The pain in my back was almost gone. I decided to take a chance on going home for a shave and bath. An hour later I was shaved and clean, and my teeth weren’t furry anymore. I gulped one of Shelly’s pain pills just in case and went out the door into the evening sun looking for an unfriendly face attached to a big body. None appeared.
The drive was uneventful. No one tried to kill me, and it was a dead Sunday. Paper blew in the streets. Mexicans with nothing to do sat on the curbs arguing. Anglos with lawns cut the grass.
KMPC radio said they’d broadcast a “Hollywood on Parade” for Willkie the next day with Conrad Nagel, Edward Arnold, Porter Hall and Arthur Lake. Roosevelt had the clear edge in star power. I turned off the radio and headed for Cassie James.
Her house was on the beach in Santa Monica. It wasn’t a big money place, but it wasn’t welfare living, either. I didn’t know exactly what her job at M.G.M. was or how much she was paid. My estimate jumped when I got out of the car. She had some money.
The surf rolled in and grumbled, and the sun was cut off halfway on the horizon. She answered the door with a small smile, and I figured out her color code. Today she was wearing a yellow blouse and skirt. She was a woman of solid colors. No stripes, designs or little flowers. It made her seem solid. The house matched. None of the furniture in the living room had a stripe or flower. Even the paintings on the white walls weren’t flowery. She caught me looking at the room instead of at her.
“What do you think?”
“It’s restful,” I said, putting my hat on a table near the door and dropping into a sofa to rest. There was plenty of room on the sofa for company. She sat next to me and handed me a card. Neatly written on it in green ink was the name of James Franklin Peese and an address on Main Street. I tucked it in my pocket, and Cassie James moved closer to me.
“Hungry?” she said.
“Always,” I answered, which was nearly the truth.
I could feel her breath on me and looked into her eyes.
“Let’s skip the game,” she said softly. “I’ve played it a few times. It’s embarrasing, awkward, and it makes me feel foolish.”
She got up and led me into a bedroom. The room was painted yellow. The bed and furniture were black.
“We’ll eat later,” she said. “It’ll be easier for both of us.”
She held out her hand for my coat, and I gave it to her. Then she turned her hand down, palm up, toward my pants and left the room turning down the lights. I took my clothes off, put them on a chair, and got into the bed. I worked over a couple of wise cracks in my head in case she came back in an apron with a tray of chicken. She came back without chicken, and I made no cracks. She was dark and beautiful, and came to me softly smelling of mountains. I dropped back with her on top of me. We didn’t talk and moved slowly. It was better than I had imagined, and the sound of the sea outside helped.
I almost fell asleep, but not quite, and she kissed me awake.
“Hungry?”
I said yes, and she got up, slowly throwing her hair back, and went toward the living room. I closed my eyes for a few minutes or half an hour.
She came back dressed in a black knit sweater and skirt.
“You’ve got five minutes,” she whispered.
I grunted and got up when she left. In a few minutes I was dressed. Before I went into the living room, I took another one of Shelly’s just-in-case pain pills and gulped it down with tap water in Cassie’s pink bathroom. There was better behavior for a bad back than what I was doing.
We had dinner in a corner of the living room next to a window where we could see the moon and the coast. We ate steak and corn on the cob, and there was plenty of it. We both had a beer and talked about nothing.
“Ever married?” I said, when we had put the dishes away.
“Once, for a short time, a long time ago. You?”
“Once,” I said, “for a long time, until a short time ago.”
There didn’t seem much else to say on the subject. We talked about Judy Garland. I told my life story, making myself look as tough as possible. She gave me a little about her life, but not much more than she had before. We talked about Hoff and made jokes about his first-naming and changes in personality, and I told her about my meeting with Mayer. She had never talked to Mayer, nor been in his office in the years; she had worked in the studio. She’d begun with M.G.M. shortly after she had come from Texas. Her career as an actress had passed after a few years, and she had devoted herself to her actress sister. When the sister died, Cassie had plunged into costume design and had done well as an assistant. She didn’t talk about men, but I was sure she would have if I’d asked.
Somewhere after eleven she said she had to get to bed alone because she had to be at the studio at six. We kissed and I started to prolong it, but she pushed me away gently with the promise of more in the future.
“I’ll talk to you tomorrow,” I said.
“I’ll be waiting,” she said, and I strode out to my Buick as if it were an armed charger.
When I got back home I felt confident about killing any dragons that might want to break into my castle. Besides, the dragon who was trying to kill me was a lousy shot. I was confident, but not stupid. I put my sofa in front of the door, kept the bathroom light out, and put the gun under my pillow. My back felt great.
I dreamed Roosevelt was campaigning in Munchkinland, promising to keep wicked witches out. A couple of Munchkins with long knives crept up behind him as he talked. The other Munchkins and Glinda, the good witch, saw the tiny killers but said nothing. It was up to me to save the President. I tried to run forward, but my back was too sore. I tried to shout, but nothing came out. I watched in helpless horror. Glinda, looking very much like Cassie and dressed in solid red, took me in her arms and comforted me. It felt good, and I felt guilty as hell.
6
Screw Chiquita Banana. I always kept my bananas in the refrigerator. They turned brown and looked like hell, but they lasted longer. I found one survivor behind a jar of grape jelly. Ignoring the color, I sliced it into little pieces and sprinkled it on top of my bowl of Wheaties. Then sugar and milk. Top with a cup of Hill’s or Chase and Sanborn, and you have the Peters gourmet breakfast, which is just what I had that Monday morning while I read the newspaper. The previous tenant hadn’t cancelled his subscription, and once in a while I got up early enough to grab the paper before a neighbor stole it. Today was such a day. I put my back to the wall of my little alcove kitchen, placed my. 38 on the table in front of me, and read while I ate.
An eight-column headline said the presidential election would be the closest since 1916. I tried to figure out who had run in 1916. It was too late for Lincoln and too early for Hoover. Gallup indicated that the Willkie trend was running strong.
With a fresh shirt on my back, a relatively clean tie around my neck, memories of Cassie James in my mind, another day’s pay coming from M.G.M., a back free from pain, and hope in my future, I stepped out of my door and into a puddle of mud. I fell on my ass. I had slept through a late season rain during the night.
A change of clothes put a new suit on my back and a wary look in my eye when I stepped out of the same door ten minutes later. The gods had warned me not to be such a smart ass about the future, and I read the warning.
John Franklin Peese’s address on Main near Jefferson was a long walk from my place, but it could be walked. I drove and made it in less than ten minutes. It was one of those typically dingy neighborhoods that surround most downtown areas of big cities. I knew the area well; my office was a few blocks away. I parked in a garage on Broadway and walked back. Normally, I would have parked on the street, but with no windows that was asking for a stripped or missing car in this neighborhood.