There were two beds in the guest room. I washed my face, brushed my teeth with my finger and some Dr. Lyon’s tooth powder Jeremy let me use, took all the stuff out of my pockets and put it on the low dark dresser against the wall, and then took off my clothes and hung them in the closet. Jeremy, fully clothed, sat on one of the beds reading.
“What’re you reading?”
“Theodore Spencer,” said Jeremy, “Listen:
“Sounds nice,” I said, scratching my thigh through my underwear.
“I’ll read it to Alice tomorrow,” he said. “It’s part of a longer work. If you like, I’ll go in the other room to read.”
“Don’t bother. I’ll be asleep in a minute. My problem’s not getting to sleep, it’s staying there.”
And I was right. All I had to do was close my eyes and try to make sense out of what had happened in the last three days. I thought about Gregory Novak. I might even have said the name, but that was about all I did think or say before I fell asleep.
I dreamed of Gala in the kitchen singing “The World Is Mine Tonight” and making flapjacks on the griddle. She was wearing a frilly apron and doing her best to look like Betty Crocker. I was waiting for the flapjacks when Dali came in wearing overalls, a plaid shirt, and a straw hat.
“They’re almost ready to harvest,” he said, sitting at the table and grinning at me. He pointed to the window.
I got up and looked over the shoulder of the busy, singing Gala. The sun was white bright but I could see the shore-along the beach, in the sand, clocks were in bloom, black clocks just like the one in the other room. Music was coming from inside the house, dark music.
“Blood makes them grow,” Dali said behind me.
And now I could see that the sand around each clock was red.
I woke up. Jeremy was sitting in the same position, still reading, but he was at the end of the book.
“Time is it?” I asked blearily.
“Four-thirty,” he said. “I’ve checked the doors twice. I wasn’t sleepy.”
“I’m up now.” I sat up. “Get some sleep.”
I was awake but I could still hear the dark music.
“What is that?”
“Bach,” said Jeremy. “A fugue for organ. I think Dali uses it for background music while he paints.”
“Why not?” I got out of bed and almost crashed into the wall when my leg refused to hold my weight. I managed to steady myself by grabbing hold of the headboard.
“Would you like the book?” asked Jeremy.
“No, thanks,” I said, making it to the closet. “I’m going to see if I can find some coffee.”
Jeremy took off his shoes, removed his clothes, and put on a pair of clean pajamas that had been folded neatly in the small suitcase he had brought.
“Wake me no later than nine,” he instructed, lying back and closing his eyes.
“We’ll see how it goes,” I said, slipping on my shoes. “You can turn off the light.”
And he did.
I made my way into the kitchen. It was empty but I could still hear the organ. In fact, it made the floor reverberate under my feet. I didn’t find coffee or cereal. There was a loaf of bread. I went into an enclosed deck on the sea-side of the house, opened the window so I could hear the surf, and sat in a straightbacked chair with the bread and glass of water. The sun rose somewhere over the Rockies and hit the shore. The view was great. We were on a ridge about fifty yards from the beach. The weeds were below the ridge and a sandy path led down just outside the window. Gulls swooped and sat on something near the shore that looked like a big chair.
“It’s a throne,” said Dali, looming up behind me. “I shall tell my guests tonight that it is the throne of Cleopatra’s father.”
I jumped up, my heart beating like a combination by Henry Armstrong.
“You scared the shit out of me,” I remonstrated.
“It is the fate of man since clothing was invented to embarrass us that we should soil ourselves,” he said. “In fear, in passion, in disgrace. It is a concern that only humans have, particularly fathers.”
Dali was wearing the same tiger-skin robe and pink silk pajamas. He had one of those long-stemmed glasses in each hand. He handed me one.
“Orange juice,” he said. “From my cache of fruit.”
I took it and drank.
“Good stuff,” I said.
“Today we find my stolen painting,” he affirmed.
“Could be,” I hedged.
“I saw it in a dream,” he said.
“When did you sleep?”
“Here, there, a moment an interrupted dream. I do not need light to paint. The light is in here.”
He pointed to his head.
“Like a Mazda bulb,” I said.
“Precisely. The Impressionists need light from outside, from nature, from the gods. Surrealists get light from inside themselves. They need no gods.”
“Pretty weighty stuff for dawn,” I said. “This is more Jeremy’s line. Mind if I use the phone?”
“It is not chilled,” he complained. “There is a phone in the kitchen but I cannot bear to touch it. It sticks to the fingers. Phones should be chilled.”
“I’ll try not to be too disgusted,” I said.
It was almost six on a Monday morning. I called the boarding house, hoping for Gunther. I got Mrs. Plaut on the second ring.
Before I could say anything, she shouted, “Early, but I don’t care. I had to feed the bird.”
“Mrs. Plaut, it’s me, Toby Peters. Can you get Gunth-?”
“Mr. Peelers, the police are an interesting lot, Lord knows, but they spend entirely too much time here looking for you.”
“The police were there?”
“Have you been killing people again, Mr. Peelers? I have asked you to stop that manner of behavior.”
“I’ve never killed anyone, Mrs. Plaut,” I objected. “Can I please speak to-”
“They asked me about a clock,” Mrs. Plaut went on. “I showed them the Beech-Nut clock on the wall of your room, the grandmother clock in my sitting room, but they were not interested.”
Dali was now standing in the doorway to the kitchen, empty glass in hand.
“Gunther Wherthman,” I said loudly, emphatically, to Mrs. Plaut, to no avail.
“They talked to Mr. Gunther Wherthman also,” she said. “I informed them that if they wanted to apprehend you for murdering more people they would be well advised to go search for you instead of indulging in hobbies.”
“Allow me,” said Dali, reaching for the phone.
He had a clean new handkerchief in his hand and took the phone carefully, like a hot-shot evidence man at a crime scene.
He handed the phone to me and cleaned his hands.
“She’s getting your Mr. Wherthman,” he said. “I must dry my hands.”
“Mrs. Plaut can’t speak Spanish,” I said as he threw into the corner the offending handkerchief that had touched an unchilled phone.
“Her Spanish is flawless,” said Dali. “A bit of the Andalusian but perfect.”
