The New Elvis Read online

  The New Elvis

  By Wyborn Senna

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  This book is dedicated to my agent, Liz Trupin-Pulli, who always pushes me to go farther, better, faster, and to Adam Lambert, who inspired this tale.

  “Now, the finding of the father has to do with finding your own character and destiny. There’s a notion that the character is inherited from the father, and the body and very often the mind from the mother. But it’s your character that is the mystery, and your character is your destiny. So it is the discovery of your destiny that is symbolized by the father quest.”

  — Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth

  Chapter 1

  For some, Paradise is a resting place for meritable souls. For others, the heart of Sin City is a place to reinvent the future through pivotal deals, impulsive exploits, serendipitous encounters, and premeditated plans.

  On the night of August 19, 1974, on the thirtieth floor of the Las Vegas Hilton, Elvis was feeling slightly tired but a little bit wired. He had just finished his second show, and it was two in the morning. In lavish suite 3000, he draped his scarf on a lamp, stripped off his concert whites, dropped his heavy belt, kicked off his shoes, and headed to the bathroom to take a shower. Twenty minutes later, he dressed in blue jeans and an embroidered patchwork jacket he wore as a shirt, unbuttoned from his neck to his chest. He came out to join Glen, James, Jerry, and Ronnie, grabbed a hot dog from a tray that had been set out, and left the room to make a phone call.

  “Come back,” Ronnie called.

  Elvis ignored him. He dialed the front desk and explained what he wanted.

  The clerk was stunned by his request but thought she could make it happen.

  As though nothing out of the ordinary was about to transpire, Elvis returned to the gathering, grabbed a Pepsi, and cleared his throat. Glen began to play “Down In The Alley” on the piano, and Elvis sang, even though his voice was tired. The phone rang at three, and Elvis left the room to take the call.

  “Do you need a car?”

  “Sure. And make sure the driver knows where we’re going.”

  Manny knew Vegas as well as his own reflection in the rearview mirror. He drove Elvis southbound down Paradise Road and took a right onto Harmon Avenue. Shortly before they reached the corner of Las Vegas Boulevard, he pulled over and stopped at the curb.

  “See that building back there?”

  Elvis lowered his window and peered into the darkness. Inset between a warehouse and a cluster of condominiums, the single-story medical office bore a discreet sign that read Las Vegas Fertility Associates.

  “Yep,” Elvis told the driver.

  They sat in companionable silence until a man in a white lab coat turned a light on and came to unlock the front door. Elvis jumped out of the limo and went to meet the doctor, whose name was Wendall Johns. They studied each other as they shook hands. To Elvis, Dr. Johns looked like a serious-minded professional, whom he hoped regarded confidentiality as highly as the Pope revered the sacraments. That the doctor would don his white coat in the middle of the night to meet him seemed to be a good sign.

  Dr. Johns had heard many stories about Elvis over the years and wondered how many of them were true. Tonight, the star’s blue eyes were mere slits behind his gold-framed, aviator-style glasses, and his dark hair, swept back from his forehead, hung past his ears, nearly hiding his mutton-chop sideburns. He didn’t appear as heavy as he looked on film, and his tan seemed faded. A diamond-studded, gold Maltese cross hung from a chain around his neck, and his face looked wan in the moonlight.

  The doctor ushered him inside and gave him a seat by his desk. “You sure you want to do this?”

  Elvis stared at his vintage crystal opal and diamond pinkie ring like he was trying to recall where he’d bought it. He looked up suddenly. “Just give me a cup and a magazine,” he said, straight-faced. “And I expect you to keep my identity a secret. You can provide prospective mothers with genetic information, but—”

  Dr. Johns had heard about the various paternity cases filed against Elvis, and he wondered how many of the King’s affairs had resulted in offspring. He also wondered about Elvis’s drug use, erratic behavior, and lack of sexual interest in Priscilla after she became pregnant on their honeymoon in Palm Springs. Though he was not trained in psychiatry, Dr. Johns read plenty of psychoanalytic material, and it seemed that the virgin-whore dichotomy or Madonna-whore complex—wherein a virginal, young wife would begin to be seen as a mother and therefore not sexually attractive—fell in line with Elvis’s intense devotion to Gladys. This also correlated to why Elvis seemed obsessed with virgins and why the star dated girls as young as age fourteen, even as he entered his twenties and thirties. They were girls, not mothers, so he could sexually desire them. If Elvis faced the obvious contradiction inherent in wanting children but desiring only virginal women, this was a bizarre way to fulfill his fantasy. He could have a child without compromising a woman’s chastity.

  “Little Lisa Marie isn’t enough?”

  The King leaned back in the chair and gave a halfhearted smile, his upper lip raised slightly but the sides of his mouth tense and tired. “Oh, sure, she’s all that and a fleet of new Cadillacs. But now that I’m divorced from Priscilla, I’m not likely to father any more children, and if I did, they’d be unintentional. But this here has been well thought out. It’s anonymous. It’s clean. It’s uncomplicated. And if you know anything about me, that’s hard to come by. I can do it, and when it’s time to say howdy to the Good Lord and go catch up with Mama, I can leave knowing I’ve left a little more of me behind.”

  “Another way of leaving your mark,” the doctor acknowledged. He had heard this before from other sperm donors who had contemplated their mortality.

  Elvis was as serious as a sober Sunday. “Make sure the woman are beautiful, if you can. It’d be nice to have some gorgeous kids. And, preferably, unmarried, just wanting to h
ave a child in their life.”

  “Should they have good singing voices?”

  Elvis shrugged. “Doesn’t matter.”

  “Why don’t we add virgin to the list while we’re at it?” Dr. Johns suggested, trying to sound jovial, but deadly serious.

  Elvis sat up straighter in the chair and couldn’t hide his genuine grin. It was clear to Dr. Johns that he loved the idea. “Why not? That sounds absolutely perfect. Add virgin to the list.”

  Dr. Johns wrote down “virgin” and thought, Freud, you were one smart cookie.

  Chapter 2

  On the tenth anniversary of Elvis Presley’s death, a plane crash at Michigan’s Detroit Metropolitan Airport killed one hundred and fifty-six people, one of them being Zella Stuart’s childhood sweetheart, Glenn Enright.

  In the summer of 1987, no one wore chastity rings vowing to remain pure until marriage, but Zella had a silver promise ring Glenn had given her their senior year at Grosse Pointe High. They had never made love, and Zella remained true to him even though she’d moved to Las Vegas to pursue her dream of becoming a magician with her own show on the strip, working in the interim as a cocktail waitress at the Flamingo until she got a permanent job as a magician’s assistant and could begin her ascent up the show biz ladder.

  Glenn planned to get an apartment near Zella’s place in Vegas prior to their wedding. The night before their reunion, they couldn’t stay off the phone. The last time they spoke was moments before Glenn’s fatal flight, when they’d said they’d see each other soon.

  Four months after his untimely death, Zella felt blue and well beyond her years. She walked down the strip and gazed at the Christmas lights and decorations that paled amidst the blaze of neon signs. She strolled down Las Vegas Boulevard past the Aladdin and Little Caesar’s Casino and turned onto Harmon, searching for the address listed on the business card she’d been given by her friend. The clinic sat between a warehouse and a cluster of condominiums, and there was nothing showy about it. The building sat far back from the street in a dimly lit lot, where a small sign identified it as Las Vegas Fertility Associates. Because it was the holiday season, a string of micro-lights framed the rectangular placard and cast tiny blue, red, green, and gold shadows across the shiny plastic letters.

  Wearing a clean white lab coat, Dr. Wendall Johns turned on the light in the lobby and came to open the door for Zella. The linoleum entryway was crowded with potted poinsettias and a rosemary shrub decorated with lights and handmade, clay ornaments.

  Zella stopped at the tree and examined one of the pink ornaments, which bore a tiny handprint, the name “Melinda”, and the year, “1985”. Another pink one also bore a handprint no larger than a small plum, the name “Pearl”, and the year “1984”. A pale blue one with a handprint read, “Abraham, 1981”.

  “Are these—?” she began.

  “Our children,” Dr. Johns said. He led her from the tree into the main office, where a desk and chairs were situated. A nativity scene, complete with animals, was arranged on a narrow table across the room, in front of a mirror with an ornate frame.

  Zella could see her reflection and part of the desk, including Dr. Johns’s forearm, which moved as he scribbled notes on paper laid atop a fresh folder. She smoothed back her straight, dark hair and repositioned a clip that kept her bangs from falling into her eyes.

  “Reason for wanting to conceive?”

  Zella told him about Glenn’s accident, how he had been the love of her life, how she would never meet anyone to match him, and how she wanted someone to love. “I tried a cat and then a dog. Then I took a roommate, Deb, who used to work with me, but now she teaches pre-kindergarten at The Meadows. She loves kids, too.”

  “And you’re how old?”

  She pursed her lips and twisted the promise ring she still wore. “Twenty-two.”

  Dr. Johns studied her. Instead of shrinking under his scrutiny, she unclasped her pocketbook and removed a savings account passbook. She slid it across the desk so he could see its six-figure tally, thanks to the family life insurance Glenn’s father shared, having considered his future daughter-in-law one of the clan.

  Dr. Johns smiled. “I didn’t know serving casino drinks paid that well.”

  “You wouldn’t believe the tips some guys leave. But that’s just a job. I’m the understudy for Max Maverick’s assistant at the Riviera. After she leaves, I’ll step in. Someday, I want to have my own magic show on the strip.”

  The doctor resumed writing. “Your date of birth?”

  “January 8, 1965.”

  Dr. Johns was startled. “Elvis’s birthday.”

  Zella looked at the Mary and Joseph figurines. They gazed down at baby Jesus, who lay in his manger. “Funny you should mention Elvis. There’s a rumor floating around the Flamingo that Elvis donated sperm here three years before he died.”

  “Where would someone get an idea like that?”

  “One of the cooks is married to a woman who used to work here. Fay North?”

  “Yes, Fay. Great bookkeeper. She retired last year.”

  “I’ve talked to her at parties,” Zella said. “She’s very colorful.”

  Dr. Johns laughed. “That she is. So, I need to know about your family.”

  “I have none,” Zella told him. “I was an only child, raised by my mother. My dad had cancer and died when I was two. And mom died last year. Heart attack.”

  Dr. Johns tapped his pen on the desk. No applicants had received Elvis’s sperm in the past thirteen years because all of them had been sexually experienced. But here was Zella, wearing a purity band gifted to her by her late fiancé, as pretty as a pin-up girl, and only twenty-two years young, looking to become a mother. And she shared her birthday with Elvis. Could it be a coincidence, or were the heavens conspiring to fulfill the late King’s wish?

  “So, anything special you’re looking for? Blue eyes and dark hair like yours?”

  Zella smiled. “I’m a sucker for blue eyes.”

  Chapter 3

  Abercromby Chrome Shop was located near the beach on Ocean Avenue in Santa Monica, with a short, unpaved road leading to its garage. Out back, you could see the Pacific, the surfers and their surfboards colorful daubs against the cerulean wash.

  Calder Baillie had opened his shop to cater to the beachfront motorcycle crowd and hired Jarrod Lockhart when Jarrod was thirty-seven.

  One day, Jarrod took his seven-year-old son Logan to work and showed him the piles of re-chromed bumpers that looked like silver canoes stacked against the corrugated walls. A smaller pile of unchromed bumpers lay piled against a workbench where tools were scattered.

  “So you make the old ones look shiny,” Logan remarked, getting the picture.

  “Yeah, but do you know how we do it?” Jarrod asked.

  Logan shook his head and hiked up his jeans. He needed a belt but couldn’t find one that morning under the piles of clothing in his bedroom.

  “We etch it,” his father explained.

  Logan had an Etch A Sketch, but he no longer knew where it was. He once drew a house on it that was so narrow, its rooftop looked like the conical nose of a spaceship. Its front door was tall and narrow, but there were no windows, which was strange, considering how much Logan loved them. “What do you draw with?”

  Jarrod erupted with a thick, whiskey-laced, pack-a-day chuckle that nearly startled the boy, who seldom saw his dad in a good mood. “It’s not a toy, it’s a process. To etch a bumper, we dip it in sodium cyanide to prep the surface to accept a coat of something new.”

  Logan pictured a bumper wearing a dandy coat with brass buttons and wondered why it would need one unless it was cold out. Maybe these bumpers were being shipped to Alaska.

  Jarrod pointed at a large vat with his dirty, scraped index finger. “See that red stuff over there? That gets crushed into a powder, and when you mix it, it’s not red anymore, it’s just smoky.”

  Logan shuffled his feet and gazed at the ocean through the large picture win
dow.

  A loud voice interrupted his reverie. “You’re boring the boy, Jarrod.”

  Logan turned to see a skeleton of a man with tufts of brown hair patched on his scalp like clumps of grass. “This your son?” Out came a bony hand, and it pumped Logan’s tender grip with a ferocity that frightened the boy.

  “I’m Mr. Baillie,” he said, “and I know who you are because your dad works extra hard to make sure you and your mom have everything you need. Especially your mom.” Calder’s glance slid sideways, and he winked at Jarrod. “Say you’ve got a skull and crossbones—not a real one, but a metal one you want to mount on top of the gas tank—but you want it fancy. You heat up sodium cyanide to one-hundred-and-eighty degrees, dip the skull and crossbones in, and the metal gets etched, which means the structure is changed so other metals will stick to it. Then you take that skull and crossbones to another vat full of something shiny like melted bronze or chrome or copper or silver, and you dip it in and take it out, and you’ve got a shiny skull and crossbones.”

  Logan did his best to follow what Mr. Baillie said, but it was fairly complicated.

  Jarrod spoke up. “Say you’ve got a piggy bank full of nickels. You could melt them down, put an etched object into the melted nickels, and the object would have a shiny coating of melted nickels.”

  “Why would I want to melt my nickels?”

  The men laughed at that and allowed Logan to wander away so they could talk.

  “You gonna meet Skeet tonight?” Calder asked.

  Jarrod answered quietly, quickly. “Yeah, at eight.”

  “Make sure you count it before you leave.”

  Jarrod nodded and glanced over at Logan. Abercromby Chrome was not only in the business of re-chroming bumpers, it made the meat of its money from a tidy little meth lab Calder ran in the basement of the shop. Chemicals and chrome shops went together like sugar and bakeries. No one suspected that large orders for chemicals used to produce his product were used for anything but legitimate reasons. The extra income insured the longevity of not only the establishment but also Jarrod’s marriage to Ramona, a hoarder. She spent most of her husband’s paycheck as soon as he brought it home. Without drug deals on the side, there would be nothing to put away for any of life’s little emergencies.