by Ed Gorman
It took some time for Tobin to recognize who was what but after a few drinks everything came clear.
Jere Farris, the producer, was dressed up as a cowboy; Alicia Farris was dressed up as Calamity Jane; Todd Ames, the new host, was Robin Hood and his wife, Beth, was a mermaid; Cassie McDowell was Bo Peep; Susan Richards was a hooker in a slit skirt and bountiful white peasant blouse; and Kevin Anderson was Tarzan. Everybody on the celebrity dais sat in a semicircle, just as they did on the "Celebrity Circle" set.
Only Anderson seemed even remotely happy to see Tobin and Cindy, and Anderson was interested only in Cindy. He looked as if he regretted throwing her out and blacking her eye this morning. Her nun's habit really did stir you up.
Tobin was about to start his third drink when he saw Joanna Howard sit down at a table out with the civilians. She was dressed up as Amelia Earhart-leather flying cap, leather jacket, fancy white trailing scarf- and she looked, in a stark way, lovely. She also looked, as always, lost.
"Poor kid," Tobin said, feeling his booze more than he'd imagined-or hoped-he would. Then he told Cindy all about Joanna's wretched love life.
Cindy nodded. "She reminds me of Aberdeen. Only skinnier."
"We should invite her up here to sit with us."
"Yes, we should." He was surprised to hear her slosh her words, as he was sloshing his.
He stood up-wobbly now-put his two pinkie fingers in his teeth, and whistled. Or tried to. About halfway through, he recalled that he didn't know how to whistle. It was just one of many reasons he'd felt inferior to all the other boys growing up. That and being slightly shorter than every kid's little brother.
So he did what seemed natural, at the moment anyway. He stood up and shouted, "Hey, Joanna!"
She was embarrassed by the attention.
Tobin persisted. "Hey, come on up here!"
So she came up, obviously just to keep him quiet.
"Quite a crowd, isn't it?" Joanna said, having to raise her voice to be heard above the drunken din. She was obviously uncomfortable raising her voice.
"You don't have a date, do you?" Cindy said. She made it sound as if Joanna had just had her arm amputated.
Joanna's eyes shifted miserably to Jere Farris, bombed and swinging a champagne glass around, spilling some on his spangly Grand Ole Opry cowboy clothes.
"No," she said.
"Then you get right up here and sit with us," Cindy said grandly, and started patting the empty chair next to her as if Joanna were a poodle who knew when to jump up on her mistress's lap.
"Oh," Joanna said, obviously about to protest.
"You come on now," Cindy McBain said. "I'm a nun and you're supposed to obey me." She giggled.
"Well," Joanna said, her eyes once again hooking forlornly on Jere's face. "Well, I guess it would be all right.”
Three drinks later, Cindy, who held her liquor as well as any other horny fourteen-year-old junior-high girl said, "Tobin tells me you're in love with Jere Farris."
Which of course got Tobin one of those ten-thou-sand-daggers-in-your-heart glances from Joanna. "I… I care for Jere."
Cindy patted her hand. "As soon as Tobin goes tinkle, I'll tell you all about married men."
Tobin was about to protest when he felt Alicia Farris's glare on him. She obviously did not care to have her husband's mistress sitting at the same table and Tobin really didn't blame her. He'd been drunk enough that he'd forgotten all about the impropriety of asking Joanna up here.
The lounge boys left the stage to far too much applause, replaced by a dance combo that turned "When Sunny Gets Blue" into a foxtrot.
The dancing began with confetti and streamers drifting from the ceiling.
Tobin turned to ask Cindy to dance but he saw that she was deep in conversation with Joanna. "I've always had a simple rule about married men. If they don't give you a gift every month that's worth at least a thousand dollars, then you're really wasting your time."
Susan Richards must have seen Tobin's dilemma because she walked around the celebrity dais and came over to him. "Would you like to dance?"
"You're about three inches taller than me."
She smiled her wonderful smile. "You can stand on my feet."
The band played "Fly Me to the Moon" and they danced.
She smelled luxuriantly of perfume and herself and he held her tighter than was necessary but she didn't seem to mind, indeed laid her long fingers gently on the back of his neck as they moved through the melancholy darkness of the dance floor, the feeling like that of a New Year's Eve bash, hilarity and a certain sadness at the same time.
Then she startled him by leaning down (she was actually closer to five inches taller in her hooker heels) and brushing her mouth against his.
He came alive in a way that was almost painful, yet was also a wonderful experience for a forty-two-year-old sot who had recently begun worrying not about the quantity of his erections but the quality.
"My God," he said.
"I'm drunk."
"So am I."
"I only do this sometimes. I'm really not promiscuous."
"Neither am I," he said, "though it's not for want of trying."
She smiled. "'The maid who laughs is half taken.'"
"Fifteenth century, I believe."
"Something like that. But it's true. I like your jokes on the set. Everybody else is so concerned about the show. But you-"
She touched her mouth to his again.
He felt transported back to 1958 and the St. Michael's gym. He was moving as one about the floor with Mary Sue O'Hallahan. He knew she knew he had an erection that threatened to cause him a heart attack. He wondered if she minded. That had always been the big mystery in those days-did girls actually want you to get erections or did they just sort of put up with it when you did?
All these long years later, he was getting his answer.
"My cabin or yours?" she said easily.
And then he happened to glance over her shoulder-actually through her armpit, his level of vision not reaching her shoulder-and saw Todd Ames in his Robin Hood getup start to leave the celebrity dais.
Tobin assumed he was going one of two places. To the biffy or to Tobin's cabin.
Tobin would lay even money on the latter.
"Could we," he said miserably, "meet a little later?"
Pressed against him, and breathless as he, she said, "Later? Tobin, are you crazy?"
"I know. And I'm sorry. But…"
She stared at him with her overly made-up eyes (wasn't there a hooker someplace on God's own planet who didn't wear any makeup at all). With a quiet air of disbelief in her voice, she said, "You having some problems?"
"No."
"I mean, we don't have to jump on top of each other. Sometimes men your age-well, I love necking myself. It's like high school again."
Wretchedly, he watched Todd Ames leave the restaurant.
And all he could do was break and run.
"Tobin!" she shouted. "Tobin! You get back here!"
But by now Ames had vanished and Tobin was worried that he wouldn't be able to beat him back to his cabin.
He had to climb three flights of stairs and run down what seemed endless miles of corridor. He was sweating and panting and just about ready to barf when he reached his cabin door.
He pushed his ear to the wood and listened.
Party sounds floated up from below; a sky gorgeous with summer stars spread with radiant beauty round the entire world.
From inside, nothing.
Quickly, he inserted his key and ducked into his cabin.
29
10:21 P.M.
Todd Ames had apparently gone to the John because twenty minutes after entering his cabin Tobin had neither heard from nor seen the man.
Which caused a certain degree of resentment in Tobin. Standing up in a corner of the dark closet was not fun. At least it was big and mostly empty but still it was dull, particularly given the fact that Tobin had abandoned the chance
to have some sort of tryst with Susan Richards to be here.
All he could do now, unfortunately, was wait. The large dusty closet was lit only by corridor light spilling into the louvered door.
Ten minutes later he had to risk going to the bathroom. He just couldn't hold it anymore.
He ran in and did the deed and ran back.
He'd just gotten the closet door closed when he heard footsteps coming down the corridor.
Tobin had made it easy for whoever might want to claim the personal effects of Iris Graves and Everett Sanderson.
He'd put everything right in the middle of the bed.
All the thief had to do was rummage through it, take what he or she wanted, and then Tobin would spring from the closet and trap the person.
It sure sounded simple enough…
The cabin doorknob rattled as it was turned first rightward and then leftward.
Tobin's heart began pounding so loudly he wondered if the intruder could hear it. Sweat started collecting under his arms and down his back and in his shoes. Flop sweat.
The door creaked open.
Either the intruder possessed burglary tools or knew how to use a credit card. The door creaked shut.
A dark form stood in the center of the cabin, looking around, as if he suspected that he was indeed being spied upon.
No problem identifying the person. There'd been only one cowboy at the costume party tonight. Jere Farris.
The cowboy outfit had included a pair of spurs, which did not exactly lend themselves to stealth. As Farris crossed the room to the bed, thumbing on a flashlight whose beam was yellow and lurid in the gloom, his spurs began to jangle.
Farris set to work.
He went through the box belonging to Sanderson first. He picked up a variety of items, examined each, and then put them back.
Next he went through Iris Graves's material and it was here that he paused at great length, especially when he came to the notebook Tobin had so thoughtfully set out.
He thumbed through the pages to the middle section where she'd done most of her writing on the "Celebrity Circle" show. Then he said, "Sonofabitch."
Obviously Farris knew that Iris Graves had known something about the "Circle" crew.
The next set of footsteps were lighter than Farris's had been.
Both Tobin and Farris froze and stared at the cabin door, the knob of which was being shaken in a hopeless attempt to rattle it open.
Tobin watched Farris panic-whip his head around, his white Stetson nearly falling off, searching desperately for a place to hide.
Where else in a cabin like this could you hide?
The person at the cabin door now applied a credit card, just as Farris himself had done.
Farris stuffed the book inside his vest and started for the closet.
Wanting to see who else was coming to steal something from his cabin, Tobin obligingly opened the closet door and then put a finger to his lips and made a big sssshing! sound.
Farris, startled, almost yelled out something in surprise but Tobin gave him a double sssh! and that took care of him.
Tobin grabbed Farris by the wrist, yanked him inside, and then waited to see who came in next.
She had some kind of lantern, one of those bulky jobs you take camping to Montana. It looked all wrong with her Bo Peep getup. You would have thought that Cassie McDowell would have elected something more graceful and feminine.
Like Farris, she stood in the dark, orienting herself first. But it didn't take long for her to find the things piled on the bed. Tobin had put everything but a STEAL ME QUICK sign on the stuff.
Several times Farris in his goofy cowboy clothes leaned toward Tobin as if he wanted to whisper something but Tobin pointed a finger at him, implying that he'd punch Farris for making any sound at all.
Cassie went through the material in much the same order Farris had. Something seemed to interest her in Sanderson's belongings, though from the angle of the closet, Tobin could not see what. Then she began to work through Iris Graves's things.
Or started to, anyway.
She'd no more than lifted Iris's reporter's pad when somebody could be heard moving down the corridor.
Cassie stopped, killed the lantern.
In the shadows Tobin could hear all three of them breathing. They sounded as if they'd been running up and down stairs.
A hand wrenched the cabin doorknob.
"Oh, shit," Cassie said, though not loudly enough to be heard in the corridor.
Her eyes searched frantically about the cabin and came to rest, of course, on the louvered closet door.
Tobin opened it up, stuck out his head, grabbed her elbow, and jerked her in, clamping a hand over her mouth for good measure.
He got the closet door closed and then the three of them-Tobin, Cassie, and Farris (who'd moved down one, the way used-up guests did on the Carson show)-watched as Tarzan came into the room.
Kevin Anderson, macho guy that he was, had not brought a light along. Presumably this was because of his X-ray vision.
He went without pause to the bed and the material. He was, of course, neither as gentle nor as neat as Farris and Cassie had been. He made a quick mess of things, in fact, scattering items all over the bed. He reminded Tobin of a dog rooting for something buried.
The less he found that interested him, the more furious Anderson's search became.
Until the next set of footsteps came along.
Where Farris and Cassie had gotten scared, Anderson got angry.
He stood in the center of the cabin looking big and fit but vaguely silly in his fake leopard skin loincloth, making a large club from his fist.
Obviously he was simply going to deck whoever came through the door.
But, not wanting the next person to be scared off- he'd learned nothing so far but the person now trying the doorknob might just be the one-Tobin once again eased open the closet door and went, "Pssst!"
Anderson spun around as if somebody had struck him in the back of the head with a rock.
"Get in here!" Tobin whispered.
As the cabin door was starting to open, Anderson apparently got caught up in the moment and complied without any hassle.
Cassie moved down one inside the closet and Anderson took her place. Now there were Tobin, Anderson, Cassie, and Farris. Everything smelled cramped and sweaty. Only Cassie's perfume kept the closet from reeking like a locker room.
A beautiful hooker came in next. She'd brought one of those dinky pencil flashlights doctors use when they make you say "Ahhhh."
Tobin got a vicious elbow in the rib from Anderson. Cassie, who'd had more than her share to drink, had tottered into Anderson and so Tobin wound up getting the elbow. He wanted to curse and very loudly but he knew better. In here all he could say was, "Ssshhh!"
All of them leaned up to the louvers so they could watch as Susan Richards sorted through the debris Kevin Anderson had strewn all over the bed.
The problem was, Tobin realized, you couldn't see whose stuff-Sanderson's or Iris's-she was going through because now it was all mixed up together.
Something caught her attention, though, because she leaned way over and started to examine it.
Tobin couldn't be sure if she picked it up and took it because about the time she would have been doing so, the cabin door opened up and there stood somebody else with a flashlight.
Todd Ames must have crept along the corridor on tiptoes because none of them had heard him at all.
Now Ames and Susan stood a few feet apart in the gloom, shining their lights on each other.
"Susan, what are you doing here?"
"I could ask the same question, Todd."
"I'm sick of this bullshit!" Anderson said and ripped open the closet door.
Susan screamed.
Ames threw on the lights and held up a. 45 he'd concealed in his thick sueded Robin Hood belt.
Susan, seeing everybody come out of the closet, said, "What were you all doing in there?"<
br />
"Watching you," Tobin said. He nodded to Ames. "You'd better either use that or put it away."
Ames touched one side of his perfect gray hair and said, "Seems as if I should be the one giving the orders."
Anderson moved so quickly even Tobin was forced to admit he was impressed.
Anderson slapped Ames across the face and then simply took the gun from him.
Anderson said, "Now, Tobin, you little bastard, I want you to tell me what's going on here."
30
11:45 P.M.
"So why don't we just get it over with?" Tobin said, once they'd all found various places to sit.
"Get what over with?" Cassie McDowell asked, reverting to TV. She was the naive schoolteacher of "McKinley High, USA." Her Bo Peep garb had never seemed more appropriate.
"Gosh, I can't imagine," Tobin said. Then, "What the hell do you think I'm talking about? I told Jere and you that I had the personal effects of Iris Graves and Everett Sanderson in my room-and then each of you proceeded to break in. What the hell were you looking for?"
Kevin Anderson and Todd Ames had helped themselves to the quart of Wild Turkey Tobin had sitting on his bureau. They guzzled it without ice from transparent plastic glasses.
Ames said, "We don't have to answer a damn thing."
Susan Richards, lighting a cigarette, said, "I came here because I heard there was a party."
"Right," Tobin said, "so you jimmied the lock with a credit card and came in."
Tobin, as always when he was angry, paced. Being small and compact, he gave the impression of great energy as he did so. With his Burglar mask still on, he looked both greatly earnest and greatly comic.
He paused at Kevin Anderson and said, "I'm surprised you'd be afraid of him."
"Afraid of who?"
"Of Ken Norris."
Anderson's masculinity had been challenged. "Who said I was afraid of him?"
"If you hadn't been then you wouldn't have resorted to killing him."
