Melting Clock

8

The coffee kept me awake till I hit Mrs. Plaut’s boarding house. I had trouble parking on Heliotrope, even with a car the size of my Crosley, but I managed to squeak into a space about two blocks away. The night light was on. I made it up to my room, kicked off my shoes, unzipped my windbreaker and placed it on one of my two kitchen chairs. My pants went on the other. My shirt had been through a tough day so, reluctant as I was, I retired it till I could find the time to wash it. My retired shirts made a small pile in the closet.

I checked the time on my Beech-Nut Gum wall clock and lay down on the mattress on the floor. I’d shave in the morning. I’d brush my teeth in the morning. I’d change my underwear in the morning. I’d become a better person in the morning. Right now I’d just lie there with the lights on and wait for Gunther to get back with Dali. That was my plan.

What was it the insurance man had said in Jeremy’s poem? “It’s nothing, just a shooting star.” I closed my eyes and saw the shooting star. Was I an insurance salesman or a poet at the window? I was asleep before I could think of an answer.

I dreamed of stone women crumbling in the sand, of mustaches without faces, of derby hats floating, eggs opening with something coming out that I didn’t want to see, of Gala’s clocks melting on Rose McCullough’s grill at the Victory Drugstore. Koko the Clown kept popping up from behind rocks and through holes in screaming birds. He grinned but refused to play a major role in the dreams.

When I opened my eyes, Dash the cat was sitting on my chest and Gunther Wherthman, hair neatly trimmed, in three-piece suit complete with pocket watch and chain and black shoes polished to look like glass, was sitting on the sofa. He had a fat leather briefcase in his lap.

“You were asleep when we came in,” he said.

I scratched Dash’s head, eased him away, sat up and tried to rejoin the ranks of the living. It was no use. I lay back down and took a shot at focusing on Mrs. Plaut’s pillow on the sofa, the pillow that had “God Bless Us Every One,” neatly embroidered on it in red.

“I have fed the cat,” Gunther said, handing me the briefcase and an envelope. I put the briefcase on the floor next to the bed, and tore off the end of the envelope. Five hundred-dollar bills drifted into my lap.

This held little interest for Gunther.

“Dali brought with him a rolled-up painting he says someone killed. It’s in my room. Toby, I spoke to him in both French and Spanish and find difficulty understanding him in either.”

“Where is he, Dali?” I asked.

“Downstairs, talking to Mrs. Plaut.”

“Shit,” I said, forcing myself up. “Where did he sleep?”

“He did not sleep. He says he takes little naps during the day. It gives him more dreams to work from.”

“He can have some of mine,” I said, looking around for my pants and, after several false starts, remembering they were draped over one of my two kitchen chairs. I shoved the five hundreds into a front pocket and struggled into the pants, while Gunther told me that Mrs. Plaut had invited us all to breakfast.

“That is why I had to wake you,” Gunther explained. “She insisted that you be down for breakfast quickly.”

I grabbed one of my not-too-frayed shirts from the closet and blundered my way out of the room and toward the bathroom, listening for voices and hearing none outside one inside my head I didn’t want to hear.

“I’ll be right down, Gunther,” I said. “And thanks for-”

“No,” he said as I leaned against the bathroom door. “I owe you much more than I am able to give. I am pleased that you continue to feel that you can both call upon and rely upon me in moments of crisis.”

And that I could. Gunther went down the stairs and I moved to the mirror. I had saved Gunther’s life once, a couple of years back. He’d been accused of murder and was close to going up for it. I had blundered into the real killer the way I’d just blundered into the bathroom, and Gunther and I had been friends and next door neighbors ever since. He had gotten me the room in Mrs. Plaut’s and for that I was forever perplexed.

I shaved without committing suicide, brushed my teeth by borrowing some of Mr. Hill’s Dr. Lyon’s Tooth Powder, ran my fingers through my hair and put on my shirt. The face in the mirror looked presentable: nose flat, face baked by the sun, black-graying hair with gray sideburns a little long and in need of a cut. The movies didn’t want me to star, but people sometimes needed someone who looked like me, sold his loyalty at a reasonable price, was willing to take a fall or two, could keep secrets large and small, and didn’t give up on a client-although Dali had sorely tried me on that one. I went back to my room, grabbed the briefcase, checked the bills in my pocket, and hurried downstairs to find my client.

I got down to Mrs. Plaut’s kitchen, just off of her sitting room. Gunther, Mrs. Plaut, and Dali looked up at me from the table. Mrs. Plaut was reading from her memoirs, which were stacked in front of her. Dali was dressed in a purple velvet suit and a black bow tie. Gunther looked happy to see me. In the sitting room, Mrs. Plaut’s bird chirped insanely.

“Apples Eisenhower,” said Mrs. Plaut, pointing to the dish of brown something in the middle of the table. “Since they were made with ingredients purchased with the aid of some of your ration coupons, I decided to overlook the fact that you did not return yesterday as you declared that you would.”

“I was busy finding corpses,” I said.

“It is delicious,” said Dali seriously, wiping his mustaches.

I sat in the fourth chair and helped myself to a bowl of Apples Eisenhower and a cup of coffee. The Apples Eisenhower weren’t bad, especially with cream supplied by Mrs. Plaut in a little blue porcelain pitcher.

Mrs. Plaut read from her memoirs, looking up from time to time for reaction from her honored guest. Dali listened intently and, when she caught his eyes, responded with an appreciative nod or an appropriate sound of approval.

Gunther and I ate and drank.

“Surrounded,” read Mrs. Plaut. “No moon. No swords. No guns other than Uncle Wiley’s Remington and the hand pistol Cousin Artemis had confiscated from the rebel soldier with the noticeable squint at Shiloh.”

“Surrounded,” Dali echoed. “Surrounded.”

He liked the word.

“Surrounded,” Mrs. Plaut agreed. “War cries and strange language came from the darkness. Aunt Althea began to pray and so did the woman named Mary Joan, who had joined them unbidden in St. Louis and who went on years later to marry a Sioux Indian named Victor or some such.”

“Victor,” said Dali, “an Indian named Victor?”

“Some such,” said Mrs. Plaut, looking back at her manuscript.

I ate another bowl of Apples Eisenhower.

“Well,” Mrs. Plaut went on. “It chanced that they were surrounded not by hostile Indians, but by some drunken members of the Pony Express who had wandered several hundred yards from their way station and were engaged in a jest. There was not much to do in way stations but drink, lie, and pester trekkers and Indians. The riders of the Pony Express were not the highest order of humanity, according to Uncle Wiley. One of them, not on the night of which I write, but on another much earlier, mistook or claimed to mistake Cousin Arthur Gamble for a buxom female and attempted to take liberties.”

“Delightful,” said Dali, beaming.

“Cousin Arthur Gamble on that occasion shot the Pony Express rider and was recruited to take his place on the morning run, which Cousin Arthur Gamble undertook.”

“And this took place in …?” asked Dali.

“Black Hills,” said Mrs. Plaut, closing her manuscript.

“Senora Plaut, you are a true Surrealist,” Dali declared, clasping his hands together as if in prayer.

“I am a Methodist,” she answered, placing the manuscript to the side and reaching for the Apples Eisenhower.

“Amen,” I said. “Sal, I think you should dress in something a little less gaudy. We’re trying to keep a killer from finding you.”

“The gaudier the crook, the cheaper the patter,” said Mrs. Plaut, a spoonful of cream and apple near her mouth. “The Maltese Falcon.”

“This,” said Dali, “is the most sedate costume that I possess.”

“And the mustache,” I went on. “It has to go.”

“Nunca, never. I would rather die than lose my big-otes.”

“Well,” I said cheerfully, “that may be one of your options.”

“It’s like family,” said Mrs. Plaut, beaming. “My neighbor’s brother back in Sioux Falls had a brother Beemer who had a mustache like Mr. Fala here. Beemer fancied himself a Mexican bandit, which was foolish since he looked not dissimilar from Grover Cleveland. Would anyone like some coffee?”

“Fala,” said Gunther earnestly, “is the dog of the President of the United States.”

I got up while I was still sane. “Sal, we’ve got to go.”

Dali rose, took Mrs. Plaut’s hand, and kissed it grandly. “You shall appear in my next painting.”

Gunther got down from his chair, turned to me, and asked, “What do you wish me to do?”

“Nothing now, Gunther. I’ll give you a call when I need you. Thanks.”

As Dali moved toward the kitchen door and I followed him with the briefcase, Mrs. Plaut whispered loud enough to be heard across the Nevada state line, “If Mr. Fala is an exterminator, too, when does he have time to paint pictures?”

We didn’t hear Gunther’s answer. I got in front of Dali and went to the front door. I checked the street through the window and then through the screen door. I didn’t see any loony auto mechanics with rifles, but there were a lot of places to hide.

“Stay inside. I’m parked a few blocks away. When I pull up, come out and get into the car.”

“I did not see all the grass when we arrived in the dark,” he said as I opened the door.

“Well-trimmed,” I said.

“Things lurk in the grass,” he said softly.

“Stay on the sidewalk,” I suggested, and went out on the porch and down the stairs.

When I got the Crosley turned around and back in front of Mrs. Plaut’s, Dali made a velvet dash down the center of the sidewalk and into the street, where I had left the passenger-side door open. He jumped in, closed the door, and panted, holding his chest.

“It is bad. But not as bad at the Metro in Paris,” he remarked.

I didn’t follow up on that one.

We were downtown in ten minutes. On a good day when I was full of energy and had the time, I could walk from Mrs. Plaut’s to my office. Since there had never been a good day that coincided with my being full of energy, I’d never walked to the Farraday Building. Normally, I parked at No-Neck Arnie’s and filled the tank, if I had gas ration stamps, but it was a two-block walk from Arnie’s and Dali stood out like a sore Surrealist. So I pulled into the alley behind the Farraday and parked in the Graveyard, a dirt plot where the bodies of three dead and rusted wrecks sheltered wandering winos.

I pulled in next to a frame that might once have been a DeSoto. Dali opened the door and stepped out I slid over to the passenger seat with the briefcase and got out next to him.

“You live in a nightmare world,” Dali said, looking around as a bum, who reminded me of a rotting pumpkin complete with an orange shirt, got out of the possible DeSoto and tried to focus on us. The bright sun didn’t help much. Dali watched the man lurch toward us, pulling a pair of sunglasses from his pocket and perching them on his bulbous nose.

“What?” gargled the pumpkin.

“Two bits to watch my car,” I said. “See nothing happens to it. No one touches it.”

“Two bits?” the pumpkin asked Dali.

“No,” said Dali, reaching into his pocket and coming out with crumpled bills. “Three dollars.”

He held out the three bucks to the orange bum, who lifted his sunglasses and took the money.

“Anyone touches the car, he dies,” the bum graveled. His gravel was even worse than his gargle.

“Come on, Sal,” I said, moving to the rear door of the Farraday.

Dali followed, looking around the festering alley as if it were Oz. “It can get no better,” he said.

“It can get a lot worse,” I said. “My car could be gone by the time we come out. Our pal with the sunglasses isn’t hanging around to watch my Crosley. As soon as we get inside the door, he’ll take off for Erik’s Bar. He’s got enough money to keep him in Petrie wine for three weeks.”

“Wrong,” corrected Dali. “He will not depart when we go inside. He has already departed.”

I looked back at Dali. He was triumphant.

“One can always count on man to find the deepest darkness of his soul.”

“Comforting thought,” I muttered, opening the back door of the Farraday with my key.

Dali went in ahead of me. “That smell,” he said, his voice echoing in the demi-darkness. “Perfume of nightmares.”

“Lysol,” I said, crossing the lobby.

“I have much to tell Gala,” he said. “She will be in Carmel with your bald giant. I must call her.”

“From my office,” I said.

Dali admired the marble stairs and looked up the stairwell to the roof of the Farraday seven stories above. Voices came from behind doors. Off-key music. Some kind of machine. Something, maybe a baby, crying.

“Dante,” he said.

“Let’s go.”

Dali got into the elevator and I turned on the third stair.

“You walk,” he said. “Dali will ride upward into the Inferno.”

“Sixth floor,” I said and started up the stairs as Dali closed the cage door of the elevator and hit the button. I beat him to the sixth floor by about a week, even though the elevator hadn’t stopped to pick anyone up or let them off.

“Magnificent nightmare,” Dali said, joy in his voice.

“You ain’t seen nothin’ yet,” I said, standing in front of the door to the offices of Minck and Peters. “Abandon hope all who enter here.”

We went through the little waiting room and into Shelly’s office. The great man himself was destroying the mouth of a man who lay still with his eyes closed. For his sake, I hoped he was dead. Shelly was probing with a corroded metal probe and singing “There’ll Be a Hot Time in the Town of Berlin When the Yanks Go Marching In.”

“Any calls, Shel?” I asked.

Shelly turned, shifted the cigar to the right side of his mouth, and replaced his thick glasses on the top of his nose by pushing the center of the right lens.

“No. Who’s this?”

“Salvador Dali,” I said.

“No shit?” Shelly turned to the dead man on the chair: “Mr. Shayne, this is Salvador Dali. He looks just like himself.”

“Your studio is magnificent,” complimented Dali, looking around at the sink full of instruments and coffee cups, the pile of bloody towels overflowing the basket in the corner, the cabinets covered with piles of dental magazines of a decade ago.

“I call it a surgery,” said Shelly.

“You are an artist,” said Dali. “America is mad.”

Shelly beamed and nudged the dead man, who did not respond.

“I think you gave Mr. Shayne an overdose of gas,” I said.

Shelly leaned over and put his head against the chest of the man in his tilted chair.

“He’s alive. You trying to panic me, Toby?”

He moved away from Shayne and pointed his metal probe at the briefcase in my hand.

“What you got?”

“Twenty-five thousand dollars,” I said.

“I don’t need grief, Toby. I don’t need jokes. I don’t need grief. I need Mildred. Remember the receptionist I was going to hire?”

“I thought it was a dental assistant,” I said, inching toward my office door.

“Whatever. Mildred objects. Jealous.”

“I’m sorry, Shel.”

“I’ll live,” he said, beaming at Dali. “Mr. Dali, you want a teeth cleaning? It’s on the house. I’ll get Shayne out of here for a half hour and-”

“I am not a masoquista,” said Dali apologetically, “but I have friends in the motion picture business who would welcome your services. You have cards?”

Shelly stuck the probe in the pocket of his once-white smock and fished out a card. He handed it to Dali, who showed me the faint bloody thumbprint in the comer.

“Perfect,” he said and followed me into my office. I closed the door and went behind the desk.

For some reason, I hoped he hated the closet.

“A tomb,” he whispered, putting his right index finger to his lips and pointing with his left index finger at the photograph of my brother, my father, our dog Kaiser Wilhelm, and me when I was a kid.

“The dead,” I said, sitting behind my desk and plopping the briefcase in front of me. “Guy in the middle’s my old man. I know he’s dead. So’s the dog. My brother, the big one, is alive and a cop. You want some coffee?”

“I wish to call Gala,” he said, sitting down across from me.

I pushed the phone toward him and pulled out my notebook to remind myself to bill him for the call.

After the twenty-minute call, in frantic French with Dali bouncing up and down, we sat looking at each other for about ten minutes.

“You play cards?” I asked.

“You have Tarot cards?”

“No.”

“I do not play cards. You have paper, pencils?”

That I had. I fished into my top desk drawer, around frayed photographs of Phil’s kids and pieces of things best forgotten, to find some crumpled sheets of typing paper. I also found a few pencils. I handed the package to Dali, who cleared away a space on the desk, looked at the wall, and said.

“Do not speak to Dali until he speaks to you.”

“You got a deal. Mind if I use the phone?”

“Call-but do not, I say, do not talk to Dali.”

It was nearly ten. I didn’t want to tie up the phone too long in case Taylor wanted to make his move early, if he was going to make any move at all.

I called Ruth, reminded her that I would pick up the kids after school on Wednesday, and asked how she was doing. She told me that surgery had been rescheduled for Wednesday morning.

“I could get Mrs. Dudnick to stay with the kids,” she said. “And my sister would come from Chicago if I called her, but I’d rather wait till I was through the operation before I told my family. And Toby, the kids love you. They’ll … I hate to ask, but I’ll feel better if you’re here. And Mrs. Dudnick’s right next door.”

“I’ll be there, Ruth,” I said. “First thing Wednesday morning, as long as it takes.”

“Phil says you’d volunteer and then not show up. He says I should have Mrs. Dudnick ready.”

“This time Phil’s wrong about me. I’ll be there.”

“Thanks, Toby,” she said.

“I’ll talk to you, Ruth.”

And then I hung up.

“Illness,” Dali said without looking up from his drawing. “I can smell it, feel it in my fingers.”

“I thought I wasn’t supposed to talk to you.”

“You are not, but Dali can talk if he must.”

He stopped suddenly, put the pencil down and looked at me. There sat a man I had not seen before-his face aged, his mustaches wilted just a drop, and his voice down an octave as he spoke slowly.

“Mr. Peters, I am not jesting when I say the painting must be found, must be returned to me. Dali will be destroyed if the painting is seen by a critic, a gallery owner, a collector. Dali will be destroyed as surely as he will be destroyed if Taylor kills me as he has killed his accomplices.”

“I’ll find the painting,” I said. “And no one’s going to shoot you.”

Then, suddenly, the Salvador Dali mask-eyes wide, hands dancing-was back on. He leaned forward to draw and the phone rang.

“Toby Peters, Confidential Inquiries.”

“Peters?” asked Taylor.

“I just said that.”

“You have the money?”

“I have the money.”

Dali looked up when I mentioned the money. The tips of his mustaches tingled like the antennae of an ant trying to feel the wind.

“Cash?”

“No, war bonds. Taylor, name a place and a time.”

“I’m nervous, Peters,” he said. “Can you understand that?”

“You’re looking for sympathy from me?”

“I just want you to under-”

“I asked a question, Taylor. Last night when I asked you a question you tried to turn me into confetti. Let’s do business.”

“It’s ten-thirty,” he said. “I’ll give you one hour to get to Slip Number Four at the San Pedro shipyard.”

“Have the clock and the painting,” I instructed.

“Come alone,” he said. “Or you don’t see me.”

I hung up. Dali was looking at me.

“Stay here,” I said, picking up the briefcase. “Shelly will get you something to eat. What do you like to eat?”

“Sea urchins,” he said, turning the piece of paper he had been drawing on so I could see it. It was a rough sketch of me dressed in a lace collar. It might be worth something someday. I opened the briefcase and eased it in so the bills would cushion it.

“Lovely,” I said. “I’ll be back in three hours. Stay in the office. If you need the toilet, Shelly will give you the key-it’s down the hall across from the elevator. There’s a radio in the bottom drawer of my desk. Don’t answer the phone. Shelly will take care of it.”

“You will get my painting?”

“I will get your painting,” I reassured him, and went back into Shelly’s office, closing the door to my cubbyhole behind me.

The man in the chair, Shayne, still looked dead. Shelly stood next to him reading a magazine and chomping on what was left of a cigar. He looked up at me.

“I’m waiting for the stuff to set,” he explained. “Getting an impression for a bridge.”

“Stuff? Is that what it’s called?”

Shelly shrugged, dropped the magazine on the corpse’s lap and said, “Tell me the truth, Toby. You think Dali needs dental work?”

“No,” I said. “Don’t even ask him. Keep him in my office and get him something to eat later.”

“Please,” he prompted, tilting his head back to keep his glasses from falling.

“Please,” I said.

“The briefcase,” Shelly said. “You don’t really have …?”

I opened the briefcase and tilted it so Shelly could see the bills.

“Twenty-five thousand,” he sighed.

“Holy shit,” exclaimed Mr. Shayne, miraculously resurrected by the sound of money.

Shelly turned to his patient. “That’ll cost you another five bucks. You ruined my mold.”

“I’m not paying,” said Shayne, spitting out the chunk of pink gook.

My office door opened and Dali, paper in one hand, pencil in the other, watched doctor and patient shout at each other, their faces inches apart, Shelly’s cigar dangerously close to Shayne’s nose. Dali smiled at me and I left.

I could make San Pedro in forty minutes, Avalon to Anaheim, and then down Pacific. I could have made it in forty minutes. I could have, but I didn’t.

The first problem was the pumpkin bum in the sunglasses. He was standing in front of my Crosley, arms folded, legs spread apart. Clutched in one of his fists was a rusted and slightly bent piece of metal that looked as if it had been ripped from one of the wrecks. His legs were a little wobbly, but he looked determined.

“You did a good job,” I said, trying to reach past him to the passenger door.

“Don’t touch the car,” he warned.

“It’s my car. Remember me? I offered you two bits.”

“Other guy gave me a finif.”

“I was with the other guy. He gave you three bucks.”

“Yeah? What’d he look like?”

“A skinny little guy in a velvet suit with a pointed mustache a foot long.”

“What else?” asked the rotting pumpkin.

“Get out of my way,” I said.

I hadn’t worked out in weeks and my leg wasn’t back to subnormal. I didn’t want to do battle with the demented of Los Angeles. It would be a life-long losing task, and time was ticking away. Besides, the guy was doing his job. There was honor in the alley-misplaced, confused, but honor. I didn’t want to hit him and I sure as hell didn’t want him to hit me with his corroded club.

“Let him pass,” came a voice I recognized from above.

The pumpkin man took off his sunglasses and looked up. So did I. There, on the sixth floor, in the window of my office, Dali leaned forward, arms folded across his chest. Then his right hand came out and pointed upward. “Dali has spoken.”

“What’d he say?” asked the pumpkin.

“He said, ‘Dali has spoken.’”

The bum stepped out of the way. I opened the car door, threw the briefcase on the floor, and scooted across to the driver’s seat. The bum threw away the metal bar and leaned in the door.

“Is he, you know, one of Jesus’s helpers? Like the elves and Santa Claus?”

“Yep,” I said.

“I tried out for Santa Claus at Macy’s,” he said.

I motioned him back and leaned over to close the passenger side door. Through the window I could hear the bum say, “Least I wanted to, but you know something? I couldn’t find Macy’s.”

Since I didn’t have a working watch, the only way I could tell the time was turning on the radio or looking in store windows for clocks. When I’m late, I want to know the time, but I don’t want to be told. It makes me nervous. So I try to find music. I could sing or think. I didn’t feel like doing either.

I did a fair job of girl, clock, and people watching all the way to San Pedro. I parked a block away from Slip 4, got out, looked around for yet another clock, and hurried toward the shipyard.

There was a war on and there were ships being built. Beyond the gate about a hundred yards away giant cranes hovered over the hulls of massive Liberty ships, feeding them steel beams the way a bird feeds worms to its fat new babies. Flashes of fire and sparks from welder’s arcs crackled over the decks.

Then there was the noise. A clattering of hundreds of air hammers, the growl of crane horns, the clang of flangers’ mauls on bulkheads.

There were not only two guards in gray uniforms at the gates, but two armed Naval Shore Patrolmen with black holsters and serious personality problems. There was no other way in. When a guard looked my way, I walked right up to the gate.

One of the guards, who looked about twenty years older than the forty he had looked like from across the street, stepped out to greet me.

“Can I help you?” he shouted.

“I’m late,” I shouted back. “Car broke down a block away. Kelly in payroll’s waiting for this.”

I held up the briefcase.

“Kelly?”

“Kelly, Kennedy, some Irish name,” I yelled with irritation.

“He means Connelly,” came the second guard, moving to join us. The second guard was even older than the first.

“Connelly didn’t leave any message about … What’s your name?”

“Bruno, Bruno Podbialniak, First Security Bank of Hollywood,” I said, reaching into my pocket for a business card. I really had one somewhere among the dozens of other cards I’d picked up over the years. When I had need of a bank or a banker, Bruno was it. I cost him more in cards than he and First Security made on investing my few bucks.

I knew where Bruno’s cards were in the wallet, at the bottom of the pile in the bill compartment, right in front of one that read: “Kirk Woller, Mortician to the Stars.” I handed a card to both guards who looked at them and then at each other.

“I’ll give Connelly a call,” said the second guard.

I looked at my father’s watch impatiently. I was going with the punches. Don’t think, I told myself. Just run the combinations.

The two Shore Patrolmen kept their distance but watched me carefully, their hands hooked into their belts very close to their holsters. The Shore Patrolmen were a good ten years younger than I had thought from across the street. One of them looked like my nephew Dave, only bigger. I watched the second guard go to a phone just inside the iron-mesh gate and make his call while the first guard read Bruno’s card seven or eight times.

“One of my kids, Al’s a banker,” the first guard said. “Got four kids and a bad ear. Four-F.”

I nodded and looked at my watch.

“Connelly wants to talk to you,” the second guard called from the phone.

I strode through the gate past the teen Shore Patrolmen and took the phone from the guard.

“Connelly?” I said with irritation. “My car broke down and I’ve got other stops to make. Will you tell these people to take me to your office?”

“Who are you?” asked Connelly, who was a woman.

“Bruno Podbialniak. Your boss called and said to bring you this cash now. If you don’t want to sign for it …”

“My boss? Monesco?”

“I guess,” I said wearily. “Will you talk up. It’s noisy out here. I’m late and I’ve got to get to Lockheed by four.”

“Monesco isn’t here today,” she said. “He’s-”

“Okay,” I interrupted. “That’s it. Porter can send someone else and you can tell your Monesco that-”

“Wait,” said Connelly. “You have cash?”

“Cash.”

“Show it to the guard who was on the phone.”

I handed the phone to the guard and opened the briefcase to show him the bills. He shook his head and spoke to Connelly.

“Man has a lot of dollars,” he said. “Okay.” And then to me, “She wants you to give it to me and I’ll give you a receipt.”

“Forget it,” I said, snapping the briefcase shut. “I was told to give it to Connelly personally and get a receipt. Besides, this is a twenty-dollar briefcase. I’m not donating it.”

The guard got back on the phone and gave my story to Connelly. Then he listened, nodded, and hung up.

“Says I should bring you over to payroll. Carl,” he called. “I’m bringing Mr.… uh, the gentleman to payroll.”

Carl nodded back and the two Shore Patrolmen examined me. I frowned at them. I was a busy man. I followed the old guard to a khaki coupe and got in. We drove past Slips 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5.

“What time you have?” I asked.

“Quarter to twelve,” he said, pulling into a space next to a two-story building with aluminum sides.

I got out quickly.

“I know where it is,” I said, slamming the door as he started to get out. “Wait for me here. It’ll only take me a minute or two.”

He shrugged and sat back behind the wheel and I hurried into the building with the briefcase. I pushed the door closed behind me and the world went silent. I didn’t have time to enjoy it. I bypassed a time clock and a rack of cards and moved past an office with a little window. Inside the office, a man sat hitting the buttons on an adding machine. A sign on his desk, gold letters on a black background, said he was Arthur Mylicki.

I hurried down the hall looking in other rooms till I found an empty. I went in, picked up the phone and told the operator I wanted Arthur Mylicki’s office. Two rings and Mylicki answered.

“Yes.”

“Mylicki?” I coughed and continued in a hoarse voice. “This is Monesco. I’ve got a man with me from the bank. One of the guards is waiting for him outside your door.” I coughed again.

“I heard you-”

“Damn cold,” I said. “Had to come back. Payroll problem. Tell the guard Connelly will bring Podbialniak back to the gate when we finish.”

I hung up before he could say anything else and turned toward the door. A thin man wearing suspenders and a green visor walked in.

“Adding machine repair,” I said. “I don’t see anything wrong with your machine, Mr. Mylicki.”

“You got the wrong office,” the man said. “Mylicki’s first door when you come in, to the left. Left of the door. Your right now when you go back.”

“Sorry,” I said and went out. Mylicki was just coming out of his office. He went outside and I moved to watch him through the thick glass pane in the door. He talked to the old guard in the car, who nodded and backed his coupe out. I stepped back and waited till Mylicki entered and then moved slowly past him to the door. I watched while the guard drove back toward the gate and then I opened the door.

When I stepped out something was different but I didn’t know what. Then I figured it out. The noise was gone. Not completely gone, but very nearly. I must have been close to a major lunch break for at least one shift, which meant I was late, maybe too late, not to mention that I had probably broken state, national, and security laws. I tried not to think about what would happen if I got caught. I also tried not to think that if I had gotten this far, how far could a real spy get?

Slip 4 was empty. At least I didn’t see any people. I did see a ship about the size of a department store decked out in flags and a big “400” in white letters. The ship, the Koloa Victory, was ready to be launched, probably within a day. On both sides of the slip were steel towers, about four stories high, with cranes on top. I moved toward the platform that had been set up for a christening.

I looked around. Nothing. Nobody. Somewhere, maybe on the ship, maybe on the wooden scaffolding around it, a chain clanked against the deck or the hull. I stood there for a minute, maybe two, and figured Taylor had either set me up or had decided not to wait.

“You’re late,” came a voice from I-didn’t-know-where.

“You picked a goddamn stupid place to meet,” I said. “How did you get in here? And how did you expect me to get in?”

“The money in the briefcase?” he asked.

I was getting a fix on him now.

“Right here,” I said. “The clock and the painting first.”

“Put the briefcase down,” he said.

I had him now, the tower on the left, high up near the crane.

“First the clock and the painting.”

“I can shoot you and take it,” he said.

“You can’t shoot straight. You couldn’t hit me at ten feet last night. You start shooting and I get under the tower and then head for the nearest guard.”

Silence. At least no talking. The chain was still clanking somewhere and I could hear the crackle of a welder.

“I’ve got your gun,” he said.

I looked up at the tower, into the sun, shielding my eyes with the briefcase. I saw a figure leaning over the top.

“Come up,” he called.

It was up or out. I moved under the tower and found a ladder. It wasn’t much of a ladder and it wasn’t easy going up holding onto a briefcase full of money, but up I went. There was no reason for him to shoot me on the way. I would drop the money. I figured I was safe at least till I got to the top, and I was right. My arms were knots and my legs shaking when I reached the platform and pulled myself through the opening. There wasn’t much room, maybe the size of a small boxing ring if you take away half the space for the crane.

“Good view from up here,” he said.

We were about five feet apart. He sounded like Jim Taylor and looked like Jim Taylor, but he wasn’t Taylor. The skin gave him away. No pock marks. He had what looked like my.38 in his right hand. He was wearing gray slacks, a gray shirt, a hard hat, and a smile I didn’t believe for a second.

“You work here?”

“I work here. Put the briefcase down.”

“You’re Taylor’s brother,” I said, taking a step to my left and holding onto the none-too-sturdy pipe railing while I caught my breath.

“Put it down,” he ordered.

I held the briefcase over the side of the tower.

“Clock and painting,” I said. “I drop this and it’s snowing bucks over the Cal Shipyard.”

“You drop it and you dive after it,” he said.

“I give it to you and maybe I’m dead. No-if I’m going, I’m not leaving the money up here.”

“Son of a bitch,” he said, looking at his watch. “Lunch whistle’s gonna blow any second. Gonna be a few thousand people right down there with lunch boxes.”

“Let’s go down, get out of here and go where your brother has the clock and the painting,” I suggested.

“Okay,” he said. “You go first.”

“Give me the gun.”

“No! You nuts?”

“I’m not going to shoot you. I brought the money. I want the clock and the painting. Besides, it’s my gun.”

“No. I give you the gun and when we get to Jim, you take the clock and the painting and keep the money.”

“It’s a problem,” I admitted, “but this wasn’t my idea.”

The whistle blew. Actually, a lot of whistles blew, which meant it was noon.

“Shit,” said Taylor.

“How about this?” I suggested. “You go down. I wait till you get to the bottom and the place is crawling with lunchers. Then you tell me where Jim is. You have plenty of time to call him, tell him I’m coming. He’s got the rifle.”

Taylor considered this.

“You’re a smart-ass.”

“Better a smart one than a dirty one.”

“Jim told me you’re a smart-ass. You know why I set this up? Because I’m smarter than Jim. I’m five minutes older and five times smarter.”

“I can see that,” I said.

He took a step toward me and I extended the arm with the briefcase farther over the railing. It didn’t stop him. He shoved my revolver into my stomach.

“Give it,” he said.

I swung the briefcase around and hit him in the head as I threw myself against the crane. His hard hat went flying over the side of the tower. He fired a shot that went wild, in the general direction of Jupiter. I hit him with the briefcase again, this time in the hand with my gun. I hit him hard. I hit him as if my life depended on it. I didn’t like it up here.

He dropped the.38. It clattered behind me. I dropped the briefcase, turned my back on Taylor and went for the gun. I saw it, about five feet away, the barrel hanging over the edge of the platform. I went flat on the wooden deck and reached for the gun. Taylor jumped on my back. I don’t know if he came knees or feet first. I lost my breath, what was left of it, and knew I had a good chance of being both sick and dead. He was crawling over me toward the gun. I reached out and pushed it over the edge. I didn’t see it fall but I did hear someone below let out a yell and I heard a shot. The.38 had discharged when it hit the ground.

Taylor had to make a choice now. If he threw me over, there was no way he could get away with the briefcase. I didn’t know how many people were down there now, but I could hear voices and one in particular that said, “Up there. Hey, look at that.”

Taylor grabbed the case. I rolled over as he started down the ladder. I got to my knees, threw up, felt a little better, eased over, and started slowly after him. He was in much better shape than I was now, and going down fast. I looked down and tried to shout. Nothing came out. I gulped and then gave out a dry yell.

“Stop that man! He’s a spy!”

I didn’t look down again. I climbed as fast as I could and almost bumped into Taylor, who had stopped about twenty feet from the ground, where a crowd of spy haters had congregated.

“He’s lying,” Taylor said. “I work here. My name’s Taylor. Pipefitter. Section Twelve.”

“Spy,” I said. “I’m F.B.I.”

Taylor looked up at me and I whispered to him, “We can still walk with that money. You want to deal?”

He gritted his teeth as he looked up at me, but he nodded.

“We’re coming down,” I said. “Give us room. He just surrendered.”

Sounds of applause below as first Taylor and then I hit the ground.

“You want help with him?” a guy with a chow-chow face said.

“We’ll be fine,” I said, pushing Taylor ahead of me. “I’ve got some men waiting for us at the gate.”

“Here’s your gun,” said a woman with a snood and incredible breasts. “I think it’s broke.”

“Thanks,” I said, putting the.38 in my pocket.

It was more than broken. It was dead, but I didn’t want to leave it here.

“Back to your lunches,” I shouted. “He won’t give me any trouble.”

It took us about a minute to clear the crowd. A couple of people patted me on the back and one or two took a swing at Taylor.

“Where’s your car?” I asked.

He didn’t talk, but he did move to his left toward a line of cars across from Slip 3. I followed him to a black Ford. He got in; I put the briefcase in the back seat and rummaged around in the glove compartment. There was a greasy cloth behind some candy wrappers. I took it out, removed my windbreaker, threw it on the floor in the back, slumped over and covered my face with the cloth.

“Go to the gate. Tell them I poked my eye out on some machine and you’re taking me to the hospital,” I ordered. “Drive fast and make a sudden stop. Look scared, panicked.”

“You’re gonna lose more than an eye today,” he said.

“I’m glad we’re friends again,” I said. “Drive and remember the full briefcase in the back.”

He drove and it went just fine. Under the cloth I moaned, groaned, and screamed. I could tell from the voice of the guy who stopped us that it was the old guard who had driven me to Payroll.

“Go on, go on,” he said. “I’ll call and tell them you’re coming.”

Taylor pulled into the street, and I turned my head and watched us shoot past my Crosley.

All in all, I was having a good day.