Spelling looked over his shoulder into the courtyard. There was no one in sight. He motioned me back with his gun and I stepped back as he came in and kicked the door shut.
'How long have you been at this?' he asked. — 'This?'
'The detective business,' he said. 'Twenty years? More? And you can't tell when someone is following you? You're in the wrong career.'
'A little late for me to change,' I said. 'Mind if I put my shirt on.'
'Go ahead,' he said, looking around the room.
I put on my shirt and considered my options. There weren't many. My back was bad. My gun was in the glove compartment of the Crosley. I had to resort to persuasion.
'Have you figured anything out yet?' he asked, sitting on the edge of the bed. 'My clues weren't very subtle.'
'We've got some ideas,' I said.
'You picked up three tuxedos at some place called Hy's for Him. And you went to see a lady who didn't want to see you. I'll give you one thing. You didn't look sorry for yourself.'
My shirt was a little fragrant from a day of wear and a night draped over a chair, but I didn't think it mattered.
'It gets worse,' I said. 'My back went out this morning.'
'Lower, upper?' Spelling asked.
'Lower.'
'Turn around. I know a way to end your pain.'
'I can live with it,' I said.
'Turn,' he ordered.
I turned.
'Take it easy,' he said softly. 'Easy.'
I felt the steel of the gun against my shoulder and two hands digging into my shoulders. Then something drove into my lower back and I thought I'd been done in by a silencer. I doubled forward on the floor, feeling sick to my stomach.
'Don't go into a ball,' Spelling ordered. 'Stay loose.
'I'm loose,' I groaned. 'I'm loose.'
'You and your friends are going formal tonight, right? Any place I might know?'
'No,' I said. 'Birthday. My brother's.'
'In soup and fish?'
'His fiftieth,' I said. 'Big cele…'
'Shut up.'
I shut up and rolled to a semisitting position with my elbows on the floor.
'You can't stop me, Peters,' he said, pointing the gun at my face. 'They killed my father and then they went on with their lives, just did what they wanted. Until I showed up and killed them.'
'Not all of them,' I said.
'Not yet,' he said. 'Stand up.'
I stood, using the bed for support.
'Now twist around on your waist. Don't turn the shoulders.'
I did it.
'How's it feel?' he asked.
'Not bad,' I said.
'Good,' said Spelling. 'I want you alive and well when I kill you.'
'I appreciate that,' I said.
'I'm going now,' he said. 'I just wanted you to know that you can't hide from me. And I wanted you…'
'Hold it,' I said, reasonably sure that Spelling was not going to kill me now. 'How much longer is this going to go on? You fixed my back, maybe. But you are one pompous son of a bastard, and gratitude will only go so far. So, hostage crisis or not, either shoot me or get the hell out of here.'
'You're pretty goddamn impatient to die, Peters. I'm going to leave,' he said, backing through the bedroom to the front door.
I took a step toward him, half expecting him to begin firing. But he didn't. When he cleared the door I hurried to the window. My back was pretty good, not a hundred percent, but good. I could get my.38 from the glove compartment and run after him, but I knew I couldn't run and I knew I couldn't shoot straight at more than ten feet. The time to use a gun is when you're sure the other guy doesn't have one.
I found my shoes and socks and put them on with new problems to think about. Why had Spelling come here? Why did he want me to figure out his poetic clues? And, most important, why the hell hadn't he shot me?
I needed a bowl of Wheaties fast.
I had a day to kill or be killed in. I went back to Phil's house. This time he was home. He opened the door, not happy to see me, and stepped back so I could enter. He looked awful. Red eyes, scrub forest of hair on his face. Walking around in his stocking feet.
I went in and I followed him through the small living room complete with photographs of his family on the fake fireplace, and matching sofa and chairs worn thin from jumping kids.
'Coffee?' he asked, sitting down at the kitchen table.
I nodded. Phil poured. Ruth was a good cook. Brisket Pot roast. Turkey. Kreplach. Matzo-ball soup. Spaghetti and mean meatballs, but there was no heart in her coffee. But Phil was a quantity man; he was content if there was plenty of Maxwell House and it was hot and black.
We drank.
'Got any Wheaties?' I asked.
Phil didn't answer. He simply rose, went to a cabinet, produced an orange Wheaties box, and went for a couple of bowls and the milk bottle.
We drank and ate for a while without talking. Then, 'Spelling followed me to an apartment I was staying in,' I said. 'Came to the door with a gun.'
'That a fact?' said Phil, without bothering to look at me.
'A fact. Don't you want to know why I'm not dead?'
'Why aren't you dead?' Phil asked indifferently, and took a sip of coffee.
'I don't know,' I said. 'I think he wants me at the Academy Awards dinner tonight. I think he plans to kill Varney in front of the stars and cameras. I think he wants the newspapers, Look, Life, and N.B.C. to cover it so he can tell the world how his father was destroyed by Hollywood.'
Phil was eating his Wheaties and shaking his head no.
'What do you mean, no? He could walk in there tonight with a Thompson and mow down Bob Hope, Rosalind Russell, Ronald Colman, Irving Berlin, and… and Turhan Bey.'
'No,' Phil said, finishing his Wheaties and working on the dregs with a tilted bowl. 'At least, not because his father was done in by heartless Hollywood.' Phil put down his bowl. 'We, the police department of Los Angeles, did some research. First, the guy who calls himself Spelling is not Spelling. Second, I know this because the Spelling who died with a sword in the middle of his gut on Gone With the Wind had no sons, no daughters, no nieces, and no nephews. Orphan. Never married.'
'That doesn't make sense,' I said, pushing my empty bowl and half-full cup away.
'Doesn't have to make sense, Tobias,' Phil said. 'It's true, but it doesn't have to make sense.'
'So why is he telling everyone he's Spelling's son? Why is he killing these people? Why does he want to kill Varney? And maybe Gable? Why does he write poems and…'
'He's a crazy,' said Phil. 'We catch him. He maybe talks. Maybe doesn't talk. Maybe makes some kind of weird sense. Maybe makes no sense. We've both seen them. They scare the hell out of you. They make me mad. With crazies you've got nothing to count on.'
'No,' I said. 'I don't buy that explanation while there's still a copy of Casket and Sunnyside on the shelf.'
Phil suddenly brought his hand down on the bowl. It shattered. I looked at his clenched fist. Somehow, his hand wasn't bleeding.
