And he was gone.
“Toby?” came Gunther’s voice over the phone.
“I’m here, Gunther.”
“Police were here. Sergeant Seidman.”
“Did they see the painting?”
“No, it is in my room, under the bed. They would not say why they were looking for you.”
“Fleeing the scene of the crime, absconding with evidence, possibly suspicion of murder.”
“That is less serious than last time,” he said. “They wish you to come see them immediately. I believe that a police automobile with a red-haired man inside is waiting across the street.”
“Thanks, Gunther,” I said. “Here’s my number. Don’t write it anywhere.”
“Be cautious, Toby,” he counseled.
“I will,” I said. “Did you know Mrs. Plaut speaks Andalusian Spanish?”
“Yes,” he said. “And a very acceptable French.”
“Why didn’t I know that?”
“Toby, you are my closest friend, the closest friend I have ever had and yet you have an inclination to close yourself off from that which will alter your perception of others. Mrs. Plaut is an enigma, not a joke.”
“I hate art and philosophy, Gunther. And I don’t care all that much for literature.”
“I know that you believe that, Toby. Please, I did not intend to agitate you.”
“I’m sorry, Gunther. I don’t really hate art and literature.
“I know that. Did you get enough sleep last night?”
At that instant, Gala, a twig in a purple dress reaching to the floor, washed into the room.
“No,” I said.
“Off the phone,” Gala ordered.
I turned my back on her. I had been about to end the conversation, but now I was more than a little inclined to engage Gunther in discussion of Da Vinci, Debussy, or Frankie Sinkwich.
“Recommend some reading for me, Gunther,” I said.
“I have a party to arrange for Dali and only twelve hours to complete it,” Gala said. “The phone is required.”
“I will gladly make a list and let you borrow my books,” said Gunther, “but I would prefer that you not remove them from Mrs. Plaut’s premises.”
“I’ll talk to you, Gunther,” I said.
“Be more concerned for your safety,” he answered, and I hung up.
Gala took the phone from me and motioned for me to get out of the way and out of the kitchen. I left.
The rest of the day, Jeremy-after I woke him at nine-and I took turns watching the street. A couple of truckloads of caterers arrived around three and took over most of the house. The caterers were all women.
“This,” declared Dali, who had changed into a white tuxedo with black tie and had come down to tilt his head back and watch the preparation, “must be a night of triumph. The press of the world will be here and I shall find new ways to offend.”
“Sounds like fun for all,” I said.
“I must retire to my rooms now.” Dali refused to acknowledge my sarcasm. “It is fatiguing to watch people work and to create offenses.”
At five, with food everywhere and tables on the beach around the throne, the first guests arrived. No one came to the house. Dali had painted a sign that Gala had personally put up in the sand. The sign read:
TO THE BEACH FOR SIGHTS DENIED MOST MORTALS
These first guests, a man and a woman, were wearing clown costumes.
From the window, Dali observed to me, “No imagination. I shall be dressed from the neck down as a rabbit-a trickster who hops, deceives, and refuses to be contained. And from the neck up, I shall be Sherlock Holmes, who claims to operate from reason and the logic but is really an artist.”
“Have fun,” I said.
“And you shall be dressed as …?” Dali inquired.
“I shall be dressed as Toby Peters, Detective.”
“There is only room for one detective at this party, and it shall be Salvador Dali. There is a costume for you in your room and one for the poet. Gala picked them. She can see through to the soul.”
I was about to say no again, but Dali wouldn’t let me get started.
“No one goes to the shore without wearing a mask of the gods.”
Depending on what torture Gala had laid out on the bed, it wasn’t such a bad idea to be in some kind of disguise. There wasn’t much chance of the L.A. cops showing up, but there was a chance the killer would come. That chance became a near certainty about ten minutes after the thought hit me.
The phone rang in the kitchen. Nobody paid attention. I picked it up. Over the clattering of the caterers and Gala’s shouting, a falsetto voice said, “Peters: Tonight, when the sun goes down, the painting will be revealed and Salvador Dali will face his punishment.”
Whoever it was hung up. I looked around to see if Dali was there or Gala was paying attention. They weren’t.
I went looking for Jeremy to tell him about the call and found him in the bedroom. He was wearing a toga with a gold rope around his waist.
“I am to be Plato.”
“You don’t have to do it, Jeremy.”
“I don’t mind. When I wrestled, I learned to accept costume and performance.”
I looked at the other costume on the bed. It was brown with leather shorts and with a little feathered hat, boots and a bow, and a quiver full of arrows.
“What’s that?”
“William Tell,” said Jeremy. “You have been honored. William Tell is Dali’s favorite character.”
“Why?”
Jeremy shrugged. Somehow, his shrug looked more meaningful in a toga.
“Tell is the archetypal father whose child’s life is in his hands. The child is dependent on the skill and courage of the father. Life and death, skill and faith. The child’s fate is in the hands of the father.”
“My knees’ll show,” I said, picking up the shorts.
“When you wear a bathing suit, they show,” Jeremy said gently.
“I don’t wear a bathing suit. I don’t go to the beach.”
“Tonight you will,” he reminded me, and I told him about the phone call.
11
Even before the sun was fully down there were four fires on the beach, blazes in giant copper pots. Dali supervised each one personally. Jeremy and I watched from the top of the hill where we could see down the beach for about a hundred yards in both directions. Dali was a frantic ball of white fur, cracking orders to hired hands who tended the fires. He ran from pot to pot like a vaudeville juggler trying to keep plates spinning on wobbly sticks.
In the center of the fiery pots, its heavy legs sinking into the sand, was the throne. Every once in a while Dali paused in his steeplechase to be sure the throne hadn’t gotten up on its legs and dashed into the ocean. Two long tables filled with seafood-lobsters, clams, shrimp, scallops-sat right on the shoreline where the tide was sure to get them in a few hours.
“I think he plans to let the sea take the food later,” Jeremy said.
“Looks that way,” I agreed, trying to reach a particularly itchy spot under my William Tell shorts. I couldn’t get at it, so I tried to do it with an arrow. I was reasonably successful.
The second set of guests arrived: a snail and an orange. Gala, dressed like a Cossack complete with tunic, fur
