“Right, very thoughtful. I send you out on a Sunday morning to wait for the Frankenstein monster and I go off for dinner with the family,” I said.
“Sunday is like any other day to me, Toby. It holds no special significance. The sun is warm. I am relaxed and this is a good place to work and to read. Forget your guilt. Would you like a roll?”
I declined and he told me that Jane Poslik had gone out an hour earlier to pick up a newspaper but was now safely back in her apartment. No one had come or gone.
“I’ll relieve you this evening,” I said.
“I would prefer,” Jeremy put in, examining the first roll, “that you devote your time to finding the person who threatens this woman. That would be more effective than protecting her at the point of her greatest vulnerability. It’s a simple principle of wrestling.”
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll keep at it.”
When I arrived at my brother’s small house on Bluebelle in North Hollywood, it was about three. Lucy greeted me at the door, her hands behind her back probably concealing her padlock. Nate and Dave, my nephews, were seated in the small dining room playing with toy soldiers. Nate was almost fourteen and Dave about eleven. I picked Lucy up carefully to avoid hidden locks and said hi to the boys.
“Uncle Tobe,” Nate called. He touched something in front of him and a toothpick flew across the table mowing down a lead soldier. Dave groaned.
“How’s it going, Huey and Dewey?” I said, pinching Lucy’s nose gently.
“Okay,” said Nate. “I’m smashing him. He’s the Nazis.”
“No I’m not, Nate. You’re the Nazis.”
Ruth came in, skinny, tired, with tinted blond hair that wouldn’t stay up and a gentle smile.
“Toby, you’re early,” she said.
“I’ll go away and come back,” I said, starting to put Lucy down.
“No, Uncle Toby,” Dave said.
Phil came through the front door, a package in his arms, and grunted at me.
“Take this and put it on the kitchen table. Make yourself useful.”
I put Lucy down, took the package, and went into the kitchen.
“How’s Seidman?” I said over my shoulder.
“Minck almost killed him,” Phil said, following me in after picking up his daughter, who stuck her finger in his hairy ear. “He has a hell of an infection. An oral surgeon at the university is taking care of him. Steve may kill that dirty dentist when he gets out of the hospital.”
The rest of the afternoon went fine. Lucy clipped me once on the shoulder with a wooden toy. We listened to a baseball game on Nate’s short wave. The Red Sox snapped a thirteen-game Cleveland winning streak, 8–4, in Boston. Charlie Wagner was the winning pitcher. Bobby Doerr had three hits. Pesky picked up a couple and Ted Williams had one. Foxx and DiMaggio were blanked. Nate, a Red Sox fan, was happy.
Ruth had made turkey, salad, iced tea, and a jello mold with little pieces of pineapple in it.
“Remember when I used to think you killed people every day,” Dave said after dinner. “That was dumb. No one kills people every day except maybe in the war. My dad doesn’t even kill people every day.”
“Dumb, dumb, dumb,” Nate said, looking at the ceiling.
“Dumb, dumb,” Lucy repeated, giggling.
“It’s not funny, you little twerp,” Dave said to his sister, which made her giggle even more.
Ruth and Phil took the tickets I gave them and went off to Volez and Yolanda after dinner. As soon as they were gone, Nate said, “Okay Uncle Toby, tell us about someone you beat up or shot this week or something.”
With Lucy on my lap, I made up a tale of scarred Nazi villains and assorted gore, none of it mine. By the time I was finished Lucy was alseep in my lap sucking her thumb.
“Is that a true story?” Dave asked when I was finished.
“Would I lie to you guys?” I said.
By ten the boys were asleep and Lucy was up crying for Ruth. I played with her, let her pull my hair, gave her rides on my back, and blessed the moment Ruth and Phil came through the door to take over.
“Thanks, Toby,” Ruth said, giving me a kiss on the cheek at the door after she took Lucy.
“My pleasure,” I said.
Phil’s hands were plunged deeply in his pockets. He bit his lower lip, ran his right hand across his bristly hair, and put out his hand. I took it.
“Business as usual tomorrow,” he said, pointing a thick finger in my face.
“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” I said, meaning it, and went out into the night.
When I was a kid back in Glendale, Sunday nights were for reading, talking, and playing board games. Sometimes we would go to a movie. My father liked comedies. Harold Lloyd was his favorite. I liked anything just so it moved. A late movie would have been nice, but I couldn’t leave Jeremy on that dark street all night.
I pulled up behind him and walked to the car. His eyes were closed and he was snoring gently. I hadn’t thought about it before, but now it hit me that Jeremy Butler was not a young man in his prime. He was at least five years older than I was. Even a bull deserves some time in the pasture.
“Jeremy,” I said softly through the open window.
His eyes came open instantly and he looked at me.
“Relief is here,” I went on. “I can’t sleep and it’s too late to do anything else. Go on home. You can take over tomorrow. If I don’t turn anything up by afternoon, we’ll talk to Miss Poslik about moving.”
“I was asleep,” Jeremy said softly.
“It was a reasonable thing to do,” I said. “It’s almost midnight and you’ve been sitting here all day and night.”
“I had a responsibility,” he said. “The meaning of one’s life is measured by the responsibilities he accepts and lives up to.”
“We agree pretty much on that, but you haven’t let me down.”
“We must check on Miss Poslik,” he grunted, getting out of the car and motioning me aside. He closed the door and moved down the street, a huge dark cutout moving lightly. I caught up with him.
“I don’t think the sight of you at her door at midnight would reassure her,” I said. “I’ll check. She knows me.”
That seemed reasonable to Jeremy, who zipped up his windbreaker and went with me to the apartment. There were no lights on as I started up the steps, but my footsteps must have sent a shock inside. The living room lights came on as I reached the top and brought my hand back to knock.
“Who’s out there?” Jane Poslik’s voice came through the door.
“Me, Peters,” I said. “I’ve got to tell you something.”
The door came open and she stood there wearing a man’s blue bathrobe with white dragons clutched over her chest. She kept the screen door locked.
“I think it best that you not come in,” she said.
“Good idea. I don’t want to frighten you, but I think Bass might pay you a visit.”
She shuddered and clutched the dragon robe around her neck.
“Why?”
“Because I came here yesterday or because that Martin guy you heard Doc Olson talking to found out that you have been talking about Fala,” I said. “He was parked outside your apartment when I was here. I think you should move out of here for a day or two. It shouldn’t take more than that to clear all this up.”
She stood thinking about it for a while, undecided, and I tipped the scale by repeating “Bass.” It was enough. It was either scaring her or being responsible for another possible corpse.
“I haven’t got anyplace to go,” she said.
“I’ll find some place; just throw some things together. I’ll wait out here. Take your time.”
She unlocked the door and told me to come in and wait. I looked at Lucille Ball dressed as Madame Du Barry for about five minutes while Jane packed. She came in wearing a brown cloth coat and carrying a brown, very worn leather suitcase.
“Ready,” she said, and I led her out.
At the top of the stairs I told her that a rather large, very gentle friend was on the street waiting for us and assured her that he was more than a match for Bass, something that I was beginning to doubt but didn’t want to share with anyone, not even me.