Marvin wore dark baggy pants and an oversized white T-shirt that had “ TITUS ” printed in silver, with a picture of Anthony Hopkins in a helmet staring at me when I turned.
“You need more money?” Marvin said as I sat behind my desk and looked at my answering machine. Two messages.
“No,” I said as Marvin reached into both baggy pockets. My “no” was emphatic. It stopped him.
“Where is she? I gotta talk to her. I gotta find her. You unerstan’?”
“A few days, maybe a week,” I said, thinking that I would have to go to Vanaloosa, Georgia, to find the long missing Vera Lynn to deliver her brother’s urgent message.
“A few days. Maybe a week,” he repeated softly to himself as if he were trying to commit it to memory. “A few days. Maybe a week. Okay. You sure you don’t need money?”
“A few days,” I said.
He moved to the door, turned, and stood looking at me.
“A week at most,” I said.
“A week at most,” he repeated. He kept repeating it as he went through the door. I remembered the newspaper photographs of Marvin as a baby. I didn’t feel like answering my machine, but I pushed the button and heard the voice of Adele.
“Five more, short stories, have been sent to sea on a plastic raft. Tell him. No titles this time. Let him guess.”
Then there was a pause. I expected her to hang up but she came on with a different, less confident voice.
“Lew, I don’t want to hurt Flo or Mickey. The wrong people are getting hurt. I’ll call you back.”
I was pretty sure I could hear her start to cry when she was hanging up. That was a good sign. I needed good signs.
The second call was from Richard Tycinker’s secretary. Very businesslike she said, “Mr. Tycinker has some papers for you to serve. To be precise, an additional summons for Roberta Dreemer. Come by as soon as you can.”
I hung up. All this and Bubbles too. I could turn down the job or call back and say I would need more money to take it on, but I didn’t need more money. I needed to never see Bubbles Dreemer again. But I knew what I was going to do. I would have to face Bubbles. My hand went up to my cheek. The only impression I still had of the enormous Bubbles was not the physical one she had given me but a fuzzy, dreamlike, and definitely unpleasant memory of a confrontation I would like to avoid. Why was it that I kept having to face people I wanted to avoid? Question for Ann. I wasn’t suicidal but I had to admit to myself that what I was planning to do in a few hours was distinctly a confrontation I would prefer to avoid even more than taking on Bubbles Dreemer.
I checked my watch. Nearly five. Time had grown restless. Maybe I had time to simply grab a burger from the DQ and watch a few chapters of The Shadow. It was too early for Joan Crawford or Bette Davis. They were for the nights to hold off the dreams. I needed a jolt of Victor Jory’s Lamont Cranston taking on simple evil and hiding his identity.
I called Ames, told him what I planned, and asked him if he wanted to join me. He immediately asked if he should drive over or I should pick him up. I told him I would pick him up. End of conversation.
I went out, locked the door, walked past the DQ parking lot, and crossed 301. I went into the Crisp Dollar Bill. There were a few people at the bar I didn’t recognize, both men, one in a suit looking at the drink in his hand, hoping it had answers, the other hunched over, thick, tanned arms flat on the bar. He wore a solid black short-sleeved shirt and a look that definitely said, “Leave me alone.”
My booth was empty. I sat deep in the corner listening to Country Joe and the Fish sing about Vietnam. Billy looked over at me from behind the bar where he was busy leaving the muscular guy in the black T-shirt alone.
“What have you got healthy?” I asked.
“Is a steak healthy?” he asked.
“Why not?”
“Onions?”
“Grilled?”
“You got it,” said Billy. “Beer?”
“Beck’s,” I said.
Billy nodded, happy to be doing something instead of pretending to do something. The evening group, never a crowd, was hours away. Billy brought my beer. Country Joe finished singing. The guy in the suit stopped looking at his glass, took its contents in with a single long gulp, dropped some bills on the bar, got off the stool, looked at the door, shook his head, and left.
I was alone with Billy, the bad news black shirt, my thoughts, and now a Mozart string quartet. I glanced at the black shirt whose hands and arms were still on the bar to see if he was a Mozart man. He didn’t move. I could see his face dimly in the window behind the bar.
The steak Billy finally brought was thick, rare, and covered with grilled onions. There were fries on the side. I reached for the ketchup and Billy plunked down a second Beck’s I hadn’t ordered.
“Drinks are on him,” Billy said, nodding toward black shirt. “He says he’s celebrating.”
“He looks it,” I said. “Tell him thanks for me.”
“My pleasure,” Billy said with a perfect touch of small irony.
The steak was good. I ate half the fries, drank the second Beck’s, and checked my watch.
Billy was going classical. It seemed to calm black shirt. Three more customers came in. I recognized one, the clerk at the Mexican food market across the street and four or five doors down. His name was Justo. Justo nodded at me and headed for the pinball machine. Justo was about fifty, a purist. No video games for Justo, just pinball. He stacked up his quarters and Billy kept him supplied with whiskey on the rocks.
The pinball game wasn’t loud, but it was a pinball game and it didn’t go with Mozart. Billy switched to a John Philip Sousa march by the Boston Pops after he had taken all the drink orders.
Black shirt ordered drinks around for everyone again. I didn’t want a third beer. I had a killer to deal with and a body built for no more than two beers even with a full stomach.
Everyone lifted their glasses to black shirt who turned his head toward me and said, “I’m getting married.”
I nodded.
“I’m celebrating,” he said in a surprisingly high voice.
“Congratulations,” I said, paying Billy at the bar.
“Yeah,” he said with little enthusiasm.
I left, spirits not in the least uplifted.
I had time for one episode of The Shadow. Victor Jory disguised himself as a sinister Chinese merchant. The bad guys kidnapped the lovely Margo Lane who screamed at least once a chapter and three times in this one, and a bomb was about to blow up a building where the city moguls were meeting.
The phone rang. I got to it before the answering machine kicked in and picked up. It was Adele, reasonably calm and definitely sure of what she wanted and what she had decided to tell me.
“Did you read the section in Plugged Nickels?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Good,” she said and then asked me not to interrupt till she had finished what she had to say. I told her I would be quiet. And I was. I knew or had guessed much of what she told me, but there were a few things I hadn’t been close to.
“That’s it,” she said when she was finished.
“Ames and I are on the way to Conrad Lonsberg’s now,” I said. “They’ll all be there. I’ll take care of it. Don’t destroy any more manuscripts till…”
“You trying to make a deal?” she asked.
“No, a request. Hold off. Are you someplace safe?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Call me back at eleven tonight,” I said. “Thanks for telling me. I know it was hard.”
“It was more than hard,” she said.
At ten minutes to seven I got up, zipped on my blue jacket, and went to pick up Ames.
He was standing in front of the Texas in his slicker, hatless, ramrod straight. I didn’t know what weapon was under his coat but I was sure it was large and formidable. He climbed in.
“Peacefully, if possible,” I said.