“Out, quickly,” said Jeremy, touching my arm.
I opened the door and got out, almost falling into the path of another car. Had my passenger door been working, which it was not thanks to Bass, Jeremy could have gotten out with dignity untested, but he did a fairly good job of it in any case and managed to be at my side just as Bass reached out a hand in the general direction of my throat.
I didn’t back away. I couldn’t back away without hitting my car or stepping into traffic, but backing away wasn’t necessary. Jeremy’s hand shot out and pushed Bass’s down.
Bass looked at Jeremy, whom he seemed to be seeing for the first time, and said, “Butler. You’re through. You quit.”
“We both did,” Jeremy said evenly, understanding what made little sense to me.
A woman of about fifty, dead black mink around her neck and a hat with a long black feather, had stopped on the sidewalk as she came out of the candy store. The sight of two giants in the street was enough to get her attention. I looked at her and shrugged as if I had been recruited as a reluctant referee.
“What are you looking at?” Bass said to the woman.
I gave her credit. She managed to keep from dropping her purse and candy as her heels clacked down the street.
“Go back across the street, Bass,” Jeremy said calmly.
“I’ve got to do him,” Bass said, nodding at me as if I were a package he had been assigned to gift-wrap.
“No,” said Jeremy gently, as a guy in a black Buick stopped his car to complain about our standing in the street and then changed his mind and sped away.
“I’ll do him and I’ll do you again,” Bass said, his eyes wide and his lips dry.
“You didn’t beat me,” Jeremy said.
“Two out of three,” Bass hissed.
“I won the two,” Jeremy said, his huge hands slightly away from his body, ready.
“Bass, I think you better go back and ask Lyle about this,” I said. “He didn’t count on Jeremy being here and I don’t think he wants the two of you messing up Reseda. It wouldn’t do the party any good.”
“He’s right,” said Jeremy. “We’re already attracting attention.”
We gave Bass time to react to the argument. He didn’t seem capable of fixing his attention on more than one major problem at a time, but the blast of a horn from a skidding car and the blue speck of a policeman about a block away got through to him. He clenched his fists, looked at me and Jeremy, and then pounded a dent into the top of a passing car. The driver just kept on driving and pretended he hadn’t been attacked by the Minotaur of Crete.
We followed Bass across the street, let him go through the door ahead of us, and entered the Midlothian Theater. The small lobby behind the ticket booth smelled like stale popcorn. Posters hung on the wall inside framed glass scratched by the nails of maybe a million Saturday matinee kids. One poster promised a future with Olivia de Havilland, who wore an off-the-shoulder gown and looked toward the candy stand as if she was waiting for a seltzer delivery that was very late. Behind her, Dennis Morgan smelled her hair for remnants of eau de Milk Duds.
My foot caught in a strand of frayed, once-red lobby carpet, but I pulled it out before I fell, and followed Jeremy into the theater. There were about fifty people in a place that could have easily held three hundred or more, and they were scattered all over, only a few in front. Lyle was on the stage and the house lights were up. He had no microphone, but he did have a portable metal podium, the kind violinists use for solos. If he had leaned on the damned thing, his political career would have ended.
Jeremy and I found seats on the right about ten rows from the back. I moved inside. Jeremy took the aisle, which allowed him to put his feet out. Across from us a gray-faced man was eating a sandwich he had taken out of a brown paper bag. Something yellow dribbled out of the sandwich. I turned my attention to Lyle, who was getting the whispered message from Bass that I still existed. Lyle looked around, found me, eyed Jeremy, and nodded to Bass.
“Get started,” shouted the sandwich man across the aisle.
“We will begin,” Lyle said softly and cleared his throat. Behind him, pinned to the curtain, were big posters of McArthur, Patton, and Eisenhower, all in full uniform. The right top corner of the Ike poster had come loose but Lyle had his back to it and never noticed.
“We will begin,” Lyle said louder this time.
I found Academy Dolmitz about fifteen rows in front of us, hunched down. My eyes must have burned through his collar because he let out a big sigh, turned, looked at me and gave a massive “What am I gonna do?” shrug.
“Will you all move up,” Lyle said. “It will be easier to talk and will leave space for those who come in late.”
No one except the man with the sandwich across the aisle from us moved. He struck his brown bag under his arm and, still holding his sandwich-from which an unidentified vegetable now dropped-tromped forward to answer Lyle’s call.
“See the celebrities better,” the sandwich-eater explained to those in his vicinity as he moved down to sit in front of Lyle, who did not have the talent to hide his distaste. Two well-dressed women seemed to have had enough even before the festivities started. They were in the far aisle from us and headed for the door. Bass hurried to head them off. They saw him coming and scurried back to their seats.
“The enemies of the Whig Party,” Lyle began, looking down at his notes on the unsteady music stand, “have for more than a hundred years done their best to silence our voice of reason. They murdered us when we earned the highest office in the land.”
“Murdered?” came a woman’s voice from the back.
Bass, who now stood, arms folded, in front of the stage, shot a glare of cold fury toward the voice.
“Yes,” said Lyle looking up. “Murdered. They murdered Harrison They murdered Taylor and they would have murdered Winfield Scott if he had been elected. And, most recently, just a day ago right in this city, they murdered the Dr. Roy Olson who, with me, had devoted his life to the revitilization of the Whig Party. And knowing them”-and with this he looked at Jeremy and me-“I am not at all surprised that they have sent the very murderers to our meeting today. Well, I tell them and I tell you they will not silence us.”
He clearly wanted to thunder his fist down for emphasis but there was nothing to thunder on but the wire music stand, or Bass’s head. Lyle settled for shaking his fist and waiting for applause. There was none Someone did cough up front.
“Who’s this ‘they’ he’s going on about?” said another woman, not aware that her voice would carry in the little, nearly empty theater.
“I’m glad you asked that, madam”, Lyle said, aiming his words in the general direction of the comment “They are the government, the Roosevelts, the Democrats, the Republicans. They are the ones who want to take away your right to be you, to be Americans, to take what you can take within the rightful limits of the law, to expand your horizons, to use the full power of God you were born with. They want to make you all alike, all weak, all dependent, all little wind-up dolls operated by them. They pretend to be against each other, but they hold each others’ hands. And the others, the Socialists, the Communists, they’re just waiting till the Megalops kill each other off so they can put you and your children and me in their prisons and make peace with the Nazis and the Japanese. We don’t need crippled socialists standing in front of us as if we were children. We need strong leaders who stand up to enemies but maintain our borders. Don’t tread on me. Leave me alone and I’ll leave you alone. Responsible for my debts only. We need a Patton, a MacArthur, an Eisenhower.”