Melting Clock

“Tina Swerler,” she said. “The babysitter. The Pevsners are out. It’s after midnight.”

“Did I wake up the kids?”

“Lucy and Dave are asleep. Nat’s still up.”

“Can I talk to him?”

Pause and then, “Uncle Toby?”

“Yeah.”

“You on a case?”

“Yeah,” I said.

Nat was twelve. He knew better than to ask me if I’d killed anyone today. That was David’s question. David was eight and kept track of my murders in the pursuit of justice. The last time I had checked with David the count was sixteen. I was still well behind David Harding, Counterspy. The truth was I’d never killed anyone, and had only shot in the general direction of a few people in the ten years since I’d left the Glendale Police Department. I was and am a terrible shot.

“Tina let me taste wine,” Nat said.

“How old is Tina?” I asked.

“Seventeen,” he said.

“Tell your father and mother I said happy New Year. And tell David and Lucy. I’ll try to stop by tomorrow.”

“You mean later,” he corrected me. “It’s already tomorrow.”

“It’s never tomorrow,” I corrected him.

“I guess,” he replied, perplexed. “Are you drunk, Uncle Toby?”

“Not yet,” I said. “Good-night, kid.”

“Good-night, Uncle Toby. Uncle Toby?”

“Yeah, Nat.”

“He doesn’t want to be called David, or even Dave. He wants to be called Durango.”

“Durango Pevsner,” I said. “I’ll try to remember. Thanks. Good-night.”

There was no one else to call. I wouldn’t go to Phil’s house in the morning. I didn’t know why. I just knew I wouldn’t go. I’d stay in my room till I went nuts. Then I’d go to my office or to a movie. Usually I could count on Gunther to accompany me to nearly any movie, but Gunther now had Gwen.

I went into the bathroom I shared with Mr. Hill and Gunther, put Mrs. Plaut’s manuscript on the sink and looked at my face in the mirror. I had shaved before the party but I still didn’t look like Victor Mature. The hair was there and dark, mainly, with flecks of gray. The nose was flat and the eyes brown. The ears stuck out a little, which should have detracted from the image of the guy who shouldn’t be messed with, the guy who knows how to take a punch and how to give one. Only I hadn’t given many punches.

I had a good face for my profession. Maybe I should have been better at it, but I lacked ambition. That was what Anne had always said, that I lacked ambition and was still about fourteen years old emotionally.

Who the hell was Anne with tonight? No, don’t think that way. Next thing you know you’ll be listening in on phone calls, going through her garbage for notes, taking photographs from trees, and following her around to girdle shops.

I went back to my room. My room at Mrs. Plaut’s was modest. Sofa with doilies made by the great lady herself, complete with a small purple pillow on which was sewn “God Bless Us Every One.” On the wall was a Beech-Nut Gum clock that told pretty good time, at least as compared to my watch. I took the watch off and put it on the little dresser near the door. It had been my father’s, the only thing he had left me. It told the right time twice a day if I was lucky and didn’t rewind it.

I had a bed, but I didn’t use it much. I dragged the mattress onto the floor to appease the God of Bad Backs. There were a few Gobel beers in the small refrigerator in the corner. They’d been there for months. I fished behind the milk and found one. I pulled it out, closed the door, sat at my little table for two, and popped the top with my Pepsi opener.

I didn’t want a beer, but I drank it. I owed it to Nat.

With Mrs. Plaut’s chapter at my side, I lay on the mattress and was asleep on the floor in my underwear before the Beech-Nut Gum clock clicked to one.

When I woke up in the morning, the cat was sleeping on the bed next to me.

The cat’s name is Dash. Notice I didn’t say “My cat’s name is Dash.” He’s not mine. He abides with me when he wants to come in through the window, get some attention, and eat. He’s big and orange and saved my life once.

I made the dangerous barefooted journey to the front porch in my blue beach robe that had Downtown Y.M.C.A. written on the back in black letters. I almost never beat Mrs. Plaut to the L.A. Times, but she must have slept in after a party that rivaled those thrown by John Barrymore and Fatty Arbuckle.

Back in my room, I fixed myself a bowl of Wheaties and a glass of Borden’s Hemo, did the same for Dash, and read the paper while I ate. I considered a second round for both me and the cat, but milk was up to fifteen cents a quart and clients were down almost one hundred percent.

My back was okay and I wasn’t feeling as sorry for myself as I had the night before, partly because the sun was bright, partly because it was a new year and the news wasn’t bad.

The Soviets were routing the Nazis, claiming that more than 312,000 Germans had been killed. Even Hitler was telling the Germans that it was going to be a tough year. And here at home, oleomargarine was hard to get.

In the movie section I found two choices, either Who Done It? with Abbott and Costello or Time to Kill with Lloyd Nolan as Mike Shayne. Tough choice. I decided on both of them, providing the Rose Bowl game was over early enough. I had a busy day planned.

I lay in bed grappling with Mrs. Plaut’s prose until the game came on. The Times had reported that Georgia coach Wally Butts had said Frank Sinkwich wouldn’t start. His star running back had a bad ankle. Sophomore Charlie Trippi would replace him. Trippi was supposed to be okay, but no offensive match for U.C.L.A. quarterback Bob Waterfield’s arm.

I slept on and off through most of the game and woke up when the crowd, reported at 93,000, roared and I heard a voice say that Sinkwich had gone in for the touchdown. Dash didn’t seem to be around.

“Telephone,” came Mrs. Plaut’s voice from outside my door.

I mumbled some dry-mouthed something that I hoped would satisfy her and let her know I was trying to rejoin the land of the living, but Mrs. Plaut was not an easy woman to reach. She came through the door and looked down at me. She was wearing what at first looked like a cloak and dagger but turned out to be a U.C.L.A. shawl and trowel.

“Telephone,” she repeated.

“Mrs. Plaut, though I know this will do me no good, to hold onto the illusion that you and I are capable of communication, I’ll ask you again, please don’t come in here without the following scenario: You knock and I answer. I answer one of several ways: Come in. Just a minute. Or, I can’t open the door now. There are variations on this.”

“Phone is waiting,” she said, looking first at me and then at the crumpled L.A. Times, “and I’ve got apples to peel.”

“I’m almost naked,” I said, sitting up.

“You are just noticing that?” she asked. “I knew it as soon as I came through the door. Kindly put the newspaper back together, especially the funny papers and the cooking, and bring it down to me.”

“Who …?” I began, but she was gone.

I put on my blue robe and went out to the phone on the landing. “Hello,” I said.

“Dali is distraught,” came a high-pitched woman’s voice with a distinct accent that might have been Russian.

“Sorry to hear that,” I said.

“When Dali is distraught, he cannot work,” she went on. “He can think only brown. Brown is not a good color for Dali to think in.”

“I see,” I said. Downstairs, Mrs. Plaut carried a bowl of apples out onto the front porch.