We’ll Always Have Parrots (17 page)

Once I stepped out into the lobby, I found myself wondering if I should even bother going back to the dealers’ room. It was probably still deserted, since any fans not attending panels were still milling about the lobby and the hallway, trading rumors, and watching the press.

I went over myself to peer out the front windows of the hotel.

“God, there are more of them,” I muttered.

“Yeah,” said an Amazon security guard standing next to me. “And it’s getting to be a real pain, keeping them out.”

I glanced around the lobby. Yes, unless they had donned Porfirian disguise, the press were all outside, having grown tired of interviewing the desk clerks and photographing the wildlife. They hadn’t gotten into the convention proper. My respect for the Amazon security guards increased exponentially.

“My lord wizard! Can you not dispel the rabble infesting my courtyard?” another Amazon trilled, in the high, affected voice fans usually used when mimicking the QB. The words sounded vaguely familiar, so I assumed they must be a quote from an episode I’d seen.

“They are the envoys of a wise and ancient people,” a nearby Michael clone intoned. “We must approach them with subtlety and discretion.”

I recognized this as one of Michael’s lines from a recent show. A line that, as usual, provoked gales of laughter, not because it was particularly funny in and of itself, but because on the show, after Michael said it to Walker in his most solemn voice, they had simultaneously whirled and punched the two envoys in the jaw. Fortunately the Michael clone omitted the fisticuffs from his rendition.

A thought struck me. I fished out the tape recorder, turned the sound down, queued up the scrap of dialogue in Maggie’s voice, turned the volume back up, and stuck it out in the middle of the group of Amazon guards.

“Porfiria trivia quiz,” I said. “Identify this.”

I played them the snippet, the one where Maggie could be heard saying, “Prepare to die, you—whoops!”

“The Duchess, of course,” one said. “Maggie West.”

“Well, duh,” another said. “But what episode?”

“Play it again, will you?” asked a third.

I backed up the tape and obliged.

“I’ve got it!” the second one said. “It’s from the blooper tape. The Duchess threatening Porfiria in the ‘Portents of Evil’ episode, only this is the take where the Duke tried to draw his sword and hit himself in the chin with it.”

“You’re right!” the first guard said, shaking her head. “Damn, and I just saw the blooper tape again this morning.”

“Great,” I said. “Thanks. That one had us stumped.”

I strolled on, leaving the guard who had answered looking very pleased with herself.

I should have asked Dad where he’d taped the parrot. Odds were it was in or around the fan lounge, where they’d been showing the blooper tape once an hour since Friday morning. Enough repetition for even the slowest of parrots.

As I made my way back down the hall, I passed the vine-draped door to Salome’s room and noticed that someone had put a large
CLOSED
sign on it.

So if it was closed, why were there voices in there? One male and one female, and it wouldn’t have seemed odd if the male voice belonged to Brad, the keeper, and the female to, say, Maggie. But the male voice was Walker’s.

And the female voice was saying,

“Just leave me alone!”

I ducked under the vines—which required getting down on my hands and knees. Brad’s camouflage efforts were definitely getting out of hand. The vines no longer merely obscured the opening, they practically blocked it. The door itself was slightly ajar, so I put my ear to the opening.

“Please,” Walker said. “You’ve got to tell them!”

“I can’t,” a female voice said.

“If you don’t, I won’t have an alibi,” Walker said. “And I think they’re getting ready to arrest me.”

Aha! Apparently Walker’s luck was changing, and he had found his alibi.

Or had he only found someone he thought would be willing to lie for him?

“Do you know what my boyfriend will do to me if he finds out?”

Aha. Walker’s luck was changing, all right, but not for the better.

“You don’t have to tell your boyfriend,” he said. “Just the police.”

“He’ll find out,” she said. “The last time he got mad at me, he almost broke my nose, and that’s nothing compared to what he’d do this time.”

“Not if you—”

“I have to go!”

I backed far enough away from the door that I could pretend to be only just approaching as she flew out. Far enough, for that matter, to let me take a long hard look at her as she passed by.

Blond, pretty, on the skinny side, maybe early twenties but probably just barely legal—a lot like every other girl I’d ever seen at Walker’s side. Even without the skimpy red harem girl costume, I could probably pick her out of a crowd. But just in case, I took a look at her badge. And a second look, just to make sure I’d read it correctly. Then I ducked under the vines and went into the room.

Salome opened one eye when I entered, then closed it again and apparently went back to sleep, as if to say I wasn’t worth bothering with. Spike, still securely fastened to a post across the room, had curled up very carefully in exactly the same pose as Salome, though he was only pretending to sleep. Occasionally he would lift his head, look over at her, sigh, and put his head back down. I’d probably have found this adorable if I hadn’t known him better. Walker was leaning against a wall, well away from both animals. He acknowledged my arrival with a half-wave and an unconvincing smile.

“Walker,” I said, “I gather you have a problem.”

“Yeah,” he said. “The police are probably going to arrest me any minute now.”

“And your only alibi is a teenaged tart with a fake ruby in her navel who’s apparently registered for the convention as Concubine Aimee,” I said.

“Holy—how did you know?” Walker asked.

“I was eavesdropping, of course,” I said.

“Then you know how bad it is,” he said. “She won’t talk.”

“Now that you know who she is, you could just tell the police,” I suggested.

“I can’t,” he said.

“Now is not the time to get all chivalrous,” I said.

“I’m not being chivalrous,” he said. “I already threatened to tell, and she said if I did, she’d deny it.”

“Walker, you can get her to tell the truth,” I said. “All you have to do is—”

And then I paused. What were the odds that Walker could talk Concubine Aimee into anything? About the same as the odds he could get through a fight scene without hurting himself. Which was why Chris was his stunt double. At the moment, apparently, Walker needed a brain double.

“Let me talk to her,” I finished.

“You really think you can talk her into it?”

I shrugged.

“Worth a try,” I said. “Just lie low for a while.”

I crawled out of the lair and reconnoitered. Concubine Aimee had disappeared, but that was okay. I didn’t want to talk to her until I had a little more information about her, and I thought I knew where to look. I remembered seeing the Amazon security guards and the guest of honor escorts disappear into a room off the green room. I headed there.

Sure enough, when I walked into the room in question, I found two convention volunteers doing something with laptops.

When in doubt, pretend you know just what you’re doing and have every right to do it, I told myself. It always worked for Mother.

“Hi,” I said, going up to one of the computer users and flashing my badge, with its vendor ribbon. “I need to check an attendee out.”

“Is there a problem of some kind?”

“Probably not, but I’d like to keep it that way,” I said. “Can you look up someone by badge name and see if they’re really registered?”

“Oh, God,” the other computer volunteer groaned. “They’re not faking the badges again, are they?”

“Not necessarily,” I said. “It may just have been the light that made it look funny, but with all these reporters around, trying to sneak in—”

“What’s the badge name?” the first volunteer asked.

“Concubine Aimee,” I said, sidling around so I could look over her shoulder. “No, with a double ‘ee’—that’s right.”

“Looks like she’s legit,” the woman said.

“Unless there are multiple Concubine Aimees running around,” the other volunteer said. “One color copier and bingo! You’ve got clones.”

“I know someone who probably took a check from this one,” I said. “Let me see if the address and other stuff you have matches what’s on the check she has in her cash box, and if there’s a problem, I’ll come back and let you know.”

They liked that idea, so I copied down the relevant information on a While You Were Out slip, stuffed it in my pocket, and left before someone more security-conscious showed up.

Okay, it was convenient that they let me take down Aimee’s personal information that easily, but not reassuring. Did they have information about Michael and me in the same computers, guarded by the same bozos?

I’d worry about that later. I set out to look for Aimee—whose real name was Amy Goldman. I also had a local address and a phone number.

But as I walked through the green room, I noticed Nate sitting in a corner. Quite apart from the fact that I wanted to tackle him on why he’d lied about knowing Ichabod Dilley, I wanted to know the reason for the singularly glum look on his face. Concubine Aimee could wait a few more minutes.

“How’s it going?” I asked, slipping into the seat across from Nate.

Nate shook his head.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Walker missed a panel,” he said in an ominous monotone.

Damn. Was this my fault? When I told him to lie low, I had only meant that he should avoid Concubine Aimee. I should have known that you needed to be a lot more specific with Walker.

“Why?” I said aloud. “Did he forget? Has someone gone to look for him? I might know where he is if there’s still time to go get him.”

“No, the panel started an hour and a half ago,” Nate said. “And I know exactly where he was then—the police were interviewing him.”

“Damn.”

“They probably still are. They’re closing in.”

“Not necessarily,” I said. “They’ve interviewed all of us.”

“They wouldn’t disrupt the convention this way if they weren’t looking pretty seriously at him.”

“I don’t actually think making the convention run smoothly ranks very high on Detective Foley’s priority list.”

“God,” Nate moaned. “Let’s not talk about it. Let’s talk about something else.”

“Fine,” I said. “Let’s talk about Ichabod Dilley.”

“What about him?”

“You never told me you knew him,” I said.

“Didn’t I? Well, you never really asked,” Nate said. “I don’t recall denying that I knew him.”

I wanted to tell him that he’d implied it, but I suspected that would bog the conversation down into a long discussion of semantics, instead of letting me find out anything useful.

“How well did you know him?” I asked instead.

“How well did I know anyone in those days?” he said. “Especially from that side of my life. The private side.”

“Private in what way?”

“Nothing…sinister, if that’s what you mean,” Nate said, looking alarmed. “Weekdays I was a hard-working, buttoned-down little writer. Very corporate. Nothing to alarm the studio execs. Weekends, I’d drive up to San Francisco and hang around Haight Ashbury. Go to concerts. Get stoned.”

“I see,” I said

“Don’t laugh,” he added, although I could have sworn I hadn’t let any sign of amusement cross my face. “I wasn’t always the staid, boring guy you probably think I am from seeing me on the job.”

Actually, you were, I felt like saying. In fact, you used to be worse. I’ve seen the photo. Aloud, I decided to stick to vague platitudes.

“People change.”

“Life changes them,” Nate said. “Professional responsibilities.”

Professional responsibilities like creating the Metatarsal Knights, I thought, but I nodded solemnly.

“So you met Ichabod Dilley while you were slumming in Haight Ashbury,” I said.

“My script called for a psychedelic artist,” he said. “You know—like a Grateful Dead poster. The studio hack kept bringing in things that looked like you’d smeared lime green paint on a Renoir. So I said I’d find someone.”

“Dilley.”

“I put him up in my own apartment the whole time he was working on those damned paintings,” Nate said, with sudden heat. “The whole time he was supposed to be working on them. I found out later, he’d done the first Porfiria comic book—maybe the first several—while I was down on the set, making excuses for why the rest of the paintings weren’t ready yet. And then, when he finally finished the damned things, I let him stay in case they decided at the last minute that they needed changes, or maybe another painting. When the movie was finally over, I thought I’d never get rid of him. Took weeks before I came home one day and found he’d disappeared. Taking half my wardrobe—the hipper half, of course—but I considered it cheap at the price.”

He fell silent. Brooding over those long-lost bell-bottoms, I supposed.

“And then the thugs started showing up,” he added.

“Thugs?”

“Guys claiming he owed them money. One of them actually beat me up when I said I had no idea where he’d gone. Which was true. I finally found a gallery that was showing a couple of Dilley’s paintings, and started referring the thugs there, and eventually they stopped showing up.”

“And then what happened?”

“What happened? Nothing. End of the story of Nate and Ichabod.”

“You never saw him again?”

Nate shook his head.

“I figured he’d drifted back to San Francisco. Turns out he died, not long after that. Of course, I didn’t hear he’d died until a couple of years later. The QB had me do a movie treatment based on the comics. Asked her why she didn’t just have him do it, and she said he wasn’t a screenwriter, and anyway he was dead.”

And did Nate’s helping the thugs find him have anything to do with Dilley’s death? Probably not something he’d admit, even if he suspected it was true, so I didn’t see any point in asking.

“So you did the movie treatment,” I said.

He nodded.

“First of many,” he said. “Every time fantasy was in, we’d do another damned treatment. When
Star Wars
came out in ’77 we set it on another planet. In ’82, when Schwarzenegger did Conan, we stuck in a barbarian warrior.
Princess Bride
’s a big hit a couple of years later, and we did a tongue-in-cheek version. Anne Rice gets hot, and we do one where Porfiria’s an immortal vampire. I suggested an animated version once, but she never went for that.”

“Sounds like the TV show’s more authentic than the movie treatments.”

He nodded.

“What would Ichabod Dilley think, if he were here?” I asked.

Nate didn’t answer at first. Just when I was about to repeat the question, he spoke up.

“He wouldn’t recognize it,” he said, smiling and shaking his head. “Maybe when he realized it was supposed to be based on his stories, he’d have a big laugh at what life does to you when you’re not looking. But then, Dilley’s dead, and what the hell do I know. I’ve got a panel,” he said, standing up abruptly. “I’ll see you.”

A little early to be heading out for a panel, I thought, but maybe he’s still allowing plenty of time for getting lost in the hotel.

“Still asking questions?”

I glanced over to see that Francis had come in.

“Yeah, still trying to make sense of what happened,” I said.

“The murder happened yesterday,” Francis said. “Every time I see you, you’re asking a lot of questions about things that happened twenty or thirty years ago. Do you really think all that has anything to do with the murder?”

“I have no idea,” I said. “But it’s rather intriguing, finding out about everyone’s wild escapades in the seventies.”

“Wild escapades?” Francis said. “What kind of wild escapades?”

He sounded alarmed. Why, I had no idea. It wasn’t as if any of the aging boomers’ youthful misdeeds could spill over and taint his current clients, who had been in grade school at the time.

“Apparently Nate inhaled,” I said. “And Tammy Jones didn’t play hard to get.”

“Ah, well,” he said. “Those were the times, weren’t they?”

“I wouldn’t know,” I said. “I wasn’t there. Is that what things were like, back then?”

“I’m sure I wouldn’t know, either,” Francis said. “I’m afraid if you want to hear exciting tales of rebellion and protest, I’m the wrong person to ask. I led a rather quiet life then.”

And it hadn’t gotten appreciably noisier since, I thought, with a sudden flash of sympathy. I wasn’t sure I remembered ever hearing anything about his private life.

Then again, I wasn’t sure I wanted to. If I were a better person, perhaps, I would think of some tactful, sympathetic way to draw Francis out on the subject of his quiet youth.

Later. When I had more time, I promised myself. I would sit down with Francis and have a long, friendly talk. Draw him out of his shell and get to know him better. Maybe while Maggie and Nate and the QB were off in Hollywood, Francis was still in college studying philosophy or poetry. I’d find out later. Right now, I needed to see what I could do about Walker’s problem.

Finding one fan out of the thousand attending the convention wasn’t easy, but I finally caught up with Concubine Aimee in the hallway.

Of course, she was ensconced in a nest of friends. Not the right environment for the kind of interrogation I had in mind. And she might be a little suspicious if I tried to lure her away.

Just then I felt a hand curl around my waist.

“Even the monkeys like you,” Chris said.

“So this isn’t a serious pass, just a case of monkey see; monkey do,” I said, disentangling myself.

“I’m serious,” Chris said, pointing up. “Look at them.”

I glanced up. The perpetually solemn faces of half a dozen monkeys gazed down at me.

“Of course there are monkeys up there,” I said. “There are monkeys everywhere.”

“Yeah, but these are following you up and down the hallway,” Chris said.

“It is possible, you know,” said another voice.

I turned to see Brad, Salome’s keeper, carrying two McDonald’s bags.

“They often form attachments to individual humans,” Brad went on. “Especially ones they perceive as dominant within their social group.”

With that, he turned and strolled down the hall toward the entrance to Salome’s lair, nearly invisible under its covering of vines.

“Very perceptive, these monkeys,” Chris said, suppressing a grin, “and delightfully uninhibited.”

He pointed to a pair of monkeys who appeared to be mating, oblivious to the chaos around them.

“You would notice that,” I said. “I always thought that if you put an infinite number of monkeys in a room, they were supposed to rewrite Shakespeare. These monkeys are not performing up to expectations.”

“Someone forgot the infinite number of typewriters,” Chris said.

“Look, do me a favor, will you?” I asked.

“Will I earn your eternal gratitude?” he asked.

“I don’t know about eternal,” I said, “but you will make me grateful enough to significantly increase the odds that I show up for tonight’s Blazing Sabers performance.”

“Ask away, O Dominant One,” Chris said.

“What are the odds that you can cut one fan out of the herd and lure her into the tiger’s lair?” I asked.

“My kind of assignment,” he said. “I assume you mean a particular one?”

“The blonde over there,” I said, trying to point discreetly, “standing in the middle of that group of decoratively if scantily attired young ladies.”

“The one with the red rhinestone in her navel?”

“That’s her.”

“One blond groupie, coming up,” Chris said. “Meet you in the lair.”

“Just shove her in and wait outside.”