Max carefully got up and moved back across the room. “Something?”
“No,” said Dan. He leaned far forward, reaching for the floor with his hands. “I just have an itch. My stomach.”
Max watched as Dan scratched his stomach with his trunk. “Damn.”
Raising his head, the middle-sized gray elephant squinted at Max. “Hell, I thought it wouldn’t happen again.”
“Can I come closer?”
Dan beckoned with his trunk. “I won’t trample you.”
Max reached out and touched the side of the elephant. “You’re a real elephant sure enough.”
“I should have thought to get some cabbages, too. This stuff is pretty bland.” He was tearing trunkfuls of hay from the bale and stuffing them into his mouth.
Max remembered the cigarette in his hand and lit it. He walked twice around the elephant and said, “Think back now, Dan. To the first time this happened. When was it?”
“I told you. Halloween.”
“But that’s not really a holiday. Was it the day after Halloween? Or the night itself?”
“Wait. It was before. It was the day after the party at Eando Carawan’s. In the Beach.”
“Where?”
“North Beach. There was a party. Anne knows Eando’s wife. Her name is Eando, too.”
“Why?”
“His name is Ernest and hers is Olivia. E-and-O. So they both called themselves Eando. They paint those pictures of bug-eyed children you can buy in all the stores down there. You should know them, being an artist yourself.”
Max grunted. “Ernie Carawan. Sure, he used to be a freelance artist, specializing in dogs. We stopped using him because all his dogs started having bug-eyes.”
“You ought to see Olivia.”
“What happened at the party?”
“Well,” said Dan, tearing off more hay. “I get the idea that there was some guy at this party. A little round fat guy. About your height. Around thirty-five. Somebody said he was a stage magician or something.”
“Come on,” said Max, “elephants are supposed to have good memories.”
“I think I was sort of drunk at the time. I can’t remember all he said. Something about doing me a favor. And a flash.”
“A flash?”
“The flash came to him like that. I told him to to do whatever he did.” Dan stopped eating the hay. “That would be magic, though. Max. That’s impossible.”
“Shut up and eat your hay. Anything is possible.”
“You’re right. Who’d have thought I’d be spending Christmas as an elephant.”
“That magician for one,” said Max. “What’s his name? He may know something.”
“His name?”
“That’s right.”
“I don’t know. He didn’t tell me.”
“Just came up and put a spell on you.”
“You know how it is at parties.”
Max found the phone on a black table near the bookshelves. “Where’s the phone book?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“What?”
“It’s not here. The last time I was an elephant I ate it.” “I’ll get Carawan’s number from information and see if he knows who this wizard is.”
Carawan didn’t. But someone at his Christmas Eve party did. The magician ran a sandal shop in North Beach. His name was Claude Waller. As far as anyone knew he was visiting his ex-wife in Los Angeles for Christmas and wouldn’t be back until Monday or Tuesday.
Max reached for the price tag on a pair of orange leather slippers. The beaded screen at the back of the shop clattered.
“You a faggot or something, buddy?” asked the heavy-set man who came into the room.
“No, sir. Sorry.”
“Then you don’t want that pair of slippers. That’s my faggot special. Also comes in light green. Who are you?”
“Max Kearny. Are you Claude Waller?”
Waller was wearing a loose brown suit. He unbuttoned the coat and sat down on a stool in front of the counter. “That’s who I am. The little old shoemaker.”
Max nodded.
“That’s a switch on the wine commercial with the little old winemaker.”
“I know.”
“My humor always bombs. It’s like my life. A big bomb. What do you want?”
“I hear you’re a magician.”
“No.”
“You aren’t?”
“Not anymore. My ex-wife, that flat-chested bitch, and I have reunited. I don’t know what happened. I’m a tough guy. I don’t take any crap.”
“I’d say so.”
“Then why’d I send her two hundred bucks to come up here?”
“Is there time to stop the check?”
“I sent cash.”
“You’re stuck then, I guess.”
“She’s not that bad.”
“Do you know a guy named Dan Padgett?”
“No.”
“How about Ernie Carawan?”
“Eando? Yeah.”
“On Halloween you met Dan Padgett and a girl named Anne Clemens at the party the Carawans gave.”
“That’s a good act. Can you tell me what it says on the slip of paper in my pocket?”
“Do you remember talking to Dan? Could you have put some kind of spell on him?”
Waller slid forward off the stool. “That guy. I’ll be damned. I did do it then.”
“Do what?”
“I was whacked out of my mind. Juiced out of my skull, you know. I got this flash. Some guy was in trouble. This Padgett it was. I didn’t think I’d really done anything. Did I?”
“He turns into an elephant on national holidays.”
Waller looked at his feet. Then laughed. “He does. That’s great. Why’d I do that do you suppose?”
“Tell me.”
Waller stopped laughing. “I get these flashes all the time. It bugs my wife. She doesn’t know who to sleep with. I might get a flash about it. Wait now.” He picked up a hammer from his workbench and tapped the palm of his hand. “This girl. The blonde girl. What’s her name?”
“Anne Clemens.”
“There’s something. Trouble. Has it happened yet?”
“What’s supposed to happen?”
“Ouch,” said Waller. He’d brought the hammer down hard enough to start a bruise. “I can’t remember. But I know I put a spell on your friend so he could save her when the time came.”
Max lit a cigarette. “It would be simpler just to tell us what sort of trouble is coming.”
Waller reached out behind him to set the hammer down. He missed the bench and the hammer smashed through the top of a shoe box. “Look, Kearny. I’m not a professional wizard. It’s like in baseball.. Sometimes a guy’s just a natural. That’s the way I am. A natural. I’m sorry, buddy. I can’t tell you anything else. And I can’t take the spell off your friend. I don’t even remember how I did it.”
“There’s nothing else you can remember about what kind of trouble Anne is going to have?”
Frowning, Waller said, “Dogs. A pack of dogs. Dogs barking in the rain. No, that’s not right. I can’t get it. I don’t know. This Dan Padgett will save her.” Waller bent to pick up the hammer. “I’m pretty sure of that.”
“This is Tuesday. On Saturday he’s due to change again. Will the trouble come on New Year’s Eve?”
“Buddy, if I get another flash I’ll let you know.”
At the door Max said, “I’ll give you my number.”
“Skip it,” said Waller. “When I need it, I’ll know it.”
The door of the old Victorian house buzzed and Max caught the doorknob and turned it. The stairway leading upstairs was lined with brown paintings of little girls with ponies and dogs. The light from the door opening upstairs flashed down across the bright gilt frames on which eagles and flowers twisted and curled together.
“Max Kearny?” said Anne Clemens over the stair railing.
“Hi, Anne. Are you busy?”
“Not at the moment. I’m going out later. I just got home from work a little while ago.”
This was Wednesday night. Max hadn’t been able to find Anne at home until now. “I was driving by and I thought I’d stop.”
“It’s been several months since we’ve seen each other,” said the girl as Max reached the doorway to her apartment. “Come in.”
She was wearing a white blouse and what looked like a pair of black leotards. She wasn’t as thin as Max had remembered. Her blonde hair was held back with a thin black ribbon.
“I won’t hold you up?” Max asked.
Anne shook her head. “I won’t have to start getting ready for a while yet.”
“Fine.” Max got out his cigarettes and sat down in the old sofa chair Anne gestured at.
“Is it something about Dan, Max?” The single overhead light was soft and it touched her hair gently.
“In a way.”
“Is it some trouble?” She was sitting opposite Max, straight up on the sofa bed.
“No,” said Max. “Dan’s got the idea, though, that you might be in trouble of some sort.”
The girl moistened her lips. “Dan’s too sensitive in some areas. I think I know what he means.”
Max held his pack of cigarettes to her.
“No, thanks. Dan’s worried about Ken Westerland, isn’t he?”
“That’s part of it.”
“Max,” said Anne, “I worked for Ken a couple of years ago. We’ve gone out off and on since then. Dan shouldn’t worry about that.”
“Westerland isn’t causing you any trouble?”
“Ken? Of course not. If I seem hesitant to Dan it’s only that I don’t want Ken to be hurt either.” She frowned, turning away. She turned back to Max and studied him as though he had suddenly appeared across from her. “What was I saying? Well, never mind. I really should be getting ready.”
“If you need anything,” said Max, “let me know.”
“What?”
“I said that ”
“Oh, yes. If I need anything. Fine. If I’m going to dinner I should get started.”
“You studying modern dance?”
Anne opened the door. “The leotards. No. They’re comfortable. I don’t have any show business leanings.” She smiled quickly. “Thank you for dropping by. Max.”
The door closed and he was in the hall. Max stood there long enough to light a cigarette and then went downstairs and outside.
It was dark now. The street lights were on and the night cold was coming. Max got in his car and sat back, watching the front steps of Anne’s building across the street. Next to his car was a narrow empty lot, high with dark grass. A house had been there once and when it was torn down the stone stairs had been left. Max’s eyes went up, stopping in nothing beyond the last step. Shaking his head and lighting a new cigarette he turned to watch Anne’s apartment house.
The front of the building was covered with yards and yards of white wooden gingerbread. It wound around and around the house. There was a wide porch across the building front. One with a peaked roof over it.
About an hour later Kenneth. Westerland parked his gray Mercedes sedan at the corner. He was a tall thin man of about thirty-five. He had a fat man’s face, too round and plump-cheeked for his body. He was carrying a small suitcase.
After Westerland had gone inside Max left his car and walked casually to the corner. He crossed the street. He stepped suddenly across a lawn and into the row of darkness alongside Anne’s building. Using a garbage can to stand on Max pulled himself up onto the first landing of the fire escape without use of the noisy ladder.
Max sat on the fire escape rail and, concealing the match flame, lit a cigarette. When he’d finished smoking it he ground out the butt against the ladder. Then he swung out around the edge of the building and onto the top of the porch roof. Flat on his stomach he worked up the slight incline. In a profusion of ivy and hollyhock. Max concealed himself and let his left eye look up into the window.
This was the window of her living room and he could see Anne sitting in the chair he’d been sitting in. She was wearing a black cocktail dress now and her hair was down, touching her shoulders. She was watching Westerland. The suitcase was sitting on the rug between Max and the animator.
Westerland had a silver chain held between his thumb and forefinger. On the end of the chain a bright silver medallion spun.
Max blinked and ducked back into the vines. Westerland was hypnotizing Anne. It was like an illustration from a pulp magazine.
Looking in again Max saw Westerland let the medallion drop into his suit pocket. Westerland came toward the window and Max eased down.
After a moment he looked in. Westerland had opened the suitcase. It held a tape recorder. The mike was in Anne’s hand. In her other she held several stapled together sheets of paper.
Westerland pushed her coffee table in front of Anne and she set the papers on it. Her eyes seemed focused still on the spot where the spinning disc had been.
On his knees by the tape machine Westerland fitted on a spool of tape. After speaking a few words into the mike he gave it back to the girl. They began recording what had to be a script of some kind.
From the way Westerland used his face he was doing different voices. Anne’s expression never changed as she spoke. Max couldn’t hear anything.
Letting himself go flat he slid back to the edge of the old house and swung onto the fire escape. He waited to make sure no one had seen him and went to work on the window that led to the escape. It wasn’t much work because there was no lock on it. It hadn’t been opened for quite a while and it creaked. Max stepped into the hall and closed the window. Then he went slowly to the door of Anne’s apartment and put his ear against it.
He could hear the voices faintly now. Westerland speaking as various characters. Anne using only one voice, not her own. Max sensed something behind him and turned to see the door of the next apartment opening. A big girl with black-rimmed glasses was looking at him.
“What is it?” she said.
Max smiled and came to her door. “Nobody home I guess. Perhaps you’d like to subscribe to the Seditionist Daily. If I sell eight more subscriptions I get a stuffed panda.”
The girl poked her chin. “A panda? A grown man like you shouldn’t want a stuffed panda.”
Max watched her for a second. “It is sort of foolish. To hell with them then. It’s not much of a paper anyway. No comics and only fifteen words in the crossword puzzle. Good night, miss. Sorry to bother you. You’ve opened my eyes.” He went down the stairs as the door closed behind him.
What he’d learned tonight gave him no clues as to Dan’s problem. But it was interesting. For some reason Anne Clemens was the voice of Westerland’s animated cartoon character. Major Bowser.
By Friday, Max had found out that Westerland had once worked in night clubs as a hypnotist. That gave him no leads about why Dan Padgett periodically turned into an elephant.
Early in the afternoon Dan called him. “Max. Something’s wrong.”
“Have you changed already?”
“No, I’m okay. But I can’t find Anne.”
“What do you mean?”
“She hasn’t showed up at work today. And I can’t get an answer at her place.”
“Did you tell her about Westerland? About what I found out the other night?”
“I know you said not to. But you also said I was due to save her from some trouble. I thought maybe telling her about Westerland was the way to do it.”
“You’re supposed to save her while you’re an elephant. Damn it. I didn’t want her to know what Westerland was doing yet.”
“If it’s any help Anne didn’t know she was Major Bowser. And she thinks she went to dinner with Westerland on Wednesday.”
“No wonder she’s so skinny. Okay. What else did she say?”
“She thought I was kidding. Then she seemed to become convinced. Even asked me how much Westerland probably made off the seri
es.”
“Great,” said Max, making heavy lines on his memo pad. “Now she’s probably gone to him and asked him for her back salary or something.”
“Is that so bad?”
“We don’t know.” Max looked at his watch. “I can take off right now. I’ll go out to her place and look around. Then check at Westerland’s apartment. He lives out on California Street. I’ll call you as soon as I find out anything.”
“In the meantime,” said Dan, “I’d better see about getting another bale of hay.”
There was no lead on Anne’s whereabouts at her apartment, which Max broke into. Or at Westerland’s, where he came in through the skylight.
At noon on Saturday Max was wondering if he should sit back and trust to Waller’s prediction that Dan would save Anne when the time came.
He lit a new cigarette and wandered about his apartment. He looked through quite a few of the occult books he’d collected.
The phone rang.
“Yes?”
“This is Waller’s Sandal Shop.”
“The magician?”
“Right, buddy. This is you, Kearny?”
“Yes. What’s happening?”
“I got a flash.”
“So?”
“Go to Sausalito.”
“And?”
“That’s all the flash told me. You and your friend get over to Sausalito. Today. Before midnight.”
“You haven’t got any more details?”
“Sorry. My ex-wife got in last night and I’ve been too unsettled to get any full scale flashes.” The line went dead.
“Sausalito?” said Dan when Max called him.
“That’s what Waller says.”
“Hey,” said Dan. “Westerland’s ex-wife.”
“He’s got one, too?”
“His wife had a place over there. I remember going to a party with Anne there once. Before Westerland got divorced. Could Anne be there?”
“Wouldn’t Mrs. Westerland complain?”
“No, she’s in Europe. It was in Herb Caen and Max! The house would be empty now. Anne must be there. And in trouble.”
The house was far back from the road that ran up through the low hills of Sausalito, the town just across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco. It was a flat scattered house of redwood and glass.
Smart Dragons, Foolish Elves Page 19