woman out of there. An extra took her.?
?No,? I said. ?A star.?
?Yes!? She went. While we picked up the pieces and covered our tracks. It was easier to do, back then. The studios, after all, ran the town. We had one body, Sloane?s, to show and another, Arbuthnot?s, in the mortuary, we said, and Doc signing the death certificates. Nobody ever asked to see
Fritz drew in his legs, cradled his drink over his groin, and searched the air for the sight of my face.
?Luckily, because of the studio party, J. C., Doc Phillips, Groc, Manny, and all the yes-men were there. I yelled: Bring guards. Bring cars. Cordon off the crash. People come out of houses? Shout them back with bullhorns! Again, on that street, few houses, and the gas station shut. The rest? Law offices, all dark. By the time a real crowd came from blocks away, in their pajamas, I had parted the Red Sea, reburied Lazarus, got new jobs for the Doubting Thomases in far places! Delicious, wondrous, superb! Another drink??
?What?s
?Napoleon brandy. One hundred years old. You?ll hate it!?
He poured. ?If you make a face, I?ll kill you.?
?What about the bodies?? I asked.
?There was only one dead to start. Sloane. Arbuthnot was smashed, Christ, to a pulp, but still alive. I did what I could, got him across the street to the undertaking rooms; and left. Arbuthnot died later. Both Doc Phillips and Groc worked to save him, in that place where they embalm bodies, but now an emergency hospital. Ironic, yes? Two days later, I directed the funeral. Again, superb!?
?And Emily Sloane? Hollyhock House??
?The last I saw of her, she was being led off across that empty lot full of wild flowers, to that private sanitarium. Dead next day. That?s all I know. I was merely a director called in to lifeboat the Hindenburg as it burned, or be traffic manager to the San Francisco earthquake. Those are my credits. Now, why, why, why do you ask??
I took a deep breath, glugged down some Napoleon brandy, felt my eyes faucet with hot water, and said: ?Arbuthnot is back.?
Fritz sat straight up and shouted, ?Are you
?Or his image,? I said, almost squeaking. ?Groc did it. For a lark, he said. Or for money. Made a papier-mache and wax dummy. Set it up to scare Manny and the others, maybe with the same facts you know but have never said.?
Fritz Wong arose to stalk in a circle, clubbing the carpet with his boots. Then he stood rocking back and forth, shaking his great head, in front of Maggie.
?Did you know about this!??
?Junior, here, said something??
?Why didn?t you
?Because, Fritz,? Maggie reasoned, ?when you?re directing you never want to hear any news, bad or good, from anyone!?
?So that?s what?s been going on?? said Fritz. ?Doc Phillips drunk at lunch three days running. Manny Leiber?s voice sounding like a slow L.P. played double speed. Christ, I thought it was me doing things right, which
?Arbuthnot?s tomb is empty.?
?His body?? Stolen??
?He was never
?Who says?? he cried.
?A blind man.?
?Blind!? Fritz made fists again. I wondered if all these years he had driven his actors like numbed beasts with those fists. ?A blind man!?? The Hindenburg sank in him with a final terrible fire. After that? ashes.
?A blind man?? Fritz wandered slowly around the room, ignoring us both, sipping his brandy. ?Tell.?
I told everything I had so far told Crumley.
When I finished, Fritz picked up the phone and, holding it two inches from his eyes, squinting, dialed a number.
?Hello, Grace? Fritz Wong. Get me flights to New York, Paris, Berlin.
He turned to look out the window, across the miles toward Hollywood.
?Christ, I felt the earthquake all week and thought it was Jesus dying from a lousy script. Now it?s all dead. We?ll never go back. They?ll recycle our film into celluloid collars for Irish priests. Tell Constance to run. Then buy yourself a ticket.?
?To where?? I asked.
?You must have somewhere to go!? bellowed Fritz.
In the middle of this great bomb burst, a valve somewhere in Fritz popped. Not hot but cold air rushed out of his body. His bad eye developed a tic that grew outsize.
