“Bass,” he finished, coming to help me up. Gunther was strong for his size. He had done some circus work back when he had to, but he wasn’t quite what I needed. It was extra work getting up and pretending that he was helping me, but I managed it.
“I followed him as you said,” Gunther explained. “He came here, started to get out from the car, saw you, got back into the car, and then tried to compress you. Shall I pursue him?”
“Not now,” I said. “You saved my life again, Gunther.”
“I was fortunate to be in vicinity,” he answered, embarrassed. “I’ll continue my pursuit tomorrow then?”
“Tomorrow will be fine.”
We shook hands after agreeing to meet back at the boarding house that night, and I inspected the side of my car. The paint was streaked with metal showing through as if some massive bird had scratched its claws along it. The door was dented slightly, but there seemed to be nothing else wrong other than that I couldn’t open the passenger door. I’d worry about that later.
I got in and drove downtown.
Jeremy was seated in his room on the second floor of the Farraday when I got there. I had once referred to Jeremy’s room as an office, but he had politely corrected me. “It is the room in which I often work, but I work in other rooms, other spaces, while I walk, sleep, dream,” he had explained. There was no desk in the room and no name on the door. If you didn’t know he was in 212, you’d never find him. The room itself contained an oversized leather chair near the window and a couch of matching black leather. A low table in the middle of the room was surrounded by four stools. On the table were neat stacks of lined paper, some with poems and notes written in Jeremy’s even hand. Others were blank. The walls were lined with books from floor to ceiling. There wasn’t a speck of bare wall in view. I knew that beyond another door in the corner was a room I had never seen, in which I guessed Jeremy slept.
When I entered the office, Jeremy was seated in the leather chair. The two reading lamps in the room were off and he was backlit at the window with a book in his lap.
“Jeremy,” I said, “I’m sorry to bother you but I need some help.”
He was looking at me without expression, the book held open in front of him. I went on. “A woman named Jane Poslik in Burbank may be getting a visit from Bass. I don’t think he plans to be friendly when he visits. I’m going to try to put a penny in his fuse, but for a day or two someone should keep an eye on her. I know you have your book to-”
“The address, Toby,” he said, finding a bookmark and placing it carefully in the page he was holding open with his huge thumb. “The day is clear. I can sit in my car and meditate. Look for the secret moment of the day.
“
“Byron,” I guessed, going with one of Jeremy’s favorites.
“Blake,” he corrected, getting up. “The last victory went to Bass in the American Legion Stadium before four thousand. It would be interesting to meet him with only a passing bird, the bending grass, and the sun upon our heads.”
“Sounds fine to me,” I agreed.
“Do I have time to do a quick cleaning of the lobby?” he said, putting the book neatly back in a space on the shelf near him.
“I don’t know, Jeremy.”
Leaving Jeremy’s office, I knew there had been another choice. I could have gone back to Jane Poslik, tried to talk her into moving out of her apartment till I got the whole thing settled, but that would have meant giving her a hell of a scare, which she didn’t need. Besides, she might have turned me down. No, my best bet was to track down Bass, try to find the dog, locate the guy Jane had mentioned-the guy named Martin-and hope for the best.
Back on the fourth floor, I could hear Shelly humming over the sound of Emmett Quigley in the office next to ours. Emmett had been in the Farraday for two weeks. He was either giving voice lessons to the deaf, writing modern versions of Gregorian chants, or engaged in some elaborate self-torture. Why he needed an office was a question that merited about five minutes of discussion each morning between infrequent patients for Shelly and even less frequent clients for me.
“Any calls?” I asked as I stepped into the office to a startling sight.
“No calls, nothing,” said Shelly, who was on his knees cleaning the floor. His glasses had slipped to the end of his nose and he was twitching madly to keep them up. His hands were covered with soapy suds. The dishes and instruments in the sink had been cleaned and the sink itself scoured. The coffee pot was gone and something about the wall was somewhat strange. Then I realized that the coffee stain near my door had been scrubbed away.
“What’s going on Shel, Mildred moving in?”
He puffed to his knees, wiped his hands on his filthy white coat, and found his soapy cigar.
“Inspection,” he explained. “County Dental Association inspections. They got complaints. Can you imagine? Complaints about me.”
“I can’t imagine that Shel,” I said with sympathy.
“Of course you can’t,” he agreed. “It’s unimaginable. There’s nothing wrong with this office. I use the most modern techniques, equipment.”
“Then why are you cleaning up?”
Shelly got up, removed the soapy cigar butt from his mouth, gave it an evil look, and threw it in the bucket of water near his feet. “So they won’t have anything, not a thing to point to, to say Sheldon Minck is not sanitary, not ethical. I am both sanitary and ethical.”
“While you’re at it,” I added, “you should lead a safari into the waiting room. I think some of the bugs out there have tusks worth showing to a dental inspector.”
“I’m doing the waiting room next,” Shelly sighed, pushing his glasses back on his nose and leaving a sudsy white mass over the left lens. “And you should clean up your office. In fact, you should clean it up and move out till the inspection is over. I don’t know what the ethics are about having sub-tenants.”
“Speaking of that, don’t you think you’d better scratch out some of those degress you have listed on the outer door?”
“Right,” he said, trying to snap his wet fingers. “I’ll get right to that. You wouldn’t want to give me a hand here?”
I didn’t answer.
“I didn’t think so,” he hissed. “Gratitude stops at the dental chair. I learned that in dental school. How can they do this to me? Why me? You know who taught me techniques of basic oral surgery? I never told you this. It was Maling, Maling, damn it. You think Dr. Arthur Maling has to be inspected? He’d turn over in his grave if he knew I was being inspected, me his star pupil.”
“Hold it, Shel,” I said. “I can’t tell from what you just went through if Maling is alive or dead.”
Shelly’s eyes went to the ceiling at my stupidity. Suds trickled down his left lens and dropped like a snowy tear.
“Does it make a difference?” he asked. “Does it really make a difference?”
“Happy cleaning,” I said, and went into my office where I discovered where Shelly had put the hot plate, coffee pot, and some of the more uncleanable and rust-infected instruments that had turned to antiques at the bottom of his sink.
“Shel,” I screamed, stepping back into his office.
“Hold your fillings,” he said, backing away “I’ll clean it out by tonight.”
“I’m coming back in the morning,” I said. “If it isn’t all out of my office, I’m going to dump it on your nice clean floor.”
“You are a tenant,” he reminded me, stepping forward again and almost slipping on a moist spot.
“I’ll be back in the morning,” I whispered, looking at him and then stepping into the waiting room and out into the hall. Emmet Quigley was still gargling as I stomped past and went down the stairs. I was shaking my head on Hoover when a bum came up to me.
