Everything but the Squeal

it.

His eyes widened and he stared at my hands. Then he nodded, folded the first twenty four times, tucked it into the tin can, and sped away.

I put all the money back into my pocket. It wasn't that I didn't trust him. Well, yes, it was that I didn't trust him. Maybe I was souring on teenagers. The parking lot I'd chosen was on two levels, the upper a good twenty feet above the lower, offering a fine view of a smog- and cloud-socked Los Angeles. Far to the west was the dismal, squall-soaked gray line of the Pacific, bad weather all the way to Japan.

I'd parked Alice on the edge of the upper lot, and now I climbed the hill through the new spring growth, chanting Iranian-style wishes of death to the foxtails and puncher-weeds that were penetrating my socks and gouging my ankles. By the time I reached the top, I was equipped to carry a balanced biosphere of bothersome plant life to a newborn volcanic island. I climbed into Alice and started yanking the sharp little seeds out of my socks, keeping my head low and my eye on the parking lot below.

He was back in four minutes and twenty-two seconds, just enough time to have cut a fevered deal. He was smart enough to have told Birdie to wait before making an appearance, but not smart enough to avoid forfeiting the extra thirty bucks. After a minute, which the kid spent searching frantically for me, Birdie rounded the corner.

Birdie looked like a man ready to explode. His blue Philippine shirt provided a vivid contrast to his bright red face. Clenched fists hung like deadweights at the ends of the forearms he'd borrowed from Bluto, and the veins on his forehead were thicker than the transatlantic cable. He glanced frantically around the parking lot, but he didn't look up. People never look up. You'd think they'd learn. After exhausting the limited possibilities of right and left, he grabbed the kid by his shoulders and shook him like a terrier shakes a rat. I could hear the change in the kid's can rattling all the way up the hill.

But it was no go. The kid didn't know where I was, and Birdie had nothing but the kid. After a few additional shakes, more out of sheer frustration than because he thought they'd get him anywhere, Birdie let go of the kid's shoulders and stepped back, the ridiculous shelf of hair that was usually glued across his forehead drooping almost to his chin. The moment Birdie released him, the kid was gone. He jingled around the corner and onto the street, already sniffing out the next sucker.

Birdie stood alone in the parking lot, shoulders slumped, watching the kid's sneakers twinkle as they carried him around the corner. He wiped his face with a forearm as furry as a sheepskin seat cover, and then his legs buckled. He collapsed clumsily onto the asphalt of the parking lot, dead center in a space stenciled compact. Well, if there was anything Birdie was, it was compact.

Like a pauper in a Rilke poem, he buried his face in his hands, but I wasn't in danger of developing any sympathetic worry wrinkles. I just sat in Alice, feeling remote and Olympian and godlike, and watched him cry. I would have felt more godlike if I hadn't been pulling foxtails out of my socks. After a good fifteen minutes, during which several people parked their cars, got out, and walked past him without giving him a glance, Birdie hauled himself upright and headed for the sidewalk. His feet were dragging so heavily that they should have left gouges in the asphalt. It was only nine-thirty, and if I had my way, Birdie had a long day ahead of him.

After two false starts I got Alice running and drove two blocks east to Ben Frank's, Sunset Boulevard's eternal coffee shop, to eat their version of breakfast-some acidic coffee, a glass of orange juice, and a liberal portion of curled lip from a waitress who took it personally when I didn't order a five-course meal topped off with baked Alaska. Other people were scarfing down two-pound slices of ham and half a dozen brutalized eggs. I forced myself to sip slowly at my coffee until practically everybody else was finished, partly to annoy my waitress, and partly to let Birdie work up a good lather. That was the absolute least that the little shit had coming to him.

There was a phone booth just outside of Ben Frank's. I dialed the number and waited.

“Brussels' Sprouts,” Birdie snapped.

“Listen,” I said, striving for an intensity of regret that would have put the Mock Turtle to shame, “I'm sorry about the picture.”

“What? What?” he asked a bit wildly.

“She's much better-looking than that. I should have fixed her ribbons. God, she hates having her ribbons messed up. Of course, that's not news to you.”

“Who are you?” he asked. “Oh, God. Where are you? Is she all right?”

I looked down at my watch. Barely ten-fifteen. “How do you like it?” I could barely restrain myself from taking a bite out of the mouthpiece.

He paused. “How do I like what?” He sounded simultaneously frantic and careful.

“Getting the picture for a change, you dreadful little half-pint. Instead of sending it.”

“I don't know what you're talking about,” he said slowly. He wasn't about to rise to anything as trivial as an insult.

“Well, cutie,” I said, “aren't we cautious? Is someone there?”

“No. What do you want? How much? Damn you, is she alive?”

“Ah-ah,” I said, “not so fast. Let's consider the implications.”

It took him a few seconds to gather his bravado. “What implications?” he asked. “You've got my dog, that's all.”

“Please. Don't insult my intelligence, it makes me nervous. I've got a lot more than your dog. What about the cigar?”

He didn't say anything, but I could hear him breathing. It sounded like a blacksmith's bellows.

“And where did we take the picture?” I said, mimicking Mrs. Brussels' imitation of a third-grade teacher.

“My house,” he said after a moment. “You broke into my house. You took it in the basement.”

“I took it in obedience school,” I said.

Some clown on a Harley roared by, but it didn't matter: Birdie wasn't talking. The silence on the other end of the line lasted so long that I thought the line had gone dead. “Remember obedience school?” I asked. “The cigars in the belly buttons? Tsssss?”

“Oh, heavens,” he said at last. He said it very faintly.

“I don't think heaven's on your itinerary. Even if it is, we have to talk first.”

He swallowed twice. I heard him lick his lips. Then he said, “Skip it.” He hung up.

The man needed a little more time. I walked up the block and loitered skillfully in front of Mrs. Brussels' building for a few minutes. A lady with unattractive identical twin girls went in. Forty-five seconds later she came back out, hauling them behind her. Her face was white with anger. Birdie must have scorched her to the roots of her hair.

Well and good. I strolled back down to Ben Frank's and ordered another orange juice from the same waitress. I'd tipped her before, so she brought the juice with a cheerful good-morning grimace that would have frightened a pumpkin. She even asked if I'd like a cup of coffee on the house. I declined more hastily than was strictly polite. The place was full of out-of-work actors and screenwriters wishfully discussing deal memos. Many of them wore long knit scarves carelessly knotted around their necks. When I'd drained the juice I went back to the booth and dialed him again.

“Brussels'-” he began.

“Hey, Birdie,” I interrupted. “Do you want Woofers back?”

“Not enough to talk to you,” he said. But he didn't hang up.

“Give me thirty seconds,” I said. “You can count out loud if you like. Let's see if I can't come up with some things you might want. In fact, I'll count for you. One, obedience school. Two, ransom letters. Three, twenty thousand dollars. Four, Kansas City. Five, cigar burns. And, six, how about no cops or FBI?”

“FBI?” he said.

“As in using the mail to commit a crime. Remember that?”

“I never did.” He didn't sound very sure of himself.

“You mailed the note and the cassette. Nice cassette, by the way. Terrific fidelity. Leonard Bernstein quality. Burn-stein,” I added. “That's a pun.”

“Fuck you,” he said weakly.

“Only if you'll print my picture in the Actors'Directory.” He drew in his breath with a sharp hiss. “Birdie,” I said, “I've got it all.”