"Not all of them," I said.
"Not yet," he said. "Stand up."
I stood, using the bed for support.
"Now twist around on your waist. Don't turn the shoulders."
I did it.
"How's it feel?" he asked.
"Not bad," I said.
"Good," said Spelling. "I want you alive and well when I kill you."
"I appreciate that," I said.
"I'm going now," he said. "I just wanted you to know that you can't hide from me. And I wanted you…"
"Hold it," I said, reasonably sure that Spelling was not going to kill me now. "How much longer is this going to go on? You fixed my back, maybe. But you are one pompous son of a bastard, and gratitude will only go so far. So, hostage crisis or not, either shoot me or get the hell out of here."
"You're pretty goddamn impatient to die, Peters. I'm going to leave," he said, backing through the bedroom to the front door.
I took a step toward him, half expecting him to begin firing. But he didn't. When he cleared the door I hurried to the window. My back was pretty good, not a hundred percent, but good. I could get my.38 from the glove compartment and run after him, but I knew I couldn't run and I knew I couldn't shoot straight at more than ten feet. The time to use a gun is when you're sure the other guy doesn't have one.
I found my shoes and socks and put them on with new problems to think about. Why had Spelling come here? Why did he want me to figure out his poetic clues? And, most important, why the hell hadn't he shot me?
I needed a bowl of Wheaties fast.
I had a day to kill or be killed in. I went back to Phil's house. This time he was home. He opened the door, not happy to see me, and stepped back so I could enter. He looked awful. Red eyes, scrub forest of hair on his face. Walking around in his stocking feet.
I went in and I followed him through the small living room complete with photographs of his family on the fake fireplace, and matching sofa and chairs worn thin from jumping kids.
"Coffee?" he asked, sitting down at the kitchen table.
I nodded. Phil poured. Ruth was a good cook. Brisket Pot roast. Turkey. Kreplach. Matzo-ball soup. Spaghetti and mean meatballs, but there was no heart in her coffee. But Phil was a quantity man; he was content if there was plenty of Maxwell House and it was hot and black.
We drank.
"Got any Wheaties?" I asked.
Phil didn't answer. He simply rose, went to a cabinet, produced an orange Wheaties box, and went for a couple of bowls and the milk bottle.
We drank and ate for a while without talking. Then, "Spelling followed me to an apartment I was staying in," I said. "Came to the door with a gun."
"That a fact?" said Phil, without bothering to look at me.
"A fact. Don't you want to know why I'm not dead?"
"Why aren't you dead?" Phil asked indifferently, and took a sip of coffee.
"I don't know," I said. "I think he wants me at the Academy Awards dinner tonight. I think he plans to kill Varney in front of the stars and cameras. I think he wants the newspapers, Look, Life, and N.B.C. to cover it so he can tell the world how his father was destroyed by Hollywood."
Phil was eating his Wheaties and shaking his head no.
"What do you mean, no? He could walk in there tonight with a Thompson and mow down Bob Hope, Rosalind Russell, Ronald Colman, Irving Berlin, and… and Turhan Bey."
"No," Phil said, finishing his Wheaties and working on the dregs with a tilted bowl. "At least, not because his father was done in by heartless Hollywood." Phil put down his bowl. "We, the police department of Los Angeles, did some research. First, the guy who calls himself Spelling is not Spelling. Second, I know this because the Spelling who died with a sword in the middle of his gut on Gone With the Wind had no sons, no daughters, no nieces, and no nephews. Orphan. Never married."
"That doesn't make sense," I said, pushing my empty bowl and half-full cup away.
"Doesn't have to make sense, Tobias," Phil said. "It's true, but it doesn't have to make sense."
"So why is he telling everyone he's Spelling's son? Why is he killing these people? Why does he want to kill Varney? And maybe Gable? Why does he write poems and…"
"He's a crazy," said Phil. "We catch him. He maybe talks. Maybe doesn't talk. Maybe makes some kind of weird sense. Maybe makes no sense. We've both seen them. They scare the hell out of you. They make me mad. With crazies you've got nothing to count on."
"No," I said. "I don't buy that explanation while there's still a copy of Casket and Sunnyside on the shelf."
Phil suddenly brought his hand down on the bowl. It shattered. I looked at his clenched fist. Somehow, his hand wasn't bleeding.
"Phil?"
He looked across at me. "I'm on suspension," he said, on the verge of more explosions. "Maybe pushed into retirement. There wouldn't be a maybe about it if the war was over and the place was running with M.P.'s looking for work. You know what my record looks like, Toby?"
"You've worked the streets and you're honest," I said.
"I break heads and I've got a bad temper."
"You?"
Phil scratched the back of his closed right fist. A very, very bad sign.
"I think I'll be going now, Phil," I said, getting up.
He looked at me but didn't answer, and I got up.
"Tell Ruth and the kids I stopped by. Happy birthday."
"Monday, Veblin's office, Toby. You lie. You save my job. I've got nothing but that job."
He advanced on me and we were face to face, inches apart. Deja vu, a thousand times like this, maybe two thousand since I was four.
"I'm not putting on a security uniform and punching a warehouse time clock," he said.
"I'll lie," I promised.
"Good night, Toby.".
"Good night, Phil."
I left.
There had been much better days and this one could have been worse. It couldn't have been much more confusing but it could have been worse, at least for me. I was still alive.
My things were in the Crosley. I wondered if Spelling had followed me to Phil's. I looked around. Nothing, but then again I hadn't spotted him before. But then again, I hadn't been looking before.
No point in going back to Jeremy's model apartment. I headed for Mrs. Plaut's and made it there in about an hour. There was no waiting landlady. The house was quiet. I took off my shoes and tiptoed up the stairs slowly. In my room, I turned on the lights and put my bag on the sofa.
Dash sat on the table. He didn't purr. He didn't scold or make noise. He waited for food. I gave him some and then I kicked off my pants and threw my shirt on the chair. I was too tired to wash, too tired to shave, too tired to think, and my back was starting to complain again. I turned off the lights, plopped on my mattress, and hugged my third pillow.
My fingers touched something, paper. I groaned and sat up, crawling to the light with the paper in my hand. I found the switch and looked at the envelope, a Selznick International envelope complete with the drawing of the Selznick office building in the corner. My name was on it. I Opened it. Single sheet. Simple message.
"Tomorrow has finally come."
I hit the light switch, lay back, and closed my eyes.
When I opened them, I discovered that Spelling or whoever he was was right. Tomorrow had come. The sun was coming through the window and my back hurt. A lesser man or a greater one would have been discouraged. There were three things to do. First, I lifted Dash off of my stomach. His claws tickled my skin and his weight threatened my lower back. Second, I pulled myself up by the couch and balanced, clutching the pink-and-blue pillow Mrs. Plaut had given me, with "God Bless Us Every One" stitched in pink on blue. I staggered slowly to the refrigerator, pulled out the nearly empty bottle of milk and an almost-full box of Hydrox vanilla cookies with the cream centers.
I made it to the table, kicked the chair a few inches from the table, and sat. There was a reasonably clean coffee cup on the table. I filled it w
ith milk and began dunking cookies. After six cookies I was feeling decidedly better, not yet human or able to walk, but with something to live for. After six more cookies, I was confident that life had meaning, but what that meaning might be was nowhere near my understanding.
I was considering whether to finish the last three cookies and the rest of the milk when the door opened.
"Toby," said Gunther, dressed, pressed, and ready for the day in a three-piece suit and perfectly matched striped tie. "What is wrong?"
"Wrong?" I said with a grin. "Nothing. My brother's about to lose his job and it's my fault. My ex-wife, who, by the way, I still love, is seeing my lawyer. My back is out. I am nearly broke and I've got an actor to protect and a killer to catch who makes no sense."
"That, if I may say so, does not seem that unusual for you," said Gunther with concern.
"I'm running out of cookies," I tried.
"That," he said, "can be remedied. It is the look of protective madness hi your eyes that concerns me."
"I'll be fine," I assured him.
"You have a phone call," he said.
I nodded wisely and stood up, with effort.
"Some focused meditation would help your back," he said.
I grunted and used the furniture and the walls to make it past Gunther and inch my way along the wall toward the phone.
"I suggest you lean against me," he said.
I grunted again and leaned against Gunther, which made my back hurt even more but I didn't have the heart to turn down his offer of help. Gunther was sensitive about his size.
"Hello," I said.
"You got my note?"
"What's your name?"
"I didn't sign it, but you know my name. Spelling."
"Nope. Try again. Spelling had no relatives," I said.
"Not officially."
"Not unofficially either," I said. "I just read the autopsy report. Lots of stuff I didn't understand, but I did understand this-he couldn't have children. Born that way."
No sound on the other end at my less-than-brilliant but apparently effective lie. I was feeling better already.
"Let's hear a poem," I suggested. "The day is young."
"The actor dies tonight," he said, probably between clenched teeth. "And then you."
"Good-bye," I said and hung up.
I was feeling much, much better, though I didn't know why. Gunther stayed with me while I called Shelly at the office. Violet Gonsenelli answered, all businesslike, "Dr. Minck's office."
"Dr. Minck and Private Investigator Peters," I corrected.
"Dr. Minck told me…"
"Minck and Peters, like The Spirit and Ebony, Plastic Man and Woozy Winks, Captain Midnight and Ichabod Mudd," I said.
"I don't understand," Violet said.
"Is this the first call you've taken?"
"Yes."
"It gets more confusing," I said. "Let me talk to Shelly."
I talked to Shelly, fast, few words, and to the point. And then I turned to find myself facing the new boarder.
Her sudden appearance didn't dampen my senseless glee. I couldn't remember her name, but I'll never forget the look she gave me as Gunther and I said good morning and she hurried down the stairs.
"I don't think she cares for you, Gunther," I said.
"I suggest it is your countenance which disturbed her, Toby," he said.
I was dressed only in a pair of undershorts of doubtful cleanliness and protection. I needed a shave, a shower, a comb, and the impression that I could stand without the support of a wall and a very little person.
"What's your day like, Gunther?" I asked.
"Well, it is in fact a rather complex one, Toby," he said, helping me back to my room and to the chair at the table. "I have a luncheon engagement with Miss Stoltz, and Gwen is in the city and has asked if I could possibly meet with her at some point. I was thinking of tea or, perhaps… did you need my services before tonight?"
"No," I said. "Just so you're in your tux and ready by six."
"I will be," Gunther said. "If you have need of my help before eleven twenty-two, simply knock on the wall. I will be working."
And Gunther departed.
Ten minutes later I made my way to the bathroom down the hall, carrying a pair of pants and a shirt from the closet. My pants from the night before were still on the floor. I could think of no way of picking them up and then coming to anything like a standing position without massive military assistance.
I managed to shower, shave, shampoo, clean my ears with Q-tips, brush my teeth, and look myself in the face in the mirror.
I wasn't perfect, but I was better and better. I sat on the sofa, clutched Mrs. Plaut's pillow, looked down at Dash who was washing himself, and fell asleep.
Koko the Clown came in the room. He had a big orange drum with the words "University of Illinois" printed on it in blue letters. He was banging the drum and singing, "Cincinnati, Cincinnati," over and over again in a voice I recognized but couldn't place.
"No," I muttered.
"Yes," said Koko, banging the drum so hard that it split. Little penguins began to leap out of the drum. They looked around the room, looked at me, and went for the refrigerator. One stood on another and then another and another till they could reach the handle. I tried to say no again but I couldn't move and Koko was banging on my stomach.
He was whispering something. I hoped it wasn't Cincinnati.
"When are the unborn born? When are the dead not dead?" he said. It was Spelling's voice.
"How the hell should I know?" I said, or thought I said. "Riddle me no damn riddles and get those damn penquins back in the drum and away from my last three Hydrox cookies."
Koko was a foot tall and standing on the floor looking up at me with hands on his hips. The little white ball of yarn on the peak of his pointed cap was rippling from a source-less wind.
"Penguin," he said.
"That's what I said."
"You said penquin," Koko corrected. "How can you catch me if you don't catch the little mistakes."
The penguins turned. I don't know how many of them. Each one had a Hydrox cookie in its beak. They were moving toward me and growing bigger. I tried to back away, scream, but I couldn't. Then I opened my eyes.
Shelly, Jeremy, and Gunther stood before me wearing tuxedos. Shelly's neck was pinched and his face was red. He held out his hand, palm-up, and handed me three white pills. I took them and put them in my mouth. He handed me a glass of water. I drank it and handed the glass back.
"No penquins in Cincinnati," I said.
Jeremy lifted me under the arms and turned me around. I was still clutching Mrs. Plaut's pillow and I was facing the wall. Jeremy said something and then I felt a sudden whaap just above my rear end. Jeremy sat me down again and I handed him the pillow. He gave it to Gunther.
"Sit quietly a minute or two," Jeremy said.
I blinked and sat quietly. Shelly handed me the glass of water again. I finished it. It was warm.
"I'm okay now," I said.
"See if you can stand," Jeremy said.
I was slow, careful, but I could stand and the pain was gone. I'd had results like this before from Shelly's pills and Jeremy's knee and arms. It might last for days or weeks. Then again, my back might be worse than before in a few hours.
"Time?" I asked, trying to focus on the Beech-Nut clock.
"A few minutes after six," Gunther said, looking at his big pocket watch.
"Got to get into my tux," I said.
"We put it on you," Shelly said, trying to breathe.
I looked down.
"How do I look?"
"Functional," said Jeremy.
"Then," I said, blowing out the bad air and brushing my hair back with my palms. "Let's go to a party."
Chapter 14
Mame Stoltz was waiting for us in front of the Ambassador Hotel where the Academy and its guests were arriving. She was wearing a black lacy gown with pearls around her neck. When she saw us,
she dropped the cigarette she had been working on, ground it out with the sole of her black high-heeled pump, and said, "You're late."
"Parking was difficult and Toby has been a bit beneath the weather," said Gunther, taking her hand. "You look lovely."
I give it to Mame. She didn't look around to see how the gathering crowd was reacting to the tender moment between the little man and the not-little woman.
"Gunther's right. You look awful, Toby," she said.
"You should have seen him twenty minutes ago," said Shelly, looking around for celebrities.
Mame led us past a Movietone crew interviewing Bing Crosby, who gave nods and waves to the fans gathering, calling, cheering. Photographers were taking pictures of everyone, including us.
Lieutenant Van Heflin, wearing his dress army uniform, walked in ahead of us with a dark serious woman on his arm.
"I tell you that's Billy Barty," a woman said.
"The other one," someone squealed. "That's Sydney Greenstreet. I didn't know he wore such thick glasses."
"That one. That one," came another female voice. "I'll bet that's Van Heflin's father."
I turned as we kept moving. The woman was pointing at me. Mame nodded and the two uniformed doormen backed by two uniformed security guards parted and we marched in. Shelly picked up the rear. He was grinning and waving to the crowd, who waved back.
"I could have been an actor," Shelly said as we followed Mame through the crowded lobby.
Many of the men were in uniform. In fact, the Academy had claimed that 27,677 members of the industry were in the military. A fact that accounted for Lionel Varney's triumphant return to Hollywood. I was looking for Lionel as we walked. I saw Tyrone Power in his marine private's dress uniform talking to Alan Ladd in his air-corps private's uniform. Power was about my height. Ladd barely reached his shoulders, but his eyes met mine and I was the one who turned away.
A young woman in a maid's uniform came past us with a tray of what looked like whipped eggs on Ritz crackers. Shelly grabbed three of them, almost knocking the woman over.
"Through here," Mame said over her shoulder.
Tomorrow Is Another day tp-18 Page 16
