'You heard something. Saw something. Said something. Did something. Best guess is that the guy who got killed was murdered and the killer's spent five years worrying that he might have been seen, or said something to give him away.'
'Five years?' Varney said.
'Doesn't make a hell of a lot of sense,' I agreed. 'But when you're crazy, you don't have to make sense. One of the good things about being crazy.'
Varney got up now and was pacing the room. I listened to the ice click in his glass and watched him think.
'I've only been back in town for two weeks,' he said. 'The studio hasn't done any publicity. How could this person know I was even here?'
'Crazy doesn't mean stupid,' I said.
Lionel Varney snorted, shook his head, and looked at his melting ice.
'The goddamn irony,' he said. 'I work a lifetime for a break and some lunatic wants to kill me. Wants to kill me and I don't even know why.'
'You want advice?' I asked.
Varney stopped pacing and looked down at me in the chair.
'Get a room under another name. Don't tell anyone where you are but me. I'll stay in touch and tell you when it's safe.'
He was shaking his head even before I had finished.
'Can't,' he said. 'I'm riding some good reviews and reports and spending goodwill fast. I can't tell Universal I have to hide for who knows how long. And Saturday. Saturday I've been invited to sit at Universal's table for the Academy Awards dinner with Walter Wanger, Jon Hall, Turhan Bey, and Maria Montez. Then there's a publicity reunion at Selznick, in front of Tara. Reporters, cameras, big names. UniversaPs planning the official announcement of my contract and my first starring role. I'm not risking that, Peters. I'd rather get some protection and take my chances.'
'Suit yourself,' I said, standing up and handing him my glass. He had one in each hand now.
'I can't believe this,' he said.
'Believe it, Lionel,' I said. 'Keep your door locked and pay someone big with a gun to stand outside it. And try to be calm.'
I moved to the door.
'Be calm,' he said with a sarcastic laugh. 'That's easy for you to say. You're not on this madman's list.'
'I think I am, Lionel. I think I am. I'll call you when I have something, or more questions.'
Varney didn't show me out. I made my own way down the stairs. I couldn't face Jane Powell's big white teeth and smile. I wove my way through the lush jungle of the Carolina Hotel lobby, heard a parrot squawk behind me, and got onto the driveway.
'Car?' asked a young man in the familiar uniform.
'Crosley,' I said. 'Sort of brown.'
'We only have one Crosley on the lot,' he said politely and hurried off.
I could hear tennis balls hitting and echoing as I waited. I could hear the hum of traffic on Sunset I could hear my heart beating. I had a sudden urge to visit my niece and nephews or find Dash and see if he'd sit on my lap a while. I had a strong wish to go home, but I had a long day in front of me and Clark Gable's money to spend.
I parked behind the Farraday and gave Big Elmo two bits to watch the Crosley. Big Elmo was the latest in a string of derelicts who lived in the alley behind the building. There have been poets, fools, crazies, grumblers, dreamers, the dazed. One guy had returned for two seasons. Most hung around a few months, sleeping in rusted- out abandoned cars. All were willing to take a quarter or two to watch the Crosley and keep it safe from each other.
Big Elmo wasn't big. He was a straw in an oversized yellow dress shirt cut short at the sleeves. The shirt was dirty. Elmo was dirty. His wisps of hair were unruly, but his manners were the best.
'Think I need a shave?' he asked, pocketing my coins.
'Wouldn't hurt,' I said.
Elmo looked around his alley domain. Cars beeped and chugged on Main Street beyond the Farraday. Elmo seemed to listen and then touch his face.
'Just need another tomorrow,' he said. 'And who'm I trying to impress, I ask you.'
'You've got a point,' I said. 'But if you put the shave together with a bath, some clean clothes from Hy's or Chi Chi's Slightly Worn on Hoover, you might be able to line up a job.'
'Had one once,' Elmo said with a smile. 'Makes me itch. Got no patience. Most guys out here…' He looked around, but there weren't any guys. 'Most guys have a story. What they were. What they walked away from. You know?'
'I know,' I said.
Elmo jangled the coins in his pocket.
'I got no story. No ambition. What the hell. You're born one day. Sixty, seventy years later you're dead. You know?'
'I know,' I said.
Elmo shook his head.
'So,' he went on, 'the way I figure it, why waste the sixty, seventy with work, trying to get something you can't keep anyway. I'm not starvin'. I'm not cold or wet most days. I get plenty of time to read over at the library or wherever.'
'I get your point, Elmo.'
'You think I could really get a job?' he asked, looking away from me. 'I mean if I cleaned up okay?'
'Lot of jobs, Elmo. The gravy's in the navy.'
'Cash money and room with a door,' he said, more to himself than me. 'Might be I'd want to try it. Never tried it.'
'You know Manny's around the corner on Main,' I said. 'He's looking for a dishwasher. There's a sign in his window. I'll put in a word for you.'
'Maybe,' said Elmo.
I went to the Crosley, opened the door with my key, and reached into the cramped back seat. My gym bag was there. I pulled it out while Elmo watched me find a rolied-up pullover shirt and safety razor already loaded with a fresh Chancellor single-edged blade. I handed shirt and razor to Elmo, who took them with dignity.
'You don't like it, you can always quit,' I said.
'What about your car?'
'I'll take a chance,' I said.
I left Elmo standing in the rubble behind the Farraday, deciding if he had the heart to take a step into the 1940s. I wanted to feel good. I wanted to feel as if I was saving a lost soul, but I wasn't sure. I also wanted to take the edge off of what I was feeling, a combination of excitement, fear, and anger. They were still with me when I went through the back entrance to the Farraday and closed the door behind me.
When you step into the Farraday from the back door, you're plunged into a darkness without shadows. I've tripped over sleeping bums and debris. I've stepped into slick splots of who-knows what. Jeremy and Alice worked with buckets, brawn, and chemicals to stay ahead of the jungle, but it was a never-ending job, and time off for the baby or poetry only meant the streets would slouch under the door or through a window for a new assault.
I moved around a corner and made my way to the lobby door, marked with a red bulb. I pushed into the lobby and felt the same tug I always feel. Something a little sad, something I knew someday I would miss. The open tile space with a wide stairway and dark-metal railings climbing floor by floor to the sixth floor and the dirty skylight. The iron elevator next to the stairway, clanging gently from a sourceless breeze. Voices one-two-five-six flights up through the doors marked as the homes of one-man and one-woman businesses that couldn't make it in the nicer buildings a few blocks north.
Something moved above me as I headed for the stairway. I looked up and saw Alice Pallis at the first-floor railing, holding Natasha in her arms. The baby was patting her mother's head with a pudgy palm.
'Jeremy told me to look for you,' Alice said. 'He wants you to call him in Encino.'
'Thanks, Alice,' I said.
