Tomorrow Is Another day

Chapter 8

The Carolina Hotel was top dollar. A girl in a cute red-and-gold short-skirted uniform, one of those little bellboy caps tied around her chin, took the keys to my Crosley and gave me a grin. I gave her a buck for not noticing I wasn't driving a Lincoln.

An old man in a red-and-gold uniform, long pants, opened the hotel door for me and I walked into one of the great lobbies of America. Mosaic-tile floors with flower pattern, gold walls, and plump furniture in little nooks made private by tall ferns and plants. Parrots gurgled in a dozen cages. People bustled in and out, talking business, making deals, trying not to notice if they were being noticed.

I walked the half mile across the lobby and informed the tuxedoed clerk that Mr. Varney was expecting me. The clerk, who looked as if he never needed a shave, did something with his head that might have been a nod, or maybe he just closed his eyes for an instant in acknowledgment.

I was wearing a zippered tan Windbreaker, dark slacks, a white shirt fraying only slightly at the collar, and a tie that came close to matching the dark of my trousers. In New York, I'd definitely be sent to the service entrance. In Los Angeles, hundred thousand-dollar-a-year executives dressed the way I was dressed, even for business meetings. Working-man casual was in. Only actors dressed in suits.

The clerk stepped discreetly back out of my hearing and picked up a house phone. He was replaced by a near-duplicate ready to greet the next inquiry. Nobody inquired. Clerk Two didn't smile. Clerk One returned and said, "Room 304. Mr. Varney is expecting you."

Which was what I had said.

I said thanks and turned in search of the elevator. I found it in a niche beyond where three men and a woman were sitting forward and whispering at the top of their voices.

The Carolina had an elevator operator with a smile of perfect teeth, who wore an appropriate gold-and-red uniform and looked a little like Jane Powell. She took me up to the third floor and opened the door for me.

The Carolina was Hollywood class.

The red-and-gold carpeting was thick and clean-smelling. The walls were lined with paintings and watercol-ors of California mountains, beaches, and forests. No movie stars. No reproductions of famous paintings by long-dead Dutchmen.

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."

"Had one once," Elmo said with a smile. "Makes me itch. Got no patience. Most guys out here…" He looked around, but there weren't any guys. "Most guys have a story. What they were. What they walked away from. You know?"

"I know," I said.

Elmo jangled the coins in his pocket.

"I got no story. No ambition. What the hell. You're born one day. Sixty, seventy years later you're dead. You know?"

"I know," I said.

Elmo shook his head.

"So," he went on, "the way I figure it, why waste the sixty, seventy with work, trying to get something you can't keep anyway. I'm not starvin'. I'm not cold or wet most days. I get plenty of time to read over at the library or wherever."

"I get your point, Elmo."

"You think I could really get a job?" he asked, looking away from me. "I mean if I cleaned up okay?"

"Lot of jobs, Elmo. The gravy's in the navy."

"Cash money and room with a door," he said, more to himself than me. "Might be I'd want to try it. Never tried it."

"You know Manny's around the corner on Main," I said. "He's looking for a dishwasher. There's a sign in his window. I'll put in a word for you."

"Maybe," said Elmo.

I went to the Crosley, opened the door with my key, and reached into the cramped back seat. My gym bag was there. I pulled it out while Elmo watched me find a rolied-up pullover shirt and safety razor already loaded with a fresh Chancellor single-edged blade. I handed shirt and razor to Elmo, who took them with dignity.

"You don't like it, you can always quit," I said.

"What about your car?"

"I'll take a chance," I said.

I left Elmo standing in the rubble behind the Farraday, deciding if he had the heart to take a step into the 1940s. I wanted to feel good. I wanted to feel as if I was saving a lost soul, but I wasn't sure. I also wanted to take the edge off of what I was feeling, a combination of excitement, fear, and anger. They were still with me when I went through the back entrance to the Farraday and closed the door behind me.

When you step into the Farraday from the back door, you're plunged into a darkness without shadows. I've tripped over sleeping bums and debris. I've stepped into slick splots of who-knows what. Jeremy and Alice worked with buckets, brawn, and chemicals to stay ahead of the jungle, but it was a never-ending job, and time off for the baby or poetry only meant the streets would slouch under the door or through a window for a new assault.

I moved around a corner and made my way to the lobby door, marked with a red bulb. I pushed into the lobby and felt the same tug I always feel. Something a little sad, something I knew someday I would miss. The open tile space with a wide stairway and dark-metal railings climbing floor by floor to the sixth floor and the dirty skylight. The iron elevator next to the stairway, clanging gently from a sourceless breeze. Voices one-two-five-six flights up through the doors marked as the homes of one-man and one-woman businesses that couldn't make it in the nicer buildings a few blocks north.

Something moved above me as I headed for the stairway. I looked up and saw Alice Pallis at the first-floor railing, holding Natasha in her arms. The baby was patting her mother's head with a pudgy palm.

"Jeremy told me to look for you," Alice said. "He wants you to call him in Encino."

"Thanks, Alice," I said.

"Toby, I asked you and you said you'd leave Jeremy out of your work."

"I'm sorry," I said, starting up the stairs. "I don't think there's any…"

"… and we figured out your puzzle," she said.

I kept coming up the stairs. I didn't have the heart to tell her that I'd figured it out too, at least most of it.

"Great," I said as she moved toward the stairway landing.

"If it's not French," a man's voice shouted from above us, "I can't sell it. You get me French, I'll get you cash."

I got to the first floor, not even panting. Natasha reached for me and Alice handed her over. She smelled like innocence and baby powder.

"The initials of each victim," Alice said. "Charles Larkin, Al Ramone, Karl Gouda, C.L.A.R.K, G. And in his last note, he says he 'began lame but I'll end able.' ABLE. Clark Gable."

Natasha was pulling at my ear. She wasn't more than four months old, but she had inherited her father and mother's strength. Alice reached over, removed her hand from my ear, kissed Natasha's palm, and took her back. She immediately began to pat her mother's head again and gurgle.

"Your killer is issuing a warning to Clark Gable, taunting him," Alice said. "Maybe wanting him to feel responsible for the deaths of these men for no other reason than to spell the name of a movie star."

"I don't like crazies," I said.

"Who does unless they're funny?" she said.

A grinding machine sound began a floor or two above us. We had to raise our voices.

" 'I'll be there e'er the Ides and right those wrongs and claim his prize,'" Alice went on. "Jeremy thinks he wrote that to let you know that he plans to do something before the fifteenth, the ides. Jeremy had me read Julius Caesar. Caesar is warned about the ides, but he ignores the warning, and then he's murdered on the ides, stabbed by former friends."

"The king," I said. "Gable's called the king."

"So, it could be that he plans to murder Clark Gable before the fifteenth," said Alice. " 'My father wept to be so cut from fortune, fame deserved.' Suggestion, Toby. We think his father didn't get something that could have made him rich and famous, something about Clark Gable. And he plans to get his revenge before the fifteenth. Jeremy thinks your killer's father had something to do with Gone With the Wind. All three victims had something to do with the film."

All this I knew, but I didn't have the heart to tell Alice. Natasha was solemnly exploring her mother's nostrils. Alice paid no attention.

"We're still puzzled by some of his comments," Alice said. "Who am I? Just ask what I am d.o.i.n.g."

"Spelling," I said. "He's Spelling. His name is Spelling."

"How can anyone be expected to figure that out?" Alice said, nestling her nose into Natasha's stomach. The baby giggled.

"Maybe we're not supposed to figure it out till it's too late," I said.

"Then why play the game?" Alice asked.

"To show he's smarter than me, smarter than Gable," I said. "To make us feel that we should have figured it out, when it's too late."

Alice gently put Natasha's head against her neck and patted her back softly to calm the giggling baby.

"He's sick, Toby," Alice said. "I've got to go change Natasha and give her a nap."

"He's sick, Alice," I agreed.

Alice started to walk away and then turned to me, her homely face serious.

"I don't want Jeremy near him," she said.

"I'll…"

"Listen," she said, shifting the baby slightly so she could hold her with one hand while she plucked a sheet of paper from the pocket of her dress. Natasha stirred and did a baby sigh and went quiet again. Alice shook open the sheet and read,

"Blake thought he found God hi the wake of a tiger, the burst of sun, the flower, Shakespeare in the wit of words the recognition of the power of well-put passion.

Pound pounds his Nazi chains against the steel drum of fear while I take issue, take pains to find the postured dignity that holds my hand through doubt and lets me reach back with earthy strength to those I love and say, 'Take my hand for I will hold you fast through time to come and which has past.

We are not first but we'll not be last.'"

"Well?" Alice challenged, folding the sheet with one hand and dropping it back in her pocket.

"Impressive," I said.

"If Jeremy gets hurt, Toby, I'll crush your head with my bare hands. I will."

"I know, Alice."

There was nothing more to say. She and the still-giggling baby vanished into the shadows, and I went back to the stairway and made my way up to the office of Sheldon Minck and Toby Peters.

There were voices beyond the waiting room: Shelly's, though it seemed unnatural somehow. The other voice was a woman's. I opened the door and found Shelly standing next to a girl who stood a good six niches taller than him. She was slender, dark, with a short Louise Brooks haircut and wearing a green dress with fluffy sleeves. She also wore a smile and too much makeup.

Shelly was showing her drawings and trying to keep his glasses from slipping off as he pointed to details with the dead end of his cigar.

"… in your office," he said, pointing back at my office.

She saw me first. Then Shelly's eyes came up, filled with magnified guilt behind the thick lenses. The girl smiled. She was cute, maybe a little empty, but cute.

"Oh, Toby," Shelly said, quickly dropping his drawings on the dental chair. "This is Mrs. Gonsenelli, Violet."

Violet Gonsenelli held out her hand. I stepped forward to take it. It was slender, warm, and definitely did not belong, along with that face and body, in the less-than-spotless offices of Minck and Peters.

"Pleasure," she said.

"Mrs. Gonsenelli applied for the receptionist job," Shelly explained. "I told her the ad was old, but she has some great ideas and she needs the job."

"Husband's in Europe," she explained."Fighting the Nazis."

"Best reason to be there," I said.

"Business is growing, Toby," Shelly said nervously. "Wouldn't be bad to have someone keep track of things, straighten up."

"You were talking about my office," I said.

"Your…" Shelly began, looking at my office door as if he had never seen it before. "Well, it was just a possibility, you know. Violet would need an office and…"

Violet looked confused.

"Mildred," I said. "Mildred gets one look at Violet and she's on the way to Reno."

"This is business," Shelly said with indignation. "Mildred would just have to understand."

"Mildred?" Violet asked.

"Mrs. Minck," I explained.

Violet nodded in understanding. I had the feeling this was not the first job interview foiled by a Mildred Minck.

"Maybe I'd better go," Violet said.

"Wait," said Shelly. "Toby?"

"Your marriage, Dr. Minck," I said. "We can clear out the waiting room for Violet, put in a small desk. Patients and clients can wait in the hall. You put two or three chairs out there and maybe, who knows, if you're lucky, they won't get stolen. You'd better check with Jeremy and Alice to see if they'll let you do it."

Shelly was beaming.

"I don't…" Violet began.

"You don't have to," Shelly said. "You just make appointments, answer the phone, straighten up, learn about the dental business. I tell you what. I'll train you to be a dental assistant. Clean teeth, X rays. A career."

"What about Mrs. Minck?" Violet said, looking at me.

I shrugged.

"I got it," said Shelly, snapping his pudgy ringers. 'Toby hires you. You're his idea. I pay my share of your salary, but…"

"You pay all of Mrs. Gonsenelli's salary and she works for both of us," I said.

"But…"

"And I give you permission to tell Mildred I hired her," I threw in.

"It's a deal," said Shelly.

"I don't know," said Violet.

Violet was cute. Violet could be more than cute. This was probably a rotten idea.

"Forty a month, plus a free white smock," said Shelly. "Good pay, career opportunity. Flexible working hours."

Violet looked at me.

"Can we make it a kind of trial?" she said, looking back at Shelly again. "Till I can ask Angelo."

"Angelo?"

"My husband. I'll write to him tonight"

"Angelo Gonsenelli?" Shelly said to himself.

"Middleweight contender," I said. "Went six rounds with Tony Zale in '42. Zale couldn't put him down."

"Angelo has heart," Violet said, nodding her head.

"And a wonderful nickname," I added. "Mad Angelo Gonsenelli."

"When do I start?" she asked brightly, her bright-red lips parted to show amazingly white and even teeth that would be the envy of any potential patient.

"Start?" said Shelly in a daze.

"Tomorrow will be fine," I said. "Dr. Minck will help you get things in shape."

"Nine?" she asked.

"Perfect," I said.

And Violet Gonsenelli, wife of Mad Angelo Gonsenelli, was out the door, heels clicking as she headed for the elevator.

"You knew," Sheldon said, moving to his dental chair and sitting on top of Ms drawings.

"When I heard her name," I said brightly.

"Cruel, Toby," he said.

"Sheldon, you were about to give her my office. Where the hell did you think I was going to go?"

Shelly adjusted his glasses, looked at his cigar, and shrugged.

"I like your idea about turning the waiting room into a reception area-office."

"Thanks," I said. "Give Mildred my best tonight."

"She hates you, Toby," Shelly said.

"Lucky for you, Shel," I said. "I'm mad about her. I'd steal her out from under you and run with her in my arms all the way to Tijuana if she'd have me." Mildred was odds-on favorite to win the witch-in-the-middle contest, if the May Company sponsored a Halloween event.

"You're being sarcastic," Shelly said, lighting his cigar.

I took a step toward Shelly and said, "I want to know about Spelling."

Shelly blinked at me. "What's to know? A few rules but mostly memorizing," he said. "You got a problem, keep a dictionary on your desk. Sometimes, Toby, you come up with the damndest… what happened to your head?"

He pointed to the small Band-aid on my forehead. I pulled it off and threw it toward the overflowing white trash can near the sink.

"This morning," I said, "someone you know tried to kill me."

"Mildred?"

"Your patient. A guy named Spelling."

"Good teeth," said Shelly.

"And good aim," I went on. "He shot a man this morning. Stabbed one last night and killed another one three days ago. I think he's also planning to kill me and Clark Gable."

"Just because I made a little mistake with a novocaine injection?" asked Shelly.

"No, Shel, because he's out of his mind. I think he came here this morning to find me, to follow me. I think he's playing a game."

"No wonder his teeth were in such good shape," said Shelly with a stroke of understanding that made no sense to me.

"Shel, I doubt if it win do any good, but I'd like to see your card on Mr. Spelling."

"That's confidential information, Toby," Shelly said seriously. "Patient-doctor, priest-confessional, lawyer-client, that sort of thing."

"Give me the card, Shel, or I'll call Mildred and tell her about your hiring a receptionist who looks better than Rita Hayworth."

Shelly leapt from his chair in indignation and stumbled forward, almost falling to the floor.

"Blackmail," he sputtered.

"The card, Sheldon," I said.

Shelly gathered his dignity, adjusted his soiled smock, and moved to the file cabinet next to the cluttered, dripping sink. He opened it, looked at me hi the hope that I would change my mind, and then came up with a card.

"Right here on top," he said. "Chronological system. Latest patient on top."

He pushed the drawer shut and came to me with the card held out.

"Thanks, Shel," I said, looking at the card.

The name he had given was Victor Spelling. There was something vaguely familiar about the address. There was something very familiar about the place of birth. I turned the card to Shelly.

"Read it, Shel."

"Tara, Twelve Oaks, Georgia," he read. Then he looked up. "So?"

I went on reading. According to the card, Spelling was thirty-one, was five-eleven, weighed 190, and had no cavities.

I brushed past Shelly, went to my office.

Behind me Shelly was mumbling, "What did I do?"

I kicked my door closed and picked up the phone. Sara-son at vehicle registration wasn't in, but Grace Smull was.

"Price is up, Peters," she said. "Five bucks. And I haven't got much time."

"Victor Spelling," I said.

I gave her the address. I could hear voices in the vehicleregistration office, but I couldn't make out the words. Grace Smull was back on in about two minutes.

"You have my home address?" she asked.

"In my notebook," I said.

"Read it back to me," she said.

I dug my notebook out of my pocket, flipped through the pages, and found her name right under Ida Sarason. „"Five bucks," she said. "Cash. In the mail today or drop it off."

"I understand," I said.

"First, your Victor Spelling's address is the Carlton Arms Hotel," she said. "Second, he has a nineteen thirty-eight Ford business coupe registered to nun, license plate four-zero-three-eight."

"I hate to ask, Grace, but could you check on registrations for any other Spellings?"

"Five bucks more," she said.

"Five bucks more," I agreed.

"There are four Spellings with motor vehicles registered in Los Angeles County," she said.

"That was fast."

"I anticipated," she said. "You want to hear? You want to complain? Cost you no more to listen. Cost you another five to complain."

"I'm listening."

She gave me the names of the four Spellings on her list and their addresses. She even gave me the year and model of their cars.

"Thanks, Grace," I said. Tell Sarason I said hello."

"Tell her yourself," said Grace. "I tell her and she expects a finder's fee."

"You're all heart, Grace," I said.

"It's a hard world out there, Peters. And I'm alone with a sick mother and a teenager to feed. I save my heart for them. Ten dollars. Cash. In the mail."

She hung up and I took out my wallet, found two fives, dug around for an envelope, and had the payment ready to go in about two minutes. I made a note of the expense in my book and got up to leave. Then I remembered Jeremy's call.

I found Gable's number and called. It rang eight times before Jeremy answered.

"It's Toby," I said. "What's up?"

"He called here," Jeremy said. "Your madman."

"His name, maybe even his real name, is Spelling," I said. "What did he want?"

"He insisted on talking to Gable. Told him that he had killed K.G. and said the puzzle was complete. I'm afraid you were right to be concerned, Toby. It is my conclusion that he plans to murder Mr. Gable."

Then I heard a familiar voice saying, "Let me have that thing." Then Gable was on the phone. "Peters. I want that maniac found and I want to be there when he is. I want to wring his neck with my bare hands."

"I've got some…" I tried, but he was going strong.

"He said things about my… things. The crazy son of a bitch thinks I was responsible for doing something to his father. I have no idea who his father is or was. I want nun, Peters. Now, what, if anything, do you know?"

I told him. About Gouda, Alice and Jeremy's solution to the killer's puzzle, the killer's name-real or not-and his giving the Carlton Arms as his home address for his vehicle registration. I also told him about my meeting with Phil.

"I don't like sitting around here," Gable said. "And I don't want him killing any more people and holding me responsible. You're telling me that the crazy son of a bitch is killing people simply because their initials spell my name?"

"Looks that way," I said.

"Find him, Peters."

"I'm working on it," I said.

"Work fast, Peters. For God's sake, work fast."

He hung up and so did 1.1 wasn't through making calls. I tried Wally Hospodar's number in Calabasas. After five or six rings, a woman answered.

"My name's Peters," I said. "Can I speak to Wally?"

"He doesn' live here anymore," the woman said in a decidedly Spanish accent.

"I'm a friend," I said. "I have to reach him. If…"

"Tell you the same thing I told the other one," she said wearily. "He lives someplace downtown L.A. in a bottle of Scotch. Spends his life and his pension in bars."

"Any bars hi particular?"

"Melody Lounge or Gardens. Something like that," she said.

"I know the place. You said someone else called looking for Wally?"

"Yesterday. Day before," she said.

"Thanks," I said.

"You see Wally you tell him something for me?"

"Sure."

"Tell him Angelina loves him and he should not come home."

"I'll tell bun," I promised and the phone went dead.

When I got back into Shelly's office, he was putting his drawings in a neat stack as he searched for some uncluttered place to put them.

"Spelling owes me money for the cleaning," Shelly said. "You think he'll pay his bill?"

"I wouldn't count on it, Shel," I said.

"Dentistry is a risky business," he said, depositing the drawings back on the dental seat.

"Riskier with Violet Gonsenelli sitting in the reception room," I said. "I've gotta go, Shel. I'm going to pick up a couple of tacos at Manny's and I don't think I'll be back today. I'll call you for messages."

"At least when Violet's here, I won't have to take messages," he grumbled.

"Good-bye, Shel," I said, opening the door.

"Wait," Shelly called, peeling off his smock. "I'll take a lunch break."

I noticed two things when we got to Manny's. First, the Dishwasher Wanted sign was gone. Second, the place was crowded. Manny's wasn't that big to start with. Four booths and a counter with a dozen red leatherette swivel stools. Two cops were just getting up from the counter. Shelly and I slid in past them and took their places.

A hand came out and started removing the dirty dishes. I looked up. It was Elmo, strands of hair in place, face shaved, my pullover shirt under his white apron.

"That was fast," I said.

"No time to change my mind," Elmo said, working away. "Job's easy. Keep it clear. Clean it up. You want your two bits back? I can't watch your car and work a job."

"Forget it," I said.

Elmo hurried away with the dishes, and Manny, a lump of a man with a weary look on his face, leaned over to us, his newspaper open to the crossword puzzle.

"I read the papers every day," he said with the rasp of a child of the teens doomed to the results of a bad tonsillec-tomy. "But… thirty-two across, 'Inhabitants of Europe's underbelly,' twenty-seven across, 'New leader of the House of Commons.' Wait. This one I can get, 'Preacher McPher-son.' Aimee Semple. Second wife and me, her name was Ernestina, used to go to the Four Square Gospel Church over on Glendale Boulevard near Sunset, Echo Park. Thousand, maybe two thousand packed in. I remember Sister Aimee saying, 'Where there's sin there's salvation. Ernestina took her to heart. Never got through to me though. Got no imagination. Third and present wife's got no imagination either. Works out better that way."

"How's Elmo working out?" I asked.

"Too soon to tell," said Manny. "Says he's your friend."

"Says right," I said.

"Too soon to tell," Manny said again. "What happened to your head?"

"Patient of Shelly's tried to kill me."

"Java, Manny," a woman called from the end of the counter.

"Comin' up," Manny called back and then to us, seriously, "R.A.F.'s pounding the Nazis in France, Netherlands. You see the Times?' "Not today," I said.

Til have the three-taco special and coffee," said Shelly.

"British stopped Rommel in North Africa," Manny went on, ignoring Shelly. "And Montgomery is counterattacking. Looks good in Africa, Europe, and the Russians aren't doing so good today."

"Java, Manny," called the woman.

"Customers," Manny said and eased away. He hadn't taken my order. Didn't need to. Unless I told him otherwise, he brought me a Pepsi and a pair of tacos.

The guy on the stool next to me hit me with an elbow, apologized, and went back to his business.

Then the raspy voice came behind me over the charter and the radio which Manny had turned on to the news.

"Hand."

"Juanita, I don't…"

Juanita reached over Shelly and took my hand, spinning me around on the stool.

You couldn't miss Juanita. Orange-and-gold billowing dress, colored beads around her neck, jangling bracelets and silver earrings the size of a burrito. Juanita's hair was dark and wild, her weight was her own business, and her age was somewhere over the rainbow. Juanita had an office in the Farraday. Juanita was a seer. Don't make the mistake of calling her a fortune teller. Many had slipped. All had regretted it.

"Nothing new here," she said, running a red fingernail across my palm. "But you're givin' off something. Like my second husband Ivan just before he went north, never to be heard from again."

The news blared, customers babbled, dishes clanked, and Juanita said, "You got his game wrong, Toby."

"Who?"

"Who?" she repeated sarcastically. "Whoever's giving you a hard time. Whoever's playin' a game with you. He's got his finger up your you-know-what and he's spinnin' you around, pointing your head the wrong places."

"Thanks," I said.

"The stars," she said, looking into my eyes. "All the stars will be in one place as you stand in the grove. Someone wants you to go to the grove. He wants you watching stars in the grove."

"The grove?" Shelly asked as Manny plopped the tacos and drinks on the counter.

"The grove," she repeated.

"Orange grove?" I tried.

"A grove where the fruit is hard as a turtle shell," she said. "Don't go to this grove, Toby. Juanita is tellin' you straight from the heart. Don't go. Finish your tacos and I'll read the crumbs. Maybe there's more."

"Another time, Juanita," I said.

"Suit yourself," she said with a jangling shrug.

"How's your sister?"

"Okay," she said. "Arthritis. Bad season. Watch yourself, Toby."

"I will, Juanita," I said.

She bustled out of Manny's, humming something I didn't recognize. Juanita had a way of being right about things, but I'd never been able to make sense of anything she told me till it was too late. It's like being told the winner of the Kentucky Derby in a code you know you can't break.

"You believe in that stuff?" Shelly asked.

I swiveled back around and reached for my first taco.

"Wipe your face, Shel. You got sour cream on your chins."