“The son of a bitch …” Andrew said. They were all there: the Walt Kelly, the Gerhardi, Liverpool Jorge—all five of them. Andrew plucked the pile out of Pickett’s hands.
“Hey, watch it!” his friend said. “Don’t mess them up.”
“What do you mean ‘mess them up’? They’re my books. I’m taking them back, right now. Pennyman’s a common thief! I had him pegged for a world-class criminal, and he stoops to stealing another man’s books!”
“We’ve got to put them back.”
“Got to? We’ve got to do nothing but expose him. I’ll show these to Rose, wrapped up just like this. Evidence is what I call it, and so will she. She’ll know they’re my books. We’ll give Pennyman the bum’s rush. Him and his processed hair.”
Pickett shook his head meaningfully. “I believe Pennyman to be one of the most powerful and dangerous men in the world. Don’t even think about tackling him this way.”
“If he were such a man, then why steal books? These aren’t rare, for God’s sake. He could find copies just by driving around town. He could buy copies at Acres of Books. That’s where I got most of these. Aside from the Pogo, there aren’t ten bucks worth of books here. The most powerful man in the world doesn’t need to steal books.”
“Don’t try to reason it out,” said Pickett. “There’s presidents and priests cutting the most amazing capers right now. Depend on it. They arrested that judge up in Bellflower just last week for going out naked except for a hat. He didn’t need to go out naked, did he? God almighty, man, he sure as hell didn’t need the hat. I drove a thousand miles to buy contraband breakfast cereal for you. What would Rose say if she knew it? Forget any of this business about what people need. Also, if you tell Rose that Pennyman stole these books from you, wrapped them in paper, and then hid them in his drawer, she’s going to wonder, isn’t she? She knows you’ve got it in for him.”
“I’ll show her the checkbook.”
Pickett squinted. “What checkbook?”
“Pennyman’s checkbook,” said Andrew, tossing his head toward the dresser. “There’s evidence that he paid off the fat man across the street. Sent him over to cause trouble. Rose witnessed the whole thing.”
“Maybe,” said Pickett, looking doubtful. “What will you tell her when she asks you what you were doing going through Pennyman’s things?”
“I don’t know.”
“In fact, what if she does believe it and wants to take action, to confront him? He’s a dangerous man, like I said. We don’t want to start him up over some damned petty thing like this.”
“Petty!”
“Yes,” said Pickett. “Petty. Compared to what he did to Pfennig, this is petty as hell. A couple of books … Even you say they aren’t worth anything much. Wait and watch, that’s my advice. Don’t involve Rose. Trust me. She doesn’t want to be involved.” He took the books away from Andrew again and folded them up laboriously, rubbing a finger across the tape to heat the glue and slipping the package back into the drawer. “One more box. Looks like opaque Plexiglas sealed with a neoprene gasket. Maybe some sort of waterproof … Let’s have a look.”
Andrew was silent, fuming about the books. He’d get them back; that was for sure. And he’d confront Pennyman with them, too. He’d make him sweat before he was through, he’d … “Damn it!” cried Andrew, reeling back. “What the … Close it up!”
A putrid, decaying stench filled the room. Andrew gagged and staggered toward the windows, throwing them open and leaning against the screens, sucking in air. He heard Pickett scrabbling around behind him. Gasping a lungful he turned and stepped back to where his friend wrestled with the box, trying desperately to shut the lid clean and tight enough so that the spring latch would compress the top of the box down into the neoprene. Pickett half-threw the box at Andrew, leaped up, and raced out, starting to retch, barely pausing at the door. Steeling himself, Andrew fitted the lid carefully, set the corner of the box against his knee and leaned into it, snapping the latch into place. Then he put it back into the drawer before jumping away toward the window again.
There was a heavy onshore breeze, thank heaven, angling in up the alley, straight through the window. In minutes it would have flushed out most of the reek. Andrew knew that he wasn’t in any risk of being sick anymore. But that first whiff … Pickett had barely made it.
Again, why? Why a box full of decayed—what? Andrew had seen just a bit of it, and it made no sense at all. What he thought he’d seen was a scrap of the snout and eye of a dead ‘possum—a severed head, probably. But that couldn’t be, could it? It was too bizarre to believe. And there was more than that in the box—unbelievable filth. There leaped into his mind the memory of Pennyman and the cat box. It was incredible, preposterous. There could be only one explanation—it was a joke. A sick joke. Pennyman had anticipated them, and he’d had a sealed box built just so that they’d find it. He had probably laughed himself sick over it. Rodent Control hadn’t gotten the ‘possum out of the trash can at all. Pennyman had. Andrew could imagine him cutting it up, just like the squid on the beach, just like Pfennig, and then going upstairs to strain the sand in the cat box. The man was a living horror.
Andrew shut the windows, took a look around to see that nothing was out of place, and went out. The idea of setting more traps of his own hardly appealed to him. He’d lost his appetite for that sort of gag.
“I can’t imagine why,” Mr. Pennyman said, sitting on the stool in the kitchen. Rose worked at the sink. It was evening. Andrew was out in the cafe chopping vegetables.
“Was anything gone? Stolen?” The information clearly bothered Rose. This wasn’t good—someone sneaking into Mr. Pennyman’s room. News of it would do nothing but ruin their chances of making a go of the inn.
“No, nothing stolen. Not that I could discover. I haven’t much, really, that’s worth anything. What is there to steal in an old man’s room? Not even a pocket watch. It’s the idea of it though—having one’s sanctum sanctorum, as they say, invaded by garden-variety thieves. Thank God I was out. They probably came in through the window—rather like the crowd Andrew chased off the other night. I’m half-surprised that Andrew didn’t hear them. He was probably busy with his cafe, clanking glasses and such. You wouldn’t think a sleepy neighborhood like this was such a hotbed of garret thieves, would you?”
Rose shook her head, saying nothing for a moment, but looking as if she were collecting her thoughts. Finally she said, “Should we call the police?”
Now it was Pennyman’s turn to pause. He shrugged and gave his head a little noncommittal jerk. “I suppose not. No need to drag the police in, is there? Nothing stolen after all. There’s always the chance that suspicion is cast in the wrong direction when the police meddle in these sorts of affairs. They can be inventive. And then there’s your troublesome neighbor across the street. If he came around yammering about Andrew’s having been up in the tree …”
“Well,” said Rose, “I’ll take your advice here. I’d rather this got no further, actually. If Andrew could be spared …”
“Say no more.” Pennyman held his hand up. “This is a stressful business, opening an inn. Andrew’s eccentricities can be explained. Even justified. How is he feeling, better?”
Rose looked at him. “I don’t know how you mean, but to finish my sentence, if Andrew could be spared knowing about the break-in, I’d appreciate it. It would only work him up.”
“Of course, of course. I knew just what you meant. After the business with the planning commission the other day … I’m not a practicing psychologist, Rose, but Andrew seemed to me to be rather dangerously close to the edge there. Far be it from me to butt in, though. That’s his affair—and yours, of course. I’m afraid he’s already conceived a dislike for me. I rather wish he hadn’t. I admire him, men like him …”
“I’m sure you exaggerate. He’s determined, is what he is, and I wish sometimes that he weren’t. I wish he’d put on his bedroom slippers and relax. But he can’t. H
e’s always got to be up to something, meddling around with half-finished projects, trying to make sense of things that maybe can’t be made sense of. I’m pretty sure, though, knowing him like I do, that if he got rid of all his demons, what was left afterward wouldn’t be worth as much as it should be. I rather like him the way he is, and I can tell you that you don’t have to worry about him. I’ll tell him half the truth. I’ll tell him that you were afraid that someone had been in your room, but that nothing had been stolen and so it must have been Mrs. Gummidge straightening up. It might have been, I suppose?”
Pennyman nodded and widened his eyes. “We’ll suppose so, won’t we? She was out, though, wasn’t she? I admire the hell out of your loyalty, do you know that? If I were a younger man, and you weren’t attached … Well … You’d have to be curt with me.” He smiled and winked. “Hold onto that husband of yours. He can use a bit of your energy and strength.” Pennyman strolled away, out of the kitchen, out the front door. Rose stood without moving, staring through the kitchen table.
Out in the cafe kitchen Andrew chopped vegetables on his cutting board. Every now and then he stopped and looked around him, satisfied. Tomorrow night would tell the tale. There were two reservations so far, but he expected more. The cable station was coming around to do a piece of filler on the chef-hat gimmick. He was damned lucky that they had called around to suggest it. It beat a simple photograph in the Herald.
Everything would have to roll out smooth and easy. Timing was the key in the cooking business—that and advance preparation. He hated cutting up onions. Somehow he always lost track of what he was doing and ended up with his face six inches away from the damned things, crying all over them. How many had he chopped?—eight? That ought to do it. There was no use making ten gallons of gumbo to feed a dozen people. He wouldn’t be cheap with it, though.
He raked a heap of chopped bell peppers into one of the cutting board bowls, then dumped peppercorns into a mortise and ground them to dust. He’d already mashed garlic and cut up a picnic ham and three pounds of sausages. He’d peeled the shells off a mountain of shrimp, but had left the heads attached for style, and he had a flotilla of crab legs soaking in fresh water in order to leach out some of the salt.
When Pickett knocked on the street door at eleven, Andrew was three-fourths done. Aunt Naomi’s cats had been in and out all night, looking around, winking at the shrimps, generally making themselves at home. At first Andrew had half a mind to throw them out, but he didn’t. He had to admit that he’d developed a kind of regard for them, solitary creatures that they were. He wouldn’t half-mind being a cat; they seemed so well informed. He was vaguely puzzled by his having come to like them. He could remember having been wild to pitch them out not two weeks past, and now here he was, feeding them the odd shrimp. It was what he’d felt on the stairs when he’d first gone into Pennyman’s room—the strange notion that the cats were looking out for him, that they were players in the same game, on the same team. He wouldn’t be surprised to find that Uncle Arthur fraternized with cats.
“Sit down,” said Pickett, looking as if he were wild with discoveries. “They had to throw me out at ten. I would have spent the night there if I could have. This is monumental. I’ve been talking to Robb, the reference librarian. Do you remember him?” Andrew drained the oil off the sausages and ham fat he’d been simmering, pouring the fat through a heap of cheesecloth into a measuring cup. “Slow up,” he said. “You’re about to explode. I’ve been taking it slow and easy—machine-like, that’s my way tonight. Everything done just so. Measure twice, cut once; that’s my motto. Rob who?”
“Randall Robb. At the literary society. He threatened Johnson that one night over Johnson’s misquoting a phrase from Leviticus.”
“Steely-eyed fellow with bushy eyebrows? Fierce?”
“That’s the man! He’s been running me all over the basement of the library. You wouldn’t believe the stuff he’s got stored down there: secret society stuff, apocryphal Masonic texts, suppressed Illuminatus tracts, hollow-Earth literature. It’s astonishing. And just between the two of us, the authorities think that the recent library fire wasn’t just a case of simple pyromania. There’s stuff in that basement collection that someone wanted destroyed.”
“Whoa,” said Andrew. “I thought this man Robb worked up in one of the branch libraries. Up in Glendale.”
“Eagle Rock. That was years ago. They transferred him uptown. A branch library wasn’t big enough to hold him. He’s one of the old-school librarians—wild hair, spectacles, arcane knowledge. They get that way. Nickel-and-dime information isn’t worth anything to them. They run into an odd bit here, an unlikely coincidence there, and suddenly they’re following a trail of hints and clues and allegations back into the murky depths of real history—the stuff that’s glossed over and rearranged; the stuff they don’t want us to know.”
“They again?”
“That’s right. Depend on it. But listen. He knows Pennyman. Tell me this, where did Pennyman say he came from? Back east, wasn’t it? Just blew into town like Billy Bones, right? Looking for a berth where he could watch the sea? Well it was lies. Robb knew him from the library. He’d been hanging around for six months, looking to find something but too sly to reveal what it was. He said he represented the British Museum in some sideline way. His research had to do with coins, though, and with biblical arcana. That much was sure. You and I know which coins he was after. But why? We ask ourselves that, don’t we?”
Andrew nodded and turned the flame on under his cast iron kettle, arranging a big whisk and a long-handled spoon on the range top next to it. “Just this afternoon,” he said. “But there’s the ‘what’ element, too. I’ve seen a picture of this coin, and I seem to own one that’s been beaten into a spoon and carried around Iowa in the mouth of a pig, but I don’t have the earthliest idea what that means.”
“Well hang on to your hat. Robb’s looked over my Vancouver book. The coin is definitely one of the thirty.” Pickett uttered this last phrase slow and meaningfully.
“Ah,” said Andrew, noting that the oil in his kettle was starting to smoke, and distracted by the process of gumbo-making.
“Thirty pieces of silver.”
“Ah. Thirty of them. Here goes nothing.” He poured three cups of flour into the smoking oil and began flailing at it with the whisk, knocking out lumps. Flames shot around the blackened sides of the kettle, scorching the hairs on his arm. “Pot holder!” he shouted.
“Thirty pieces of silver,” said Pickett again, looking at him fixedly.
“All right,” Andrew shouted, grabbing the whisk with his left hand and waving his right hand out away from the pot to cool it. “I’ll pay. Just give me the damned pot holder, will you, and then turn down the flame here. God almighty this is hot!”
Pickett blinked at him, then got up to fetch the pot holder,
which Andrew had carelessly left lying out of reach on the counter.
Andrew transferred the whisk to his right hand and slipped his left into the pot holder. Pickett turned the flame down by half and peered hesitantly into the pot. “What the hell?” he said.
“Black roux. Or at least it will be. Touchy process. Watch, you can almost see it turn color. If you quit whisking for a moment, it’s burnt like a cinder. Nothing to do then but pitch it out. Back away there.” With that he picked up the bowl full of heaped vegetables and poured them into the bubbling oil and flour. A great reek of steam poured up out of the kettle, and Andrew dragged it off the flame, still whisking. The worst was past. The whole business was a success. He whisked away until the mixture quit bubbling.
“Looks like the devil, doesn’t it?” said Pickett. “What do you do with it? You’re not still thinking of trying to poison the cats, are you?”
“I was never going to poison the damned cats! You eat it,” said Andrew. “After you’ve mixed it into three or four gallons of broth and tossed in all this meat and shrimp and such and a little cayenne.’’
&nb
sp; “All that oil? What is this, oil soup?”
“It’s God’s reward for our meager virtues,” said Andrew, rinsing off the whisk. He shut down the stove and closed the cookbook that had been lying on the counter.
Pickett, looking cross, picked the book up and took a look at the cover, on which was a picture of a startlingly fat man with a pudding face, grinning out across an appalling lot of sausages and crustaceans. “You’re cooking out of this man’s book?”
“Look at him,” Andrew said. “The man knows how to eat. He’s eaten more than the rest of us put together. What that man hasn’t eaten you could put in your hat. What cookbook would you suggest, the Hindu Diet Book?”
Pickett shook his head. “Oil soup with shrimp heads. Burnt oil soup with shrimp heads.” He sat down pettishly, took out his pocketknife, and pretended to scrape his fingernails, saying nothing.
“Well, where were we?” asked Andrew, smiling pleasantly. Tomorrow’s cooking would be a piece of cake. The yeoman’s work was done, and at barely eleven o’clock, too. Rose would be proud of him. She was upstairs gluing up the chef’s hats. She had protested mildly about the dimensions of the hats, about them being sewn up out of an expanse of rubberized nylon roughly the size of a bedsheet. Andrew had prevailed though, explaining to her his theory of the virtue of excess. In the morning Andrew would run down for a canister of helium. The camera crew from KNEX was due at four o’clock in the afternoon, an hour before the doors would open. It was a miracle, them calling and offering to do the story. They’d heard of the cafe, they said. They wanted to do a human interest story—local citizens make good, that sort of thing. The chef’s hats were a natural, just the sort of comic slant the public would like. Things were certainly falling together.
Andrew became aware suddenly that Pickett was in a state. He’d been almost crazy with the idea of the coins, and Andrew had lost interest because of cooking up the roux. It was time to get back on track. “Oh, yes. That’s right. That was it. Thirty pieces of silver. Just like out of the Testaments. Judas Iscariot and all.”
The Last Coin Page 26
