Let's All Kill Constance - Bradbury Ray Douglas - Страница 25

"No?" Crumley gunned the car the rest of the way out on the shore. "Three days of maniac running in and out of lousy L.A. palmistry parlors, upstairs Chinese balconies, climbing Mount Lowe! A parade of losers, all because of an A-l skirt who gets the Oscar for loss-leading. Wrong? Rip the roll from my pianola if I've played the wrong tune!"

"Crumley! In that storm drain, I think I saw her. Could I just say 'go to hell'?"

"Sure!"

"Liar," I said. "You drink vodka, pee apple juice. I've got your number."

Crumley gunned the motor. "What're you getting at?"

"You're an altar boy."

"Christ, let me move this wreck out front of that damn fool sailor's delight!"

He drove fast, then slow, eyes half-shut, teeth gritted. "Well?"

I swallowed hard and said, "You're a boy soprano. You made your dad and mom proud at midnight mass. Hell, I've seen the ghost under your skin, in movies where you pretended your eyes weren't wet. A Catholic camel with a broken back. Great sinners, Crum, make great saints. No one's so bad they don't deserve a second chance."

"Rattigan's had ninety!"

"Would Jesus have kept count?"

"Damn, yes!"

"No, because some far-off late night, you'll call a priest to bless you and he'll carry you back to some Christmas night when your dad was proud and your ma cried and as you shut your eyes you'll be so damned glad to be home again you won't have to go pee to hide your tears. You still haven't given up hope. Know why?"

"Why, dammit?"

"Because I want it for you, Crum. Want you to be happy, want you to come home to something, anything, before it's too late. Let me tell you a story-"

"Why are you blabbing at a time like this? You just barely got away from a tribe of lunatics. What did. you see in that flood channel?"

"I don't know, I'm not sure."

"Ohmigod, wait!" Crumley rummaged in the glove compartment and with a cry of relief uncorked a small flask and drank. "If I have to sit here with the tide going out and your hot air rising-speak."

I spoke: "When I was twelve a carnival magician, Mr. Electrico, came to my hometown. He touched me with his flaming sword and yelled, 'Live forever!' Why did he tell me that, Crumley? Was there something in my face, the way I acted, stood, sat, talked, what? All I know is somehow, burning me with his great eyes, he gave me my future. Leaving the carnival, I stood by the carousel, heard the calliope playing 'Beautiful Ohio,' and I wept. I knew something incredible had happened, something wonderful and nameless. Within three weeks, twelve years old, I started to write. I have written every day since. How come, Crumley, how come?"

"Here," said Crumley. "Finish this."

I drank the rest of the vodka.

"How come?" I said quietly again.

Now it was Crumley's turn: "Because he saw you were a romantic sap, a Dumpster for magic, a cloud-walker who found shadows on ceilings and said they were real. Christ, I don't know. You always look like you've just showered even if you rolled in dog doo. I can't stand all your innocence. Maybe that's what Electrico saw. Where's that vodka? Oh yeah, gone. You done?"

"No," I said. "Since Mr. Electrico pointed me in the right direction, shouldn't I pay back? Do I keep Mr. Electrico to myself, or let him help me save her?"

"Psychic crap!"

"Hunches. I don't know any other way to live. When I got married friends warned Maggie I wasn't going anywhere. I said, 'I'm going to the Moon and Mars, want to come along?' And she said yes. So far, it hasn't been so bad, has it? And on your way to a 'bless me, Father,' and a happy death, can't you find it in your heart to bring Rattigan?"

Crumley stared straight ahead.

"You mean all that?"

He reached over and touched under my eyes and brought his fingers back to his tongue.

"The real stuff," he murmured. "Salt. Your wife said you cry at phone books," he said quietly.

"Phone books full of people lost in graveyards, maybe. If I quit now, I'd never forgive myself. Or you, if you made me stop."

After a long moment Crumley shifted out of the car. "Wait," he said, not looking at me. "I got to go pee."

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

he came back after a long while.

"You sure know how to hurt a guy," he said as he climbed back into the jalopy.

"Just stir, don't shake."

Crumley cocked his head at me. "You're a queer egg."

"You're another."

We drove slowly along the shore toward Rattigan's. I was silent.

"You got another hairball?" Crumley said.

"Why is it," I said, "someone like Constance is a lightning bolt, performing seal, high-wire frolicker, wild laughing human, and at the same time she's the devil incarnate, an evil cheater at life's loaded deck?"

"Go ask Alexander the Great," said Crumley. "Look at Attila the Hun, who loved dogs; Hitler, too. Bone up on Stalin, Lenin, Mussolini, Mao, hell's Anvil Chorus. Rommel, good family man. How do you cradle cats and cut throats, bake cookies and people? How come we love Richard the Third, who dumped kids in wine casks? How come TV is all Al Capone reruns? God won't say."

"I don't ask. He turned us loose. It's up to us, once He took off the leash. Who wrote, 'Malt does more than Milton can, to justify God's way towards Man?' I rewrote it and added, And Freud spoils kids and spares the rod, to justify Man's ways toward God.'"

Crumley snorted. "Freud was a nut loose in a fruit patch. I always believed smart-ass punks need their teeth punched."

"My dad never broke my teeth."

"That's because you're a half-stale Christmas fruitcake, the kind no one eats."

"But Constance is beautiful?

"You mistake energy for beauty. Overseas, French girls knocked me flat. They blink, wave, dance, stand on their heads to prove they're alive. Hell, Constance is all battery acid and short circuit. If she ever slows down she'll get-"

"Ugly? No!"

"Gimme those!" He seized the glasses off my nose and peered through them.

"Rose— colored! How do things look without them?"

"Nothing's there."

"Great! There's not much worth seeing!"

"There's Paris in the spring. Paris in the rain. Paris on New Year's Eve."

"You been there?"

"I saw the movies. Paris. Gimme."

"I'll just keep these until you take waltz lessons from blind Henry." Crumley shoved my glasses in his pocket.

As we pulled our jalopy up on the shore in front of the white chateau, we saw two dark shapes by her oceanside pool, under the umbrella, to keep off the moonlight.

Crumley and I trudged up the dune and peered in at Blind Henry and angry Fritz Wong. There were martinis laid out on a tray.

"I knew," Henry said, "after that storm drain you'd seek refreshment. Grab. Drink."

We grabbed and drank.

Fritz soaked his monocle in vodka, thrust it in his stare, and said, "That's better!" And then he finished the drink.

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

I WENT 'round, placing camp chairs by the pool.

Crumley watched with a dour eye and said, "Let me guess. This is the finale of an Agatha Christie murder mystery, and Poirot's got all the usual suspects stashed poolside."