Nine Times Nine

by Anthony Boucher

  “First door to the right on the second floor,” the landlady told them. The cherub answered their knock with a flustered expression on his face and a damp floor-cloth in his hand.

  “More company? My. Well, what is it this time? Oh! You’re the friends of that furious old gentleman, aren’t you? I remember you were with him Sunday night.”

  “Aren’t you going to ask us in?” said Marshall. “Or do I have to get official?”

  “Oh, come in. Come in, by all means. The room’s a frightful mess already. Look at that stain.” He knelt down and finished mooping up the floor as he spoke. “Want some coffee? I simply have to have a room with housekeeping privileges. I just live on coffee. Won’t you have some?”

  “Thanks,” said Marshall. “We wouldn’t mind. What did the old man do? Spill your brew?”

  “He started waving and stamping around and finally knocked over my cup. Silly, brutish way to behave. Never trust a man with a temper, Lieutenant.”

  “And how did you know my rank?”

  “The old man called you that Sunday night. I remember things. A doorkeeper has to, you know.”

  “You didn’t hear about it Monday night, by any chance?”

  “Monday night? How should I hear anything about you on Monday night? Oh, you mean that stupid idea of the old man’s—that I was somewhere pretending to be Ahasver. That’s just ridiculous.—Cream or sugar?”

  “Neither, thanks.”

  “My, how Spartan! Well …” The cherubic Robin Cooper perched on his bed, leaving the chairs to his guests. “What can I do for you?”

  “Tell us a few things about yourself. What made you leave Little Theater work for the greater glory of Ahasver?”

  “Lieutenant!” Robin Cooper was all aflutter. “You are a detective! How did you know I used to be an actor?”

  “Well, now, I don’t know,” said Marshall heavily. “For a while I thought maybe you were an ex-heavyweight, but somehow I changed my mind.”

  “Aren’t you dreadful!"

  Marshall made a sour face. “Sure. I’m the Big Bad Wolf. What else have you done?”

  “Well,” said Cooper proudly, “I was a Communist.”

  “Were you now?” Marshall was more interested. “You wouldn’t have been one of those nice boys that joined the Young Communists’ League on a salary from the Red Squad?”

  “Lieutenant! What makes you think such a thing?” (But Matt, watching him, felt that the guess had hit the mark.) “I was searching for Truth. At first I thought I might find it in Art, and then I plunged into the Social Struggle. But now I know that all that was pure Error, and that Truth is in the words of the Ancients.”

  “How’d you land your job with Ahasver?”

  “I went to one of his little meetings before he was well known, and I was simply carried away by the man! Such sincerity, such strength! I think I might say,” he simpered modestly, “that I was one of his first Disciples. Naturally, the positions of trust, such as doorkeeper, would go to his earliest followers.”

  “You mean you believe all this stuff about the Ancients?” “Believe it? My dear Lieutenant, I live it!” And Robin Cooper launched forth into a five-minute dissertation on the Beauties of the Teachings of the Ancients, fruitcake-crammed with Captials and italics. Matt strolled over to the window and watched the uneventful incidents of the neighborhood—a child on its tricycle, a woman with a heavy shopping bag, an old man taking his pipe and beard for a constitutional. These were normal and pleasant and real; a happy contrast to the metaphysical blethering of the cherub. But the people at the Temple of Light had been normal, too, and the Ahasver-ad-vocates in Pershing Square; normal and ordinary until that yellow-drenched spell had fallen upon them.

  “So how,” Robin Cooper concluded, “can one help but believe? Surely even you, Lieutenant, could find peace and solace if you would really study these Teachings instead of mocking them.”

  “I’ve got peace and solace, thank you,” said Marshall. “I’ll stack my wife and kid up against your Ancients any day.”

  Matt drew out a pack of cigarettes and offered them to his host.

  “Heavens, no!” Cooper squealed. “Those dreadful things! Don’t you know that Man must do without these stimulants of the Flesh if he ever hopes to reach a Higher Plane?”

  “The followers of Ahasver aren’t allowed tobacco?”

  “Oh, my, no! Nor liquor, either, of course.”

  “How about coffee?”

  “Ahasver doesn’t really like us to use that, either. But I feel I cannot divorce myself from the Flesh completely as yet. In time I hope—”

  “Where,” Marshall snapped abruptly, “did you go when you left the Temple Monday night?”

  “Where did I …? Oh! You’re back at that silly notion, aren’t you? Now let me see, did I leave the Temple Monday? Oh, yes, of course. I had to go see the printer. He’d sent us a frightfully messy proof of the weekly Letter of Light, and I simply had to explain all the corrections myself.”

  “So. This printer do much for you?”

  “Oodles. All our books and pamphlets—”

  “I get it. Come on, Matt. I think we’ve done all we can here.”

  “Going, Lieutenant? I wish you’d stay—both of you. I’m sure if I could only talk with you a little, I could make you see—”

  “Thanks for the coffee. You brew a good strong cup. We may see you again.”

  “Oh, I hope so. Real men like you are needed in our organization. But, Lieutenant …”

  “Yes?”

  “It’s all very well, of course, to go about investigating murders, but shouldn’t one know where to stop?”

  “And just what does that crack mean?”

  “I mean, Mr. Harrigan had such a lot of silly ideas about Ahasver being somebody else and finding out who controlled the Temple—as though anything human could control the Ancients. And now here you are investigating Mr. Harrigan’s murder. That should have its effect, shouldn’t it? A sort of object lesson?”

  “Are you trying to—?”

  “In short, Lieutenant, if I were you, I’d leave the Temple alone.” The cherub’s voice was still light, but no longer fluttery. There was cold earnest in it now.

  “Cops that scare easy,” said Marshall levelly, “don’t get to be Lieutenants. Forget about being a bogeyman; you’re cuter the other way. And don’t stamp your foot at me, you gweat big dweadful mans!”

  “You will misunderstand me, Lieutenant,” said Robin in sweet despair.

  “But why the hell,” Matt demanded as they got into the car, “didn’t you pitch into our fair feathered friend?”

  “What’d be the use?”

  “And I didn’t even have to say, ‘Thou art the man!’”

  “Harrigan spoiled that for us. Robin had had time to think up a story for where he was Monday; and if the printer gets that much business from the Temple, he’ll back up any yarn they want to spin. But Mr. Cooper still interests me. I’ll go further—I am fascinated by our sweet little Robin.”

  “Why, Lieutenant!” Matt imitated the cherub’s birdlike cadences.

  “It’s a good act. It’s a honey of an act. But it is an act, and it slipped at the end. He’s no ecstatic hanger-on of the Ancients. He knows what he’s about; and unless my guess is way off, he’s probably about as influential as any member of the Temple.”

  “You think so? Him?”

  “The stupid tendency of the normal male is to discount everything said or done by one who seems effeminate. You think, ‘Nuts, he’s a swish—the hell with him.’ It’s about as clever a front as you can pick. Smart lad, our Robin.”

  “Do you think he’s this power-behind-the-throne that Wolfe Harrigan was trying to trace?”

  “Could be. Or he could be the contact-man between that power and Ahasver.—You noticed the ashtray, of course?”

  Matt nodded. The cherub did not smoke. Joseph, who had just come from the room, smoked cigars. But in the ashtray, along with a cigar butt and
some heavy ash, had been several cigarettes, briefly smoked and doubled over.

  Chapter 17

  Concha Harrigan paused before the memorial cross that marks the entrance to Olvera Street. “Is this where we’re going to eat?” Matt demanded.

  Her face fell. “Don’t you like it?”

  “I used to. When it started, it was a swell idea—build up a little Mexican street in the midst of the city, keep flourishing the traditions of our native minority—sure, it was fine. But since then it’s got so damned over-ridden with tourism and artiness … Look at it. One great big Gift Shoppe, and quaint as all hell. A few Mexes run shops and make money out of it, yes; but what’s the rest of the floating population? A bunch of Iowa tourists and long-haired pretty-boys, mixed in equal proportions.”

  “In other words,” said Concha, “the only kind of tourists it should cater to is your own kind.”

  “Child, you have the damnedest way of saying the truth in the most balloon-pricking manner. All right, so the Iowans and the pretty-boys have as much right here as I have. But that doesn’t make me like it.”

  Concha looked down the street of cluttered quaintness. “In some ways I suppose you’re right. It certainly hasn’t turned out the way it was planned. Mother was on the planning committee, you know—representative of the Pelayo family. I guess that’s why I like it so much. Here I’m not a Harrigan at all; I’m a Pelayo. That fits better. But if you want to go somewhere else …”

  Matt touched her gloved hand. “This’ll do fine if I have a Pelayo to show me around.”

  “Thanks. You’re sweet”

  They started down the street, its rough paving barred to traffic and littered with countless souvenir booths. Matt looked at an unending row of sombrero-shaped ashtrays, each inscribed A Memory of Old Los Angeles. “They’ll have Popeyes here next,” he said.

  “This is where we’re going.” Concha stopped in front of an open tent on the right of the street. The interior was crowded with crude oilcloth-covered tables, backless stools and benches, a charcoal-heated stove, and flocks of cooking utensils. The walls were decorated by two lithographs—one of the Virgin of Guadalupe and one of Franklin D. Roosevelt By the entrance a blind man let his fingers run idly over the strings of a harp, and in a corner three paisanos sat with beer and tacos.

  With Concha’s appearance things came alive. The proprietress bustled over joyously, the old lady turning tortillas on the charcoal griddle let out a Latin hoot of greeting, the paisanos lifted their glasses in a toast, and the blind man, hearing the name Pelayo, began playing a slow, sad waltz.

  For here, evidently, Concha was Señorita Pelayo in name as well as in spirit. In appearance, too, for as she jabbered eagerly with the plump and comely proprietress, all trace of Harrigan fell away and she was, save for her quietly smart clothes, just another Mexican girl.

  Matt felt like visiting royalty as they were professionally escorted to a table in the rear. But visiting royalty is usually provided with an interpreter or addressed in its own language; he was lost in this torrential Spanish.

  “She wants to know,” Concha turned to him, seeming to find some difficulty in forcing herself back into English, “if you want coffee. I thought maybe you’d sooner have beer.”

  “There’s an understanding woman for you! Beer it is. But don’t I have any say on the rest of the meal?”

  “I ordered the combinación—it’s a little of everything. You do like Mexican food, don’t you?”

  “Love it. What’s that the blind man’s playing?”

  Concha bit her lip. “It’s what my mother always used to request. A sad song it is—all about how this poor man used to have a grand rancho and now all that’s left is these four cornfields. All the happiness he knew is gone. Ya todo acabó. Acabó—Ichabod—the glory is departed. See! I can make bilingual puns. Just like Mr. Joyce or something.”

  “Don’t be bright. I was just beginning to see you.”

  “See me?”

  “Yes. You fit here. You’re the right age. You’re a human being—or were until you started to be gay and clever for my benefit.”

  “Now who’s pricking balloons? But what kind of a human being am I?”

  “A pretty good kind, I think. The kind that warms without burning and cools without freezing. And you’re complete. You don’t have the gaps you have at home—the inconsistencies, the jerks. Here you’re rounded and whole.”

  She made no answer, but began to sing softly to the harp’s accompaniment. It wasn’t much of a voice, but light and sweet and clear—like Gracie Allen’s, Matt thought incongruously. The paisanos looked up from their beer, grinned, and joined in with sustaining harmony. The tent was full of soothing melancholy.

  “So here you are!” said a harsh voice.

  Matt tore his gaze from Concha and looked up at Gregory Randall, whose incredibly handsome wax-model features were now distorted with something very close to rage. “This is a fine thing!” Randall continued. “To find you deceiving me here in front of these—these peasants!”

  “Hello, Greg,” said Matt.

  “Don’t you Greg me. I might have known there was something behind all your sudden desire to help me, Duncan. Nobody ever does anything for nothing in this world, I’ve learned that. But I thought I could trust you, old man—a fraternity brother!” he added, as though this were the depth of tragic horror.

  “Look! Can I help it if your girl doesn’t like fish?”

  “Fish? What has fish got to do with it? Oh, I see all your plans now. As soon as I told you about her, you made your decision. A beautiful girl with lots of money and no mind of her own—a foolish rich child. Right up your alley, wasn’t it? And you even used my car to get out there and got me so drunk that I was helpless. Smart work, Duncan. Sucking up to the old man and getting in his good graces; swallowing all that stupid rant from him that I could never stomach; probably telling him plenty about me, too, while you feathered yourself a pretty nest.”

  “Gregory,” said Concha, “don’t you think you’ve said enough?”

  “I haven’t begun to say enough. I’ve heard about your carryings on, the two of you; but I’m willing to forgive you, Concha. You’re young, you don’t understand how things look. But I can’t have those sort of rumors going around about my fiancée.”

  “I can overlook the grammar of that sentence,” said Concha, “but not its inaccuracy. Now will you please go?”

  “If you’ll come with me. Concha, my dear, cut yourself loose from this man once and for all, and I’ll never reproach you for what you’ve done. I—”

  “For what I’ve done!” Concha rose, her black eyes blazing. “Watch out, Gregory. It isn’t safe to brave me on my home grounds like this—you might get your foul mouth scratched off your pretty face. Now get out of here!” She pointed at the entrance with a sweeping gesture and added a few comments in vigorous Spanish—doubtless instructions as to just where he was to go.

  The three paisanos interchanged a look and rose in a body to the defense of Señorita Pelayo. They left their laziness at the table with their beer and advanced, a lithe and menacing bodyguard.

  “Call off the Marines, honey,” said Matt. “I can take care of this.” He followed the retreating Gregory out into the street. A pine-nut vendor caught the smell of battle and yelled to his compañeros in gleeful expectancy.

  Gregory halted with his back to a booth of gourd-ware and plaited straw. “Come on,” he taunted. “Be the big he-man for the fair lady. You know you’re stronger than I am. That’s why you dared try such a contemptible trick to start with.”

  “And you know you’re weaker than I am, so you think you can say anything and get away with it. Well, here’s where you learn different. I don’t so much mind what your little bondselling rat-brain thinks of me, but when you start throwing around cracks about Concha and her father, that’s another matter.”

  “I dare you to come a step nearer!”

  “And you call Concha a child! You have
n’t grown up that far yet—you puling baby. Let’s see what this does to that profile.”

  It was then that Matt saw Arthur on the edge of the gathering crowd. He should have guessed that Gregory had never tracked them down nor thought up all those calumnies by himself. But before Matt was fully aware of his presence, young Harrigan had thrust out a thin leg and tripped him neatly. He came down hard on the rough stones of the street and felt Arthur and Gregory land on top of him with one thud.

  The next minute might be covered by film montage, but never by straight prose narrative. Concha’s three loyal slaves plunged promptly into the battle and pulled his enemies off Matt’s back. Then two other loungers, seeing the odds uneven, joined in on the Randall-Harrigan team. Two passing sailors abandoned their girls and joined in the fight, magnificently indifferent as to which side they slugged.

  It was probably one of the sailors who knocked over the gourd-and-straw-stand and brought its proprietor into the fray, but Matt never did learn who pulled the knife which sketched a fresh design on his scarred cheek. He was too busy fighting off Gregory for that.

  For while the other combatants were content simply to revel in the fight, Gregory had gone unexpectedly and completely wild, with the hysteria of an eddic warrior who had just assumed his bear sark. For a while, his chief ambition was strangulation; but a broken gourd entered his hand somehow, after which he seemed more interested in a little eyegouging.

  A fight is one thing; but handling a maniac is another, especially when the maniac is abetted by a friend with a grudge to pay. As the gourd missed his eye for the third time by a matter of millimeters, Matt began to long for the peaceful company of the Swami Sussmaul and his homely habit of scattering automatics. He even began to long for one of those automatics.

  Then the police whistle sounded.

  Matt felt Concha’s hand in his and heard her whisper, “Come on!” The next instant they were in a picturesque basement shop with every inch of wall covered by candles and a tallow vat simmering in the center.

  “We didn’t come through here, Jesús,” said Concha.