Let's All Kill Constance Read online

  “A Christian Science reading room,” said Crumley.

  “Darn tootin’,” said Ramses II. “Started 1925. Couldn’t stop. Smash and grab, not much smash, mainly grab. It all started one day when I forgot to throw out the morning papers. Next thing there was a week collected and then more Tribune/Times/Daily News trash. That there on your right is 1939. On the left: 1940. One stack back: ’41. Neat!”

  “What happens if you want a special date and it’s four feet down?”

  “I try not to figure that. Name a date.”

  “April ninth, 1937,” leaped off my tongue.

  “Why the hell that?” said Crumley.

  “Don’t stop the boy,” came the whisper from under the dust blanket. “ ‘Jean Harlow, dead at twenty-six. Uremic poisoning. Services mañana. Forest Lawn. Nelson Eddy, Jeanette MacDonald duet at the obsequies.’ ”

  “My God!” I exploded.

  “Pretty damn smart, huh? More!”

  “May third, 1942,” popped from my mouth.

  “ ‘Carole Lombard killed. Air crash. Gable weeps.’ ”

  Crumley turned to me. “Is that all you know? Dead film stars?”

  “Don’t fret the kid,” said the old voice six feet under. “What you doing here?”

  “We came—” said Crumley.

  “It’s about—” I said.

  “Don’t.” The old man whirled a dust storm of thoughts. “You’re a sequel !”

  “Sequel?”

  “Last time anyone climbed Mount Lowe looking to jump off, he failed, went back down, and was hit by a car that cured his living. Last time someone really came was … noon today!”

  “Today!?”

  “Why not? Come find the old crock, drowned in dust, no rolls in the hay since ’32. Someone did come a few hours ago, shouted down those tunnels of bad news. Recall that fairy tale porridge mill? Say ‘go!’ it made hot porridge. Kid got it started. Forgot the ‘stop’ word. Damn porridge flooded the whole town. People ate their way door-to-door. So I got newsprint, not porridge. What did I just say?”

  “Someone shouted down—”

  “The corridor between the London Times and Le Figaro? Yeah. Woman, braying like a mule. Yells emptied my bladder. Threatened to tiddlywink my stacks. One shove and it’s dominoes, she screamed, whole damn print architecture squashes me!”

  “I should think earthquakes—”

  “Had ’em! Shook the hell out of ‘Yang-Tse River Deluge’ and ‘Il Duce Conquers,’ but here I am. Even the big one, in ’32, didn’t kick my poker stacks. Anyway, this wild woman screamed all my vices and demanded certain papers from special years. I said try first row on the left, then the right; I keep all the raw stuff high. I heard her wrestle the stacks. Her cursing could have set ‘London on Fire!’ She slammed the door, skedaddled, looking for a place to jump. I don’t think a car got her. Know who she was? I been holding out on you. Guess?”

  “I can’t,” I said, stunned.

  “See that desk there in cat litter? Scrap the litter, lift the stuff with fancy type.”

  I stepped to the desk. Under a tangle of sawdust and what seemed to be bird droppings, I found two dozen identical invitations.

  “ ‘Clarence Rattigan and—’ ” I paused.

  “Read it!” said the old man.

  “ ‘Constance Rattigan,’ ” I gasped, and went on. “ ‘Are pleased to announce their marriage atop Mount Lowe, June tenth, 1932, at three in the afternoon. Motor and rail escorts. Champagne following.’”

  “That hit you where you live?” said Clarence Rattigan.

  I glanced up.

  “Clarence Rattigan and Constance Rattigan,” I said. “Hold on. Shouldn’t Constance’s maiden name be listed?”

  “Looks like incest, you mean?”

  “Strange peculiar.”

  “You don’t get it,” the lips husked. “Constance made me change my name! It was Overholt. She said she was damned if she’d give up her first-class moniker for a second-rate hand-me-down, so—”

  “You got baptized before the ceremony?” I guessed.

  “Never was but finally did. Episcopal deacon down in Hollywood thought I was nuts. You ever try to argue with Constance?”

  “I—”

  “Won’t take yes for an answer! ‘Love Me or Leave Me,’ she sang. I liked the tune. Hit me with the baptismal oil, laid on the unction. First damn fool in America to burn his birth certificate.”

  “I’ll be damned,” I said.

  “No. Me. What you staring at?”

  “You.”

  “Yeah, I know,” he said. “I don’t seem like much. Wasn’t much then. See that bright doohickey on top o’ the invites? Mount Lowe train motorman’s brass handle. Rattigan liked the way I banged that brass. Me, the motorman on the Mount Lowe trolley! Jesus! Is there any beer anywhere?” he added suddenly.

  I gathered my spit. “You claim you were Rattigan’s first husband and then ask for beer?”

  “I didn’t say I was her first husband, just one of some. Where’s that beer?” The old man gummed his lips.

  Crumley sighed and pulled some stuff from his pockets. “Here’s beer and Mallomars.”

  “Mallomars!” The old man stuck out his tongue and I placed one on it. He let it melt on his tongue like a Jesus wafer. “Mallomars! Women! Can’t live without ’em!”

  He half sat up for beer.

  “Rattigan,” I urged.

  “Oh, yeah. Marriage. She rode up on the trolley and went wild with the weather, thought it was my creation, proposed, and after our honeymoon, one night, found out I had nothing to do with the climate, grew icicles, and vamoosed. My body will never be the same.” The old man shivered.

  “Is that all?”

  “What d’ya mean, all?! You ever throw her two falls out of three?”

  “Almost,” I whispered.

  I pulled out Rattigan’s phone book. “This clued us onto you.”

  The old man peered at his name circled in red ink. “Why would someone send you here?” He mused over another swallow. “Wait! You some sort of writer?”

  “Some sort.”

  “Well hell, that’s it! How long you known her?”

  “A few years.”

  “A year with Rattigan’s a thousand and one nights. Lost in the Fun House. Hell, son. I bet she red-circled my name because she wants you to write her autobiography. Starting with me, Old Faithful.”

  “No,” I said.

  “She ask you to take notes?”

  “Never.”

  “Damn, wouldn’t that be great? Anyone ever written a book wilder than Constance, more wrathful than Rattigan? A bestseller! Lie down with Rattigan, get up with sequined fleas. Run down the hill, sign a publisher! I get royalties for revelations! Okay?”

  “Royalties.”

  “Now gimme another Mallomar, more beer. You still need more guff?”

  I nodded.

  “That other table …” An orange crate. “A list of wedding guests.”

  I went to the orange crate and riffled through some bills until I found one piece of quality paper and peered at it as he said, “You ever wonder where the name California came from?”

  “What’s that—”

  “Pipe down. The Hispanics, when they marched north from Mexico in 1509, carried books. One published in Spain had an Amazon queen ruling in a land of milk and honey. Queen Califia. The country she ruled was named California. The Spaniards took one look down this here valley, saw the milk, ate the honey, and named it all—”

  “California?”

  “So, check that guest list.”

  I looked and read: “Califia! My God! We tried to call her today! Where is she now?”

  “That’s what the Rattigan wanted to know. It was Califia predicted our predestined marriage, but not our downfall. So Rattigan trapped me with a hammerlock and mobbed this place with bums and bad champagne, all because of Califia. ‘Where the hell is she?’ she shouted today, down the tunnel of newsprint. ‘You would kno
w!’ she yelled. ‘Not guilty!’ I yelled back up the tunnel. ‘Go, Constance! Califia ruined us both. Go kill her, then kill her again. Califia!’”

  The mummy fell back, exhausted.

  “You said all that,” I asked. “At noon today?”

  “Some such,” sighed the old man. “I sent Rattigan off for blood. I hope she finds that damned half-ass-trologer and …” His voice wandered. “More Mallomars?”

  I laid the cookie on his tongue. It melted. He talked fast.

  “You wouldn’t think it to see this boneless wonder, but I got half a mil in the bank. Go see. I mouth-to-mouth-breathed Wall Street stocks not dead, just asleep. From 1941 through Hiroshima, Enewetak, and Nixon. I said buy IBM, buy Bell. Now I got this great spread with a view overlooking L.A., a one-holer Andy Gump behind, and the Glendale Market, well tipped, sends up a kid with Spam, canned chili, and bottled water! The life of Riley! You guys done shadow-boxing my past?”

  “Almost.”

  “Rattigan, Rattigan,” the old man went on. “Good for a few hoots and raucous applause. She was written up in those papers from time to time. Grab one paper off the top of each stack, four on the right, six on the left, all different. She left snail-track spoors on the path to Marrakech. Today she came back to clean her catbox.”

  “Did you actually see her?”

  “Didn’t need to. That yell would split Rumpelstiltskin and sew him back up.”

  “Is that all she wanted, Califia’s address?”

  “And the papers! Take ’em and go to hell. It’s been a long divorce with no surcease.”

  “Can I have this?” I lifted an invitation.

  “Take a dozen! Only ones showed up were Rattigan’s Kleenex guys. She used to wad and throw ’em over her shoulder. ‘You can always order more,’ she said. Grab the invites. Steal the newsprint. What did you say your name was?”

  “I didn’t.”

  “Thank God! Out!” said Clarence Rattigan.

  Crumley and I threaded our way, gingerly, through the labyrinthine towers, borrowed copies of eight different newspapers from eight different stacks, and were about to head out the front door when a kid with a loaded box barred our way.

  “What you got there?” I said.

  “Groceries.”

  “Mostly booze?”

  “Groceries,” the kid said. “He still in there?”

  “Don’t come back!” King Tut’s voice cried from deep down far away in the newsprint catacomb. “I won’t be here!”

  “He’s there, all right,” said the kid, two shades paler.

  “Three fires and an earthquake! One more ahead! I feel it coming!” The mummy’s voice faded.

  The kid looked at us.

  “It’s all yours.” I stepped back.

  “Don’t move, don’t breathe.” The kid put one foot inside the door.

  Crumley and I didn’t move, didn’t breathe.

  And he was gone.

  Chapter Eleven

  Crumley managed to swerve his wreck around and head us back downhill without falling off the edge. On the way, my eyes brimmed.

  “Don’t say it.” Crumley avoided my face. “I don’t want to hear.”

  I swallowed hard. “Three fires and an earthquake. And more coming!”

  “That did it!” Crumley hit the brakes. “Don’t say what you think, dammit. Sure, another quake’s coming: Rattigan! She’ll rip us all! Out, out, and walk!”

  “I’m afraid of heights.”

  “Okay! Zip your lip!”

  We drove down beneath twenty thousand leagues of silence. Out on the street, in traffic, I scanned the newspapers, one by one.

  “Hell,” I said, “I wonder why he let us have these?”

  “Whatta you see?”

  “Nothing. Zero. Zilch.”

  “Gimme.” Crumley grabbed and used one eye on the news, one on the road. It was starting to rain.

  “ ‘Emily Starr, dead at twenty-five,’ ” he read.

  “Watch it!” I cried as the car drifted.

  He scanned another paper. “ ‘Corinne Kelly divorces Von Sternberg.’ ”

  He hurled the paper over his shoulder.

  “ ‘Rebecca Standish in hospital. Fading fast.’ ”

  Another toss, another paper. “ ‘Genevieve Carlos marries Goldwyn’s son.’ So?”

  I handed him three more between flashes of rain. They all went into the backseat.

  “He said he wasn’t crackers. Well?”

  I shuffled the news. “We’re missing something. He wouldn’t keep these for the hell of it.”

  “No? Nuts collect peaches, plums collect nuts. Fruit salad.”

  “Why would Constance—” I stopped. “Hold on.”

  “I’m holding.” Crumley clenched the wheel.

  “Inside, society page. Big picture. Constance, good Lord, twenty years younger, and the mummy, that guy up there, younger, with more flesh, not bad looking, their wedding, and on one side Louis B. Mayer’s assistant, Marty Krebs, and on the other, Carlotta Q. Califia, noted astrologer!”

  “Who told Constance to marry up on Mount Lowe. Astrologer forecasts, Constance takes the dive. Find the obituary page.”

  “Obit—?”

  “Find it! Whatta you see?”

  “Holy cow! The daily horoscope and the name—Queen Califia!”

  “What’s the forecast? Fair? Mild? Good day to start a garden or marry a sucker? Read it!”

  “ ‘Happy week, happy day. Accept all proposals, large or small.’ So, what’s next?”

  “We got to find Califia.”

  “Why?”

  “Don’t forget—she’s got a red circle around her name, too. We got to see her before something awful happens. That red crucifix means death and burial. Yes?”

  “No,” said Crumley. “Old Tutankhamen up on Mount Lowe is still flopping around, and his name’s red-inked, too, with a crucifix!”

  “But he feels someone’s coming to get him.”

  “Who, Constance? That knee-high wonder?”

  “All right, the old man’s alive. But that doesn’t mean Califia hasn’t already been wiped out. Old Rattigan didn’t give us much. Maybe she can give us more. All we need is an address.”

  “That’s all? Hey.” Crumley suddenly swerved to the curb and got out. “Most people never think, Constance didn’t think, we didn’t think. One place we never looked. The Yellow Pages! What a goof ! The Yellow Pages!”

  He was across the sidewalk and into a public phone booth to scrabble through some beat-up Yellow Pages, tear out a page, and tote it back. “Old phone number, useless. But maybe a half-ass address.”

  He shoved the page in my face. I read: QUEEN CALIFIA. Palmistry. Phrenology. Astrology. Egyptian Necrology. Your life is mine. Welcome.

  And the damned zodiac street locale.

  “So!” said Crumley, as close to hyperventilation as he ever got. “Constance tipped us to the Egyptian relic and the relic names Califia who said marry the beast!”

  “We don’t know that!”

  “Like hell we don’t. Let’s see.”

  He put the car in gear and we went fast, to see.

  Chapter Twelve

  We drove up near Queen Califia’s Psychic Research Lodge, dead center of Bunker Hill. Crumley gave it a sour eye. Then I nodded to one side and he saw what to him was a lovely sight: CALLAHAN AND ORTEGA FUNERAL PARLOR.

  That raised his spirits. “It’s like a homecoming,” he admitted.

  Our jalopy stopped. I got out.

  “You coming in?” I said.

  Crumley sat staring out the windshield, hands on the steering wheel, as if we were still moving. “How come,” he said, “everything seems downhill with us?”

  “You coming in? I need you.”

  “Outta the way.”

  He was halfway up the steep concrete steps and then the cracked cement walk before he stopped, surveyed the big white dilapidated bird cage of a house, and said, “Looks like the half bakery where they bake yo
ur misfortune cookies.”

  We continued up the walk. On the way we met a cat, a white goat, and a peacock. The peacock flirted its thousand eyes, watching us pass. We made it to the front door. When I knocked, an unseasonable blizzard of paint snowflakes rained on my shoes.

  “If that’s what holds this joint up, it won’t be long,” observed Crumley.

  I rapped on the door with my knuckles. Inside I heard what sounded like a massive portable safe being trundled across a hardwood floor. Something heavy was shoved up against the other side of the door.

  I raised my hand again, but a high sparrow voice inside cried, “Go away!”

  “I just want—”

  “Go away!”

  “Five minutes,” I said. “Four, two, one, for God’s sake. I need your help.”

  “No,” the voice shrilled, “I need yours.”

  My mind spun like a Rolodex. I heard the mummy. I echoed him.

  “You ever wonder where the name California came from?” I said.

  Silence. The high voice lowered to almost a whisper. “Damn.”

  Three sets of locks rattled.

  “Nobody knows that about California. Nobody.”

  The door opened a few inches.

  “Okay, give,” the voice said.

  A hand like a great plump starfish thrust out.

  “Put it there!”

  I put my hand in hers.

  “Turn it over.”

  I turned it, palm up.

  Her hand seized it.

  “Calmness.”

  Her hand massaged mine; her thumb circumnavigated the lines on my palm.

  “Can’t be,” she whispered.

  More quiet motions as she thumbed the pads under my fingers.

  “Is,” she sighed.

  And then, “You remember being born!”

  “How did you know that?”

  “You must be the seventh son of a seventh son!”

  “No,” I said, “just me, no brothers.”

  “My God.” Her hand jumped in mine. “You’re going to live forever!”

  “No one does.”

  “You will. Not your body. But what you do. What do you do?”

  “I thought my life was in your hands.”

  She let out a breathless laugh.

  “Jesus. An actor? No. Shakespeare’s bastard son.”

  “He had no sons.”