'Breakfast?' I asked. 'I've got coffee and Little Colonel's. We can talk then.'
'My concerns can wait, but I fear that Mrs. Plaut is expecting us downstairs for something she has prepared,' he said solemnly. 'I am concerned that she has an agenda.'
'Wait,' I said, getting the envelope from under my mattress. I took out the poem and handed it, the clipping, the crumpled photograph of Al Ramone as a dead Confederate soldier, and the bloodstained piece of paper about spelling cage-e to Gunther, who took them solemnly. The four fifties and the card I shoved in the pocket of my Wind-breaker in the closet.
'If you can't sleep, see what you can make of them,' I said and then followed up with a thirty-second wrap- up of what had happened in the last seven hours.
When I finished, Gunther simply nodded.
'Good night, Toby,' he said.
'Good night, Gunther,' I answered.
He backed into the hall, closing the door, and I hit the light switch. Covered by darkness I crawled back onto my mattress on the floor, climbed under my blanket, put my head on the pillow, and went to sleep in no more than the time it took Joe Louis to put Schmeling away in the rematch.
I dreamt of my father holding his wrist up to his ear to listen to the ticking of his watch before he checked the time. My father, dressed in his grocer's apron, smiled, took off the watch, and handed it to me.
I dreamt of Gunther watching Gwen and Clark Gable through a window. Gunther was on my shoulders. Gable and Gwen were on a bed. Then I was on Gunther's shoulders, watching my ex-wife Anne in bed with Clark Gable. With neither Gwen nor Anne did Gable look happy. Then his eyes turned toward Gunther and me watching at the window and he looked disgusted, betrayed.
Dream Three. There are always three with me. Dream Three found Koko the Clown holding one of my hands and Bozo the Dog the other. We were flying through the air over water and Koko kept repeating, 'Pretty cagey. Pretty cagey.' I thought the dog and the clown were going to drop me. I felt the rush of air under my boxer shorts. I couldn't catch my breath and then I woke up and found daylight flushing the room and Mrs. Plaut standing at the foot of my mattress wearing a blue dress, a white apron, and a very serious look. She was carrying a big yellow bowl in her arms. There is not much of Mrs. Emma Plaut, but what there is is feisty and nearly deaf.
'It's nine,' she said.
I tried to sit up. Dash, who had huddled next to my left leg during one of my nightmares, mewed in annoyance and stretched.
'Late breakfast will be at nine-twelve,' said Mrs. Plaut.
I grunted something.
'Mr. Gunther is downstairs waiting. Mr. Hill also. And Miss Reynel.'
'I know it's pointless,' I said. 'I know, but something I can't control inside me keeps making me say this. Mrs. Plaut, will you please knock before you enter my room. Please knock and wait till I say 'come in?' '
'Smell this,' she said, thrusting the bowl down in front of my nose.
I smelled. It smelled sweet. It smelled comforting.
'Smells good,' I said.
'Orange snail muffins,' she said, pulling the bowl back.
'I will put them on the table in eleven minutes. I expect they will be consumed within a minute after.'
'Orange snail muffins?' I asked.
'They contain no snails, if that is your concern,' she said. 'I believe my Aunt Cora Nathan Wing fed the batter to snails she raised back in Arizona.'
'Why?…' I began but caught myself. I really did not care why Aunt Cora Nathan Wing raised snails.
'Ten minutes,' Mrs. Plaut said, backing out and expertly balancing the heavy bowl in one hand as she closed the door behind her. 'And I cannot be responsible for the bad table manners or vicious appetite of Miss Reynel and Mr. Hill.'
Dash was out the window and I was out of bed, out of the bathroom, and on the way down the stairs, a pocketful of fifties in my wallet, at eight minutes after, according to the Beech-Nut clock, when the phone rang.
I turned, took the four steps back up, and picked up the hall phone.
'Peters?' came a man's voice, full of enthusiasm and energy.
'Peters,' I agreed.
'Sorry about last night,' he said.
'Last night? It was a long night with a lot to be sorry for. Give me a hint.'
'I left you a note in the Mozambique toilet.'
'I got it,' I said.
'Figure it out?' he asked brightly.
'I don't like puzzles,' I said.
'You can have help on this one,' he said. 'You must know people who like puzzles.'
'I'll work on it.'
'Good,' he said. 'You have almost eight hours.'
'I don't do puzzles,' I said, 'but I've got another trick. I can describe people from their voices.'
'Okay, my friend. Give it a try.'
'I'm not your friend,' I said. 'I'm late for orange snail muffins and you killed a pathetic third-rate lounge singer. My friends don't do things like that.'
'I'm waiting,' said the man. 'But I can't wait long. I've got groceries to buy, a letter to write home, and a murder to plan.'
'You're about thirty, maybe a little older,' I began. 'Dark. Hair, what's left of it, combed and brushed back. About average height. Good build and you like to wear a gray windbreaker with something written over or on the pocket.'
Silence on the other end of the line.
'How'm I doing?' I asked.
The sound of someone breathing on the other end.
'Can't read what it says on the pocket but I'll figure it out in a day or two,' I went on. 'I know a fortune teller named Juanita who can give me a hand. Look, I've got to run. Give me a call later or, better yet, give me your phone number and I'll get back to you.'
'They killed my father,' he said quietly but clearly.
'They?'
'A man of talent, a talented man, a man who could have left his mark on the screen instead of in a dirty ditch.'
'Mr. Peelers,' Mrs. Plaut screamed from downstairs.
'Hear that?' I said. 'If I don't get downstairs, I'll miss the orange snail muffins. You wouldn't want to be responsible for that.'
I could smell the muffins. They smelled good.
'Your name's on the list too. You and the movie star,' he said bitterly. 'But the others go first. After Varney I'll come for you and the king.'
'I really would love to stand here all day listening to your threats, but I'm hungry and I haven't had my coffee. Just tell me fast what's going on.'
'You know what I look like from my voice. Figure out what I'm doing and why.'
He hung up. So did I.
I pulled out my pocket spiral notebook and made some notes with the stub of a pencil I had picked up at No-Neck Arnie the mechanic's. Then I checked the telephone directories on the table next to the phone. No Lionel Varney in greater Los Angeles. I threw a nickel in the phone and pleaded with the information operator to track Varney down. She had five Varneys. No Lionels. I hung up.
'Mr. Peelers,' Mrs. Plaut called again, impatiently.
I shuffled to the bathroom, threw water on my face, Jeris hair tonic on my head, and hurried down the stairs. I walked through Mrs. Plant's living room, where mismatched mementos and oddities from the Plaut family past were neatly laid to rest. A Tiffany lamp with a shade depicting a naked lady on the moon stood next to the sewing