Blog Tour: City of Deadly Dreams by Elyse Douglas

City of Deadly Dreams
Elyse Douglas
Excerpt
My secretary, Helen and I met at a Wall Street brokerage firm, when she was working as an office manager. I was still a Homicide Detective with the NYPD, investigating the murder of a tall, leggy secretary, who had worked with Helen. We’d hit it off, meaning that she thought I was a smartass with attitude and I thought her a sour, nasty woman who was a wizard at juggling schedules, information and personalities.
Helen’s stubborn mouth suggests a love of argument, and much of that argument is often pointed at me—like a gun. She has lost none of her zest for life or for late middle-age defiance. I simply think of her as a reluctant saint with a serrated edge.
I went to Helen and waited. She sat behind her beloved Dell computer, pounding away at the keys, head held high, perfect posture, as if she were playing a classical piece by somebody whose first and last names elude folk like me.
“Were you ever an Elvis fan, Helen?” I asked.
She stopped typing and looked up, insulted. “Were! What the hell do you mean, were!? I don’t care what anybody says, Elvis will live forever. His music will be around long after Mozart, that crazy deaf guy Beethoven, and some of those other long hairs are forgotten.”
“So you are an Elvis fan?”
“Hell yes!” she said, swelling with pride. She looked up with dreamy, drowsy eyes. “When he sang a song, you thought you’d died and gone to heaven. Nobody can touch him—none of these clowns they call super stars today. They’re all pathetic, croaking amateurs.”
I hated to spoil her mood, but I still hadn’t got that coffee and time was a wastin’.
“Do you share your opinions about Elvis with your grandkids?”
Her self-righteous expression fell into annoyance. “Little brats don’t give a damn—don’t know anything about history and what makes this country great!”
I handed her the photograph of Elvis Lipps. It was a professional black and white headshot, obviously taken for delivery to agents and producers in the acting and music business. He wore a black leather jacket over an open white shirt, showing a smooth chest. His hair was stylishly cut and stiff, but a little curl hung, like an inverted question mark, over his forehead. There was some contradiction in the lean, angular face. It revealed the bold confidence of a young man who expected recognition and success. But his dark eyes held a look of uncertainty and reserve that added a vulnerable charm. The smile was slightly forced and there was a calculated quality to it, as if he hadn’t yet found his own true smile and was copying someone else’s.
“What do you think of that guy?”
Helen took the photograph and glanced at it. Almost immediately, her eyes enlarged. It was the expression of someone who was remembering an old naughty secret.
“This boy is handsome!” she exclaimed.
“Do you think he looks like Elvis?”
She gave me a wonderfully absurd look. Then, cocking her head to one side, she studied it. “Well… you know, I have to say that there is the same kind of energy in the eyes—and the hair’s like Elvis’. And he’s got some of Elvis’ rakish charm and vulnerability.”
“He’s our new client.”
“He’s the kid!?—Abner Lipps’ son?” she asked, with awakened delight.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Whoa! I wouldn’t mind finding him. Put me on the case, I’ll find him in twenty-four hours.”
I took the photograph from her. “It’s a deal.”
“With his looks, he should be easy to find.”
“Mr. Lipps thinks he’s the reincarnation of the Elvis.”
“Bullshit! What kind of nut case is he?” She snatched the photograph back and took another look at it. Her voice softened, her body relaxed, as she slipped under the spell of the alluring image. “He does have that something though… That same something that Elvis had.”