can I talk to Sheldon or do I have to have Brink's deliver a quart of my blood to your door as a sign of good faith?'
Mildred hung up. I called back. Shelly answered.
'Toby, you're going to have to apologize to Mildred.'
'If it's that or sign on with the Japs as a kamikaze pilot, I'll pack my bags for the Orient.'
'Good, I'll tell her you apologize and that you're going to send her flowers.'
'You're wasting your money, Shel. Listen, good news. I've got your tux and we're going to the Academy Awards tomorrow night. We're going to keep an eye on Lionel Var-ney.'
'Lionel Varney?'
'The actor who… I'll drop your tux off at the office. You come for it in the morning.'
'The Academy Awards dinner, you said.'
'Rubbing elbows with Kate Hepburn and Ronald Col-man,' I assured him.
There was a scraping of objects and the vacuum sound of Sheldon putting his hand over the phone.
'Shel?'
He came back on with, 'Mildred wants to go.'
'No.'
'Then I'm not going,' he said.
'You mean that?'
'No,' he said emphatically. 'Besides, Mildred was planning to visit her brother Al in San Diego tomorrow and I have to clean the office.'
'You'll pick up the tux in the morning and meet me in front of the Farraday at five?'
'Yes,' he said. 'That I will do.'
He hung up. I got through to Jeremy after two rings.
'The best laid plans have run for the border,' I said. Then I told him what had happened. He agreed to join Shelly and me.
'Did you absorb anything that I told you this afternoon about doing things like this?' Jeremy asked.
'Last time,' I said. 'Promise. The man needs our help. The police won't…'
'The conceptual impossibility and magic of infinity is that the human mind is incapable of imagining that beyond the final barrier of space there is something which can be called nothing.'
'That a fact?' I said as Hy returned, gave me a two-shouldered shrug, and pointed to his watch.
'You are incapable of conceiving nothingness, Toby. If I am present, you will ask and I will answer. I will be in front of the Farraday in the tuxedo at five tomorrow.'
'Thank you, Jeremy,' I said. 'One more thing. Is there a phone in that model apartment you gave me the key for and do you know the number?'
There was a phone and he knew the number. I thanked him, hung up, and called Gable's house in Encino.
Gable answered on the twelfth ring just as I was about to give up. I told him about Varney, the tuxedos, the police, and the plan.
'And you want me to get you into the Academy Awards dinner?' he asked when I was done.
'You've got it,' I said.
Long pause at the other end and then, 'Give me numbers where I can reach you. Half hour, maybe an hour from now.'
I gave him my office, home number, and the number in Jeremy's model apartment. Hy was standing there patiently above me.
'Want to say hello to Clark Gable?' I asked.
'You kiddin'? I've sold dresses to Spring Byington and three suits in twenty minutes to John Garfield. Star struck I am not. He wants a good discount, he can stop by and I'll see what I'll see.'
'Good-bye,' I told Gable and hung up.
When I got back out on the street in front of Hy's a uniformed policewoman was just plunking a ticket under my windshield wiper for double-parking.
'I was picking up tuxedos for the Academy Awards dinner,' I explained.
She was not young and she was not impressed. 'Writer? Actor? What?' she asked, holding the car door open for me.
'Security,' I said, working my packages over the seat into the back of the Crosley. No mean task.
'Then you should know better than to double-park,' she said.
'Excitement,' I said.
She removed the ticket from under the windshield wiper, handed it to me, and said, 'Reminder.'
I closed the door and drove to Jeremy's model apartment after stopping at the Farraday and leaving the tuxes. When I got to the apartment and opened the door to the smell of freshly sawed wood and new carpet, I searched for the phone and found it in the kitchen. I wasn't going back to Mrs. Plaut's, not till I knew for sure what Spelling had in mind for me, Varney, Gable, and who knows who else.
Two more calls, one to Gunther, who said his tux was pressed and ready. Another to Varney, who still wasn't back in his room. I figured he was reasonably safe, at least if Jeremy was right and Spelling's clues did mean that he would go for Varney at the Oscar dinner.
It was after six by now, at least that's what I guessed. My father's watch said it was two.
I went out to a neighborhood diner for a pair of BLTs and a couple of Pepsis and talked to the waitress about her nephews in the army and the sorry state of her legs. Armed with a full stomach, the remainder of Clark Gable's advance, and the prospect of a hell of a time the next night, I got back in the Crosley, made a stop, and then drove to Anne's apartment building and rang the bell.
Anne and I had been married for five years. We'd been divorced for seven years. She had remarried Howard, an airline executive who met a death which some people thought was not untimely.
Nothing. I rang again. Beyond the glass door I could hear footsteps coming down the stairs and then I saw Anne peek around the dark-wood banister at me. She took another step and stood on the landing behind the door, about five steps up, hands on her ample hips.
I grinned and gestured at the locked knob. She didn't grin back. I pulled the bouquet of mixed flowers from behind my back and held it up to the door.
'Annie, Annie was the miller's daughter,' I sang softly in a not-bad baritone. 'Far she wandered from the singing water. Idle, idle Annie went a-maying. Up hill down hill went her flock a straying. Hear them. Hear them calling as they roam. Annie, Annie bring your white black sheep home.'
She mouthed something. I think it was 'shit,' though Anne was always a lady. Then she came down and opened the door. I held out the flowers. She took them.
'Toby,' she said. 'We had an agreement. You call if you have to see me.'
'And you say no,' I reminded her.
'My right,' she said.
'It's Phil's birthday,' I said.
'So?'
'Can I come in?'
'I've got company,' she said, blocking the way, posies in the port-arms position.
'I don't think so,' I said.
'What makes you think I'm lying?'
'You're not dressed for company. You're dressed for a night in the bathtub, reading a book, listening to the radio, thinking about old times. Five minutes.'
'It's never five minutes, Toby,' she said, still barring the entrance.
She was wearing makeup but not much, just what she must have had on during the day. Her hair was dark and billowy and soft, but combed for comfort, not to impress.
Her blue blouse was clean but not new and she was wearing slacks.
'We talk here,' she said. 'We talk fast.'
'You look great,' I said. 'You smell great. I miss you. How about dinner, breakfast, lunch, a hot dog, an ice cream, a walk on the beach, a movie? That cover everything fast enough?'
