Melting Clock (16 page)

“The dead,” I said, sitting behind my desk and plopping the briefcase in front of me. “Guy in the middle’s my old man. I know he’s dead. So’s the dog. My brother, the big one, is alive and a cop. You want some coffee?”

“I wish to call Gala,” he said, sitting down across from me.

I pushed the phone toward him and pulled out my notebook to remind myself to bill him for the call.

After the twenty-minute call, in frantic French with Dali bouncing up and down, we sat looking at each other for about ten minutes.

“You play cards?” I asked.

“You have Tarot cards?”

“No.”

“I do not play cards. You have paper, pencils?”

That I had. I fished into my top desk drawer, around frayed photographs of Phil’s kids and pieces of things best forgotten, to find some crumpled sheets of typing paper. I also found a few pencils. I handed the package to Dali, who cleared away a space on the desk, looked at the wall, and said.

“Do not speak to Dali until he speaks to you.”

“You got a deal. Mind if I use the phone?”

“Call—but do not, I say, do
not
talk to Dali.”

It was nearly ten. I didn’t want to tie up the phone too long in case Taylor wanted to make his move early, if he was going to make any move at all.

I called Ruth, reminded her that I would pick up the kids after school on Wednesday, and asked how she was doing. She told me that surgery had been rescheduled for Wednesday morning.

“I could get Mrs. Dudnick to stay with the kids,” she said. “And my sister would come from Chicago if I called her, but I’d rather wait till I was through the operation before I told my family. And Toby, the kids love you. They’ll … I hate to ask, but I’ll feel better if you’re here. And Mrs. Dudnick’s right next door.”

“I’ll be there, Ruth,” I said. “First thing Wednesday morning, as long as it takes.”

“Phil says you’d volunteer and then not show up. He says I should have Mrs. Dudnick ready.”

“This time Phil’s wrong about me. I’ll be there.”

“Thanks, Toby,” she said.

“I’ll talk to you, Ruth.”

And then I hung up.

“Illness,” Dali said without looking up from his drawing. “I can smell it, feel it in my fingers.”

“I thought I wasn’t supposed to talk to you.”

“You are not, but Dali can talk if he must.”

He stopped suddenly, put the pencil down and looked at me. There sat a man I had not seen before—his face aged, his mustaches wilted just a drop, and his voice down an octave as he spoke slowly.

“Mr. Peters, I am not jesting when I say the painting must be found, must be returned to me. Dali will be destroyed if the painting is seen by a critic, a gallery owner, a collector. Dali will be destroyed as surely as he will be destroyed if Taylor kills me as he has killed his accomplices.”

“I’ll find the painting,” I said. “And no one’s going to shoot you.”

Then, suddenly, the Salvador Dali mask—eyes wide, hands dancing—was back on. He leaned forward to draw and the phone rang.

“Toby Peters, Confidential Inquiries.”

“Peters?” asked Taylor.

“I just said that.”

“You have the money?”

“I have the money.”

Dali looked up when I mentioned the money. The tips of his mustaches tingled like the antennae of an ant trying to feel the wind.

“Cash?”

“No, war bonds. Taylor, name a place and a time.”

“I’m nervous, Peters,” he said. “Can you understand that?”

“You’re looking for sympathy from me?”

“I just want you to under—”

“I asked a question, Taylor. Last night when I asked you a question you tried to turn me into confetti. Let’s do business.”

“It’s ten-thirty,” he said. “I’ll give you one hour to get to Slip Number Four at the San Pedro shipyard.”

“Have the clock and the painting,” I instructed.

“Come alone,” he said. “Or you don’t see me.”

I hung up. Dali was looking at me.

“Stay here,” I said, picking up the briefcase. “Shelly will get you something to eat. What do you like to eat?”

“Sea urchins,” he said, turning the piece of paper he had been drawing on so I could see it. It was a rough sketch of me dressed in a lace collar. It might be worth something someday. I opened the briefcase and eased it in so the bills would cushion it.

“Lovely,” I said. “I’ll be back in three hours. Stay in the office. If you need the toilet, Shelly will give you the key—it’s down the hall across from the elevator. There’s a radio in the bottom drawer of my desk. Don’t answer the phone. Shelly will take care of it.”

“You will get my painting?”

“I will get your painting,” I reassured him, and went back into Shelly’s office, closing the door to my cubbyhole behind me.

The man in the chair, Shayne, still looked dead. Shelly stood next to him reading a magazine and chomping on what was left of a cigar. He looked up at me.

“I’m waiting for the stuff to set,” he explained. “Getting an impression for a bridge.”

“Stuff? Is that what it’s called?”

Shelly shrugged, dropped the magazine on the corpse’s lap and said, “Tell me the truth, Toby. You think Dali needs dental work?”

“No,” I said. “Don’t even ask him. Keep him in my office and get him something to eat later.”

“Please,” he prompted, tilting his head back to keep his glasses from falling.

“Please,” I said.

“The briefcase,” Shelly said. “You don’t really have …?”

I opened the briefcase and tilted it so Shelly could see the bills.

“Twenty-five thousand,” he sighed.

“Holy shit,” exclaimed Mr. Shayne, miraculously resurrected by the sound of money.

Shelly turned to his patient. “That’ll cost you another five bucks. You ruined my mold.”

“I’m not paying,” said Shayne, spitting out the chunk of pink gook.

My office door opened and Dali, paper in one hand, pencil in the other, watched doctor and patient shout at each other, their faces inches apart, Shelly’s cigar dangerously close to Shayne’s nose. Dali smiled at me and I left.

I could make San Pedro in forty minutes, Avalon to Anaheim, and then down Pacific. I could have made it in forty minutes. I could have, but I didn’t.

The first problem was the pumpkin bum in the sunglasses. He was standing in front of my Crosley, arms folded, legs spread apart. Clutched in one of his fists was a rusted and slightly bent piece of metal that looked as if it had been ripped from one of the wrecks. His legs were a little wobbly, but he looked determined.

“You did a good job,” I said, trying to reach past him to the passenger door.

“Don’t touch the car,” he warned.

“It’s my car. Remember me? I offered you two bits.”

“Other guy gave me a finif.”

“I was with the other guy. He gave you three bucks.”

“Yeah? What’d he look like?”

“A skinny little guy in a velvet suit with a pointed mustache a foot long.”

“What else?” asked the rotting pumpkin.

“Get out of my way,” I said.

I hadn’t worked out in weeks and my leg wasn’t back to subnormal. I didn’t want to do battle with the demented of Los Angeles. It would be a life-long losing task, and time was ticking away. Besides, the guy was doing his job. There was honor in the alley—misplaced, confused, but honor. I didn’t want to hit him and I sure as hell didn’t want him to hit me with his corroded club.

“Let him pass,” came a voice I recognized from above.

The pumpkin man took off his sunglasses and looked up. So did I. There, on the sixth floor, in the window of my office, Dali leaned forward, arms folded across his chest. Then his right hand came out and pointed upward. “Dali has spoken.”

“What’d he say?” asked the pumpkin.

“He said, ‘Dali has spoken.’”

The bum stepped out of the way. I opened the car door, threw the briefcase on the floor, and scooted across to the driver’s seat. The bum threw away the metal bar and leaned in the door.

“Is he, you know, one of Jesus’s helpers? Like the elves and Santa Claus?”

“Yep,” I said.

“I tried out for Santa Claus at Macy’s,” he said.

I motioned him back and leaned over to close the passenger side door. Through the window I could hear the bum say, “Least I wanted to, but you know something? I couldn’t find Macy’s.”

Since I didn’t have a working watch, the only way I could tell the time was turning on the radio or looking in store windows for clocks. When I’m late, I want to know the time, but I don’t want to be told. It makes me nervous. So I try to find music. I could sing or think. I didn’t feel like doing either.

I did a fair job of girl, clock, and people watching all the way to San Pedro. I parked a block away from Slip 4, got out, looked around for yet another clock, and hurried toward the shipyard.

There was a war on and there were ships being built. Beyond the gate about a hundred yards away giant cranes hovered over the hulls of massive Liberty ships, feeding them steel beams the way a bird feeds worms to its fat new babies. Flashes of fire and sparks from welder’s arcs crackled over the decks.

Then there was the noise. A clattering of hundreds of air hammers, the growl of crane horns, the clang of flangers’ mauls on bulkheads.

There were not only two guards in gray uniforms at the gates, but two armed Naval Shore Patrolmen with black holsters and serious personality problems. There was no other way in. When a guard looked my way, I walked right up to the gate.

One of the guards, who looked about twenty years older than the forty he had looked like from across the street, stepped out to greet me.

“Can I help you?” he shouted.

“I’m late,” I shouted back. “Car broke down a block away. Kelly in payroll’s waiting for this.”

I held up the briefcase.

“Kelly?”

“Kelly, Kennedy, some Irish name,” I yelled with irritation.

“He means Connelly,” came the second guard, moving to join us. The second guard was even older than the first.

“Connelly didn’t leave any message about … What’s your name?”

“Bruno, Bruno Podbialniak, First Security Bank of Hollywood,” I said, reaching into my pocket for a business card. I really had one somewhere among the dozens of other cards I’d picked up over the years. When I had need of a bank or a banker, Bruno was it. I cost him more in cards than he and First Security made on investing my few bucks.

I knew where Bruno’s cards were in the wallet, at the bottom of the pile in the bill compartment, right in front of one that read: “Kirk Woller, Mortician to the Stars.” I handed a card to both guards who looked at them and then at each other.

“I’ll give Connelly a call,” said the second guard.

I looked at my father’s watch impatiently. I was going with the punches. Don’t think, I told myself. Just run the combinations.

The two Shore Patrolmen kept their distance but watched me carefully, their hands hooked into their belts very close to their holsters. The Shore Patrolmen were a good ten years younger than I had thought from across the street. One of them looked like my nephew Dave, only bigger. I watched the second guard go to a phone just inside the iron-mesh gate and make his call while the first guard read Bruno’s card seven or eight times.

“One of my kids, Al’s a banker,” the first guard said. “Got four kids and a bad ear. Four-F.”

I nodded and looked at my watch.

“Connelly wants to talk to you,” the second guard called from the phone.

I strode through the gate past the teen Shore Patrolmen and took the phone from the guard.

“Connelly?” I said with irritation. “My car broke down and I’ve got other stops to make. Will you tell these people to take me to your office?”

“Who are you?” asked Connelly, who was a woman.

“Bruno Podbialniak. Your boss called and said to bring you this cash now. If you don’t want to sign for it …”

“My boss? Monesco?”

“I guess,” I said wearily. “Will you talk up. It’s noisy out here. I’m late and I’ve got to get to Lockheed by four.”

“Monesco isn’t here today,” she said. “He’s—”

“Okay,” I interrupted. “That’s it. Porter can send someone else and you can tell your Monesco that—”

“Wait,” said Connelly. “You have cash?”

“Cash.”

“Show it to the guard who was on the phone.”

I handed the phone to the guard and opened the briefcase to show him the bills. He shook his head and spoke to Connelly.

“Man has a lot of dollars,” he said. “Okay.” And then to me, “She wants you to give it to me and I’ll give you a receipt.”

“Forget it,” I said, snapping the briefcase shut. “I was told to give it to Connelly personally and get a receipt. Besides, this is a twenty-dollar briefcase. I’m not donating it.”

The guard got back on the phone and gave my story to Connelly. Then he listened, nodded, and hung up.

“Says I should bring you over to payroll. Carl,” he called. “I’m bringing Mr.… uh, the gentleman to payroll.”

Carl nodded back and the two Shore Patrolmen examined me. I frowned at them. I was a busy man. I followed the old guard to a khaki coupe and got in. We drove past Slips 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5.

“What time you have?” I asked.

“Quarter to twelve,” he said, pulling into a space next to a two-story building with aluminum sides.

I got out quickly.

“I know where it is,” I said, slamming the door as he started to get out. “Wait for me here. It’ll only take me a minute or two.”

He shrugged and sat back behind the wheel and I hurried into the building with the briefcase. I pushed the door closed behind me and the world went silent. I didn’t have time to enjoy it. I bypassed a time clock and a rack of cards and moved past an office with a little window. Inside the office, a man sat hitting the buttons on an adding machine. A sign on his desk, gold letters on a black background, said he was Arthur Mylicki.

I hurried down the hall looking in other rooms till I found an empty. I went in, picked up the phone and told the operator I wanted Arthur Mylicki’s office. Two rings and Mylicki answered.

“Yes.”

“Mylicki?” I coughed and continued in a hoarse voice. “This is Monesco. I’ve got a man with me from the bank. One of the guards is waiting for him outside your door.” I coughed again.