Buried Caesars (14 page)

He looked at Conrad and Wylie, whose guns were leveled at me. They didn’t look back at him or answer.

“Got a feeling they don’t want to make a deal,” he said. “Got a feeling they knew you’d say something like that. I told them if you did to be ready to shoot you if you pulled the trigger. God almighty, Peters, you would make a hell of a mess. And all it would get you is killed. Wouldn’t get you Hammett or the money or the papers. So, make your mind up. Shoot me and turn into an interesting pattern on the wall or put the gun down and have something to drink.”

“I think I’ll shoot,” I said.

“Suit yourself,” Pintacki said with a shrug. “Be a hell of a way to end all this. Problem is, I don’t scare. I got things to do, and you don’t get things done—important things—if you go through life scared. You’ve got to have nerve to give orders and get respect. Wylie and Conrad here know I mean it. They don’t understand it but they know I mean it. I got things to do, Peters, so shoot or put the gun down. I’m ready to meet my maker if you are.”

“I put the gun down and I wind up out in the desert like Lansing,” I said. “I might as well take you with me.”

“Like Lansing?” Pintacki said. “What the hell are you talking about? You know where Lansing is?”

“I know,” I said. “So I’ve got nothing to lose here by taking you with me.”

“What the hell are you jabbering about? I swear you are a confused creation of God,” sighed Pintacki. “Lansing’s hiding out somewhere. He gave me the papers and I let him keep the cash. That was our deal. I live up to my ideals and I abide by my deals. You can’t expect loyalty if you don’t live up to your word.”

“You didn’t kill Lansing?” I asked.

“I didn’t kill Lansing if he is dead,” Pintacki answered. “And if either of these two did so without telling me, they will eat every grain of the sand you walked through from now till Armageddon, which might not be that far away.”

“We didn’t kill Lansing,” Wylie whined, looking even more like a bulldog.

“We didn’t. I swear,” Conrad chimed in.

“See?” said Pintacki with a smile.

“Hower,” I said, feeling my grip on the gun loosen in my sweating and stiff fingers.

“Know about that one,” Pintacki said. “Didn’t kill him, though. Someone was trying to find Lansing and get to the papers before he got them to me. I think whoever it was asked Hower, who had the bad fortune not to know.”

“Or maybe he did know,” I said. “I knew.”

“Don’t know how you did that,” said Pintacki. “That’s one of the things we’re going to talk about if you decide not to shoot me.”

“You didn’t kill anybody,” I said. “You’re a saint.”

“A saint? No. A savior, maybe,” he said. “I’ve not always been kind to people and I’ll kill if it’s the Lord’s will, but the two sinners you mentioned, well, you’ll have to take their bodies to another doorway. Listen, I’ve got a way out of this. I count five. When I hit it, you put down the gun, shoot, or Conrad and Wylie cut you down. Helps you with your decision. Fair enough?”

“I’m grateful,” I said.

“One,” said Pintacki, stroking the cat’s chin.

I put my .38 on the table.

“Good choice,” said Pintacki. “You can rum off your flashlight too.”

I looked at the flashlight in my hand. I’d forgotten it was there. I turned it off, flexed my fingers, and waited.

“Hungry?” asked Pintacki. “Thirsty? How about a beer?”

I sat in the chair across from him.

“Conrad, put your gun down and get our guest a beer,” Pintacki said. “Great cat.”

“People seem to like him,” I said. Conrad handed his gun to Wylie and moved toward the kitchen door. “You want to keep him? He seems to like you.”

“Maybe,” Pintacki said, looking at the cat. “I’ll think on it.”

“Hammett,” I said. “Where is he?”

“In a room in the tower, just like a fairy tale. I gave him some books he wanted from the library and we had a good talk.” Pintacki put the cat on the floor. “That man loves to read. Tells me he used to spend every day in the library in San Francisco. Walk his wife and child to the park, leave them there and spend the day reading, reading everything, anything. Can’t say I care much for his lack of religion, or his politics, though. You a political man, Mr. Peters?”

Pintacki leaned forward on the table, his hands clasped as if my answer were the most important words he might ever hear.

“I don’t think so,” I said. “I voted for Willkie.”

Pintacki shook his head.

“And you’d probably vote for MacArthur if he came back after the war,” Pintacki said. “War hero comes home. Everyone loves him. Takes over, the country. Sets us back twenty years. After this war, Peters, we won’t have twenty years to make up. Look back at history. Jackson, Grant, Taylor. Military leaders set us back every time. Godless military leaders.”

“I have a feeling you have a better idea,” I said, as Conrad returned with open bottles of beer for all four of us on a tray, complete with pilsner glasses.

“I do have a better idea,” Pintacki agreed, pushing a bottle of beer and a chilled glass toward me. “But we can wait till morning to discuss it.”

We sat silently drinking our beer. Wylie drank his with his shotgun aimed at my head. The beer was cold and good. I grinned at Pintacki and he grinned back.

“It’s late,” he said, when we were finished. “I’ve got work to do and you’ve got thinking. Conrad and Wylie will show you to your room.”

We went through the kitchen and then through a darkened, wood-paneled dining room. At the head of the table in the dining room was a huge thronelike chair. I had an idea of whose it might be.

Beyond the dining room was a hallway; marble floors, marble-topped tables, big ancient rugs on the walls. The cat followed me. Conrad and Wylie didn’t have much to say. They guided me up the wooden staircase that wound around the wall of the hallway. We went down a corridor and through another door and up a narrow flight of worn-down stone stairs to a door, which Conrad moved ahead of me to open while Wylie stood below us, cradling his shotgun. The cat and I went in the room and the door was closed behind us.

I found the light switch and saw that I was in a small, round room with a bed. The walls were painted a dull gray and covered with oversized paintings of cowboy stars. Tom Mix, Ken Maynard, Buck Jones and Hoot Gibson smiled down at me. There was a table in the corner with a bedpan under it. The windows were narrow and barred.

“Cat,” I said. “We’ve got a situation here.”

The cat leaped onto the bed, curled up and fell asleep.

There was no radio in the room and nothing to read, not that I wanted to read, anyway. I ran my fingers along my stubbly cheek, sat down, took off my shoes, let the sand inside fall on the floor and then undressed down to my not-too-dirty undershorts. I flipped off the light.

It had been a tough night. It took me ten whole minutes to fall asleep.

A
door closing, a big, thick familiar door covered with something soft and sticky, maybe honey, closed in front of me. I had to open it. Something was behind me but I didn’t want to touch the door. Light exploded over my shoulder. I winced, opened my eyes and knew I’d been dreaming. Conrad stood near the barred window, his hand still on the drapes he had opened to let in the morning. The window was open and a slab of warm air eased through it.

“I dreamt I was in Cincinnati,” I said, tasting tin in my mouth.

Conrad didn’t answer. He turned, folded his arms over the front of his overalls and faced me, letting me see that he was wearing a holster in which rested a large pistol.

“How are you this morning, Conrad?” I asked, sitting up and rubbing my palm over my bristly face.

“I had my way I’d punch your face in,” Conrad said.

“Yeah,” I said, looking around the room. “It is one of those days that makes you glad to be alive.”

“Punch it right in,” Conrad repeated seriously. His eyes went dreamy, as if he were imagining my face being crushed by his fist. It gave him a calm, almost benevolent look.

The cat purred out from under the bed, stretched, blinked and looked around.

“I think you have something to clean up under the bed, Conrad,” I said.

“I don’t like cats,” he said. “I’d snap their necks if I had my way.”

“Then,” I said, standing up and moving on not-yet-steady legs to the dresser against the wall, over which hung a mirror and on which sat a round, solid-amber ashtray, which immediately gave me ideas—“the cats of the world and I are grateful that you don’t have your way and, judging from your need for supervision, probably never will have your way.”

“I’d snap your neck too,” he said.

“Don’t doubt it for a minute, my friend. Jesus. Look at that.”

I pointed at my face in the mirror. The dark hair flecked with gray clumped in different directions. The threatening beard was solid gray. It was depressing. The face itself had seen better days. It had to have seen better days.

“What more could you do to a face like that, Conrad? I ask you. No, I think you should stick with visions of neck-snapping. Smashing my face wouldn’t give you much satisfaction.”

I grinned at Conrad, who unfolded his arms, understanding for the first time that he was being needled.

“I don’t like jokes,” he said.

“No one likes what they don’t understand,” I said.

Conrad stepped toward me, his mouth slightly opened, his teeth clenched.

“I think you’re making jokes some more,” he said.

Conrad was ready to be plucked. He was bigger, younger, confident, and he had the gun. Nothing to worry about. Tired old detective with a gray beard. He’d crack me with his bare hands like a coconut. The cat could tell something was going on. He jumped up on the bed, sat and, pretending to be half asleep, moved his eyes from me to Conrad lumbering toward me.

I backed away from him and put my hand on the dresser. My fingers touched the heavy amber ashtray.

“Remember, Conrad,” I reminded him. “You don’t have your way.”

“I can just squeeze a little and make your eyes pop,” he said, holding his hands in front of me to show me what he planned to squeeze with.

If luck were with me—and it owed me one—and Conrad’s head were made of anything less than the chrome steel that failed to keep King Korig in check, he would be dreaming of Cincinnati in a few seconds and I would be out looking for Hammett with Conrad’s gun in my hand.

I blocked his view of the ashtray with my body and got a firm grip on the rough amber while I held up my free hand as if to keep Conrad back.

“I guess I can’t tell you I was just joking,” I said. “You wouldn’t know what I was talking about.”

He was in front of me now, ready. I was ready too, but the door opened and Wylie stepped in, shotgun in hand. He looked at the mirror and I could tell that he saw my hand on the ashtray.

“Conrad,” he said. “The man’s about to spread what little brains you got around the room. Just step away from him. Mr. P’s waiting.”

“If I had my way …” Conrad whispered to me.

“You’d never grow old,” I finished.

“You are a genuine crazy,” Conrad said.

“Come on,” Wylie said. “Let’s get him cleaned up. Show’s at 0900 hours.”

“Cat pooed under the bed,” Conrad said.

“Pooed? You mean he shit? Well, clean it up and come down,” said Wylie with a sigh.

Conrad stayed behind and Wylie headed me and the cat down the stairs to the lower landing and into a large bathroom with a claw-foot tub. On a rack hung a blue knit short-sleeve pullover shirt. My shoes stood on the floor with a pair of fresh socks rolled neatly between them.

“Shave with the Gem razor on the sink and wash up. New toothbrush and powder right there. Even got a comb and aftershave. Mr. P likes guests to be clean and respectable for the show.”

Wylie stayed safely away from me while I shaved, washed, brushed, put on the shirt, socks and my shoes. The cat leaped onto the sink and licked a few splashes of water from the counter.

“Now?” I asked.

“Show time,” said Wylie, pointing me out the bathroom door. We made our way down the stairs and through the front hall, where the desert light through the windows turned the inside of the castle orange. We made a turn into the big dining room, and Wylie nodded me to a seat across from Dashiell Hammett. The vacant place was set with plate, utensils, cup, glass of orange juice and linen napkin. I sat.

Hammett was shaven, wearing a white shirt and tie and an amused look. Pintacki sat at the head of the table, between us and not too close, a six-shooter on the table within easy reach. Next to the six-shooter was a movie projector.

Pintacki, open collar, looking cool in spite of the desert heat, motioned to Wylie, who. walked over and handed Pintacki his shotgun. Then Wylie disappeared through the door to the kitchen.

“Mr. Hammett and I have been discussing what I should do with you both,” said Pintacki, slicing a piece of ham and putting it in his mouth. “I’m for making you my guests for an indefinite period, till I sort out a few things. He’s for getting you both killed. Now, that might be what I’ll decide to do anyway but I thought you might like to have a little hope. A little hope can’t hurt. Might help.”