bed. You couldn't knock your grandma downstairs to cadge the insurance. Maybe you're a sap, I don't know, or a fool, but I've come to prefer saps and fools, guys who don't raise tarantulas or yank wings off hummingbirds. Silly writers who dream about going to Mars and never coming back to our stupid daytime world.'
She stopped, hearing herself.
'Christ, I talk a lot. Let's get back to Fannie. She doesn't scare often, been living in that old firetrap for twenty years now, door open to one and all, and the mayonnaise jar in hand, but now something's wrong. She jumps when fleas sneeze. So…?'
'Last night all we did was play opera and try to joke. She didn't say.'
'Maybe she didn't want to bother the Martian, that's one of the things she calls you, right? I know by the way her skin shakes. You know horses at all?
Ever see the skin on a horse twitch and jerk when flies land on it? Invisible flies are landing on Fannie all the time now, and she just firms her mouth and shakes her flesh. Seems her astrology chart is out of whack. Her hourglass is malfunctioning, someone has put funeral-urn ashes in it instead of sand.
There are odd whispers in her icebox door. The ice falls inside the fridge at wmidnight and sounds like the wrong kind of laughter. The toilet across the hall gargles all night. The termites under her chair are going to gnaw through and drop her to hell. The spiders in the wall are mending her shroud. How's that for a list? All intuition. No facts. Would get thrown out of court fast. You understand?'
With nothing trembles.
I thought that, but didn't say it. Instead I said, 'You talked to Henry about this?'
'Henry thinks he's the world's greatest blind man. That don't catsup any beans for me. He hints. Something's up, but he won't say. Can you help? Then I can write Fannie or call her through the Gutierrez lady or drop by tomorrow night and tell her everything's Jake. Can do?'
'Can I have some more wine, please?'
She poured, never taking her eyes off me.
'Okay,' she said, 'start lying.'
'Something is going on, but it's too early to tell.'
'By the time you tell, it may be too late.' Constance Rattigan jumped up and paced around the room, turning at last to rifle-shot me with a stare. 'Why won't you talk when you know Fannie's scared gutless?'
'Because I'm tired of being afraid of every shadow, myself. Because I've been a coward all of my life and I'm sick of me. When I know more, I'll call you!'
'Jesus.' Constance Rattigan snorted a laugh. 'You got a loud voice. I'll move back and give you air. I know you love Fannie. You think she should come live with me here for a few days, a week, to protect her?'
I looked around at the grand pillows, the bright elephant herd of satin surfaces with goosedown stuffings, so much in shape and size like Florianna.
I shook my head. 'That's her nest. I've tried to get her out to movies, to plays, even to operas. Forget it. She hasn't been out on the street in over ten years.
To take her away from the tenement, her big elephant boneyard, well…'
Constance Rattigan sighed and refilled my glass.
'It wouldn't do any good anyway, would it?'
She was reading my profile. I was reading the dark surf out beyond the French windows where the tidal sands turned in their sleep, in their own good time.
'It's always too late, isn't it?' Constance Rattigan went on. 'There's no way to protect Fannie or anyone, not if someone wants to hurt or kill you.'
'Who said anything about killing?' I protested.
'You've got the kind of plain pink pumpkin face that shows everything. When I told fortunes it wasn't tea leaves, it was obvious eyes and vulnerable mouths. Fannie's spooked and that spooks me. For the first time in years, when I swim at night, I figure a big wave will take me so far out I'll never make it back. Christ, I hate to have my one really big enjoyment spoiled like this.' Then she added, swiftly, 'You wouldn't be the spoiler, would you?'
'What?'
Suddenly she sounded like Crumley, or Fannie telling me not to 'bring anyone with.'
I must have looked so startled that she barked a laugh.'Hell, no. You're just one of those guys who kill people on paper so's not to kill for real. Sorry.'
But I was on my feet now, bursting to say something, tell wild things, but I wasn't sure what.
'Look,' I said. 'It's been a crazy month. I'm beginning to notice things maybe I never noticed before. I never read the obituaries, ever. Now I do. You ever have weeks or months when too many friends go mad, or go away, or drop dead?'
'At sixty,' Constance Rattigan laughed ironically, 'there are whole years like that. I'm afraid to go down any flight of stairs; friend broke his neck that way.
Afraid of eating; two friends choked. The ocean? Three friends drowned.
Airplanes? Six friends smashed. Cars, twenty. Sleeping? Hell, yes. Ten friends died in their sleep, said what the hell and quit. Drinking? Fourteen friends with cirrhosis. List me some lists. It's only begun for you. I've got a phone book here, look.'
She grabbed a small black book off the table near the door and tossed it to me.
'Book of the dead.'
'What?'
I turned the pages, saw the names. There were little red crosses by fifty percent of the names on each page.
'That personal phone book is thirty-five years old. So half the people in it have been gone quite a while, and I don't have the guts to finally erase or yank out the names. It would be like a final death. So I guess I'm the same sort of custard you are, son.'
She took the book of the dead back from me.
I felt a cold wind from the window and heard the beach sand stir as if a great and invisible beast had put a huge paw down on it.
'I didn't spook Fannie,' I said, at last. 'I'm not Typhoid Mary. I don't carry the disease. If it's anywhere tonight, or here, it's on its own. My stomach's been ruined for days. People are dying or running away, and there's no connection, and I can't prove anything. I'm around or near when it happens and I feel guilty I can't see, know, tell, stop it. I have this god-awful feeling it'll go on more days than I can bear. Everyone I look at, now, I think, I wonder if he or she is next, and know that if I wait long enough, of course, everyone goes. They just seem to be going faster this week. That's all I'm going to say.
Now I'll shut up.'
She came and kissed the ends of her fingers and put the fingertips on my mouth. 'I won't rile you again. For a custard, you snap back. What now, another drink? Want to run films?
Midnight dip in my pool? Mercy sex with your film mother? None of the above?'
I ducked my head so as to avoid her mocking and fiery gaze.
'Films. I'd like to see Constance Rattigan in Lace Curtains. Last time I saw it, I was five.'
'You sure know how to make old folks feel great. Lace Curtains. Stand back while I load the projector. My pa worked a Kansas City cinema when I was a wgirl, taught me to run the machines. Still can. I don't need anyone in this house!'
'Yes, you do. Me. To watch the film.'
'Damn.' She leaped across the pillows and started fiddling with the projector in the back of the parlor. She yanked a can of film off a nearby shelf and deftly began to thread it through the machine. 'You're right. I'll watch your face watching me.'
While she was busy, humming and adjusting, I turned and stepped out on the low porch above the
