We went around the park, watching for a sign of Spelling. Nothing. We went around again and then tried streets off of the park. Some of them three times.
Suddenly, Phil turned off the radio and parked next to the Tail of the Pup hot-dog stand. Normally, Phil was a sucker for their kosher dogs. He pounded on the steering wheel with his fists for about a minute and then said, "You want a burger?"
"Hot dog, if it's a kosher," I said.
Nobody moved. Not Phil, who shut his eyes. Not me. Definitely not Wally Hospodar, who, for all I knew, was dead.
"What are we doing, Phil?" I finally asked.
"I'm meditating," he said calmly. "It doesn't do any goddamn good, but I'm meditating."
After three or four minutes, Phil took a deep breath, opened his eyes, and used his car radio to call for someone to come for Spelling's wrecked car.
"And I want Loring to go over it. No one else. Loring. You get that? Anyone touches anything on the car but Loring gets his lower lip ripped off."
Phil signed off, hung up the radio, and stared out of the front window.
I had some ideas, but I knew better than to say anything. A good sigh later, Phil said, "I'll put a man on Hospodar and one on Varaey," he said. "You?"
"Let's just catch him," I said.
"Just get me a double burger," Phil said, climbing out of the car.
"You want mustard, onion, and pickles?" I said, stepping out of the hole where there had recently been a door.
Phil nodded and reached for his wallet as we walked toward the Pup.
I stopped him with, "This one's on Clark Gable."
We had finished our sandwiches-mine was a Colossal dog with coleslaw instead of kraut-before we discovered that Wally Hospodar was dead.
Actually, I discovered that Wally was dead when I offered him the regular dog with chili and he fell on his face.
There was a hole in his back, a thin hole. My guess was that he was passed out when he died. Phil was sitting in the driver's seat when I told him Wally was dead. Phil snatched the chili dog out of my hand and downed it in three angry bites.
"How could Spelling get back to the car before us when we were on his damn ass?" Phil sputtered through a mouthful of mustard and bun.
"I don't know, Phil," I said, still standing outside the car next to him and watching the traffic flow by.
"And how the hell do I explain stopping for lunch with a corpse in the back seat, a dead man killed in my own car?"
"I don't know, Phil."
"Damn," Phil said, hitting the steering wheel. "Get hi."
"I think I'll…"
"Get the hell in the car," Phil said, tearing at his tie.
I got in.
Chapter 11
I had a headache. Mrs. Plaut fixed a bag of her Aunt Ginger's Yellow Indian Poultice, which she instructed me to apply to the cut on my forehead. Mrs. Plaut also gave me a Boxie Scotch Bromide, yellow crystals dissolved in water, which I was instructed to "drink down without pause or risk dyspepsia."
The price I had to pay for poultice and bromide, which had not yet kicked in, was to read another chapter of Mrs. P's never-ending history of her family.
It all began when Mrs. Plaut first rented a room to me, a little over two years ago. For reasons still unclear to me, which Gunther suggested I not explore, Mrs. Plaut believed I was either an exterminator or a book editor, possibly both. So far she hadn't asked me to get rid of the ants, crickets, or funny-looking green things with wings that sometimes got in the house. These she disposed of with her own remedies and frequent applications. No, she turned to me for help with the history of the family Plaut.
I had read more than a thousand pages, written in Mrs. Plaut's neat block letters on lined sheets. The new batch, which she handed me with the poultice and the bromide concoction and more information on changes in the ration-book regulations, was mercifully short.
I couldn't complain. Mrs. Plaut had agreed to let me hold a meeting in the all-day-and-early-evening room, a big fire-placed room with a faded Navajo rug which was reserved for "quiet" moments and "music listening" time for the roomers. The room was seldom used by anyone but Mr. Hill the mailman, who sometimes paused to take off his shoes and rest his feet before pulling himself up the stairs. Mr. Hill, in full gray uniform, was known to doze off snoring, clutching his empty leather mailbag to his chest. Once in a while, Mrs. Plaut would come in serious or beaming to wind the Victrola and play such favorites as "Hindustan," "Indian Love Call," "Juntos en El Rincon," and "After You've Gone." Most of the records were so old they were recorded on one side only. Most were by Isham Jones and his band, though there were a few Ted Lewis and King Olivers in the scratchy pile.
My headache, the yellow poultice, and I lay on the mattress on the floor going through the pages Mrs. Plaut had handed me. I read:
My brother Bill and his friends Murryhill and Weston were to have charged up San Juan Hill astride their horses right behind Teddy Roosevelt himself. Weston later claimed that Blackjack Pershing was also among their elite company, but Brother was certain that Persh-ing's brother was back at camp tending the backup horses.
Well, anyway, Brother, Murryhill, and Weston assembled on horseback and followed a contingent they thought was the first wave of cavalry. It turned out, as you may have surmised from small hints I have given you, that they were incorrect. Brother Bill always contended, to the day he died in Mineola, that Colonel Roosevelt had not been entirely clear on time or location of assembly.
There is, however, no point in contemplating what can not have been.
Bill Murryhill, who was quite bald and had been since early childhood from what was reputed to be a misapplication to the scalp of Mrs. Tessmacher's Panacea in a Bottle, and Weston lost no time in urging their steeds to the fore and upon seeing a lone rider charge at a gallop up a ridge, Brother opined that it was Teddy and he urged Murryhill and Weston, who had but one eye due to an ice cream machine accident in Toledo, to gallop on to glory with the first wave Rough Riders in their moment of triumph.
When they reached the crest of the hill with no resistance from the enemy who they were convinced had fled at the fearsome sight of determined American cavalry, they looked around for Teddy and back for the rest of the Riders. Of Riders there appeared to be none. Of Teddy, they had been mistaken. The man on the horse, who was no longer on the horse, was sitting with legs crossed on the grass and holding his head. His name was Tom Mix. He had a winning smile and an enormous nose and would go on to greater fame as a movie star and circus curiosity.
Tom Mix had been carried away by the horse he had been breaking, a Roan of ill disposition who now stood munching grass and looking at the small group. Tom Mix had sustained a bump on his head.
At that moment, so Brother recalled, there was a tremendous whooping and hollering from the hill to their right veiled by thick trees. As they discovered subsequently, it was the Battle of San Juan Hill.
The contingent, Tom Mix, Murryhill, and Weston, led by Brother Bill went down the far side of the hill leading their exhausted horses and found themselves in a small town called Rosalinda where the populace greeted them without enthusiasm as liberators from the Spanish yoke. Though Tom Mix claimed to speak fluent Spanish, it turned out that he knew only enough words to get himself in trouble. Remember, however, that he was a young lad at the time and full of suds.
Weston, however, knew enough to announce a fiesta of victory over Spain and a great party was held that evening albeit there was little to eat and drink. Murryhill did not return with Brother, Tom Mix, and Weston the next morning. He fell in with a family named Calles taking up with either the daughter or aunt of the family, Weston's Spanish being too poor to determine which.
Brother Bill reported that Murryhill had died in the charge and he was backed up in this deceit by Tom Mix and Weston. Murryhill became a hero of the charge on San Juan Hill and a statue was erected in his memory in downtown Enid, Oklahoma where he was from. Subsequently, Tom Mix visited Enid an
d made a fine speech about his partner Murryhill. A children's park in Enid was named in honor of Murryhill. I know not if it still stands but I understand on good authority that it contained the first twenty-foot children's slide in either Oklahoma or Texas.
Weston became a bartender in Florida somewhere along the Suwanee River and Brother married a harness maker's daughter and moved to Healdsburg in the Cali-fornias where he repaired typewriters and telegraphs and wrote many a newspaper article about his exploits with the Rough Riders.
There was more, much more, but not for me. Not today. I closed my eyes and opened them almost immediately. Mrs. Plaut was standing in my doorway, arms folded, wearing a yellow dress with a print of large red flowers and a straw hat with a wide brim.
"They are assembled," she said.
She had something in her hand. I blinked. It was a small garden shovel covered with dirt.
"You've been reading," she said, pointing the shovel at the pile of papers.
"And you've been planting," I countered with aplomb.
"A garden is a lovesome thing," she said, returning her shovel to parade-dress military position.
"I'll remember that," I said, sitting up. "Now if you'll…"
"I'm going downstairs," she said, taking the yellow poultice from my hand. "I'm brewing some hot mixed-berry saft and there is many an orange snail muffin remaining. Have you finished reading about Brother in Puerto Rico?"
"I have," I said. "Murryhill was an interesting character."
Mrs. Plaut sighed and looked toward my window.
"I would have considered a marriage offer from him had he but importuned," she said. "Instead, Fatty Arbuckle and the Mister."
"Fatty Arbuckle?"
But she had turned her back and exited. I got up, arranged Mrs. Plaut's manuscript on my little kitchen table, and put a box of dominoes on the pile. I had my pants and shoes on and was considering whether to wear the clean white shirt with the missing button, the not-so-clean blue shirt with the small salsa stain, or the fashionable off-white with the un-fashionably frayed collar. I took the off-white and was buttoning it when Dash leaped through the window.
"Wait'll I tell you about my day," I said.
Dash seemed interested, but I was in a hurry. I opened the cabinet over the small refrigerator in the corner near the window and pulled out a can of Strongheart dog food. I had picked up a dozen cans by mistake and discovered that Dash liked the stuff.
Over my shoulder I checked the Beech-Nut clock near the door. Three-forty. I found the can opener while Dash sat back watching me.
"People are getting killed, Dash," I said. ' Dash's pink tongue darted out and back while I poured the dog food into a bowl, tried not to smell it, and set it on the floor. Dash moved to the food and began eating.
"And killers are sending me poems about it."
Dash slurped away at the Strongheart.
"Will you answer a question for me?"
Dash paused to catch his breath. I took that for a yes. He went on eating. — .
"Is it too late for me to grow up? I'm asking you this because the loony who's writing these poems may want to kill me too. And, I ask you, what will I have left behind if he kills me? A cat, a few friends, no money, a Crosley that should be turned in for scrap metal."
Dash didn't care, but Mrs. Plaut, who had returned and opened the door without my hearing her, did have some ideas.
"First," she said, ignoring my yelp of surprise, "it is most assuredly too late for you to grow up for you have already done so. Second, I do not know what you will leave behind if Wendell Willke kills you. Actually, I think you must be seriously deluded to believe that Mr. Willke would have the slightest interest in you. But if you were to be hit by a Red Car on the Melrose line, I, though grieved, would request that one of your cronies take your cat."
"You are always a comfort to me in moments of indecision and self-doubt," I said.
"They are still waiting downstairs. They have consumed all of the remaining orange snail muffins, and the little fat one with the thick glasses and odious cigar has drunk one quart of saft and spilt another pint on the rug."
"I didn't invite Shelly," I said.
"And I hope you have not invited Keats or Byron," said Mrs. Plaut. "I am playing the "Song of India" for those assembled, but while I am the gracious landlord, I always ask myself what the departed Mister would say in a situation."
"What would he say?" I said, buttoning my shirt.
'Tell them to keep their feet off the furniture, including the hassock, and that minimal refreshments will be served this day."
"I'm on the way down," I said.
"You said that once before," she said.
I took the box of dominoes off the manuscript, hoisted the tome in two hands, and handed it to her.
"Fascinating," I said.
"And all of it a factual chronicle," she said.
Far behind her, well beyond her doubtful hearing, someone shouted, then someone answered, then the shouting rose.
"I think we'd better get downstairs," I said, moving past her.
Dash dashed between my feet into the hallway, and Mrs. Plaut mumbled to herself that the age of chivalry had gone to rest with the Mister.
I went to the bathroom, brushed my teeth and hair, and looked at myself in the mirror. Mrs. Plaut's poultice was doing its job. The cut was clean, tight, small, and no longer discolored. I was ready for guests.
When I got to the day room, Shelly was standing in the center of the floor squinting through his bottle-bottom glasses at Gunther, who stood below him but didn't give an inch.
Jeremy sat on the sofa, arms folded, ignoring the confrontation and making notes on a pad. Next to him was Clark Gable, who sat, arms folded, shaking his head in disbelief. He was wearing a pair of worn khaki fatigue pants and an olive-colored long-sleeved shirt with a turtleneck.
Mame Stoltz sat on the Mister's rocking chair, reputed to have been the property of Mr. Abraham Lincoln's secretary of something or other. Mame was sleek, lean, hair short and dark, piled up to show her neck. She wore a gray blouse and matching skirt, with white pearls and plenty of makeup. She looked up when I came in and smiled.
"Toby," she said. "Landlady or no landlady, Clark and I are going to smoke."
Gunther and Shelly continued to glare at each other. Shelly made a low growling sound.
"Is that what they're fighting about?"
"They're fighting about someone named Mildred," Gable said, rubbing his forehead.
Without turning his gaze from Gunther, Shelly whined, "He made remarks about my wife."
"I said that Mrs. Minck bore no resemblance to Miss Stoltz," said Gunther, who looked at me seriously.
"Mildred is a Venus compared to her," Shelly said.
I glanced at Mame, who was playing with an unopened pack of Old Gold's.
"Mrs. Minck is of no anatomical distinction," Gunther insisted. "Physiological comparisons are of the most superficial kind."
I tended to agree with Gunther but I knew that folly and defeat lay in pursuing it with Sheldon, who had an unexplained loyalty to Mildred who vaguely resembled Marjorie Main on a bad day. Mildred had once run off with a Peter Lorre imitator and when he was dead returned to Shelly and took all the money the beachball of a dentist had hidden in an old vase.
"Shelly," I said, going for the idea that a strong offense would obscure the argument, "what are you doing here?"
This got his attention and he turned to me somewhat sheepishly while Gunther moved to Mame's side. Seated in the rocker, Mame was about the same height as Gunther, a mating made in Hollywood heaven.
"I heard that we were meeting. Jeremy said…"
"I did not," Jeremy said without looking up from his pad.
"Sit down, Shelly," I said.
"But that little…"
"Down, now, Sheldon," I said.
"I'm not apologizing," Shelly said, looking for a chair and finding a wooden one in the corner. "No. He'll apologize."
"Fine," I said, "let's…"
"But I will apologize to Mr. Gable," Shelly said, standing next to the chair.
"Apology accepted," Gable said with a smile and a glance at me that made it clear he was losing patience.
"In fact," Shelly said, as if he had a flash of inspiration, "I'll be glad to work on your teeth, cleaning, fillings, whatever, for half the celebrity price."
Mame whispered something to Gunther, who nodded.
"No, thank you," Gable said, pulling a cigarette from his pocket and putting it to his lips.
"But…" Shelly went on as Gunther moved quickly to his side and touched his arm. Shelly wanted to brush him away but Gunther insisted. Shelly sat hi the wooden chair and Gunther whispered in his ear.
"No," said Shelly, looking at Gable, who looked as if he was seriously considering a run for the door. "Clark Gable? False teeth?"
"That's it," said Gable, rising. "Peters, I'm going out on the front porch with Mame. We are going to have a cigarette. When we are finished, I'm going home, where I will pack what few belongings I've brought to the States with me, and tomorrow I'll catch the first military air transportation I can find back to England. I'd like to get my hands on this Spelling, but there's a war going on and I think I'd better escape this…"
"Sideshow?" Mame suggested.
"I'll go with that," Gable said. "Five minutes."
He looked at his wristwatch and strode to the door with Mame a step behind him. Gunther stood blinking at the temporary loss of Mame to the call of tobacco and the company of Clark Gable.
"More saft?" Mrs. Plaut said amiably, coming into the room with a pitcher of dark liquid. "Iced this time."
I sat next to Jeremy in the spot Gable had been. No one answered Mrs. Plaut, who placed the pitcher on a wooden block on the coffee table.
"Thanks," I said.
"What happened to the lady and the man who looks like Robert Taylor?"
"Smoking on the front porch," I said, feeling that the businesslike atmosphere I had hoped for had vanished in smoke rings.
"I don't allow smoking in the house," Mrs. Plaut said, standing straight, smiling, and wiping her hands on the apron she had put on.
Tomorrow Is Another day tp-18 Page 13