Let's All Kill Constance (9 page)

"My sweetheart dears, from when I was an active volcano."

The most ancient of ancient men looked out at me from behind a maze of wrinkles, the kind you get when you search the icebox at six A.M. and take out last night's pre-mixed martinis.

"I keep the door locked. I thought you were just here, yelling outside."

"Not me."

"Someone was. Outside of that, nobody's been up here since Lowell Sherman died."

"That's two obituaries in ten minutes. Winter 1934. Cancer and pneumonia."

"Nobody
knows that!"

"I roller-skated by the Coliseum one Saturday 1934 before a football game. Lowell Sherman came in whooping and barking. I got his autograph and said, 'Take care.' He died two days later."

"Lowell Sherman." The old, old man regarded me with a new luster in his eyes. "As long as
you're
alive, he is, too."

Clyde Rustler collapsed in the one chair and sized me up again. "Lowell Sherman. Why in hell did you make the long climb up here? People have died climbing. Uncle Sid climbed up once or twice, said to hell with it, built the bigger projection booth a thousand yards downslope in the real world, if there is a real one. Never went down to see. So?"

For he saw that I was casting my gaze around his primeval nest at those walls teeming with dozens of faces, forever young.

"Would you like a rundown on these mountain-lion street cats?" He leaned and pointed.

"Her name was Carlotta or Midge or Diana. She was a Spanish flirt, a Cal Coolidge 'It girl' with a skirt up to her navel, a Roman queen fresh out of DeMille's milk bath. Then she was a vamp named Illysha, a typist called Pearl, an English tennis player—Pamela. Sylvia? Ran a nudist flytrap in Cheyenne. Some called her 'Hard Hearted Hannah the Vamp of Savannah.' Dressed like Dolley Madison, sang 'Tea for Two,' 'Chicago,' popped out of a big clamshell like the pearl of paradise, Flo Ziegfeld's craze. Fired by her father at thirteen for conduct unbecoming a human who ripened fast: Willa-Kate. Worked in a chophouse chink joint: Lila Wong. Got more votes than the president, Coney Island Beauty Pageant, '29: not-so-plain Willa. Got off the night train in Glendale: Barbara Jo, next day, almost, head of Glory Films: Anastasia Alice Grimes—"

He stopped. I looked up. "Which brings us to Rattigan," I said.

Clyde Rustler froze in place.

"You said no one's been up here for years. But—she came up here today, right? Maybe to look at these pictures? Did she or didn't she?"

The old, old man stared at his dusty hands, then slowly rose to face a brass whistle tube in the wall, one of those submarine devices that you blew so it shrieked and you yelled orders.

"Leo? Wine! A two-dollar tip!"

A tiny voice squealed from the brass nozzle, "You don't
drink!"

"I do now, Leo. And hot dogs!"

The brass nozzle squealed and died.

The old, old man grunted and stared at the wall. A long, terribly long five minutes passed. While we waited I opened my notepad and took down the names scrawled on the pictures. Then we heard the hot dogs and wine rattling up the dumbwaiter. Clyde Rustler stared as if he had forgotten that tiny elevator. He took forever opening the wine with a corkscrew, sent by Leo, from down below. There was only one glass.

"One," he apologized. "You first. I'm not afraid of catching anything."

"I got nothing for you to catch." I drank and handed the glass over. He drank and I could see the relaxation move his body.

"And now?" he said. "Let me show you some clips I glued together. Why? Last week a stranger called from down below. That voice on the phone. Was once Harry Cohn's live-in nurse, never said yes, but yes, yes, Harry, yes! Said she was looking for Robin Locksley.
Robin Hood.
Searching for Robin of Locksley. An actress took that name, a flash in the pan. She disappeared in Hearst's castle or his backside kitchen. But now this voice, years later, asks for Locksley. Spooked me. I ran through my cans and found the one film she made in 1929, when sound really took over. Watch."

He fitted the film into the projector and switched on the lamp. The image shot down to flood the big screen.

On the screen a circus butterfly spun, flirting her gossamer wings, dropping, to pull the bit from her smile, laugh, then run, pursued by white knights and black villains. "Recognize her?"

“Nope.”

"Try
this."
He spun the film. The screen filled with a smoldering bank of snow fires, a Russian noblewoman, smoking long languid cigarettes, wringing her handkerchief, someone had died or was going to die.

"Well?" said Clyde Rustler hopefully.

"Nope."

"Try again!"

The projector lit the darkness with 1923; a tomboy climbing a tree to shake down fruit, laughing, but you could see small crab apples under her shirtfront.

"
Tomboy Sawyer.
A girl! Who? Damn!"

The old man filled the screen with a dozen more images, starting with 1925, ending with 1952, open, shut, mysterious, obvious, light, dark, wild, composed, beautiful, plain, willful, innocent.

"You don't know
any
of those? My God, I've racked my brain. There must be some reason why I've saved these damned clips. Look at me, dammit! Know how old I am?"

"Around ninety, ninety-five?"

"Ten thousand years! Jesus. They found me floating in a basket on the Nile! I fell downhill with the Tablets. I doused the fire in the burning bush. Mark Antony said, 'Loose the dogs of war'; I loosed the lot. Did I know all these wonders? I wake nights hitting my head to make the jelly beans shake in place. Every time I've almost got the answer, I move my head and the damned beans fall. You sure you don't remember these clips or the faces on the wall? Good grief, we've got a mystery!"

"I was about to say the same. I came up here because someone else came. Maybe that voice that called from down below."

"What voice?"

"Constance Rattigan," I said.

I let the fog settle behind his eyes.

"What's she got to do with this?" he wondered.

"Maybe
she
knows. Last time I saw her she was standing in her own footprints."

"And you think she might know who all these faces belong to, what all the names mean? Hold on. Outside the door ... I guess it was today. Can't be yesterday. Today she said, 'Hand 'em over!'"

"Hand what over?"

"Hell, what do you see in this damn empty place worth handing over?"

I looked at the pictures on the wall. Clyde Rustler saw my look.

"Why would anyone want those?" he said. "Not worth nothing. Even I don't know why in hell I nailed them there. Are they wives or some old girlfriends?"

"How many of each did you have?"

"I don't have the fingers to count."

"One thing for sure, Constance wanted you to hand 'em over. Was she jealous?"

"Constance? You got road rage in the streets, she had bed rage. Wanted to grab all my lovelies, whoever in hell they were, and stomp, tear, and burn them. Go on. Finish the wine. I got things to do."

"Like what?"

But he was rethreading the film clips in the projector, fascinated by a thousand and one nights past.

I moved along the wall and scribbled furiously, writing down the names under all of the pictures, and then said:

"If Constance comes back, will you let me know?"

"For the pictures? I'll throw her downstairs."

"Someone else said that. Only it was to hell instead of the second balcony. Why would you throw her?"

"There's gotta be a reason, right? Don't recollect! And why did you say you climbed up here? And what was it you called me?"

"Clyde Rustler."

"Oh, yeah. Him. It just came to me. Did you know I am Constance's father?"

"What!?"

"Constance's father. I thought I told you before. Now you can leave. Good night."

I went out and shut the door on whoever that was and the pictures on the wall, whoever they were.

DOWNSTAIRS, I edged to the front of the theater and stared down. Then I stepped into the orchestra pit, and edged to the back wall and peered though a door into a long hall that diminished into complete night and a night inside that night, where all the old abandoned dressing rooms were.

I was tempted to call a name.

But what if she answered?

Far off down that black corridor, I thought I heard the sound of a hidden sea, or a river flowing somewhere in the dark.

I put one foot forward and pulled back.

I heard that dark ocean heave on an endless shore again.

Then I turned, and went away up through the great darkness, out of the pit into the aisles with everyone gone, rushing toward the doors leading out to an evening sky most dearly welcome.

I carried Rattigan's incredibly small shoes over to her footprints and placed them neatly down to fit.

At which instant I felt my guardian angel touching my shoulder.

"You're back from the dead," said Crumley.

"You can say that again," I said, staring at the wide red doorway of Grauman's Chinese with all those film creatures swimming in the dark.

"She's in there," I murmured. "I wish I knew a way to get her out."

"Dynamite tied to a bundle of cash might do it."

"Crumley!"

"Sorry, I forgot we were talking about Florence Nightingale."

I stepped back. Crumley regarded Rattigan's tiny shoes lodged in prints put down a long, long time ago. "Not exactly ruby slippers," he said.

WE rode across town in a warm silence. I tried to describe the great black sea of Grauman's.

"There's this big dressing-room cellar, maybe full of stuff from 1925, 1930. I have a feeling she might be
there."

"Save your breath," said Crumley.

"Someone's got to go down there to see."

"You afraid to go there alone?"

"Not exactly."

"That means damn right! Shut up and ride shotgun."

We were soon at Crumley's. He put a cold beer against my brow.

"Hold it there until you feel it cure your thinking."

I held it there. Crumley switched on the TV and began switching through the channels.

"I don't know which is worse," he said, "your gab or the local TV news."

"Father Seamus Rattigan," the TV said.

"Hold it!" I cried.

Crumley switched back.

"... Vibiana's Cathedral."

And a blizzard of static and snow.

Crumley hit the damned TV with his fist.

". . . Natural causes. Rumored to be future cardinal . . ."

Another snowstorm. And the TV went dead.

"I been meaning to have it fixed," said Crumley.

We both stared at his telephone, telling it to ring.

We both jumped.

Because it
did!

IT was a woman, Father Rattigan's assistant, Betty Kelly, inarticulate, going down for the third time, begging for mercy.

I offered what small mercy I had, to come visit.

"Don't wait, or I'm dead myself," she wailed.

Betty Kelly was out in front of St. Vibiana's when Crumley and I arrived. We stood for a long moment before she saw us, gave a quick, half-realized wave, and dropped her gaze. We came to stand by her. I introduced Crumley.

"I'm sorry," I said. She raised her head.

"Then you
are
the one was talking to Father!" she said. "Oh, Lord, let's get inside."

The big doors were locked for the night. We went in through a door at the side. Inside she swayed and almost fell. I caught and led her to one of the pews, where she sat breathless.

"We came as quick as we could," I said.

"You
knew
him?" She gasped. "It's so confusing. You knew someone in common, an acquaintance, a friend?"

"A relative," said Crumley. "The same name."

"Rattigan! She killed him. Wait!" She grabbed my sleeve.

For I was on my feet.

"Sit," she gasped. "I don't mean murder. But she killed him."

I sat back down, gone cold. Crumley backed off. She clutched my elbow and lowered her voice.

"She was here, sometimes three times a day, in confession, whispering, then raving. Poor Father looked like he'd been shot when she left, but she hardly left, just stayed until he fell out starving, couldn't eat, and the liquor cabinet low. He let her rave. Later I'd check the confessional: empty. But the air smelled like it had been hit by lightning. She kept shouting the
same
thing."

"What?"

'"I'm killing them, killing them!' she yelled. And I'll keep on killing them until I've killed them all. Help me to kill them, bless their souls! Then I'll kill the rest. Kill them all! Get them off my back, out of my life! Then, Father,' she cried, Til be free, clean! But help me bury them so they won't come back! Help me!'