A Graveyard for Lunatics

?I?m naked, as usual.?

?I noticed, Constance.?

?You haven?t changed: you?re looking at my eyebrows instead of my boobs.?

?You haven?t changed. The boobs look firm.?

?Not bad for a night-swimming fifty-six-year-old former movie queen, huh? C?mon!?

She ran up the sand. By the time I reached her outdoor pool she had brought out cheese, crackers, and champagne.

?My God.? She uncorked the bottle. ?It?s been a hundred years. But I knew someday you?d come back. Got marriage out of your blood? Ready for a mistress??

?Nope. Thanks.?

We drank.

?You seen Crumley in the last eight hours??

?Crumley??

?Shows in your face. Who died??

?Someone twenty years ago, at Maximus Films.?

?Arbuthnot!? cried Constance in a burst of intuition.

A shadow crossed her face. She reached for a bathrobe and clothed herself, suddenly very small, a girl child who turned to look down along the coast, as if it were not sand and tide, but the years themselves.

?Arbuthnot,? she murmured. ?Christ, what a beauty! What a creator.? She paused. ?I?m glad he?s dead,? she added.

?Not quite,? I stopped.

For Constance had whirled, as if shot.

?No!? she cried.

?No, a thing like him. A thing propped up on a wall to scare me, and now, you!?

Tears of relief burst from her eyes. She gasped as if struck in the stomach.

?Damn you! Go inside,? she said. ?Get the vodka.?

I brought the vodka and a glass. I watched her throw back two slugs. I was suddenly sober forever, tired of seeing people drink, tired of being afraid when night came.

I could think of nothing to say so I went to the edge of her pool, took off my shoes and socks, rolled up my pants, and soaked my feet in the water, looking down, waiting.

At last Constance came and sat beside me.

?You?re back,? I said.

?Sorry,? she said. ?Old memories die hard.?

?They sure as hell do,? I said, looking along the coastline now myself. ?At the studio this week, panic attacks. Why would everyone fly apart at a wax dummy in the rain that looked like Arbuthnot??

?Is that what happened??

I told her the rest, as I had told it to Crumley, ending with the Brown Derby and my need for her to go there with me. When I finished, Constance, paler, finished one more vodka.

?I wish I knew what I?m supposed to be scared about!? I said. ?Who wrote that note to get me to the graveyard, so I?d introduce a fake Arbuthnot to a waiting world. But I didn?t tell the studio I found the dummy, so they found and tried to hide it, almost wild with fear. Is the memory of Arbuthnot that terrible so long after his death??

?Yes.? Constance put her trembling hand on my wrist. ?Oh, yes.?

?Now what? Blackmail? Does someone write Manny Leiber and demand money or more notes will reveal the studio?s past, Arbuthnot?s life? Reveal what? A lost reel of film maybe from twenty years ago, on the night Arbuthnot died. Film at the scene of the accident, maybe, which, if shown, would burn Constantinople, Tokyo, Berlin, and the whole backlot??

?Yes!? Constance?s voice was far back in some other year. ?Get out now. Run. Did you ever dream a big black two-ton bulldog comes in the night and eats you up? A friend of mine had that dream. The big black bulldog ate him. We called it World War II. He?s gone forever. I don?t want you gone.?

?Constance, I can?t quit. If Roy?s alive??

?You don?t know that.?

??and I get him out of there and help him get his job back because it?s the only right thing to do. I got to. It?s all so unfair.?

?Go out in the water, argue with the sharks, you?ll get a better deal. You really want to go back to Maximus studios after what you just told me? God. Do you know the last day I was ever there? The afternoon of Arbuthnot?s funeral.?

She let that sink me. Then she threw the anchor after it.

?It was the end of the world. I never saw so many sick and dying people in one place. It was like watching the