A Graveyard for Lunatics

the winter.

?Look. I found this on Stage 13 just now.?

Roy shoved a typewritten page onto the tile shelf before me.

The Beast Born at Last!

The Brown Derby Tonight!

Vine Street. Ten o?clock.

Be there! or you lose everything!

?You don?t believe this!? I gasped.

?As much as you believed your note and went to the damn graveyard.? Roy stared at the wall in front of him. ?That?s the same paper and typeface as your note? Will I go to the Brown Derby tonight? Hell, why not? Bodies on walls, missing ladders, raked-over prints in grass, papier-mache corpses, plus Manny Leiber screaming. I got to thinking, five minutes ago, if Manny and the others were upset by the scarecrow dummy, what if it suddenly disappeared, then what??

?You didn?t?? I said.

?No?? said Roy.

Roy pocketed the note. Then he took a small box from a corner table and handed it to me. ?Someone?s using us. I decided to do a little using myself. Take it. Go in the booth. Open it up.?

I did just that.

I shut the door.

?Don?t just stand there,? called Roy. ?Open it!?

?I am, I am.?

I opened the box and stared in.

?My God!? I cried.

?What do you see?? said Roy.

?Arbuthnot!?

?Fits in the box real nice and neat, huh?? said Roy.

13

?What made you do it??

?Cats are curious. I?m a cat,? said Roy, hustling along. We were headed back toward the commissary. Roy had the box tucked under his arm, and a vast grin of triumph on his face.

?Look,? he said. ?Someone sends you a note. You go to a graveyard, find a body, but don?t report it, spoiling whatever game is up. Phone calls are made, the studio sends for the body, and goes into a panic when they actually have a viewing. How else can I act except out of wild curiosity. What kind of game is this? I ask. I can only find out by countermoving the chesspiece, yes? We saw and heard how Manny and his pals reacted an hour ago. How would they react, I wondered, let?s study it, if, after finding a body, they lost it again, and went crazy wondering who had it? Me!?

We stopped outside the commissary door.

?You?re not going in there with that!? I exclaimed.

?Safest place in the world. Nobody would suspect a box I carry right into the middle of the studio. But be careful, mate, we?re being watched, right now.?

?Where?!? I cried, and turned swiftly.

?If I knew that, it would all be over. C?mon.?

?I?m not hungry.?

?Strange,? said Roy, ?why do I feel I could eat a horse??

14

On our way back into the commissary I saw that Manny?s table still stood empty and waiting. I froze, staring at his place.

?Damn fool,? I whispered.

Roy shook the box behind me. It rustled.

?Sure am,? he said gladly. ?Move.?

I moved to my place.

Roy placed his special box on the floor, winked at me, and sat at the far end of the table, smiling the smile of the innocent and the perfect.

Fritz glared at me as if my absence had been a personal insult.

?Pay attention!? Fritz snapped his fingers. ?The introductions continue!? He pointed along the table. ?Next is Stanislau Groc, Nikolai Lenin?s very own makeup man, the man who prepared Lenin?s body, waxed the face, paraffined the corpse to lie in state for all these years in the Kremlin wall in Moscow in Soviet Russia!?

?Lenin?s makeup man?? I said.

?Cosmetologist.? Stanislau Groc waved his small hand above his small head above his small body.