by Mel Gilden
Then there was Medium Rare, some kind of fortune teller with enough clout or pull or whatever to attract a certain type of people, and then order those people to acquire spine necklaces in any way they could. Why she wanted them was the little man who wasn't there. I would have to go see her eventually. Soon. I didn't have a necklace any more, so I guessed I was safe.
And then there was Busy Backson. To my knowledge, she had no interest in blowfish spine necklaces beyond her employment at the Sue Veneer Novelty Company. But she did things as a personal favour to Harry. That told me more about her than I liked.
I let the Belvedere ride the engine down a long hill, and turned more or less left at a five-way intersection that didn't have a stop light. I found a place to park in front of a small grocery store that had a couple of blond guys wearing T-shirts down to their knees who were horsing around in front of it. As far as I could tell, each of them was trying to shove an ice cream wrapper down the front of the other. Maybe that's a sport in Hermosa Beach. Maybe they even have a league.
I was going to put some quarters into the meter, when Bill said, 'Hold it, Boss.' I stepped aside and he shot a wire out of his little spherical belly and into the slot where you're supposed to put the money. He felt around inside for a minute, with a kind of fixed look on his face, as if he were feeling around in a rat hole, and a second later, the VIOLATION sign went down and the little black arrow swung up to two hours.
'That's pretty good,' I said.
'I can do laundromats too.'
'I'll tell Whipper Will.'
We strolled along to a wide walkway between the buildings, and followed it to an alley a block away. The sidewalk was inlaid with bricks so you'd have something to slip on in wet weather. The alley was clean, and in another part of town might have qualified as a street. I could hear the ocean booming not far away. Its strong smell filled the air.
I found the number I wanted on a blue, two-storey building that faced the other way—toward the ocean. I walked over some uneven cement to get to a stairway that led to a second floor, where I knocked. There was a nice view from here; energetic kids slugging a ball over a net, more sand, and then the sun setting through a prism of clouds into the Pacific, which was preening itself as if it knew I was watching.
'Who is it?' came a nice voice.
'Zoot Marlowe. Harry sent me.' I said, feeling as if I were delivering Prohibition whiskey to Jimmy Cagney.
The door opened, and I was looking at Busy Backson. She was tall and slim, wearing a long-sleeved turtleneck shirt that followed her curves with the determination of a race car driver. They were good curves too, a selection of the best from a guitar and a bowl of fruit. On the upper rise of her left breast was a small golden comet, its tail making an arc. Faded blue jeans were a second skin.
She was barefoot. A cloud of yellow hair shined as if sunlight were behind it. Her smile was enough to make me wish I were a real boy.
'Come in,' she said, and held the door open wider.
Bill and I stepped into a small room that was crowded but not fussy. The place was mostly bookshelves, and when she'd run out of room, Ms Backson had shoved the books in any way they would fit. There were some shelves she'd kept empty on purpose, and on them were seashells, glass unicorns, and some small tikis like the ones Will and Bingo had brought back from Hawaii.
One long shelf held a tank full of fish. They came in all colours, shapes and sizes. They chased each other from one end of the tank to the other, where bubbles bounced together as they rose eagerly from a small plastic man wearing a diver's suit and struggling with a treasure chest that was too big for him to carry alone.
Above the books, posters were tacked to the wall. Some of them were of waterfalls hidden in dim, mysterious rain forests that didn't quite drip onto the apartment's walls. Others showed green landscapes that were too green to be real. One poster—dark and drab by comparison—showed fanciful Hollywood designs of alien space ships. Not one of them looked like a sneeve or a top hat. On the floor were some rugs with complicated geometrical designs. They were clean, but worn enough to show they had been there a long time.
'Sit down,' she said and pointed to a couch woven of stiff yellow sticks and covered in grey pillows. When Bill and I sat down, the couch creaked as if we'd sat on a live thing. Bill jumped off, causing it to creak again. You couldn't move on it without it creaking.
Busy Backson dropped into a big armchair that matched the couch and folded her legs up under her. She said, 'Harry tells me you're interested in blowfish spine necklaces.'
'That's right.' I crossed my legs and the couch told everybody all about it.
'There's not much to tell. The ancient Hawaiians used them for barter and because they were considered to be good luck.'
'That's what it said on the Certificate of Authenticity.'
'That's all there is.'
'Anything special about the spines that Harry makes down at the Sue Veneer Novelty Company?'
Busy Backson shrugged. 'They're plastic. Not very good plastic, I suppose, but they don't have to be. We're not making space capsules here.'
'Still,' I said, 'I understand they're being stolen all over the city. Somebody stole a whole truckload of them from Harry.'
She nodded, frowning as if she'd broken a fingernail. 'I know,' she said, 'Harry told me.' 'Did he tell you how it was done?' 'He mentioned a couple of Hawaiians. One with blonde hair.'
'That mean anything to you?' I said.
She wasn't looking at me. She wasn't looking at anything in the room. 'Scarcer than hen's teeth,' she said.
'Scarce as all that, hmmm?'
The lights came back on behind her eyes, and she looked at me with the seriousness she usually reserved for authenticating. 'You're a pretty scarce kind of guy yourself, Mr Marlowe.'
'Toxic waste and nose drops will do that to you.'
'I'm sorry,' she said, and looked it. She leaped to her feet, said, 'Come on, I'll show you something,' and marched out through a doorway. I caught up with her in a dim room, obviously the bedroom, in which some blinds were lifting gently in the breeze off the beach. On the wall over the bed were some very dangerous looking clubs and spears. On a stand to one side was a huge, arched thing made of yellow feathers that fluttered in the breeze.
Busy Backson was standing near a dresser that had a lot of spines on top. She held her fists out to me, knuckles up, and said, 'Turn on the light.'
I was reaching for the switch when Bill's eyes went on. 'Look over here, Bill,' I said, and Bill looked at what Busy Backson was holding, shining his light on it.
Ms Backson said, 'Here. You tell which is which.' She opened her hands, showing that in each was a blowfish spine. Looking at them told me nothing. Bill pointed to one of them and said, 'That one.'
But he was wrong. The other one gave off a faint reek of dead fish and kelp. No one but a Toomler would have been able to pick it up. I pointed to the same one Bill had.
'No. It's the other one.' My guessing wrong didn't make her particularly happy. It was just part of the demonstration. Busy Backson was a lot more adult than I would have expected from a friend of Harry's. 'So you see,' she said, 'the Sue Veneer spines are pretty good. They deserve a Certificate of Authenticity.'
'That still doesn't explain why anybody would steal a truckload of them.'
'Well, they are valuable.' She put both spines back on the dresser and scanned the room quickly.
'Like diamonds?'
'Well, of course not.'
'Then why not steal diamonds?'
'You're the detective.'
'Having a title doesn't always make things easier.'
'No.' She bit her lip as she walked back into the crowded living room. The biting of the lip was nice, but she had no reason to do it. Not if the spines were somebody else's problem.
She was watching the fish. I stood behind her watching fish, too. They swam up and back with all the concern for the two of us as sales girls on Rodeo Drive
.
I said, 'You heard about the top hat on the beach in Malibu?'
Without turning around, she said, 'Sure. It was in the news; the Martian Hat.'
'Among the crew was a blonde Polynesian woman.' She turned around, mangling her lip again. It was kind of endearing, actually. 'The news didn't say anything about that.'
'I'm a detective, remember?'
The lip got free and she said, 'Do you know anything about Hawaiian mythology?'
'Only that there are probably no top hats in it.'
That brightened her right up. The smile almost gave me a sunburn. She said, 'Hey, you are a detective, aren't you?' She folded herself on the grey chair again and went on:
'One of the main gods in the ancient Hawaiian pantheon is Pele, goddess of volcanoes. Sometimes she's pictured with red hair, sometimes with blonde—the colours of volcano fire.'
'If Pele existed, what would she want with blowfish spine necklaces?'
She shrugged, lifting her shoulders almost to her ears. 'You ought to talk to my brother, Gone-out.'
'Is he a personal friend of Pele?'
'No, but he's a big Raymond Chandler fan. I bet you two would fascinate each other.'
'Look, Ms Backson—'
'Call me Busy. Don't deny it. Why else the uniform? Why else the patter? I'll bet trouble is even your business.'
I sighed and said, 'Sometimes it turns out that way.'
Busy snapped her fingers and went on, 'And now that I think about it, if Gone-out didn't once date Pele, he probably knows someone who did.'
I looked at Bill. It was possible he was the only one in the room who wasn't crazy. I was wrong. He said, 'You could use a guy like that.'
'Yeah. I could use a guy with an imagination able to take more abuse than the Santa Monica Pier.'
'You'll see,' Busy said and went to get him.
Chapter 14
As Plain As The Nose On My Face
SOMEWHERE in the apartment, voices were raised. I couldn't understand what they said. They were just voices, sounds rising and falling as if animals were discussing a bone at the back of a cave.
While Bill stood before the fish tank, transfixed, I went to the front door and opened it, allowing a cold, damp wind to shoulder its way past me and begin to search the room. In the short time Bill and I had been in Busy's apartment, the beach had emptied almost entirely. The ocean was grey as an old pot, except where an orange road led to the sun, which rippled like a snake going down a ladder as it dropped through the hazy air.
'Mr Marlowe?' As I shut the door and turned back toward the room, I said, 'Call me Zoot.'
Busy was standing next to a tall thin man with a beard and hair the same angelic colour as hers. From behind thick glasses blinked eyes such a pale blue they were nearly a strange kind of white. They never stopped moving as they studied me. He used his lizard lips to make a crooked, knowing smile. He wore brown pants and a shirt with a smokey brown stripe. Something gold was pinned to his blue tie, which was loosened a little as if this were his day off.
Busy watched us to see what we would do with each other. I felt like a new fish in her tank. She said, 'Zoot, this is my brother, Gone-out.'
'Charmed, I'm sure,' he said as we shook hands.
Nobody shook hands with Bill, and he put his down.
'Busy told me she had an interesting visitor, and I see that she was right.' His smile became more crooked. If he wasn't careful, it would slide off his face. 'You are not of this Earth, are you?' His bright, flickering eyes skewered me as if I were already a specimen mounted in his collection.
I'd heard of people like Gone-out. UFO nuts. Men who received messages from space through their teeth; women who had close encounters with star princes who looked like movie actors. UFO nuts: righter than they knew, but for all the wrong reasons. UFO nuts. Nuts were right.
On a whim, I decided to take a chance on an idea I would not have considered five minutes before. But Gone-out's personality gave me confidence, and the gig was too good to resist. I guess I was a little nuts myself. Call it an experiment in human relations.
I said, 'Is it that obvious?' Poor little me.
Busy didn't disappoint me. She groaned theatrically and sat down again, this time with her feet on the floor. She rested her boobs on her crossed arms and watched us with tolerant good humour. Gone-out stepped toward me eagerly, and I got a good look at the pin on his tie. It was not the same comet Busy wore, but a pearl sitting on three crossed golden sticks.
Then something dropped out of my mind like a toy dropping down a chute in a penny arcade. I remembered the glint on the collar of the guy who hit me. But it wasn't just a glint any more. It was a small pearl on a golden tripod, the same kind of pin Gone-out Backson was wearing, the same kind the freak in the Malibu Bar and No-Grill had been wearing. I had the feeling Medium Rare was stalking me, though there was no reason in the world she should be. No reason in this world.
Gone-out gripped my shoulders and cried, 'Brother.'
'I don't think so,' I said, and tried to step back. 'No, wait,' he said. 'I am also of another plane.'
'Plane?' I said. 'As in big silver bird?' Gone-out laughed as if over tiny, crustless sandwiches at a tea party. He said, 'Another plane of existence, a place wiser than ours.'
I nodded and said, 'Is that what the dingus on your tie means?'
He seemed pleased that I'd noticed. He said, 'In a manner of speaking, yes. The "dingus", as you so quaintly call it, is a honk, an ancient Krybassinian symbol of knowledge and universal balance, now taken by Medium Rare as her own.'
'Would it be too difficult for you to give me my shoulders back and tell me about Medium Rare at the same time?'
I think he'd forgotten where his hands were. He took them away, and held one finger in the air as he declaimed, 'She is the beginning and the end. She is the Serpent of Time biting its own tail. She sees all, knows all, tells all.'
'She's bigger than a bread box and she "knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men". All you have to do is cross her palm with silver. OK, I got it.'
Gone-out squinted at me, and his crooked smile went up again. He said, 'Busy guessed you were a follower of Raymond Chandler's. I can see why.'
'As plain as the nose on my face,' I said, taking another chance. It was a good evening for chances.
Busy and I were both watching Gone-out. He sat down on the singing couch and twined one leg around the other. He was as casual as the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace. He said, 'I am Chandler come again. I've been debirthed many times, and I know it.'
'You're too old. You had to have been born before Chandler died.'
'That's what I told him,' Busy said.
Gone-out smiled and crossed his legs the other way. His legs were very thin. It was astonishing how many times they'd go around. Calmly, he said, 'The Universe is a mysterious place, is it not?'
'The Universe has nothing on Hermosa Beach,' I said.
Gone-out actually laughed at that, but it was a harsh laugh that did not enjoy anything. 'Of course mysteries are nothing new to me.' Proudly, he went on, as if reciting the names of awards he'd won. 'I also study New Age music, astral projection, harmonics, crystals, channelling, and reincarnation.'
Bill said, 'I'm the reincarnation of a '54 Chevy.'
Busy squashed a laugh behind a hand, but Gone-out looked at Bill with wide-eyed interest. 'Mechanical reincarnation. I've not heard of this.'
'It's a new one on all of us,' I said. 'I'd like to meet Medium Rare.'
Gone-out closed his eyes, and held his open palm in my direction as he nodded. 'Yes. Yes. I can see it.'
'A lady's yellow handkerchief with the initials ZM?'
His eyes snapped open like shutters. His mouth looked even more as if it belonged on a lizard. He said, 'You scoff, yet I sense that you and Medium Rare were tightly bound together in a former life. That is why this unexplainable urge to see her.'
'I knew one of us was bound a little too tight.' I said
. 'When can I see her?'
'She will be at the Aquaricon, a New Age convention at the Airport Stanton Hotel this weekend.'
'I'll be there.'
'I know,' Gone-out said.
Chapter 15
A Sentimental Geek Thinking Wishfully
WE agreed to meet in the lobby of the Airport Stanton Hotel the next day. The door clicked closed behind Bill and me, and he trotted down the stairs, marvelling at what a mysterious guy Gone-out Backson was and how amazing it was that he knew I'd be going to the Aquaricon.
I stood there with the door behind me, looking past Bill, and let the blackness beyond the promenade lights suck me out into the night. I could hear the big machine of the ocean out there, working and grinding, grabbing the land and trying to pull it under. Far out were some points of white light that didn't move. A smell of popcorn came on the cold wind and curled around my nose like a warm scarf. It occurred to me that I hadn't eaten since that morning. I pulled my trenchcoat around myself and said, 'After I said I was going, it was easy for Gone-out to say he knew it ahead of time.'
'Yeah, but,' Bill said and waited for me at the bottom of the stairs.
'Yeah, but nothing.' We argued amiably about Gone-out Backson's psychic powers all the way back to the car. In it, I started the engine, and had the Belvedere rolling toward Malibu when Bill said, 'Wait a minute. They found it.'
'Who found what?'
'They,' he said excitedly, 'The police. They found the Pantages truck with the spine necklaces in it.'
We were at a stop sign with no one behind us. Thin fog was moving in like the ghosts of new neighbours. I was cold and wanted my dinner, but the car didn't move. I looked at Bill and said, 'How do you know?'
'I get the police calls.'
'All the time?'
'Sure, it's easy.'