The door to 304 was open.
"Peters, come in," Varney called, and I came in and closed the door behind me.
The room was big. More carpets. A sofa. A pair of matching stuffed chairs with a glass-top coffee table between them. An open bar against one wall and balcony looking out on the swimming pool and Beverly Hills.
Varney was at the bar, fresh white shut open at the collar, sleeves rolled up, slacks creased, and shoes shined. A well-trimmed wave of graying hair sat on a pleasantly Indian-looMag tan face. He didn 't look anything like the dusty bitter Confederate soldier I'd met five years earlier.
"Drink?" he asked, holding up a glass of dark liquid over ice to show me he was having one.
"Pepsi, if you've got it," I said, moving to the window to get a better look at two tan girls taking lessons from a man in white.
"Meet it. Don't beat it," the tennis pro said in a booming voice three floors below.
I could hear the girls giggle. I could hear ice tinkle behind me.
"Pepsi, on the rocks," Varney said, handing me the glass.
"Thanks."
He looked down at the pro and the girls and sighed.
"Things change," he said.
"Some things," I said.
I turned and Varney pointed to one of the chairs with his free hand. I sat.
"Last time you saw me I was feeling more than a bit sorry for myself and wondering if I should spend my last few dollars and head back to selling women's shoes hi Mo-line."
He sat and looked around.
"And now," he continued. "There's a bedroom through there and a bathroom as big as a small destroyer beyond it."
"What's your story?" I asked.
"Went to New York," he said, after a long sip of golden liquid. "Did well on the radio. Tried the theater. Lucky. I came when the leading men were shipping out and the choice just off Broadway was babies or old farts for leading men. Two years earlier and I would have hit the skids and headed for Moline. Never to be heard from or cared about. I was an only kid. Mother and father dead. Relatives are all in Finland. Never married. Studio's going to have to be creative in making a biography that will get a line or two with Hedda."
"I gather you've got a movie contract," I said.
"Three pictures. Universal. All Bs, but I'm the star. God, I was lucky. Associate producer named Cantor caught me in something called Is This Seat Taken? I had a death scene and I was feeling perfect that night. I…"
He was looking at me when he stopped and he must have seen something that told him I hadn't come to admire his triumphant return.
"What is it?" he said, putting down his drink.
"The night I met you. Burning of Atlanta. Man got killed."
"I remember," he said. "Crazy accident."
"One for Ripley," I agreed. "You scare easy?"
"Normal," he said, cautiously watching my eyes.
"Looks like someone's killing off all of you," I said.
"All of?…"
"The extras playing Confederate soldiers. The ones who were there when that guy got killed."
I fished out the photograph and handed it to him. He held it in both hands for a few seconds before saying, "That's me. And this one, right here,'' he said, turning the photograph to me. "He's the one who died. Lord God, I had all but forgotten that night. Do the police know? What are they doing?"
I took the photograph back and said, The police know. They're doing what they can do. Remember his name? The man who got killed?"
"No. Wait. Maybe it was Lang, or Long. I don't… someone is killing us? Why?"
I had finished my Pepsi but I didn't feel like asking for another.
"You heard something. Saw something. Said something. Did something. Best guess is that the guy who got killed was murdered and the killer's spent five years worrying that he might have been seen, or said something to give him away."
"Five years?" Varney said.
"Doesn't make a hell of a lot of sense," I agreed. "But when you're crazy, you don't have to make sense. One of the good things about being crazy."
Varney got up now and was pacing the room. I listened to the ice click in his glass and watched him think.
"I've only been back in town for two weeks," he said. "The studio hasn't done any publicity. How could this person know I was even here?"
"Crazy doesn't mean stupid," I said.
Lionel Varney snorted, shook his head, and looked at his melting ice.
"The goddamn irony," he said. "I work a lifetime for a break and some lunatic wants to kill me. Wants to kill me and I don't even know why."
"You want advice?" I asked.
Varney stopped pacing and looked down at me in the chair.
"Get a room under another name. Don't tell anyone where you are but me. I'll stay in touch and tell you when it's safe."
He was shaking his head even before I had finished.
"Can't," he said. "I'm riding some good reviews and reports and spending goodwill fast. I can't tell Universal I have to hide for who knows how long. And Saturday. Saturday I've been invited to sit at Universal's table for the Academy Awards dinner with Walter Wanger, Jon Hall, Turhan Bey, and Maria Montez. Then there's a publicity reunion at Selznick, in front of Tara. Reporters, cameras, big names. UniversaPs planning the official announcement of my contract and my first starring role. I'm not risking that, Peters. I'd rather get some protection and take my chances."
"Suit yourself," I said, standing up and handing him my glass. He had one in each hand now.
"I can't believe this," he said.
"Believe it, Lionel," I said. "Keep your door locked and pay someone big with a gun to stand outside it. And try to be calm."
I moved to the door.
"Be calm," he said with a sarcastic laugh. "That's easy for you to say. You're not on this madman's list."
"I think I am, Lionel. I think I am. I'll call you when I have something, or more questions."
Varney didn't show me out. I made my own way down the stairs. I couldn't face Jane Powell's big white teeth and smile. I wove my way through the lush jungle of the Carolina Hotel lobby, heard a parrot squawk behind me, and got onto the driveway.
"Car?" asked a young man in the familiar uniform.
"Crosley," I said. "Sort of brown."
"We only have one Crosley on the lot," he said politely and hurried off.
I could hear tennis balls hitting and echoing as I waited. I could hear the hum of traffic on Sunset I could hear my heart beating. I had a sudden urge to visit my niece and nephews or find Dash and see if he'd sit on my lap a while. I had a strong wish to go home, but I had a long day in front of me and Clark Gable's money to spend.
I parked behind the Farraday and gave Big Elmo two bits to watch the Crosley. Big Elmo was the latest in a string of derelicts who lived in the alley behind the building. There have been poets, fools, crazies, grumblers, dreamers, the dazed. One guy had returned for two seasons. Most hung around a few months, sleeping in rusted-out abandoned cars. All were willing to take a quarter or two to watch the Crosley and keep it safe from each other.
Big Elmo wasn't big. He was a straw in an oversized yellow dress shirt cut short at the sleeves. The shirt was dirty. Elmo was dirty. His wisps of hair were unruly, but his manners were the best.
"Think I need a shave?" he asked, pocketing my coins.
"Wouldn't hurt," I said.
Elmo looked around his alley domain. Cars beeped and chugged on Main Street beyond the Farraday. Elmo seemed to listen and then touch his face.
"Just need another tomorrow," he said. "And who'm I trying to impress, I ask you."
"You've got a point," I said. "But if you put the shave together with a bath, some clean clothes from Hy's or Chi Chi's Slightly Worn on Hoover, you might be able to line up a job."