Grist 01 - The Four Last Things (20 page)

“We’ll sit around and horrify each other someday,” I said. “Well, I guess I better get this grate down to Defect Control.”

He nodded like he was glad to be rid of me, and I picked up the grate and circumnavigated the stage. People rarely look twice at someone who’s carrying something, and nobody focused on me now. There was absolutely no way of knowing how much time I had. I had no idea whether the man who’d grasped the wire was dead, and I didn’t really care if Needle-nose was. Even if they were both alive, I didn’t think it was likely that either of them would file a complaint soon. When I looked at my watch, it was only twelve-fifty.

“Thank you, Skippy,” Mary Claire said over the public-address system. “That was very enlightening. Angel, would you like to say something?”

“Thank you, Mr. Miller,” Angel said in her best Brooklynese. The kitten had fallen asleep in her lap. “And thank you, Miss deWinters. I can’t wait to see your new picture.” She turned to Clive and said, “Would you gimme your autograph?”

“If you’ll give me yours,” Clive said, reviving briefly. People laughed, and I could see that beyond the lights lay a darkened auditorium that seated about three hundred. It was full of the hopeful, people still wearing their raincoats, leaning forward into the splash of light to catch every word. People who didn’t know about the basement yet. I doubted that Angel knew about the basement. But who could tell what Angel knew?

“We’re going to close with a special treat,” Mary Claire said. “Some music of the moment from our very own group, the Time Signatures. I know you’re going to enjoy this.”

Lights came up to reveal the sextet who had tormented the audience at the Revealing. A blond woman whose hair looked about as flexible as the fossil record leaned toward a microphone and sang, “This is the moment …”

After all I’d been through, it didn’t seem fair that I’d have to listen to “The Hawaiian Wedding Song” too. I was contemplating joining the more discerning members of the audience, who were already shuffling toward the exit, when the lights on the main set went down and everybody stood up and started congratulating each other. Angel and Mary Claire shook hands all around and headed stage left, where they were joined by a slender man in beautifully tailored white linen slacks and an aqua shirt. I had to take a couple of steps closer, my grate firmly in hand, before I could be certain that it was everybody’s favorite internist, Dr. Richard Merryman.

Merryman took Mary Claire’s arm and put his free hand firmly on the back of Angel’s neck, parting her long blond curls to get at it. He steered them quickly away from the set. I followed.

Merryman was talking hard and fast, obviously displeased about something and not caring who saw it. Mary Claire gazed up at him unassertively, but Angel’s back was stiff and straight. At one point her steps lagged behind his, and he yanked her forward. The little girl stumbled and dropped the kitten. Merryman leaned down and picked it up roughly by the scruff of its neck. It writhed and twisted in his hand. He passed it to Mary Claire, took hold of Angel’s neck again, and jerked her along in his wake. They vanished through a door at the back of the stage. The door had a little sparkly star on it, and the name ANGEL ELLSPETH. I lagged behind, scuffing my foot professionally at some imaginary irregularity in the stage floor. After a moment, Mary Claire came out alone and the door closed behind her. She looked unhappy.

Well, I wasn’t very happy either. I went down a series of steps at the edge of the stage and joined the throngs who were fleeing the implacable music. Out on the sidewalk I put my grate down in the rain and went around the corner to Alice. I drove around the block once, checking out the building that housed the TV studio and traversing the alleyway behind the hotel to locate the Borzoi’s service entrances. Then, nursing my bruised cheek, I drove off to pick up Eleanor. I knew I was coming back.

III - Heaven

Chapter 18

E
leanor was fuming. “You look like Jett Rink after he hit his gusher,” she said.  “You’ve got a bad bruise on your cheek that someone should take a look at, one of your knees has bled through your pants, and your clothes are filthy.”

I drove west on Olympic Boulevard without saying anything.

“And your hands smell like your feet,” she said. “Simeon, are you going to tell me what’s going
on
?”

“How’d you find him?”

“Just forget it.” She folded her hands primly and stared through the windshield at the rain.

“It’s the middle of the day. How do you know he’ll be home? Doesn’t he work?”

She sniffed. We seemed always to be fighting in cars lately. “You could get killed,” she said to the air, “and no one would know for days.”

“So could you. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. These people do not give to UNICEF.”

“Stop treating me like Miss World Porcelain of 1988. At the risk of being tedious, let me remind you of a few things. I’m the one they can look up in the phone book, I’ve been more than a little helpful so far, and I’m the one who found him. I’m also planning to write this whole story, and I think you owe me. I want to know what’s happening.”

“I think maybe you should move.”

“Don’t be dramatic. In fact, don’t be anything. Just shut up and drive.”

I drove.

“Anyway,” she said in an acid tone, “you’re supposed to be good at your job. Surely it’s not anything we can’t figure out.”

“We already know
who
,” I said. “What we want to know is who else, and why. It’s whether we can figure them out before they figure us out. And I doubt it.”

“I don’t. I’m an optimist.”

“Are you ever.”

“Optimism, as Larry McMurtry said, is a form of courage.”

“It can also be a form of stupidity.”

“Oh, Simeon. You’re always so eager to stomp on anything that’s growing. Except your stupid roots.”

I didn’t feel like someone who was ready to stomp on anything that was growing. But Eleanor usually knew me better than I did.

“So what happened to your cheek?” she asked a few miles later.

“I hurt it killing somebody.”

“Am I supposed to believe that?”

“Up to you.”

“Today?”

“Of course, today. Was I walking around with this cheek last night?”

“Jiminy Christmas, don’t you think I ought to know about it? Who do you think you are, Clint Eastwood? I don’t believe this. I don’t believe you could kill anybody, and if you did, I don’t believe you wouldn’t tell me.” She glanced discreetly at the speedometer and tightened her seat belt. Then she sighed. “I don’t know, maybe I do believe you could kill somebody.”

I didn’t say anything.

“Oh, stuff it,” she said violently. For Eleanor that was real profanity. “I don’t feel like I really know you at all anymore. I’m not even sure I want to.”

“I’m not sure that you should,” I said.

For the next few minutes I concentrated on driving while Eleanor cracked her knuckles very deliberately, one by one. That was always a bad sign. When she started on the second joints I knew we were in for trouble.

“Turn right on Fourth,” she said very quietly. “And pull over.”

I made the turn and parked Alice under a big deciduous tree that still had a few leaves clinging hopelessly to its branches. Rain strummed flamenco on the roof of the car.

“Here?” I said.

“Here is fine. I’ve got something to say to you, and I want you to listen. I’m not going to rake over the past, and I’m not going to do character analysis on how you got to be the way you are. You weren’t like this when I met you. You were a sweet guy who didn’t know where he was going, but you were good at enjoying yourself. Now you’re not so sweet anymore, and you don’t seem to enjoy yourself very much either. Sometimes I look at you and it’s like seeing a stranger through the window of a train. But other times, you’re still Simeon.”

I flicked off the windshield wipers.

“Maybe it’s because we’ve never really stopped seeing each other,” she said, “maybe if we had I’d notice a big change in you. As it is, it’s been sort of day-to-day and more-or-less, like getting older. But instead of just getting older, you’ve been getting different.” She fiddled with the buckle of her seat belt, making a metallic snapping sound. “But you don’t seem to notice that I’ve changed too. I’ve been taking care of myself for three years, Simeon. I’ve published two books, okay? I’ve got a good job, if I decide to keep it. I’ve been through some men, nothing as serious as you were, but they’ve been there when I decided I needed them. When I needed
them
. Are you listening to me?”

I nodded.

“I want you to stop acting like I’m the person you met all those years ago. I am
involved
in this. Maybe I’m in danger. If I am, I want to be able to defend myself, and you have to stop pretending that you’re wearing forty pounds of armor and biceps, and I’m the fair lady who needs protection. I’m not helpless. I’m not a little girl. I don’t scream when I see a mouse or faint at the sight of blood. You have no right to keep anything from me because you think it might make me safer, and I don’t believe for a minute that knowing less is going to reduce my vulnerability. And if you’ve really killed somebody, then I want to know about it not only for me, but for you too. Simeon, I want you to
talk
to me.” She reached over and put her hand on top of mine.

“Okay,” I said. “Here?”

“Right here. Right now. If you don’t, I’m going to get out of this car. You can go find him alone.”

I told her all of it. When I’d finished she sat quietly, chewing on the ends of her hair.

“Are you going to tell this to Hammond?” she finally said.

“Eventually. When I have to.”

“Why not now?”

“I want to work it out, Eleanor. I want to get the bastard who killed her.”

“It sounds like you already did. But of course, he’s not the one you want.”

“No,” I said. “I want the one who told him to do it.”

“He really pulled her fingernails out,” she said, as though she was trying to digest a fact that contradicted everything she’d ever been taught.

“Is there someplace else you can stay?”

“I’ll think about it. I suppose I could move in with Chantra for a week or so.”

“That ought to do it. If I’m not finished by then I’ll give it all to Hammond.”

She directed a clear gaze at me. “Is that a promise?”

“Promise.” I gave her my hand, and we shook. Then she pressed my hand to her cheek, folded her other hand over it, and lowered it to her lap.

She leaned back against the seat of the car and let out a slow breath. “I’ll tell you how I found him,” she said.

She’d called the
Times
bureau in Sacramento and asked a woman there to check the Church’s board of directors. “It’s a California corporation, right?” she asked rhetorically. “That’s what that sleazy Brooks man said. That means their corporate articles and their board of directors have to be on file with the Secretary of State. It’s a big board, and one of its members is a Mrs. Caleb Ellspeth. Mary Claire, in other words.”

“Well, well. Did you get the whole list?”

“Of course.”

“Have you got it?”

“In my purse.”

“And Caleb Ellspeth was in the phone book.”

“No,” she said, sounding pleased in spite of herself. “He wasn’t. He was on the
Times
subscription list. I went into the computer, and there he was, Caleb Ellspeth, right in Venice, only about a mile from me. I was so
excited
, Simeon. I mean, how many Caleb Ellspeths can there be in L.A.?”

“Give me the list of directors.” She pulled it from her purse and handed it to me. I put it in my pocket. “Now tell me why you think he’ll be home.”

“The phone listed was his work phone. His supervisor or somebody told me he had special dispensation to spend afternoons at home and to work mornings and evenings. A sick kid, he said.”

“What company?”

“Miska Aerospace.”

“What’s he do?”

“Some kind of engineer.”

“Fine. Better than fine. Listen, I don’t know how he’s going to react. My guess is that he’s been told not to talk to anybody. It could get a little rough, so keep a brake on the humanitarian impulses, okay?”

“Oh, lighten up. You make me sound like Dear Abby. Golly, Simeon, what have we just been talking about?”

“Golly,” I said mockingly. “I’m sorry about that. Just getting the ground rules straight.” I leaned over and kissed her hair.

“Will wonders never cease,” she said, blushing slightly. “A sporting metaphor.”

I started the car. As I pulled out into traffic, she said, “Those men would have killed you.”

“Yes,” I said. “I think they would have.”

Thirteen-twelve Ashland was a peeling one-story house with a glassed-in porch built in the thirties by a refugee from the East who didn’t believe, and rightly so, that the California winters would be as mild as advertised. When he’d built the house it had had a view of the Pacific. Now three-story stucco apartment houses, the architectural litter of the fifties, made the block seem landlocked. The ocean could have been twenty miles away.

Naturally, the porch leaked. I tried to remember the last time I’d been dry. I was giving up when Caleb Ellspeth opened the door.

He didn’t open it very far. A four-inch chain held it in place. His eyes were just about level with the chain. “Yeah?” he said, looking at the grease on my clothes. Then he saw Eleanor. “Can I help you?”

“We’re from the
Times
,” she said.

He started to close the door. I got a hand against it and shoved back. He wasn’t very strong.

“Give me a break,” he said. “No one else has in years.” He had a wrinkled, oddly transparent face: pale skin like crumpled cellophane over prominent cheekbones, a hawk nose, muddy brown eyes, a skinny neck that vanished down into a white shirt that seemed several sizes too large. His hair looked like a hat. He wore it in a style that had last seen the light of day on a member of Richie Valens’ backup band, a black Reddi-Wip wave at the top and heavy graying sideburns that disappeared into the collar of his shirt and, for all I knew, ended at his knees.

“We only want to ask a few questions,” Eleanor said.

“I’m out of answers,” he said. “I was just going to run down to the store, pick up a few. You want to tell your mechanic here to let go of the door?”

Eleanor laughed. “He does look like a mechanic, doesn’t he?”

“He doesn’t look like a reporter.”

“And I’m not,” I said. “I’m a detective.” Eleanor looked startled.

“Better and better,” he said. “You two ought to talk it over. Ring the bell again when you decide who you are. If I’m anywhere near the door, I’ll answer.” He tried to push the door closed again, but I shouldered it back. The chain snapped tight and held.

“What we are,” I said, “is a double-whammy. A reporter
and
a detective. We’re everything you don’t want camped on your doorstep.”

“Leave me alone,” he said desperately.

“How would you like to be in
People
magazine? ‘Church Prophet’s Father Living in Poverty.’ Then, of course, there’d be the
National Enquirer
. How would you like to be called as a witness in a murder trial?”

‘This isn’t poverty,” he said. “And I don’t know anything about any murder. And also, don’t talk to me about the fucking Church. Beg your pardon,” he said to Eleanor.

“I’m used to it,” she said.

“You have a security clearance out there at Miska, don’t you?” I said. “What are you cleared to? Secret? Top Secret? Eyes Only? How wide is your need-to-know scoop?”

“Hey,” he said. “What do you got in your head, bugs? You can’t stand out there and shout that kind of stuff.”

“Then let us in.”

“What do you got to talk about my security clearance for?”

“How long do you think you’d keep it after you got famous?”

“You wouldn’t do that.”

“I wouldn’t even have a hard time sleeping.”

“You must be some guy.”

“A very nice lady has been killed. The Church is in the middle of it—not Angel and probably not Mary Claire, but the Church. I’ll do anything I have to do to figure out why. Now, are you going to let us in, or do you want to practice your signature so you can sign autographs in supermarkets?”

He tilted his head back, toward the rear of the house, like a man listening for something. Then he said, “And if I let you in?”

“We ask some questions about the Church and then we go away and leave you alone.”

“You’ll never see us again,” Eleanor said.

His mouth twisted. “You come in,” he said, “you gotta be quiet.”

“We’ll be quiet,” Eleanor said.

“Okay. You want to move your big fat hand so’s I can get the chain off?”

“If you lock it,” I said, “I’ll kick it in.”

“Breathe a little more fire,” he said. “It’s a cold day.” He pushed the door closed and the latch rattled. Then the door opened again and he stood there, a small wiry man whose clothes were too big for him. “Come in and wait here,” he said. “I got to check on something.” He turned and shuffled off down the hall. He wore battered leather slippers.

We went in. The house was dark and smelled of food and an elusive chemical taint. Sickness. On a little table next to the door was a pile of unopened junk mail, computer-generated trash addressed to three or four misspellings of his name.

“This is awful,” Eleanor whispered. “Half his mail is from Ed McMahon. It doesn’t even feel like a house. It’s just, I don’t know, indoors.”

“It’s not going to get any better,” I said. “Don’t turn into the Problem Lady.”

Caleb Ellspeth appeared at the end of the hallway and beckoned to us. “In here,” he said, “in the living room.”

The living room was a cramped little cubicle with so much furniture that it looked like a couch convention. The furniture had seen too much wear. Magazines written by, and for, engineers and machinists were scattered across the two coffee tables.
Reader’s Digest
book condensations marched in uniform across a small bookshelf.
War and Peace
democratically shared a volume with
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
.