“Ma'am, I think you've been in the moving picture business too long. Way too long,” he said. “There's only one kind of truth I know ofâthe
true
kind. Now did you play those dress-up games with Squirm or didn't you?”
Pollard's blush deepened several more degrees to an unhealthy-looking purple. This surely wasn't acting; maybe even her natural responses were over the top.
“We played those games,” she whispered.
The moment Pollard said this, there was a peppy knock on the office door and Aronson's perky voice gurgled, “Ready for the surprise?”
“Yes, yes, ready, Maryjane,” Pollard answered, her blush miraculously vanishing.
Aronson came sailing in with a tan cardboard box in her hands. She set it down with a flourish in the middle of the table. Elvis expected the worstâmaybe a Hollywood chef's rendition of sweet potato pie. Aronson lifted off the box top and pulled out a pair of men's shoesâsuede shoes of a luminous shade of blue. She set these on the table too.
“Do you know what this is?” Aronson trilled.
“Fifty thousand dollars!” Pollard chimed back in a heartbeat.
“All you have to do is wear them in your next picture,” Aronson said. “Just wear them, nothing else. It doesn't matter what kind of story it is. And the Bonavita Shoe Company forks over fifty grand.”
Elvis cupped a hand across his eyes. At that moment, he would have given just about anything to be back in Memphis, sitting at the counter of Floyd's Diner and drinking a cup of coffee with the boys.
“Product placement,” Pollard said. “It's a gold mine.”
“Like every time someone drinks a Coke in a pictureâand you can see the labelâthe cash register rings,” Aronson went on breathlessly. “But this is much bigger. Much. Fifty thousand is unheard of.”
“Colonel Parker is all for it,” Pollard said. “But, of course, he wanted us to run it by you first.”
Elvis reached for his crutches and pulled himself up onto them. He started immediately for the door. Aronson raced after him, catching up with him as he swung into the hallway. She smiled prettily up at him.
“Let's stay in touch, Mr. Presley. I like your ideas very much,” Aronson said softly. “I'm working on some projects of my own, and
very soon I'm going to be in a position to do pictures Nancy couldn't dream of making.”
Elvis gaped at Aronson quizzically and hobbled the heck out of there.
Deliver Me from Evil
T
he sign on the door said ARCHIVES. The door was half open and had enough tobacco smoke wafting out of it to send an entire encyclopedia in smoke signals. Elvis poked at the door with the tip of a crutch and it swung open to reveal two men, one middle aged, bald, and wearing rimless glasses, the other in his twenties with too much hair. Both were puffing putrid-smelling cigars. They were sitting in the dark splicing film on a Moviola, and when they saw Elvis in the doorway, the young one gasped, “
Carumba!
” and the other, “Unbelievable!”
“This the movie library?” Elvis asked. A go-fer upstairs had directed him down to the second basement of the main MGM building.
Both men sprang to their feet and gaped at Elvis. It was the kind of reaction that Elvis was used to in public, but not here in the palace of stars. Probably not that many luminaries got this far underground.
“Library, archives. Right, Mr. Presley,” the bald one sputtered.
“Anything we can do for you, sir?” asked the long-haired one.
“Hope so,” Elvis said, leaning against the doorjamb to ease the strain under his arms. “I wanted to see clips of a particular actress.”
“Not a problem,” the older man said.
“Would you like to sit down, Mr. Presley?” the younger one said, gesturing to the seat he had just vacated.
“Thank you,” Elvis said. He hobbled around the Moviola and sat down heavily.
“May I just say one thing?” the younger man asked excitedly. His partner frowned disapprovingly.
“Go ahead,” Elvis said.
“I just have to say that you were fabulous in
Jailhouse Rock
. So sensitive. So vulnerable. We watch it all the time down here.”
“That's kind of you to say,” Elvis said.
“I mean it sincerely,” the man went on excitedly. “As an actor, I put you right up there with James Dean and Marlon Brando.”
Elvis studied his face for hints of toadyism or sarcasm, but the man actually seemed to mean what he was saying.
“How about Richard Burton or Peter O'Toole?” The question popped out of Elvis's mouth before he could think the better of it.
“Are you kidding?” the young man replied emphatically. “Those two are actor's actors, not
real
actors. Every little thing they do is so deliberate, like they always want you to see all the technique and effort they're putting in it. Really, you can't see the characters for the acting.”
“Absolutely true,” his partner echoed. “Neither of them can touch you or Dean.”
Elvis felt embarrassed by how much pleasure he took from the pair's professional analysis.
“The name of the actress I want to see is McDougal, Holly McDougal,” Elvis said. “She was just a bit player.”
The two men looked at one another warily.
“She was murdered, you know,” the young one said.
“So I understand,” Elvis replied. “Can you help me out?”
“Of course, Mr. Presley.”
The older man flipped on the overhead florescent lights. The room was far larger than Elvis had thought. In fact, it was cavernous, nut and bolt metal shelves going off in every direction almost as far as the eye could see, every one of them loaded with film reels. The two men raced off in opposite directions, cigar smoke trailing behind them. Less than five minutes later, they returned with a total of five reels. Four were B pictures, three of them musicals, one a circus picture. The fifth was an uncovered reel with less than a one-inch
depth of film on it. The label read MCDOUGAL, HOLLYâSCREEN TEST. Elvis reached for it.
“Want me to see what screening rooms are available?” the younger man asked.
Elvis hesitated.
“Or we could thread it up right here,” the older man said, gesturing toward the Moviola.
“Let's do it that way,” Elvis said.
The pair set to work immediately, removing the film they had been splicingâapparently they had been repairing a brittle old masterâand threading in McDougal's screen test. When they had finished, they remained standing on either side of Elvis. The opaque glass monitor on the Moviola was only a three-inch square. Elvis crouched over it. “Let's go,” he said.
First, a slate: MCDOUGAL, HOLLY. SCREEN TEST. 9.12.59. TAKE: #1. And then there she was, a wavy-haired blonde with blue saucer eyes and a turned-up nose wearing a pleated white blouse, short plaid kilt, ankle socks, and patent-leather Mary Janes. She was sitting on a high stool in front of a pale blue backdrop, and she was giggling. An off-screen male voice said, “We're rolling,” and Holly straightened up, smoothed her blouse, and looked excitedly into the camera.
“Hi,” she said. “My name is Holly McDougal and I am eighteen years old and I have just
always
, always, wanted to be an actress.”
She paused, looking expectantly off to one side. “Your audition piece,” the off-screen voice said.
“Can I get off the stool?” Holly asked.
“Sure,” replied the off-screen voice.
Holly slipped off the stool, turned her back to the camera, then faced it again with her eyebrows now puckered and her mouth slightly open, her lower lip dangling. Or was it quivering? Abruptly, she began darting about, waving her hands around wildly. Swatting flies? Playing tennis? Whatever it was, Miss McDougal was clearly
acting
.
“âThese are love letters, yellowing with antiquity, all from one boy,'” she recited with what might have been an Italian accentâor
possibly it was Negro dialect. “âGive them back to me! ⦠The touch of your hand insults them ⦠. Now that you've touched them I'll burn them ⦠. Poems a dead boy wrote.'”
On either side of Elvis, the two archivists tittered.
“God help us, it's
Streetcar
,” the older one said.
“
A Streetcar Named Perspire,
” the other said archly.
Holly McDougal got to the line, “âI'm not young and vulnerable any more,'” when the off-screen voice interrupted with, “Thank you, Miss McDougal. That should be enough.”
The girl froze. She looked crestfallen. Her eyes started to tear up.
“Do you dance, Holly?” another off-screen male voice asked. This voice was cheery and sounded vaguely familiar.
“Oh, yes!” the girl answered brightly. “I've taken ballet for five years. Tap for three.”
Some muffled off-screen discussion, the screen went blank for a moment, then another slate appeared: MCDOUGAL, HOLLY. SCREEN TEST. 9.12.59. TAKE: #2. The stool had been removed and Holly stood expectantly in front of the camera, her hands on her hips. Suddenly, the music blasted on: Elvis's 1956 recording of “Blue Suede Shoes.” Holly McDougal began to dance.
No awkward fly swatting this time. Instantly, the young woman was rocking and rolling with abandon, her slender arms swinging, her head bobbing. Now she was spinning, kicking her bare legs to the height of her shoulders, her kilt rising, then twirling up to her waist exposing red-satin panties. And then her hips began to go, at first in a kind of parody of Elvis's own moves, rhythmic staccato shifts from left to right on the offbeat, a visual syncopation with a sly twist. But then Holly's hips went off on their own, grinding slowly in a wide arc, the rhythm gradually picking up as the music rose in volume, now gyrating faster and faster, the kilt fluttering up and down over flashes of red satin. At some point, the top button of the girl's blouse had come undone; at another, the second and the third. As she gyrated, the blouse flapped open and closed over her high, shapely breasts. Apparently, Holly McDougal was not wearing anything under her prim schoolgirl blouse.
Throughout the performance, the second off-screen voice could be heard urging Holly on with, “That's it, baby!” and “Show us what you've got!” and “You're killing me, sweetheart!” When the music ended, the girl twirled to a stop, then sashayed with an insolent smile right up to the camera and planted a wet kiss on the lens. The screen went blank again.
“Deliver me from evil,” the middle-aged man said, hitting the stop button on the Moviola.
“Turns out she was only seventeen when they shot that,” the younger man said.
“Not even,” the other one murmured. “Still a few months shy of seventeen.”
Elvis sat perfectly still, staring at the blank monitor, a sick feeling in his gut. The fire in his groin from watching Holly's little exhibition was still there, still tingling, and it revolted him. Everything about it revolted him. That she was only a child. That the body which had just now tantalized him was long gone, dead and gone at the hands of a grotesque killer. And, on top of that, hearing his own voice as the soundtrack for Holly McDougal's precociously torrid rock and roll fandango made the whole thing even more repulsive.
Elvis, the Pelvis, corrupter of youthful innocence
. He felt like begging God for forgiveness.
“That Wayne, he sure knows how to get them going, doesn't he?” the younger man was saying.
“Wayne?”
“You know, Wayne LeFevre,” the young man said to Elvis. “They like to bring him in for the screen tests of those young girls. He has a special knack for bringing out the sauciness in them.”
So that's who that familiar voice belonged toâWayne LeFevre, Elvis's double, the man who offered himself up as a consolation prize every time Elvis spurned the advances of some ardent chorus girl. Somehow it fit that Wayne would be the in-house cheerleader who brought out the sauciness in eager young auditioners. And after the screen test, what? Did Wayne parlay his helpful hints into some personal action? Had he taken Holly McDougal off to an empty
office and made his moves on the child? Elvis's disgust redoubled.
“Looks like there's more on there,” the younger archivist was saying, gesturing to the reel on the Moviola. “Want to see it?”
Elvis sighed. “I guess so,” he said.
On TAKE #3, Holly was joined by two other women, one on either side of her, all three in black leotards. This time the music was a Broadway show tune; apparently, they had taught Holly the steps before the take. Obviously, the purpose was to see how she worked with other dancers, how well she fit in. The routine was low-level Vegasâhigh kicks with their hands on each other's shoulders, a pinwheel thing with Holly in the center, then some snaky shimmying. Holly excelled at the shimmyingâit began at her knees, worked its way up to her hips, and then her entire torso did a shake, rattle, and roll that had her fine breasts undulating under the leotard like conical Jell-O molds. It was surely more than a healthy man could bear.
Elvis noticed that the dancer on Holly's right kept stealing glances at Holly while they shimmied. This girl, also a blonde, was taller and thinner and obviously more practiced, but her own undulations could not begin to compete with the bouncy sensuality of Holly's, and it was clear from the expression on her face that she knew it. Knew it and resented it. It was like Gene Nelson said, two things the camera always catches are boredom and envy. Well, even on this three-by-three screen, the envy screamed out at Elvis. But who the heck was that screaming it?
“Freeze it, can you?” he suddenly said.
The image froze and Elvis leaned in closer to the little monitor. By God, he was right: the envious blond dancer was Nancy Pollard. Apparently, as Nannette Poulette, she had been a blonde, but the face was the same. And so was the small-breasted, willowy body. How about that? Poulette/Pollard had been jealous of Holly McDougal's shimmy long before she began practicing it on the stunt-shack cot with her boyfriend, Squirm.
A minute later, the film flapped off the reel; the screen test was over. Elvis's two hosts asked him to autograph stills from
Jailhouse
Rock
, which he gladly did, finally learning their names: Paddy Spence and Paddy Spence, Jr., father and son. Archiving film was the family trade.
Elvis hobbled back down the basement hallway to the elevator and rang for it. When the door slid open, there was Colonel Parker standing inside, gazing out at him. Once again, Parker had that look of a scolding father on his face. If Elvis hadn't been on crutches, he would have bolted.
“Heard you were down here, son,” the Colonel drawled. “Now this kind of thing can't be doing your ankle much good, can it?”
Elvis stepped into the elevator without responding. He had intended to go up to the ground floor to meet Joey, but instead he punched the button for the floor below it, the first basement. He didn't want to spend a minute longer than necessary with Parker today.
“So how'd your meeting with Nancy Pollard go?” Parker asked. There was enough syrup in his voice for a double-dip sundae.
“It went,” Elvis answered. There was no sense in even asking how the Colonel knew about the meeting.