There is champagne in the refrigerator, Dom Perignon chilled to perfection. Normally, the one-night-standers below them in the casino would have given their eyeteeth to be in that lavish suite. Like a giant explosion in a paint factory, the lights flash convulsively, stitching a patchwork of madness that seems fitting in this Mecca of insanity. Two husky men, their custom-made shoes sunk deep in the plush carpet, grimly survey the toyland spread four hundred feet below them. High above the casino, on the thirtieth floor of this giant hotel, in the Imperial Suite, the mood is somber, silent and tense. Their wives are addictively pushing quarters into the slots of the one-armed bandits. On the ground floor of that monument to human indulgence called the Las Vegas Hilton, the salesmen from New Jersey and Ohio are lurching over blackjack tables, whiskey glasses in their hands. The temperature is below freezing in New York. It is February and the air is so crisp and clean, it almost crackles. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 77-6127 ISBN 5-3 Manufactured in the United States of America First Edition: August 1977 ELVIS: WHAT HAPPENED? 1 Las Vegas. Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Ballantine Books of Canada, Ltd., Toronto, Canada. NEW YORK Copyright © 1977 by World News Corporation All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Digital version by Anton Jeldres Tiselj ELVIS: What Happened? Red West, Sonny West, Dave Hebler As Told To Steve Dunleavy BALLANTINE BOOKS This book was to be, in their minds, a desperate effort to communicate to Elvis one last time: “He will read and he will get hopping mad at us because he will know that every word is the truth,” said Sonny West… but maybe, just maybe, it will do some good.” It is too late for Elvis, but perhaps not too late for those who believe that every life contains a painful but instructive truth worthy of recording and understanding. ELVIS: WHAT HAPPENED? is based on reminiscences of three longtime friends and bodyguards of Presley as told to journalist Steve Dunleavy. PUBLISHER’S NOTE The original publication date of this book was Augfifteen days prior to the unfortunate and untimely death of Elvis Presley.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |