We’ll Always Have Parrots

Chapter 34

“How’s it going?” I asked, slipping into the seat across from Nate.

Nate shook his head.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Walker missed a panel,” he said in an ominous monotone.

Damn. Was this my fault? When I told him to lie low, I had only meant that he should avoid Concubine Aimee. I should have known that you needed to be a lot more specific with Walker.

“Why?” I said aloud. “Did he forget? Has someone gone to look for him? I might know where he is if there’s still time to go get him.”

“No, the panel started an hour and a half ago,” Nate said. “And I know exactly where he was then—the police were interviewing him.”

“Damn.”

“They probably still are. They’re closing in.”

“Not necessarily,” I said. “They’ve interviewed all of us.”

“They wouldn’t disrupt the convention this way if they weren’t looking pretty seriously at him.”

“I don’t actually think making the convention run smoothly ranks very high on Detective Foley’s priority list.”

“God,” Nate moaned. “Let’s not talk about it. Let’s talk about something else.”

“Fine,” I said. “Let’s talk about Ichabod Dilley.”

“What about him?”

“You never told me you knew him,” I said.

“Didn’t I? Well, you never really asked,” Nate said. “I don’t recall denying that I knew him.”

I wanted to tell him that he’d implied it, but I suspected that would bog the conversation down into a long discussion of semantics, instead of letting me find out anything useful.

“How well did you know him?” I asked instead.

“How well did I know anyone in those days?” he said. “Especially from that side of my life. The private side.”

“Private in what way?”

“Nothing…sinister, if that’s what you mean,” Nate said, looking alarmed. “Weekdays I was a hard-working, buttoned-down little writer. Very corporate. Nothing to alarm the studio execs. Weekends, I’d drive up to San Francisco and hang around Haight Ashbury. Go to concerts. Get stoned.”

“I see,” I said

“Don’t laugh,” he added, although I could have sworn I hadn’t let any sign of amusement cross my face. “I wasn’t always the staid, boring guy you probably think I am from seeing me on the job.”

Actually, you were, I felt like saying. In fact, you used to be worse. I’ve seen the photo. Aloud, I decided to stick to vague platitudes.

“People change.”

“Life changes them,” Nate said. “Professional responsibilities.”

Professional responsibilities like creating the Metatarsal Knights, I thought, but I nodded solemnly.

“So you met Ichabod Dilley while you were slumming in Haight Ashbury,” I said.

“My script called for a psychedelic artist,” he said. “You know—like a Grateful Dead poster. The studio hack kept bringing in things that looked like you’d smeared lime green paint on a Renoir. So I said I’d find someone.”

“Dilley.”

“I put him up in my own apartment the whole time he was working on those damned paintings,” Nate said, with sudden heat. “The whole time he was supposed to be working on them. I found out later, he’d done the first Porfiria comic book—maybe the first several—while I was down on the set, making excuses for why the rest of the paintings weren’t ready yet. And then, when he finally finished the damned things, I let him stay in case they decided at the last minute that they needed changes, or maybe another painting. When the movie was finally over, I thought I’d never get rid of him. Took weeks before I came home one day and found he’d disappeared. Taking half my wardrobe—the hipper half, of course—but I considered it cheap at the price.”

He fell silent. Brooding over those long-lost bell-bottoms, I supposed.

“And then the thugs started showing up,” he added.

“Thugs?”

“Guys claiming he owed them money. One of them actually beat me up when I said I had no idea where he’d gone. Which was true. I finally found a gallery that was showing a couple of Dilley’s paintings, and started referring the thugs there, and eventually they stopped showing up.”

“And then what happened?”

“What happened? Nothing. End of the story of Nate and Ichabod.”

“You never saw him again?”

Nate shook his head.

“I figured he’d drifted back to San Francisco. Turns out he died, not long after that. Of course, I didn’t hear he’d died until a couple of years later. The QB had me do a movie treatment based on the comics. Asked her why she didn’t just have him do it, and she said he wasn’t a screenwriter, and anyway he was dead.”

And did Nate’s helping the thugs find him have anything to do with Dilley’s death? Probably not something he’d admit, even if he suspected it was true, so I didn’t see any point in asking.

“So you did the movie treatment,” I said.

He nodded.

“First of many,” he said. “Every time fantasy was in, we’d do another damned treatment. When Star Wars came out in ’77 we set it on another planet. In ’82, when Schwarzenegger did Conan, we stuck in a barbarian warrior. Princess Bride’s a big hit a couple of years later, and we did a tongue-in-cheek version. Anne Rice gets hot, and we do one where Porfiria’s an immortal vampire. I suggested an animated version once, but she never went for that.”

“Sounds like the TV show’s more authentic than the movie treatments.”

He nodded.

“What would Ichabod Dilley think, if he were here?” I asked.

Nate didn’t answer at first. Just when I was about to repeat the question, he spoke up.

“He wouldn’t recognize it,” he said, smiling and shaking his head. “Maybe when he realized it was supposed to be based on his stories, he’d have a big laugh at what life does to you when you’re not looking. But then, Dilley’s dead, and what the hell do I know. I’ve got a panel,” he said, standing up abruptly. “I’ll see you.”

A little early to be heading out for a panel, I thought, but maybe he’s still allowing plenty of time for getting lost in the hotel.

“Still asking questions?”

I glanced over to see that Francis had come in.

“Yeah, still trying to make sense of what happened,” I said.

“The murder happened yesterday,” Francis said. “Every time I see you, you’re asking a lot of questions about things that happened twenty or thirty years ago. Do you really think all that has anything to do with the murder?”

“I have no idea,” I said. “But it’s rather intriguing, finding out about everyone’s wild escapades in the seventies.”

“Wild escapades?” Francis said. “What kind of wild escapades?”

He sounded alarmed. Why, I had no idea. It wasn’t as if any of the aging boomers’ youthful misdeeds could spill over and taint his current clients, who had been in grade school at the time.

“Apparently Nate inhaled,” I said. “And Tammy Jones didn’t play hard to get.”

“Ah, well,” he said. “Those were the times, weren’t they?”

“I wouldn’t know,” I said. “I wasn’t there. Is that what things were like, back then?”

“I’m sure I wouldn’t know, either,” Francis said. “I’m afraid if you want to hear exciting tales of rebellion and protest, I’m the wrong person to ask. I led a rather quiet life then.”

And it hadn’t gotten appreciably noisier since, I thought, with a sudden flash of sympathy. I wasn’t sure I remembered ever hearing anything about his private life.

Then again, I wasn’t sure I wanted to. If I were a better person, perhaps, I would think of some tactful, sympathetic way to draw Francis out on the subject of his quiet youth.

Later. When I had more time, I promised myself. I would sit down with Francis and have a long, friendly talk. Draw him out of his shell and get to know him better. Maybe while Maggie and Nate and the QB were off in Hollywood, Francis was still in college studying philosophy or poetry. I’d find out later. Right now, I needed to see what I could do about Walker’s problem.

Finding one fan out of the thousand attending the convention wasn’t easy, but I finally caught up with Concubine Aimee in the hallway.

Of course, she was ensconced in a nest of friends. Not the right environment for the kind of interrogation I had in mind. And she might be a little suspicious if I tried to lure her away.

Just then I felt a hand curl around my waist.

“Even the monkeys like you,” Chris said.

“So this isn’t a serious pass, just a case of monkey see; monkey do,” I said, disentangling myself.

“I’m serious,” Chris said, pointing up. “Look at them.”

I glanced up. The perpetually solemn faces of half a dozen monkeys gazed down at me.

“Of course there are monkeys up there,” I said. “There are monkeys everywhere.”

“Yeah, but these are following you up and down the hallway,” Chris said.

“It is possible, you know,” said another voice.

I turned to see Brad, Salome’s keeper, carrying two McDonald’s bags.

“They often form attachments to individual humans,” Brad went on. “Especially ones they perceive as dominant within their social group.”

With that, he turned and strolled down the hall toward the entrance to Salome’s lair, nearly invisible under its covering of vines.

“Very perceptive, these monkeys,” Chris said, suppressing a grin, “and delightfully uninhibited.”

He pointed to a pair of monkeys who appeared to be mating, oblivious to the chaos around them.

“You would notice that,” I said. “I always thought that if you put an infinite number of monkeys in a room, they were supposed to rewrite Shakespeare. These monkeys are not performing up to expectations.”

“Someone forgot the infinite number of typewriters,” Chris said.

“Look, do me a favor, will you?” I asked.

“Will I earn your eternal gratitude?” he asked.

“I don’t know about eternal,” I said, “but you will make me grateful enough to significantly increase the odds that I show up for tonight’s Blazing Sabers performance.”

“Ask away, O Dominant One,” Chris said.

“What are the odds that you can cut one fan out of the herd and lure her into the tiger’s lair?” I asked.

“My kind of assignment,” he said. “I assume you mean a particular one?”

“The blonde over there,” I said, trying to point discreetly, “standing in the middle of that group of decoratively if scantily attired young ladies.”

“The one with the red rhinestone in her navel?”

“That’s her.”

“One blond groupie, coming up,” Chris said. “Meet you in the lair.”

“Just shove her in and wait outside.”