A Dinner to Die For (8 page)

“At midnight?”

“Time’s relative.”

But it wasn’t that relative. I knew which of the Avenue regulars were nocturnal wanderers. Some we kept an eye on, some we made use of. But Earth Man was not one of them. His obsessions were played out in front of people. And by ten at night Telegraph Avenue looked like a movie studio back lot. I shook my head. “Listen, Earth Man, you know me from the Avenue. Look at me. We’ve talked before.”

He stared, his brow wrinkling with the effort of placing me. I wondered how long a thought remained in his head, and if his periods of seeming lucidity were just another mask of craziness. “Remember when you wanted to block off the Avenue to traffic, and that gang of kids tried to rip off your car?” Earth Man had been dressed in a cardboard Toyota, suspended by straps from his shoulders. “I got you away then, remember?”

He leaned in toward me, his dark eyes widening. A smile covered his face. “You were the cop.”

“Right. I helped you. You can trust me now. Tell me why you came here.”

He lifted his coffee cup, sucked at the coffee, and glanced warily to both sides. Then he leaned closer, inches from my face.

I held my breath.

“Okay,” he whispered, “but I don’t want this to get around.”

“Right.” I forced myself not to move away.

“I came for a meal.”

I almost said “Here?” Then I realized. “You mean they gave you food?”

He jolted up in his seat. “People leave whole pieces of chicken. They don’t eat their corn. People are starving all over the world.”

He could have been a mother.
Take a bite for the starving children overseas.
“How many people like you did they feed?”

He shrugged. “Just me. I don’t tell people.”

Indeed like a mother, with the same lack of benefit for Berkeley’s hungry as the children overseas. “So how exactly did this work? Did you just come to the back door and knock?”

“No.”

“What did you do?”

“I come at eleven. It’s my time.”

“But tonight you were here after midnight.”

“I came at eleven. But they told me to come back at twelve-fifteen. I did. Twelve-fifteen exactly.” He looked up at the Plasticine railing, following it with his gaze down to the end of the stairs, across the front of the desk, and then back up to the door where it started. If Mitch Biekma had wanted to seduce a diner with his glittery decor, he’d found his man. For Earth Man, clearly the sparkling lights had blotted out the rest of reality.

“Who told you to come back?”

“No one.”

“You came at eleven. You said someone told you to come back later. Who?”

“No one. There was a note on the back door. It said ‘Earth Man, dinner at twelve-fifteen. Come back then.’ I remember all the words. I read it four times.” He shook his head. “It was a long time since breakfast. It’s cold out there. I was real hungry. I was smelling the food, thinking about what Laura was going to make. Yesterday Laura saved me a piece of chocolate cake. I was thinking there might be more. Then I saw the note. I didn’t want to wait. But I thought she’d make me something special.”

“Why?”

“Laura told me to come back later before, once, because she was making me a quiche, not a slice, a whole one just for me.”

“Did she tell you to come back later any other time?”

He frowned. “No. They laughed at her, the other people in the kitchen. I guess she didn’t want that. She didn’t do it again.”

“Does Laura always make your dinner?”

“She understands. She doesn’t hassle me. The cook, sometimes she’ll let me have what’s left over, but she’ll yell at me if I sit on the stoop to eat. I have to take my plate into the yard back there, in the dark. And the guy who owns the place, he’d like to hear I’d starved somewhere else, so I wouldn’t be ruining the neighborhood here. I ran into him and Laura on the street one day and he started screaming as soon as he saw me. You’d think it was him who was the crazy.” Earth Man laughed, such a normal laugh that he could have been any one of us in the room sizing up the situation. Suddenly, he snapped his mouth shut and shrank back in his chair. “Look, Officer, I knew enough to stay out of his way, but that don’t mean I killed him.”

I nodded. “But his wife gave you dinner?”

His cheeks twitched, and it took me a moment to realize he was smiling contentedly. It was not an expression I had seen on his face often. “She didn’t just dump whatever was around on a dish, like that cook did. She fixed me a plate, like she would to take to someone who was sick. She gave me a couple vegetables, more than I wanted, but she told me they were good for me. And she was sorry I couldn’t sit on the stoop.”

I made a note of that. “So tonight, what happened?”

Again, his eyes narrowed.

“Come on, Earth Man, don’t try to second-guess me. Just tell me what happened.”

“More coffee.”

I nodded at the patrol officer, but didn’t let the diversion distract me. “Earth Man?”

“I came up the path from Josephine, like always.”

“Why from Josephine? King Way would be closer for you.”

Earth Man shook his head. “Biekma told me to. It was part of the deal. I understood. He didn’t want a weirdo hanging around. He didn’t want his expensive customers strolling out, full of champagne and pâté, and running into me.” He laughed.

“And then?”

“I saw the note, and I left. I know not to hang around. I went to the park and waited. I have a watch. One of my supporters gave it to me. It runs good if I wind it.”

“So you came back at twelve-fifteen. By way of Josephine?”

“Twelve-
fourteen
I walked up the path, then up the steps. I knocked.”

“Do you always knock?”

“Don’t have to. She’s usually in the kitchen. She knows what time I get there. Sometimes she even looks out the door for me. But tonight she didn’t have time.
He
was too close.”

“Biekma?”

“Yeah.” Earth Man leaned toward me. I forced myself not to move back. “He
was
crazy, you know,” he whispered. “He started screaming like I was going to hold up the place. But then the cook screamed at him.” He grinned. “She screamed about the noise! He screamed back. There was a lot of noise. Laura tried to make them be quiet, but they didn’t listen. Then he charged out.”

I stood up. “Show me exactly what happened, in the kitchen.”

He took a long swallow of coffee, then sat back staring at the cup.

“Leave it,” I said. “It’ll still be here when you get back.”

Still, he hesitated. In his world a promise like that was a fifty-fifty proposition. Then he stood and followed me around the corner into the kitchen.

“Hands!”Raksen screamed. “Keep your hands off things, off everything. I haven’t started dusting or collecting samples, Smith.” He was propping the pantry door open with a hip, camera hanging from his neck, as he swung around to face us. He stared in horror at Earth Man. “Don’t rub anything.”

“I’ll be careful,” I assured him. “But we do need to be at the back door.”

I waited while Raksen dusted the door handle, then called the rookie guarding the backyard to stand at the bottom of the stoop. I put Earth Man outside the door, even though the wind was blowing in our direction. Steeling myself, I said, “So you knocked on the door and Biekma opened it. How close were you to him? Show me. Pretend I’m Biekma.”

“Come forward,” he said. I took a step. “More.” Holding my breath, I inched forward. “Closer.”

“Are you sure?” I couldn’t imagine Biekma electing to be this near. Earth Man hadn’t smelled any better an hour ago.

He grabbed my arms through the wool of his cape and pulled me forward. “This close.” My face was a foot from his. A beak pointed to my breast, a trunk to my waist.

“Are you sure about this?”

“He was yelling at me. His spit hit my face.”

“Okay, then what happened?”

“The cook yelled.”

“Where was the cook?”

“At the stove, there.” He pointed to the stove next to the sink on the outside wall.

“What did she say?”

“ ‘Shut up, Mitch. Take your soup and get out of my kitchen.’ That’s a quote,” he said proudly.

“What did Mitch say?”

It was a while before he admitted, “I don’t remember.”

“Where were the other people while this was going on? The dishwasher?”

“At the sink.” He pointed to the sink.

“The
sous
-chef?”

Earth Man looked puzzled.

“The other man in the kitchen?”

“Oh him, the stranger. He was at the chopping block, there by the refrigerator, when Mitch opened the door. But he caught on fast. He went back to the stove where the cook was. He stood next to her, like she was going to protect him. I guess he knew what Mitch was like.”

“And Laura?”

“Laura?” He smiled. “She was standing by that table there, by the door to the dining room.”

“Are you saying no one was near you and Biekma?”

He nodded. “No one
wanted
to be near him.
I
didn’t either.”

“Then what happened?”

“Laura told them both—Mitch and the cook—to stop screaming at each other, that they had to give me dinner. Mitch screamed some more, then he stomped out past her. Then she got a bowl and put some soup in it and then she broke up a couple of pieces of French bread in it, like croutons. Then she spread some Parmesan cheese over it. The cook yelled at her about the cheese, but the cheese smelled real good. When she gave me the soup, she said I could come back for more. I stood outside a while. I had to decide what I should do. Sometimes it takes me a while to think. I have to be careful, you see. I figured I’d better not eat on the stoop tonight. I didn’t want to sit in the backyard either, because the cook was so pushed out of shape about the soup and I didn’t want her to bring anything out to the garbage and find me there. So I thought I’d take the bowl out front and go down to that empty lot where the gas station used to be.” He shook his head. “That was a bad mistake.”

“How so?”

“Because I heard this groan—no, more like a grunt—in the front yard and I looked over. I thought my eyes were going. I almost didn’t stop, but then I looked again and …” he shrugged.

“And?”

“I came up to him. Biekma. He wasn’t moving. I almost lifted him up, but I’ve been in enough emergency rooms to know that you don’t move people. So I came to the door and pounded, and the cook opened it. She ran out. She looked at him and screamed. She didn’t do anything, she just stood there and screamed until people came running from inside, and someone lifted him off, and then two of them carried him inside.”

“And then what did you do?”

“I went around to the back door. See, I’d dropped my bowl.”

I stared at Earth Man. Maybe I had been mislead by his seeming clarity. I said, “What made you think they’d feed you then, of all times?”

His eyes went blank.

“Earth Man?”

He shook his head.

“Why did you expect a meal then?” My voice had risen. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Grayson moving closer. Earth Man’s lucidity might be like one color in a kaleidoscope, presenting itself by chance, or there could be a core of sanity he could reach when he stretched. I could only hope for the latter.

I leaned back, letting him take notice of Grayson barking orders at Lopez. When the sun rose, Lopez and Parker would begin the task of sifting through the garbage. I let Earth Man watch Raksen as he brushed the powder on the kitchen door. I let him feel the omnipresence of the police.

“Paradise gave free dinners to one person, you, Earth Man. Why?”

He shrugged; his beaks and snouts bounced.

“You said Biekma didn’t want to see you here. Why did he keep feeding you?”

He looked down at the red and turquoise beak.

“Earth Man,” I snapped. “He despised you; you found him dead. You better answer me—now.”

He didn’t move.

I grabbed the beak and yanked it toward me. It pulled free of his cloak. He stared at it, as if he had been dismembered.

“Earth Man, now.”

“Okay, okay; but don’t let this get around. He gave me free meals for a month, delivered to my room. Room service, he said. He was going to tell the newspapers he was doing that. It was after that reporter had said two dinners here cost a whole month of food stamps.”

“When was that?”

“April.”

“Two months ago. So why was he still feeding you?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why?”

He shook his head slowly.

“Laura Biekma told him he
had
to feed you. That’s not how you describe an act of kindness. Now you tell me what was going on.”

He took a long breath, half closed his eyes, then said, “Because in the first month the food made me sick. I got real sick—food poisoning. I know what food poisoning is,” he said, catching my eye and nodding.

It was the only time he had made eye contact. I wondered what he was hiding. I said, “Did you go to emergency?”

Releasing my gaze, he shook his head. “Nah, like I say, I know food poisoning. I knew I’d live. I just stayed in bed a couple days.”

“But if they’d pumped your stomach—”

“It came on me too sudden. If I could have got to emergency, I wouldn’t have been sick. I was too sick to get to emergency. I just stayed home and threw up.” He grinned, relaxed now.

“You ate the dinner in your room,” I said slowly. “You’ve still got that dinner in your room, after two months, don’t you?”

I
SENT
L
OPEZ FOR
Parker.

To Earth Man I said, “When I’m through talking with Officer Parker, he’ll take you to the station so he can get your official statement.” I decided not to mention the second half of Parker’s duties, the trip to Earth Man’s hotel. Knowing Earth Man, he would kick up enough of a fuss just about going to the station.

“What about my dinner?” he demanded.

I stared.

“It’s four o’clock in the morning,” he went on, as if this were the universally recognized hour for the last sitting.

“Earth Man, you want a meal from this kitchen? Where the owner has been poisoned?”

He considered his options, fingering through the cloak the rubber trunk that protruded from his waist. He reminded me of a naked two-year-old, but it was a safe guess that wasn’t the picture he engendered in every citizen’s mind. The surprising thing was that we hadn’t had more complaints about him. But then, he hadn’t been in this particular attire that long.