In the Company of Thieves

by Kage Baker

  “Joseph,” said Lewis, “Are those drumbeats?”

  Joseph turned to listen, then shifted irritably inside the peanut suit until his ear was a little closer to the eye-holes.

  “Yeah. They’re darabukas,” he said. “What have they got going up there, a Rudolph Valentino Memorial Lodge?”

  “It smells like someone’s barbequing a goat,” said Lewis, wrinkling his nose.

  “That’s lamb. And cannabis. Great. O.K., I’m not going to try anything subtle this time. I’ll march in there, find Fletcher, sock him, roll him and run for it. You’d better keep the engine running.”

  Lewis looked around. “Should I really wait right here? If I try to clear that rut at anything over five miles an hour, I’ll break an axle.”

  “So it isn’t the best spot for a quick getaway,” Joseph admitted. Hastily he accessed a topographical map of the area, then transmitted a set of coordinates to Lewis. “There you go! See that ridge, right behind the dome thing? The hill drops down on the other side to Pacific View. You wait right below; I’ll scram down the hill once I’ve got the rock, and we’ll be away before the mortals can get their cars started.”

  “Oh, that’s a much better idea,” said Lewis, noting with relief that Pacific View was at least paved. “Good luck! I’m off.”

  “See you in the funny papers,” said Joseph gloomily. Lewis let out the clutch, threw the Plymouth into neutral and braked his way down the hill until the front wheels were on solid pavement. He coasted down and around to the coordinates Joseph had sent him, and pulled up, carefully turning the front wheels into the curb.

  Worriedly he scanned the Plymouth, checking for indications of metal fatigue or excessive automotive wear. Yes; he was going to have to take it in to have the wheels aligned. A lube job wouldn’t do it any harm, either. The transmission seemed to be all right, which was miraculous, after that last climb, but perhaps he’d ask the mechanic to have a look at the clutch.

  He sat there in the dark for a moment as a gnawing conviction grew that a twig had gotten stuck in the radiator grille on that last overgrown trail. At last he got out and walked around the front of the car. Yes; yes, there was one, wedged in firmly. Shaking his head, Lewis took out his penknife and became absorbed in working the twig out.

  It took a great deal of care to avoid scratching the paint or puncturing the radiator, and so he was only dimly paying attention to the drumbeats that sounded on the night air, with the occasional drunken catcall.

  He was polishing the headlights with his pocket handkerchief when the drums suddenly stopped. There was an outcry. Lewis craned his head back to look up the hill and saw a giant peanut plummeting toward him.

  “Thank all the gods,” he said, and ran around the car to get behind the wheel. As he rounded the fender, however, he was momentarily blinded by the lights of a car speeding down Pacific View toward him. He blinked away the afterimage as it passed; a convertible, and something oddly familiar about the driver...

  Over the roar of the starting engine he heard the patter of feet as Joseph ran frantically toward the car, and felt the lurch as Joseph leaped on the running board.

  “Follow that car!” Joseph bawled through the window, pointing after the convertible. “Again.”

  “But that wasn’t Arnaud Fletcher.” Lewis cranked the wheels away from the curb and stepped on the gas. Joseph clung to the passenger door.

  “No! It’s Sterling Holloway!”

  “What?” Lewis replayed his glimpse of the passing car.

  “Sterling Holloway!”

  “Thisbe Sterling Holloway? What was he doing—”

  “Lewis, shut up and drive!”

  Lewis pursed his lips, and drove as fast as he dared with Joseph, screaming imprecations into the night, on the Plymouth’s running board. The convertible sped ahead of them, around the curve and down the long hill that dropped to the floor of the Pass. Finally back on the long straightaway of Cahuenga, they began to close the gap. The taillights of the convertible had just begun to draw appreciably closer when Lewis heard the warning siren coming from behind them.

  The traffic cop nearly wet himself laughing, but gave them a speeding ticket anyway.

  SEVEN: WHAT, A PLAY TOWARD? I'LL BE AN AUDITOR...

  “We’re lucky you didn’t get us arrested,” said Lewis, sullenly kicking at fragments of peanut costume.

  “So I was a little sore,” said Joseph, shouting from the bathroom. “It’ll be O.K. anyhow. All you’ll have to do is excuse yourself during the next rehearsal, run out to Holloway’s car and search around for the rock. Easy.”

  “No, it won’t be,” said Lewis. He opened Joseph’s kitchen cabinet and scowled at the contents. “I’m Mr. Reinhardt’s translator, remember? You go search for the damned thing. Haven’t you any Ovaltine?”

  “What?”

  “Ovaltine!”

  “No. Make some cocoa or something.”

  “No, thank you. I still have to drive home.”

  “Here.” Joseph strode out of the bathroom in his shorts, opened a drawer, dug out a bottle of single malt and poured a pair of shots into a coffee cup and a juice glass respectively. “Now it’s breakfast. Look, I am a total innocent in this tribulation of cosmic proportions. Are you going to let me tell what happened or what?”

  “Go on, then.” Lewis had a sip of whiskey, breathed out fumes, and converted the sip to water and complex sugars.

  “So there I was, sneaking up the trail toward the faux mosque or whatever it was,” said Joseph. He downed his whiskey in a gulp. “I was hearing glasses clinking, mortals laughing, all kinds of stag-party hubbub. I couldn’t hear Fletcher at first, until he came in loud and clear saying: There! What do you think of that?

  “And this dame says in reply, Oooh, Arnie, it’s beautiful! Can I wear it?

  “Whereupon this third mortal chimes in, Hell yeah! It can be the Eye of the Spider-God or something! We’ll rewrite the script! And he’s answered by this fourth party who yells, Who needs a script? We’re doing this the good old-fashioned way!”

  “Oh, dear,” said Lewis.

  “You can say that again, brother,” said Joseph from the bathroom, stropping his razor. “By this time, I was almost at this courtyard, all Moorish tiles, with the crazy house right ahead. Just then this door in the mosque opened, see, and out came these two guys dressed in burnooses. I scrammed up some steps to one side and hid, as much as I could, which wasn’t much but neither of the mortals was looking my way. One of them was saying to the other one, Aw, come on, be a sport. It’ll be fun!

  “And I thought to myself, ‘Isn’t that the little guy who’s playing Moonshine?’”

  “Otis Harlan?”

  “Yeah!”

  “Otis Happy the Dwarf Harlan?”

  “Look, who else has a voice like that? But then, the other mortal guy says: No, no, I really don’t think I’d better, and instantly I knew it was Sterling Holloway because—well, who else has a voice like that? He says further, I’m sure you meant well, but I didn’t know it was this kind of party. Are you sure Jack knows about this?

  “And Harlan says, Sure he does! You should see the parties he throws here! Look, stick around. You don’t have to be in the movie. I’ll introduce you to Maisie. She’s a swell conversationalist.” Joseph paused to shave his upper lip.

  “Movie?” said Lewis.

  “But Holloway just mumbled his regrets, and Harlan lowered his voice and started in about how he hoped Holloway was going to keep his lip buttoned about all this anyhow, on account of the Hays code. This was when I decided to try to get a peek into the garden, since that seemed to be where most of the noise was coming from. So I crept up the stairs and looked over the top and—what a scene, folks, what a scene!”

  “What kind of scene?”

  “It was another tiled terrace, O.K.? With a reflecting pool in the middle. And right below me was a wall sloping down in a sort of a ziggurat thing, and on the wall was this huge mosaic tile picture of a spi
der in a web. And this girl was leaning against it, as two guys in robes were putting fake manacles on her wrists, and they were all three giggling. She was stark naked except for some costume jewelry. I was looking straight down between her breasts and right there, looking back up at me, was the Tavernier Violet.

  “The whole place was lit up bright as day with studio lights. There was a big old camera, and a director’s chair, across the pool, and about fifteen guys and a handful of dames, everybody dressed in Arabian Nights getup. Over to one side there was a table with a punchbowl, and a hookah, and people lined up to take their turns at gin punch or marijuana, which would explain all the giggling.

  “I spotted Fletcher, and a bunch of other studio folks, Barrymore included. ‘Hah,’ I said to myself, ‘Hah, Mr. Profile, so this is another of your hideouts! Won’t Mr. Mayer be interested to learn about this! If Mr. Mayer doesn’t have a coronary arrest first.’ Right then one of the sheiks finishes his cup of hooch, strides over to the director’s chair, and plants himself in it. ‘Holy Smoke!’ I said to myself, ‘It’s Harold Lloyd!’”

  “No!” Lewis was scandalized. “Not Harold Lloyd!”

  “What, you’re surprised? You hadn’t heard he was a photography enthusiast?”

  “The Freshman Harold Lloyd?”

  “Yeah. Him. He sat himself down and yelled, Ready on stage, everyone! And everybody scrambled to their marks. Lloyd said, O.K., the Loyal Sons of the Sheik and Screw-The-Talkies Productions presents Reel Two of ‘The Sins of Old Babylon’! The sacrifice of the virgin to the Spider-God! The desert nomads have worked themselves into a frenzy of lust. Doris, you don’t know what to expect. You’re terrified, because you know what brutes men are, right? And here you are with them feasting their eyes on your fair white body. What do you imagine they’ll do next, huh? Wait a minute, she’s not fastened TO anything! You bunch of idiots! Cripes! Quick, somebody, get some rope!

  “And the girl yells, Look, youse guys, either figure out what you’re doing or get me a bathrobe!

  “And Fletcher himself came running up with a bathrobe and slipped it around her while this other son of the desert brought a piece of rope. He tied one end to the chain connecting Doris’s manacles and threw the other one up at the top of the ziggurat, see, right by where I was hiding, and I could see he was trying to loop it over a water pipe sticking out there. So I backed down the steps as fast as I could, while he was scrambling up and tying off the rope. By this time nobody was in the courtyard. I could hear Holloway out in the drive, trying to get his car started.

  “Then I heard Lloyd yell, O.K.! Camera! And somebody’s clapperboard shut with a clop, and I heard the camera cranking away. I figured it was now or never, so I ran around the side of the hill. I couldn’t see so well in the damn peanut head, so I lost a few seconds stumbling around trying to find a way to the pool terrace, and finally crawled through some bushes on my hands and knees. Suddenly I came out right behind one of the big spotlights.

  “There, across the pool, was Doris the Virgin Sacrifice, batting her eyelashes and miming horror at Myron the Lecherous Spider-Priest, who was making a couple of half-hearted passes at her with a big wooden scimitar. As I watched, up strode Bill the Desert Chieftain, and stuck up one arm, and said, No! We rode across many sand dunes to capture this beautiful slave! The Spider-God will not deny us our reward! And he threw his robe open, and guess what?”

  “I don’t think I want to know,” said Lewis.

  “Yeah, well, I didn’t either, but there it was for the whole world to see, and as Myron the Spider-Priest dropped his scimitar in feigned horror, guess what happened next?” Joseph slapped on after-shave.

  “You mean they were shooting a pornographic film?” Lewis realized belatedly.

  “So, since everybody’s attention was pretty well riveted on the action, I figured I probably wouldn’t get a better chance for a surprise attack. I took a running jump and cleared the pool, knocked Myron the Spider-Priest into the pool, shoved Bill the Desert Chieftain to one side, grabbed the Tavernier Violet, and ran like crazy for the far edge of the terrace. And jumped off.”

  “And the cameras were running the whole time?”

  “Yeah. That’s one stag film that’ll make history. So there I was, rocketing down the hill pretty much on my back, and getting a little worried because it’s quite a bit steeper than I’d thought it would be, and suddenly there’s this tree coming at me. I threw myself sideways, but I swear this branch leaped out and hit my wrist.”

  “And you let go of the diamond,” said Lewis.

  “No! I had a death-grip on the damn thing, but I was clutching it by the chain. Which had broken when I yanked it off the dame’s neck. And I was wearing those damn white Mickey Mouse mitts anyway, which made it harder to keep a grip. I had one of those slow-motion moments where I watched the rock go shooting away, like the chain was a whip snapping, and katang! It flicked out into the void of night. And dropped into the gulf of despair. And landed in the back seat of Sterling Holloway’s car.”

  “What will you do now?”

  “Do you know where the guy lives, by any chance?”

  “No.” Lewis rubbed his eyes. “And I’m not taking you on a desperate search, either. I’ve got to be at the Bowl at four this afternoon, and I haven’t slept in forty-eight hours.”

  “Real cyborgs don’t need sleep.”

  “This one does. Joseph, the dress rehearsal is tonight, for gods’ sake.”

  “Dress rehearsal, huh? So Holloway’s got to be there too! Keen. Now, what do you say we go get some flannel cakes at Musso and Frank’s?” Joseph pulled on a clean shirt and beamed at Lewis’s reflection in the mirror.

  EIGHT: THROUGH BOG, THROUGH BUSH, THROUGH BRAKE, THROUGH BRIAR...

  Lewis was still yawning as he made his way up from the Bowl parking lot, threading his way between the piers that supported the trestle. He didn’t spot Joseph until he was seated beside Reinhardt, listening to the Los Angeles Philharmonic storm through Mendelssohn’s Overture. Joseph was crouched on the trestle, high above the scene, installing a series of black-painted two-by-fours along the trestle’s edge and connecting them with lengths of black velvet rope. He winked and gave Lewis a thumbs-up.

  Lewis nodded at him, briefly, and returned his attention to Reinhardt, who was watching the stage with furrowed brow. Theseus’s court was hastily blocked out on the woodland set by standards and drapery, carried by sweating little boys in Moorish blackface and turbans. Theseus took center stage and declaimed about the slowness of the old moon waning, in tones that suggested he was just dying to take Hippolyta away to Martha’s Vineyard for a post-nuptial bottle of bubbly.

  The next scene, with the rival suitors, went badly. Olivia de Havilland was fiery and charming as Hermia, but neither Lysander nor Demetrius seemed to comprehend the meaning of their lines. Helena, entering late, had a good grasp of the role but couldn’t project or make her gestures wide enough to suit Reinhardt. At his insistence, she spoke her entire soliloquy four times in succession, and by the end truly sounded despairing and heartsick.

  Enter the clowns. Most of them, anyway.

  “Wo ist Mondshein?” muttered Reinhardt, peering at the stage.

  There’s Holloway! Joseph transmitted. I’ll go ransack his car! Lewis glanced up to see Joseph scrambling down the side of the trestle upside down, which so unnerved him that he stammered as he translated Reinhardt’s question. The assistant director glared at the other comedians.

  “He was just driving up as we went on,” said Reicher, attempting to soothe Weissberger.

  “Here I am!” Harlan came bustling onstage, out of breath but grinning. “Sorry, folks!” He took his place and elbowed Holloway, adding sotto voce: “You missed a swell party, and how!”

  Their scene proceeded. Bottom, played by Connolly as a slightly pompous know-it-all, was just displaying his prowess in roaring as gently as any sucking dove, when a distinctly ungentle roar cut through the ether to Lewis.

  WH
ERE IS IT???

  Lewis flinched. Miss Sibley, seated behind him, leaned forward and put her hand on his shoulder.

  “Are you all right, Mr. Kensington?”

  Lewis nodded and waved his hand dismissively. “Just a little headache,” he whispered, but braced himself.

  THE GODDAM THING ISN’T HERE!

  Are you sure it fell in the car? It didn’t bounce out again? Perhaps you ought to go look in the bushes along Pacific View—

  No. I saw it land! It fell in his sheik costume. He’d taken the robe off and thrown it on the floor of the back seat.

  Is the robe there still?

  No!

  Then, I suppose he found it when he took the robe out.

  Maybe. Why me? Oh, by all the frick-frackin’ gods, why me? What would you do if you found a big purple diamond while you were getting rid of the evidence of a really embarrassing party?

  Assume it had got there by mistake somehow? Stick it in my pocket?

  Maybe. Yeah. Where’s Holloway’s pants?

  In the changing tent? Lewis glanced involuntarily at the row of Army Surplus pavilions that had been set up as temporary costume and prop sheds. But you can’t go in there—

  Oh, I can’t, can’t I?

  Lewis shivered and crossed his fingers, trying to concentrate on the rehearsal. They had made it as far as the Wood Near Athens now, Apollo be thanked. There was no more than a half hour to go until sunset. The sun had already fallen behind the high ridge to the west, though it still lit the face of Mount Hollywood with red slanting light. The Bowl valley had filled up with clear blue twilight, that had been unobtrusively deepening; now the electrician hit a switch. Winking fireflies lit up the forest on the stage.

  One minor effect, and suddenly it all came together. The green gloom of the forest was haunted, living and breathing, a door into an eternal summer night. Lewis heard Miss Sibley catch her breath, clap her hands. He saw Reinhardt’s shoulders relax a little.