I pulled my blue Chevette into the parking lot of the Armada Inn hotel and parked right under a glowing sign that read "Tonight: Elvis Impersonators Contest.'' I wasn't really up for this, but duty called, and there was always the chance I could dig up some info from some Elvis insiders.        I walked up to the desk in the lobby where two women in hound dog costumes were selling tickets. I handed one of them the pass Wilcox had given me. She looked it over, nodded her approval, and then pointed me in the direction of something called the Blue Suede Room.        Whatever strangeness I had encountered covering the Elvis story over the years, I was definitely not prepared for what I was about to see. As I opened the door to the meeting hall, I suddenly found myself among literally hundreds of Elvis impersonators. Fat Elvises, skinny Elvises, short Elvises, tall Elvises. There were even women and children dressed to look like Elvis from some period in his life. I had to pinch myself to make sure it wasn't a dream.        The huge hall was decorated like a Fifties high school prom, with glittery banners hanging from the ceiling. In one corner a stage was set up where the impersonators took turns doing their act. This seemed like as good a place as any to start. As I was making my way through the sea of sequins and Brylcreem, I got an eerie feeling that something bad was about to happen. Call it a sixth sense, call it intuition, or call it an eerie feeling that something bad was about to happen. In any case, I turned around just in time to see--well, to see Elvis, of course--except this Elvis had a wooden 2x4 in his hand. In one motion he grabbed my tape recorder and brought the club down on my head. As I started to lose consciousness, it occurred to me that my last words might very well be "What tha'. . .'' so, as I hit the floor, I used all my strength to say something profound. On such short notice, the only thing I could think of was "One small step for man,'' but with my face buried in the red shag carpet, it seemed to come out more like "One small can of Spam.'' Everything went black.        The next thing I saw was a series of twinkling lights--kind of like stars--emerging from the darkness. I was sure that I was on my way to heaven when my eyes started to focus and I noticed that above the circle of lights was a ring of Elvis faces. I suddenly felt less like I was bound for glory and more like I was in on the huddle of the first all-Elvis football team. Actually, I was still on the floor of the Armada's Blue Suede Room. A group of the impersonators had turned me over on my back to see if I was still among the living. Although I wasn't certain of the answer to that question, my will to live was bolstered as I was determined not to have the last rites administered to me by a group of guys with collars the size of hang gliders.        "What happened?'' I moaned.        "Someone whacked you on the head,'' answered one of the ersatz Elvises.        I tried to sit up, but my head throbbed like a Gene Krupa drum solo.        "Not so fast there,'' said one Elvis as he pushed me back to the floor.        "How long was I out?'' I asked.        " 'Bout five minutes,''someone said. "By the way, what was that you said about Spam?''        "Never mind,'' I groaned. I tried again to get up; this time I made it, with the help of one of the Elvises. I was still a little wobbly. I touched my head and noticed that I had a bump on my head the size of a large head bump. "Figures,'' I thought.        Just then a cop showed up. He was carrying a clipboard.        "Are you the victim?'' he asked.        "Yeah,'' I said.        "Can you give me a description of the person who assaulted you?''        "Well,'' I said, "he had black hair with thick sideburns, big sunglasses, and he kinda looked like...'' As I looked over the sea of Elvises still mingling in the middle of the Blue Suede Room, I couldn't help but laugh.        After assuring the officer that I was okay, I headed for the bar to get a whiskey straight up and try to figure out exactly what had happened.        The Blue Suede Room had returned to normal and, on the stage in the far corner Sven "Elvis''Gladvinoosk was cranking out a Swedish version of "Old Shep.'' As I sat there, I asked myself why anyone would want to knock me out. Were they just after my tape recorder? That didn't seem likely. Maybe it was connected to the diaries. Perhaps they thought I had some of the diaries' information on tape. Just then I felt a hand grip my shoulder and I jumped out of my chair. I turned around to see--what else--another Elvis.        "Fescue,'' the Elvis said in a slow country drawl.        "Excuse me?'' I stuttered.        "Fescue. Name's Virgil Fescue,'' he said extending his ring-encrusted paw in my direction.        "How's your head? I thought you might be a goner for a minute there.''        I suddenly recognized him as one of the impersonators who had helped me after the attack.        "It's better. The swelling's going down.''        "I heard someone say you were a writer with that newspaper,'' he said. "If you're here lookin' for a story, thought you might wanna do one on me.''        Virgil sat down. I had to admit he did kinda look like Elvis. He was late-model Elvis--patent leather hair, long sideburns arcing down the side of his face and coming to an "L''shape at his chin line. He wore the Las Vegas white jumpsuit covered with sequins and rhinestones, and he had on a monstrous belt that held in his gut kind of like the Hoover Dam. I would have felt a little more comfortable with a few sandbags added for good measure.        "Why'd anyone wanna hit you like that?'' he asked.        "I was just trying to figure out that very thing. You ever seen him before?''        "Well, I caught a glimpse of him running off, but he didn't look like anyone I'd seen before and I know most of the people in the business.''        "The business? Oh, yeah. You were going to tell me how you got into this Elvis business.'' I figured I might as well listen and see if he had a story worth telling. I wanted to get some sort of article for my effort.        Virgil began to run down his life story. It seems he started his life as Elvis about three years earlier. He'd been running a gas station in Meridian, Mississippi, when one day an Elvis impersonator came through town to play the local nightclub.Virgil went to see his act and when he got a look at the costume, the lights, and all the screaming women, he decided that that was a better way to make a living than pumping hi-test. Within a matter of months, Virgil had sold his service station, bought a '74 Winnebago, and hit the road billing his show as "Virgil 'Elvis' Fescue and the Presley Family on Tour.'' The "Presley Family'' gimmick was Virgil's idea and was what he thought would set him apart from all the other impersonators. He convinced his wife to play Priscilla and enlisted his mother and father-in-law to portray Vernon and Gladys Presley on stage. Virgil had written a script for them to read during their portion of the show and, from Virgil's description of their performances, I gathered the Barrymores' place in history as the first family of the stage was secure.        Unfortunately for Virgil, his in-laws hated being Presleys and weren't all too crazy about their daughter being a Fescue, either. Late one November afternoon, after a couple of disappointing years on the road playing juke joints in the Texas panhandle, Virgil pulled into a Jump-and-Grab to pick up a package of Red Hots to snack on during the long drive to Abilene. Virgil emerged from the store just in time to see the tail lights of his Winnebago vanishing into the sunset. Virgil told me that he just stood there, dropped his Red Hots, and started to cry.        He was all ready to give upon the Elvis business when, he swears, he looked down on the ground, and noticed that the Red Hots resting in the dust of that Texas highway spelled the word "Elvisq.'' Although he couldn't account for the "q,'' Virgil took the Red Hot message as a sign of destiny. He decided to redouble his efforts to make a go of his career as an Elvis impersonator. He hitched his way to Memphis to visit Graceland for inspiration and, after a brief stint as a dishwasher, he got a booking for his one-man Elvis tribute,"Hunka-Hunka,'' at the El Mocambo out on Highway 51. He had come to the contest that night in hopes of getting some out-of-town bookings.        After hearing his story, I decided that Virgil was an okay guy. I don't know what it was about him... maybe it was the image of this poor big lug standing in the middle of a Texas highway watching everything he had worked for vanish into the distance. I'm just not sure if I could have carried on after that. Anyway, Virgil seemed trustworthy enough and I needed someone who knew the Elvis business from the inside. Wilcox had allocated some expense money for the project, so I offered Virgil a job as "research assistant,'' for lack of a better term. He jumped at it. I left him at the contest to see if he could pick up on any diary talk. He promised to be discreet. Well, as discreet as a 6' 2'' Elvis impersonator can be, anyway. Illustrations by Barry Willis