Two for One

by Barry Day

  Pitch in a little more—say another couple of grand a day—and they’ll decorate your loved one’s suite so that the Dear Disoriented or Beloved Befuddled don’t even know they’ve left home. Which saves you having to leave yours.

  We wove our way around flower beds that were hand painted and lawns that were clearly clipped every hour on the hour by a team of gnomes with nail scissors. Ah, unspoiled Nature—you can’t beat it!

  It was the morning of the following day. The good weather had decided to break and was giving us a trailer. The dark clouds would be along in the next reel but, meanwhile, a little thunder (in Dolby sound) was rolling around the hills and any moment you knew the ominous theme music would creep in, warning you to get ready for the Big Finale, when ‘all’ would be revealed.

  I had awakened early from a nightmare in which all the characters seemed to morph into each other with disconcerting regularity.

  “Oh, I do hate birds!” said Quentin Mallory. He then proceeded to remove his face but when he handed it to Petit, it had turned into the Borgia Bird, gleaming as if straight from the furnace. The little man juggled it painfully.

  “Christ, that’s hot!”

  “No need for formality, pipsqueak. You may simply call me ‘Sir’.

  “Excuse me, ‘Sir’, but do you have something for me?”

  Petit had vanished, his place taken by Nana Kane, who was dressed like one of the dancers in the Birdland cabaret and carrying a mask on a stick. Every so often she would put the mask up to her face, when she became Anna for a moment. Nana-Anna-Nana-Anna.

  “Not known at this address,” shouted Mallory but his voice seemed to come from far away. Now I could see that he was growing even taller like Alice and his upper body was already lost in the clouds. “Sorry I can’t stay but I have an assignation with Caesar’s wife …”

  “More like the Queen of Tarts,” said a new voice.

  I turned to see Nicky sitting cross-legged on the floor and playing solitaire with a deck of cards. Except that although it was clearly Nicky, he was now a small boy in short trousers. He turned up the last card in his hand and threw it on top of the pile.

  I could see that it had the face of the Devil on it.

  “Shit!” said Nicky.

  “Shit!” I heard myself say, as Mike leapt on to my bed and gave my face a vigorous lick. It was his early morning ritual to let me know he wanted to go out or I could take the consequences.

  I took the easy option—and dealt with the consequences later.

  By nine the wagons were rolling …

  The entrance hall of Sunnyvale was Carrera marble, the real thing not veneer. I know because Holmes told me. He seemed quite impressed. The receptionist who greeted us was also the real thing. And I didn’t need Holmes to tell me that. It was proved without the shadow of a doubt when she bent forward to check the register and I found myself poised on the edge of the Grand Canyon. Holmes’s “Watson!” caused me to step back from the brink in the nick of time.

  She was sorry, she said, when she had returned the vertical, but there was no record of an anticipated visitor for Guest Eloise. ‘Guest’ Eloise. No ‘Mrs. Kane’. No family name. This was the Hotel Incognito, where you checked in until you checked out for good.

  Things began to look up when I explained that I was working for Mr. Kane himself and showed his signature—the rest of the check carefully obscured by my P.I. license. Mr. Kane—repetition always works in communication, I find—had urgent business and would most certainly not wish to hear that his special operative’s inquiries had been impeded by … She got the point and floated an enigmatic little smile in my general direction.

  She must have pressed a buzzer under the desk without my noticing. Hardly surprising, since my attention was almost entirely focused above the Mason-Dixon Line.

  I was made aware (by a small cough) of the presence of a second person at my elbow. She was a slightly older woman in a white nurse’s uniform and if Reception was the siren song, she was the soothing lullaby. Sharon Stone for the Receptionist. Susan Sarandon for the Nurse.

  Susan escorted us down more marble halls and through what appeared to be a recreation area that had a Twilight Zone air about it. Men and women of all ages sat around in designer track suits watching TV sets with the sound turned low or turning the pages of picture magazines in slow motion. You could sense that the activities were purely incidental to their sitting there in this final waiting room. I had a vision of the transmission of I Love Lucy suddenly being interrupted as a number came up on all the screens and one of the patients got to his or her feet and marched zombie-like to the door. All eyes would follow them for a brief moment, until Lucy and Desi resumed their antics and the eyes swiveled back to the only reality they now knew.

  Down a carpeted corridor now and past a series of doors with homely little ceramic name plates—‘DAWN’, ‘HARRY’, ‘SIMONE’, and finally, ‘ELOISE’.

  Susan knocked gently, opened the door and stepped back to allow me to enter.

  “Someone to see you, Eloise.” Then to me— “I’ll be back in five minutes. That should give you plenty of time.” She also gave me a twin to the small smile I’d had from Sharon. A moment later I could see why.

  Eloise Kane was dressed for afternoon tea. Presumably at one of the Queen’s Garden Parties. She wore a long floaty kind of dress, little white gloves and a large picture hat. Was this what gave Nana the idea—some childhood memory of unhappy families?

  Her face, when she turned it in our direction, was chalk white with powder, a pallor broken only by a slash of red where her lipstick had made occasional and erratic contact with her mouth. But the voice was a complete contrast—soft and modulated. A great lady welcoming her cherished guests.

  “You are naughty, being so late. We were just going to start without you.”

  Then I saw who ‘we’ were.

  A small card table was laid for tea but the crockery was minute, clearly taken from a doll’s house. Eloise returned to the task that had been occupying her before our arrival—pouring nothing from an empty teapot into empty cups. There were three chairs at the table—an ordinary one for her and two chairs big enough for the two dolls that occupied them.

  They were cheap unisex dolls, the sort you can buy at any Five and Dime store but she had dressed them beautifully—one in pink and the other in blue—and the clothes looked handmade. I would have bet a fair amount that she had made them herself.

  The pouring done, she looked up at me and seemed to look through me. The expression in those washed out blue eyes said without the need for further explanation that the lady was out to lunch and wouldn’t be coming back for any more meals.

  “Oh, but what must you think of me? You haven’t been properly introduced.” She picked up the girl doll and manipulated the hand, so that it was held out to be shaken. Rather self-consciously, I did so.

  “This is Nana. And she’s going to be very well known when she grows up. Aren’t you, Nana?”

  I felt a chill, as Eloise spoke for the ‘child’ in what she presumably thought was a ventriloquist’s voice.

  “Yes, Mommy.”

  The doll was put back in her seat and the boy doll picked up.

  “And this is my little boy”—A puzzled look crossed her face. “I’m sorry but I can’t remember his name. I don’t see him very often. He’s a very busy little man, aren’t you?”

  Again the grotesque child’s voice, a little gruffer this time.

  “Yes, Mommy. Very busy.”

  Then some troubling well spring of emotion seemed to bubble up inside her. Suddenly she snatched both the dolls and hugged them to her bosom. Her eyes were now totally opaque and she began to chant—

  “N-n-n-nan-n-n-na.”

  I exchanged glances with Holmes and he made a slight shake of the head, indicating that we could hope for nothing more. As if
on cue the door opened and Susan entered. She didn’t seem unduly surprised by what she found but went across to Eloise and, putting a comforting arm around her shoulders, began to speak to her quietly.

  As Holmes and I left the room, she gave us a quick glance that seemed to say— “Satisfied?”

  In Reception Sharon had fortunately gone off duty. Her place had been taken by a Julia Roberts clone, who looked as though, taken in regular doses, she could be equally lethal. Fortunately, she was reading a magazine and posed no immediate problem. We made the outside world in safety.

  As we crossed to the parking lot, soft electronic chimes began to play. If this had been a monastery or convent—which from the atmosphere it might well be—I would have assumed a call to prayer. As it was, I guessed a call to lunch.

  So this was the way the world ended? Personally, I’d prefer to go out with a bang on the back of the head in some dark alley, rather than with a whimper in some sedated prelude to The Big Sleep. But, then the choice was so rarely ours to make.

  On the drive back I took the coast road.

  Miklos Rozsa as Max Steiner—or whoever was in charge of the orchestrations—had added a little more percussion and timpani to go with the flashes of lightning that were beginning to light up the hills in a free Wagnerian son et lumière that would cost thousands in a studio.

  Somehow it seemed to underline my mood. Being in Eloise Kane’s presence, however briefly, had depressed me profoundly. All that money could buy—and yet nothing. Rather like this case. A lot of activity but no forward movement that I could detect.

  Perhaps a little music would help cheer me up. I put in one of my favorite cassettes—a rock ’n roll compilation. As my luck would have it, first up was Elvis complaining that, since his baby had left him, he’d found a new place to dwell. It was at the end of Lonesome Street and called Heartbreak Hotel. Try Sunnyvale, kiddo, I thought. At least it sounds cheerful.

  Then I noticed Holmes was tapping those long, thin fingers on the dashboard in time to the music.

  “I wouldn’t have thought this was your kind of music, Holmes.”

  “It has a certain primitive charm, Watson, I must admit. What is the name of the artiste?”

  “Elvis Presley.”

  “Oh, dear me, no.” He smiled as he shook his head. Edouard De Reske, Enrico Caruso, Fydor Chaliapin … but Elvis Presley! No, my dear fellow, I’m afraid he will have to do better than that if he is to be successful.”

  Since there was nothing I could usefully add, we drove along in silence for a little while, as the no-hope singer finished his dirge. I switched the tape off.

  “A wasted journey, I’m afraid?”

  “Depressing, I grant you. The human condition is at best a precarious one and some degree of tragedy, great or small, lurks behind every façade that we pass. “But wasted? I think not.”

  “But the woman plays with dolls and thinks they are her children.”

  “Yes, but she plays with two dolls—not three.

  “A long run for a short slide—as I have heard you say, Watson. But that slide carries us that much closer to the finish line. Or am I mixing my metaphors?”

  Eleven

  Back in the office the red light on my phone was flashing to show I had messages. This is a fairly recent innovation for me. For years I had espoused the Dale Carnegie thesis that to make friends and influence people you had perforce to meet them face to face. But when some of those faces seem intent on getting in your face, then a little prior screening seems to be called for. An insult on the phone is infinitely preferable to an altercation in an alley in the scheme of things.

  The first was from our Oxford Charlie Chan …

  “My dear Mr. Watson. I do hope when this dreadful affair has run its course, we can sit down and break bread—or even share a bowl of rice—together. It is becoming quite embarrassing. Here am I with my unhappy band of pilgrims, who have come all this way with blood lust raging through their veins in pursuit of their holy relic and on each occasion they are frustrated by finding someone has preempted them.

  “I ask you, Mr. Watson, is the severing of a deceased digit adequate recompense for a trained assassin? And then today’s little fiasco … I apologize in advance for the theatrical touch my lieutenant Weng Lu insisted on adding but he felt a pressing need to contribute something. It’s the artist in him, you know. It would have been a loss of face otherwise. No pun intended.

  “The natives are getting restless, my dear fellow. I really would urge you to redouble your efforts. I’d hate to see you turn from hunter to hunted.”

  The second was Anna Kane … a very frightened Anna Kane …

  “Jack. It’s me, Anna. Why did you rush off like that? I had so much to say to you. Listen, Jack—I’ve just spoken to Nana and she’s done something terrible again but she won’t say what. I don’t know which way to turn. Jack, can’t you come round here?”

  Then the call cut off abruptly. Or had someone at her end cut it off? And what could I do that Jack Daniels couldn’t do better and faster?

  The third was Osgood Kane, asking for a progress report. The words were polite but, even through the distortion of the phone line and the voice box, there was an underlying edge to his tone. Since there was no progress to report, I felt no obligation to return his call in a hurry. I pressed the Recall button again.

  The last call got my serious attention.

  The voice was familiar but I couldn’t place it for the moment.

  “This is Dwight …”

  Dwight?

  Then the caller seemed to realize an explanation was needed.

  “Petit. Mallory calls me Petit. You’ve got to come here right away. I know I should call the cops but I want to do the right thing. Mallory liked you. And you treated me OK. You’ll know what to do. Please!”

  There was the sound of an open line.

  “You heard that, Holmes?” He nodded. “‘Liked’. Past tense.”

  “I’m very much afraid that what we have here, old fellow, are the elements of Greek tragedy. And if so, then events are moving toward their predestined end.

  However, we must see what we can do to moderate them. I suggest we waste no further time.”

  We clattered, drifted and padded down the stairs and across Mrs. Plack’s newlywashed lobby floor, causing the good lady to lean on her mop with her favorite martyred expression that said— “Some people!” For once I agreed with her, though in a rather different context. Some people, indeed.

  Mallory’s showroom had a dark, deserted look, like a stage set after the closing night of the play. Something about it tells you that not only the actors but the characters themselves have moved on and won’t be coming back until they find another author.

  Nor did the weather help. The rain hadn’t arrived but the sky was growing steadily darker and a wind was rising, coming in from the ocean with a salty dampness you could taste. The darkness was bleaching out the color, turning everything into a contrasty film noir.

  Oscar Wilde used to say that life merely imitated art and usually did it rather badly. In Hollywood life imitated the movies. You just had to learn to recognize which ones.

  I tried the door handle. As I expected—locked. Then there was a scuttling noise from within, like a pack of mice—if mice hunt in packs—and then the sound of several locks and bolts and chains being unfastened.

  The face of Petit peered past the final security chain. But only his heightchallenged stature reminded me of the little man I had seen on my last visit. Gone was the chippy assertiveness and the pugnacious stance. Instead, I was looking at a badly frightened wizened child.

  Petit slipped the last chain and stood back to let me in. The moment we were past him, I head the barricades being hurriedly replaced.

  “In there.” There being the work room.

  Holmes, Mike and I moved t
hrough the showroom. Nothing appeared to have been disturbed. It was the same jumble of styles and eras that I’d seen before. Anyone but Mallory or Petit would need a road map to find what they were looking for.

  There was a kind of sensory overload about the place. There were just too many images to take in, so effectively you saw nothing. And yet … was it my imagination or was there something different today that I was missing? Before I could stop to think about it, Petit had hurried me into the inner sanctum.

  Here it was a very different story. The place had been ransacked—turned over by someone who wanted to find something and wanted you to know that he wanted to find something—if you know what I mean. There were no prizes for guessing what.

  Drawers were pulled out and their contents littered the floor—moulds, instruments, files. I found myself crunching over something on the floor. When I looked down, I saw I was walking on the fragments of ceramic birds. No wonder Petit was upset. There were years of work and loving care in those shards.

  But, strangely, that didn’t seem to be what was bothering him. When I looked up, the little man was standing at the far end of the room at the side of a large screen, the kind they use in hospitals to give a patient privacy in a public ward. Mike was standing by his side and peering behind it. Now, Mike is a dog with attitude but his present attitude was strictly ears and tail down.

  I suddenly had a nasty premonition concerning what I was about to find …

  Behind the screen was a long work bench, presumably one Petit used daily, and on it, stretched out as though taking an afternoon nap was Quentin Mallory. It had to be Mallory or two ordinary people laid end to end, occupying one of his suits.

  His hands were folded primly over his stomach and to keep the mosquitoes at bay he had placed a white handkerchief over his face. On the beach or in a garden hammock it would have been an idyllic sight. In this context it was more than a little disturbing.

  For one thing there was no reassuring rise and fall of his chest, no flutter of the handkerchief caused by the lips of the sleeper. I didn’t need to be a coroner to know that this was an extinct antique dealer I was looking at.