Umney's Last Case (3 page)

slightly bent, as if someone had filled

the crotch of his underpants with chicken salad and he'd just realized it. Not

pleasant, nothing about that morning's

elevator ride was pleasant, but it was at least known.

Bill gave me a sick smile as the elevator began to rattle upward but said nothing.

I swung my head in Vernon's direction, mostly to get away from the smell of overbaked

accountant, but whatever small

talk I'd been meaning to make died in my throat. The two pictures which had hung over

Vern's stool since the

beginning of time--one of Jesus walking on the Sea of Galilee while his boatbound

disciples gawped at him and the

other of Vern's wife in a buckskin-fringed Sweetheart of the Rodeo outfit and a turnof the-century hairdo--were

both gone. What had replaced them shouldn't have been shocking, especially in light of

Vernon's age, but it hit me like

a barge-load of bricks just the same.

It was a card, that's all--a simple card showing the silhouette of a man fishing on a

lake at sunset. It was the sentiment

printed below the canoe that floored me: HAPPY RETIREMENT!

You could have doubled the way I felt when Peoria told me he might see again and still

have come up short. Memories

flickered through my mind with the speed of cards being shuffled by a riverboat

gambler. There was the time Vern

broke into the office next to mine to call an ambulance when that nutty dame, Agnes

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Sternwood, first tore my phone

out of the wall and then swallowed what she swore was drain-cleaner. The ``draincleaner''

turned out to be nothing

but crystals of raw sugar, and the office Vern broke into turned out to be a highclass

horse parlor. So far as I know, the

guy who leased the place and slapped MacKenzie Imports on the door is still receiving

his annual Sears Roebuck

catalogue in San Quentin. Then there was the guy Vern cold-conked with his stool just

before he could ventilate my

guts; that was the Mavis Weld business again, of course. Not to mention the time he

brought his daughter to me--what

a babe she was!--when she got involved with that dirty-picture racket.

Vern retiring?

It wasn't possible. It just wasn't.

``Vernon,'' I asked, ``what kind of joke is this?''

``No joke, Mr. Umney,'' he said, and as he brought the elevator car to a stop on

Three, he began to hack a deep cough I'd

never heard in all the years I'd known him. It was like listening to marble bowling

balls rolling down a stone alley. He

took the Camel out of his mouth, and I was horrified to see the end of it was pink,

and not with lipstick. He looked at it

for a moment, grimaced, then replaced it and yanked back the accordion grille. ``Thuhree,

Mr. Tuggle.''

``Thanks, Vern,'' Bill said.

``Remember the party on Friday,'' Vernon said. His words were muffled; he'd taken a

handkerchief spotted with brown

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stains out of his back pocket and was wiping his lips with it. `Ì sure would admire

for you to come.'' He glanced at me

with his rheumy eyes, and what was in them scared the bejabbers out of me. Something

was waiting for Vernon Klein

just around the next bend in the road, and that look said Vernon knew all about it.

``You too, Mr. Umney--we been

through a lot together, and I'd be tickled to raise a glass with you.''

``Wait a minute!'' I shouted, grabbing Bill as he tried to step out of the elevator.

``You wait just a God damned minute,

both of you! What party? What's going on here?''

``Retirement,'' Bill said. `Ìt usually happens at some point after your hair turns

white, in case you've been too busy to

notice. Vernon's party is going to be in the basement on Friday afternoon. Everybody

in the building's going to be

there, and I'm going to make my world-famous Dynamite Punch. What's the matter with

you, Clyde? You've known

for a month that Vern was finishing up on May thirtieth.''

That made me angry all over again, the way I'd been when Peoria called me a faggot. I

grabbed Bill by the padded

shoulders of his double-breasted suit and gave him a shake. ``The hell you say!''

He gave me a small, pained smile. ``The hell I don't, Clyde. But if you don't want to

come, fine. Stay away. You've

been acting poco loco for the last six months, anyhow.''

I shook him again. ``What do you mean, poco loco?''

``Crazy as a loon, nutty as a fruitcake, two wheels off the road, out to lunch,

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playing without a full deck--any of those

ring a bell? And before you answer, just let me inform you that if you shake me one

more time, even a little shake, my

guts are going to explode straight out through my chest, and not even dry-cleaning

will get that mess off your suit.''

He pulled away before I could do it again even if I'd wanted to and started down the

hall with the seat of his pants

hanging somewhere down around the level of his knees, as per usual. He glanced back

just once, while Vernon was

sliding the brass gate across. ``You need to take some time off, Clyde. Starting last

week.''

``What's gotten into you?'' I shouted at him. ``What's gotten into all of you?'' But

by then the inner door was closed

and we were headed up again--this time to Seven. My little slice of heaven. Vern

dropped his cigarette butt into the

bucket of sand that squats in the corner, and immediately stuck a fresh one in his

kisser. He popped a wooden match

alight with his thumbnail, set the fag on fire, and immediately started coughing

again. Now I could see fine drops of

blood misting out from between his cracked lips. It was a gruesome sight. His eyes had

dropped; they stared vacantly

into the far corner, seeing nothing, hoping for nothing. Bill Tuggle's B.O. hung

between us like the Ghost of Binges

Past.

`Òkay, Vern,'' I said. ``What is it and where are you going?''

Vernon had never been one to wear out the English language, and that at least hadn't

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changed. `Ìt's Big C,'' he said.

`Òn Saturday I catch the Desert Blossom to Arizona. I'm going to live with my sister.

I don't expect to wear out my

welcome, though. She might have to change the bed twice.'' He brought the elevator to

a stop and rattled the gate back.

``Seven, Mr. Umney. Your little slice of heaven.'' He smiled at that just as he always

did, but this time it looked like the

kind of smile you see on the candy skulls down in Tijuana, on the Day of the Dead.

Now that the elevator door was open, I smelled something up here in my little slice of

heaven that was so out of place it

took a moment for me to recognize it: fresh paint. Once it was noted, I filed it. I

had other fish to fry.

``This isn't right,'' I said. ``You know it isn't, Vern.''

He turned his frightening vacant eyes on me. Death in them, a black shape flapping and

beckoning just beyond the faded

blue. ``What isn't right, Mr. Umney?''

``You're supposed to be here, damn it! Right here! Sitting on your stool with Jesus

and your wife over your head. Not

this!'' I reached up, grabbed the card with the picture of the man fishing on the

lake, tore it in two, put the pieces

together, tore it in four, and then gave them the toss. They fluttered to the faded

red rug on the floor of the elevator car

like confetti.

``S'posed to be right here,'' he repeated, those terrible eyes of his never leaving

mine. Beyond us, two men in

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paint-splattered coveralls had turned to look in our direction.

``That's right.''

``For how long, Mr. Umney? Since you know everything else, you can probably tell me

that, can'tcha? How long am I

supposed to keep drivin this damned car?''

``Well . . . forever,'' I said, and the word hung between us, another ghost in the

cigarette-smokey elevator car. Given a

choice of ghosts, I guess I would have picked Bill Tuggle's B.O. . . . but I wasn't

given a choice. Instead, I said it again.

``Forever, Vern.''

He dragged on his Camel, coughed out smoke and a fine spray of blood, and went on

looking at me. `Ìt ain't my place

to give the tenants advice, Mr. Umney, but I guess I'll give you some, anyway--it

being my last week and all. You

might consider seeing a doctor. The kind that shows you ink-pitchers and you say what

they look like.''

``You can't retire, Vern.'' My heart was beating harder than ever, but I managed to

keep my voice level. ``You just

can't.''

``No?'' He took his cigarette out of his mouth--fresh blood was already soaking into

the tip--and then looked back at

me. His smile was ghastly. ``The way it looks to me, I ain't exactly got a choice, Mr.

Umney.''

_______________________________________________________________________

III. Of Painters and Pesos.

The smell of fresh paint seared my nose, overpowering both the smell of Vernon's smoke

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and Bill Tuggle's armpits.

The men in the coveralls were currently taking up space not far from my office door.

They had put down a dropcloth,

and the tools of their trade were spread out all along it--tins and brushes and turp.

There were two step-ladders as

well, flanking the painters like scrawny bookends. What I wanted to do was to run down

the hall, kicking the whole

works every whichway as I went. What right had they to paint these old dark walls that

glaring, sacrilegious white?

Instead, I walked up to the one who looked as if it might take a two-digit number to

express his IQ and politely asked

what he and his fellow mug thought they were doing. He glanced around at me. ``Hellzit

look like? I'm givin Miss

America a finger-frig and Chick there's puttin rouge on Betty Grable's nippy-nips.''

I'd had enough. Enough of them, enough of everything. I reached out, grabbed the quizkid

under the armpit, and used

my fingertips to engage a particularly nasty nerve that hides up there. He screamed

and dropped his brush. White paint

splattered his shoes. His partner gave me a timid doe-eyed look and took a step

backward.

`Ìf you try taking off before I'm done with you,'' I snarled, ``you're going to find

the handle of your paint-brush so far

up your ass you'll need a boathook to find the bristles. You want to try me and see if

I'm lying?''

He stopped moving and just stood there on the edge of the dropcloth, eyes darting from

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side to side, looking for help.

There was none to be had. I half-expected Candy to open my door and look out to see

what the fracas was, but the door

stayed firmly closed. I turned my attention back to the quiz-kid I was holding onto.

``The question was simple enough, bud--what the hell are you doing here? Can you

answer it, or do I give you another

blast?''

I twiddled my fingers in his armpit just to refresh his memory and he screamed again.

``Paintin the hall! Jeezis, can't

you see?''

I could see, all right, and even if I'd been blind, I could smell. I hated what both

of those senses were telling me. The

hallway wasn't supposed to be painted, especially not this glaring, light-reflecting

white. It was supposed to be dim

and shadowy; it was supposed to smell like dust and old memories. Whatever had started

with the Demmicks'

unaccustomed silence was getting worse all the time. I was mad as hell, as this

unfortunate fellow was discovering. I

was also scared, but that was a feeling you get good at hiding when carrying a heater

in a clamshell holster is part of the

way you make your living.

``Who sent you two dubs down here?''

`Òur boss,'' he said, looking at me as if I were crazy. ``We work for Challis Custom

Painters, on Van Nuys. The boss is

Hap Corrigan. If you want to know who hired the cump'ny, you'll have to ask h--''

`Ìt was the owner,'' the other painter said quietly. ``The owner of this building. A

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guy named Samuel Landry.''

I searched my memory, trying to put the name of Samuel Landry together with what I

knew of the Fulwider Building

and couldn't do it. In fact, I couldn't put the name of Samuel Landry together with

anything . . . yet for all that it

seemed almost to chime in my head, like a church-bell you can hear from miles away on

a foggy morning.

``You're lying,'' I said, but with no real force. I said it simply because it was