Double Cross

Part 5

Elvis had a restless night, unable to sleep without his medications. Without much sleep, his mind wouldn't let him rest, and various scenarios kept coming to his thoughts.  Various, and sometimes outrageous, methods of escape.  On the opposite end of these fantasies, he imagined all the ways his kidnappers would end up killing him.  A bullet through his brain was the most likely, but he also feared suffocation, or drowning.  They could put him back in the airplane, and push him out into the ocean - which ocean? - and his body would never be located.  He also fantasied about his revenge against his manager should he survive this.  Spending the remainder of his life in prison was too good for the pushy man.  Breaking his stubby neck with a karate chop would be much more satisfactory.  

Eventually, the morning arrived, and his captors entered his room without knocking, pulling the drapes open and dragging Elvis from his bed.  

"Come along, King.  It's time for breakfast," Carl ordered.

"Can I wash my face and brush my teeth first?" Elvis asked, trying to remain polite although his fingers were trembling to attack the leader.

"Sure," Carl said with a shrug.  "Just don't shut the door, and hurry up."

Obeying, Elvis hurried to use the toilet and then, with a shaky hand, washed his face and brushed his teeth.  As he gazed into the mirror,  he noted stubble was already appearing on not only his face but the top of his head.  He knew when it grew out it was likely to have a lot of gray mixed in with the dark brown, but the color of his natural hair was the least of his worries.  The tee-shirt he was wearing was wrinkled, and he was wearing the same jogging pants.  The clothes weren't uncomfortable, but he looked a bit like a bum, and for someone that always took a great deal of pride in his appearance. the man in the mirror shocked him.

He was lead back out to the kitchen, and told to sit in a chair at a small table.  A bowl of gray gruel was set in front of him, along with a cup of black coffee.  

"Oatmeal," George said, sounding smug.  "I'll bet you hardly ever eat oatmeal."

"Make it never, and you'd be right," Elvis replied, putting a mouthful of the sticky, nearly tasteless paste into his mouth.  If he wouldn't be ravenously hungry, he would have gagged.  Instead, he meekly ate the horrible breakfast and drank the already cooled, black coffee.

Eric and Nate, the two body-builders that seldom spoke, each grasped an arm, and Elvis was hauled off deeper into the mansion, where they pushed him into a room filled with various exercise equipment.  

Carl pointed to a treadmill.  "Start with that, and then you'll do chin-ups, sit-ups and lift some weights.  In about an hour, you have an appointment with your new doctor.

"A doctor?"

The stubby boss man laughed.  "Yeah, Elvis.  A real doctor.  Someone that's here to run every test known to mankind on you, and figure out if you have a real problem, or if your problems are all caused by your excessive pill-taking.  Then, if you do have an actual medical issue, he'll try to properly resolve it.  Either way, you ain't getting any more uppers or downers, so for the next few weeks you'll be having a lot of fun with dealing with the shakes."

Eric gave Elvis a hard push toward the treadmill.  "Start walking, Presley."

***

Back in the United States, the word had gotten out and the press was having a field day with the kidnapping of Elvis Presley, one of the most famous stars in the world.    Both the FBI and the CIA were already involved, interviewing everyone close to Elvis, and focusing on the last man known to have seen him - Colonel Tom Parker.

"We discussed his weight," Parker said, blowing out a puff of smoke from his ever-present cigar.  "He got annoyed and told me his personal life wasn't my concern, and I pointed out his self-destructive behavior was affecting everyone, not just him personally.  So then, he got all huffy and stormed out of the room.  I assumed he was heading to the elevator, which was directly next to my door, and would go up one flight to the penthouse.  The floor I was on was private and reserved for all of the Mafia members, so it wasn't like he could just bump into a stranger in the hallway."  Parker shrugged.  "He must have gone down in the elevator, not up, and left the hotel.  That boy can be unpredictable, you know."

The FBI agent nodded.  "I suppose that comes with being famous and catered to constantly."

Parker suppressed a smirk, knowing that his famous client was no longer being catered to at all.  He wished he was able to record what was happening on that private little island off the coast of Belize and watch Elvis try to deal with people that weren't at his beck and call.  He still remembered the polite young man that deferred to adults and called everyone 'sir' or 'ma'am'.  He was still polite to his fans and strangers, but he had changed dramatically with his friends and family.  Parker suspected it was those damn pills that was making Elvis so different, or perhaps it was that blow to his head back in '67, when he tripped over a cord walking into a bathroom in his home in California.  He had even lost consciousness for a bit from that accident, and everyone was up in arms and worried sick.  Or, perhaps, it was a combination of those factors, the pills and the head injury.  

Whatever the cause, those German doctors he'd hired to fly to the island had better find out, and do their best to fix his client's problems, and however long it took to fix it would be worth it in the end.  Right now, however, sales of Elvis' records were already soaring and it had only been two days.  His next agenda was flying to Memphis and talking to Vernon.  The poor man was probably too upset to think straight, and it was Parker's duty to make sure he 'took care of business' as Elvis was so fond of saying.