Rigor mortis set in on Van Dine’s smile. “So you’re looking for John Smith,” he said, his tone suddenly brittle.
“Why, yes, I am. How did you know he’s missing?”
“Because I’ve been trying to find him myself. He’s working on a script for me. Production’s set to begin in three weeks. If he’s left the country because of this witch-hunt in Congress, I need to know.”
“This script Smith’s working on-it wouldn’t be a Three Musketeers picture, would it?”
Van Dine’s eyes bulged out so far I thought they were going to hop out of his face and slap me. “Yes. The Three Musketeers Versus the Moon Men.” He blinked, and a curtain of false calm dropped over his features. “Have you seen it?”
“I haven’t just seen it, I’ve read it,” I replied nonchalantly. “Well, not all of it. It’s not done yet. But enough to know that it stinks.”
I was trying to shake things up a bit, and it worked. I shook up a bona fide earthquake.
“I don’t care if it stinks,” Van Dine said. “A man in my position can’t afford to care. I’ve got actors signed, costumes and sets being made, a studio that wants this picture in theaters by Thanksgiving. ‘Stinks’ or ‘doesn’t stink’ doesn’t enter into it.” He smiled his spider smile at me again. “I would be very interested in knowing how you got your hands on a copy of that screenplay, Mr. Menace.”
The fly smiled back at the spider. “It was handed to me wrapped up in a ribbon.”
A moment of silence passed before Van Dine realized that was all he was going to get. He chuckled and reached toward the cigar box. “Despite your reputation as a revolutionary, I see you’re really just a businessman like the rest of us,” he said. He stuck a cigar between his curled lips and lit it with a gaudy, faux crystal lighter. “You expect to be compensated for your efforts. Of course. I can make it worth your while to bring me the script.”
I took a big puff on my own cigar and tried to blow a smoke ring toward Van Dine. All I got was a misshapen cloud that fanned out over his desk. It turns out I’m not as good at blowing smoke as I thought.
“You’ve got the basic idea,” I said. “Except I don’t want money. I want your help. You use your industry connections to open some doors for me, help me find Smith, and you’ll get your script.”
Van Dine nodded. “I understand.” He pushed a button on an intercom set on his desk. “Miss Shapely, send Mr. Grey in, please. I’d like him to have a word with our guest.” Van Dine leaned back in his chair and blew a smoke ring of his own. It was a perfect circle that floated up toward my head like a dirty halo. “My assistant Mr. Grey will get you started. He’s the last one of us to have seen John Smith.”
As he was talking, the door opened behind me. Before I could turn to see who’d entered, a sudden, crunching bolt of pain shot through my skull. I came to my feet clutching my head and spun around to see a hulking man in a dark suit that could barely stretch itself around his massive body. He was standing behind my chair with a blackjack in his hand and a look of surprise on his broad face.
“I’m not your usual soft-headed gumshoe,” I spat at him. “I’ve got a head harder than Siberian granite. It’s going to take a lot more than a love tap from a blackjack to-”
Another explosion of pain echoed through my head. I looked over my shoulder. Van Dine stood behind me, the crystal lighter in his hand. It was smeared with blood. My blood. I laughed bitterly.
“Careful there, Van Dine. You’re going to break your pretty bauble trying to use it as a nutcracker. Next time, try a-”
A heavy weight crashed into my back, sending me spinning to the ground. Mr. Grey had smacked me with a chair.
This time I shut up and stayed down.
I passed out, too.
LAUGHTER ECHOED THROUGH my mind. It was John Smith, giggling maniacally.
“Smart boy, aintcha?” he said. “A real smart boy.”
His head tilted back as he let out another roar of laughter, and suddenly his face was frozen, the mouth open wide. Lightbulbs twinkled in his hair, and a neon sign flashed on and off on his forehead. FUNHOUSE, the sign said. The wind began to howl, and I was pulled screaming into Smith’s huge, oval mouth. The wind stopped, replaced by the clanking of chains and gears. I found myself strapped in a cart, jerking through the darkness one tug at a time. A spotlight stabbed through the gloom to my right, pinning Dominic Van Dine and his apelike lackey Mr. Grey in a harsh cone of light. They stared at me with huge, multifaceted eyes that sparkled in the light like diamonds. Poison glistened on their fangs. Another spotlight snapped on to my left, revealing Mary Smith dancing the tango with a black bear. A third light broke the dark directly in front of me. In its glare, I could see Sigmund Freud juggling monkeys. He was dressed up like Carmen Miranda, with a tight skirt and fruit piled high on his eggy head. “Talk, smart boy,” Freud sang to me. “Wake up and talk.”
“Wake up,” I sang back dumbly. “Talk.”
“That’s right. Wake up and talk, Mr. Menace.”
Something about hearing my name caressed so obscenely swept the visions out of my mind. I blinked hard and shook my head. A wave of nausea washed over me, but when it passed I could see where I was.
I didn’t like it. I was in the center of a small, dank, dungeon-like room, sitting in a chair, my feet strapped to the legs, my hands tied behind me. A single lightbulb hung a few feet above my head, blinding me with its bright, unfiltered light.
Dominic Van Dine and Mr. Grey stood a few feet away, watching me. Van Dine leaned in close and smiled. “So you’re back among the living at last. Let’s see how long that lasts. Mr. Grey.”
Van Dine moved back, and his gorilla stepped forward. I heard a sharp cracking sound, and my head jerked to the side. Pain knocked on the door of my addled brain. It forced its way inside and made itself at home.
I’d been slugged on the jaw. Hard.
“I hope ya’ like them apples, smart boy,” Grey said in a wheezy, high-pitched voice. “Cuz I got me a bushelful.”
There was another crack, and my head jerked again. The pain in my brain had company.
“Alright, alright! Enough with the rough stuff,” I barked with as much force as I could muster-which wasn’t much considering the blood in my mouth and the ringing in my ears. “Why don’t you ask me some questions already?”
Grey glanced over his shoulder at Van Dine, who looked thoughtful for a moment before nodding his head. Grey moved away, rubbing his knuckles.
“Very well, Mr. Menace. Let’s see if any more ‘rough stuff ’ is necessary,” Van Dine said. “Tell me where your copy of the script is.”
A new sensation joined the party in my skull. It was hope. If there’s one thing a guy needs when he’s been tied to a chair by people of less-than-sterling virtues, it’s leverage. Or a free hand and a.45. I was happy to have the leverage.
“Why are you so desperate to get your hands on that script?”
“Mr. Grey,” Van Dine said blandly.
Grey stepped toward me, a smirk on his heavy, simian face.
“Hold on there, King Kong. You don’t have to bother,” I said to Grey before he could belt me. I looked past him at Van Dine. “You were going to remind me that you’re the one asking the questions here.”
“Exactly. How did you know what I was going to say?”
I tried to shrug. “I’ve been to the movies.”
At this point, Monkey Man got tired of all the talk and slugged me anyway.
“Buddy,” I said to Grey after my head stopped spinning on my neck like a top, “I realize that you’re just a humble working man trying to survive in this dehumanizing Darwinian jungle we call the capitalist system. But one day you’re going to find those knuckles of yours jammed down your thick throat.”