a deep breath and glanced about the ticket lobby. She felt as if everyone was staring directly at her. Perhaps that old woman in the bedazzled tank top was an undercover agent, watching her every move. Joanna turned her back.

"Damn it," she said. "Just what on earth have you concocted with Leslie Grimes? He's my client. Not yours."

Peter didn't answer, but she could hear him groaning as if lifting himself from a bed. He heard a woman speaking French and he said back to her, Rien. Ce n'est rien. So now Joanna was absolutely nothing.

"I cultivated Leslie when I ran the gallery in Beverly Hills," she said. "I must insist on being a part of any deal that you've forged with Leslie Grimes or his wife, Roberta."

"It's nothing."

"You just said I am nothing."

"I said this is nothing," he said. "I have to go, Joanna. We don't know who is listening."

"No one, Peter," she said, answering her name with his name. "Or should I call you Jonathan Devlin? Or Dean McKellar?"

"Have you been drinking?"

"I've never been more clearheaded in my life," Joanna said. "But please don't force me to talk to this horrid FBI man."

"Wait," he said. "Why do you say FBI?"

"He said he was a federal agent," she said. "I was giving a presentation and he was following me. I can't have that."

"What's his name?"

"What does that matter?"

"What was his name, Joanna?"

"Carson Wells," she said. "I thought him quite handsome before he turned on me."

"Jesus," Peter said, laughing. "Let me guess. This Carson Wells was Black. About six feet, slender, with a small scar below his right eye?"

"You know him?"

"Yes," Peter said. "Only his name isn't Wells, and he's no federal agent."

"Who is he?"

"A business competitor," he said. "I want you to stay away from this man. If he approaches you again, tell him you're going to call the police. He's not who he says he is."

"And what about Leslie?" she asked. "I want in, Peter. I actually insist on it. You poached my client. And people are intruding on my personal appearances. Do you understand I found my dear friend Omar face down in a pile of Persian rugs? What kind of mess have you made?"

Peter didn't answer. The Frenchwoman again calling to him. Joanna could hear a hand cover the receiver and then Peter returned. "Yes," he said. "Everything is such a goddamn mess. I need to think and get my head right. I'll explain everything to you tomorrow."

"You will call me?"

"No," Peter said. "I'll see you. I'm flying home."

The line went dead and double-clicked over to a very hollow American dial tone. Joanna cupped her hand over her mouth, knowing she could never ever trust Peter Collinson, and hoped to God that no one would be coming for her the way they came for Omar.

She composed herself and headed out from the little alcove, running right into Tippi. Her heart nearly stopped and she gasped. "Good gracious," she said. "You nearly scared the life out of me."

"Mother," she said, looking stoned and disheveled, "why are you using a pay phone?"

"I had to make a quick call."

"You do realize you can do that on your cell," she said. "We've been over this."

"Yes, yes," Joanna said, taking Tippi's arm. Tippi absolutely reeked of marijuana. In that very moment, Joanna recalled long motorbike rides with Steve McQueen up and around Mulholland and Laurel Canyon. "Shall we go? I am truly exhausted from my appearance, darling."

"And the event?"

"A smash," Joanna said. "An absolute smash. The loveliest people. The most intelligent questions. I could've talked for hours."

"Why must you always lie, Mother?"

"Everyone lies, Tippi," she said. "Some of us just do it much better than others."