Getting Up With Fleas (Trace 7) (9 page)

I waited for a moment outside the door of McCue’s suite. I heard nothing from inside and then I tried the door. If it was locked, that meant McCue was inside because there was no way to lock the door from the outside. But the door opened easily.

I found the light switch and flipped it on. I was inside a small living room, with a dining table, a small refrigerator, a couch, but like my room, no television set. There was a large old Gestapo-style radio in a corner and there were paintings on the walls, not the usual Holiday Inn prints but large oils of pastoral scenes, stuff Chico told me once was from the Hudson Valley School of Painting. That meant less than nothing to me. I just envied McCue his refrigerator.

There was a locked dumbwaiter door in his wall too.

I walked into the bedroom, but the bed was empty and still made. I guess McCue must have dozed off on the couch in the other room for me to have heard his snoring so clearly. Hidden in this bedroom behind that heavy door, even he could snore without being heard.

I looked inside the bathroom just to make sure that the dippo wasn’t scuba diving in his bathtub, but it was empty. He was a more organized sort of traveler than I was because his shaving gear was neatly arranged on the shelf next to the sink. A half-dozen vials of drugs with prescription labels on them were neatly arranged behind the faucets. I glanced at them, but they all were capsules with little grains in them and they all looked like Contac to me. The physician’s name on each of the vials was Dr. R. Dedley.

But where the hell was McCue?

That was one big question. The other one was, Why did he rate a two-room suite with a refrigerator when I, the representative of the great insurance industry of the United States, had only a single room and not an ice cube in sight?

I tossed on a jacket and went downstairs. The dining room was dark and empty. There was a small night-light on over the bar, and on one of the tables were urns of coffee and hot water and cups and tea bags and sugar and cream and a pile of individually wrapped Danish pastries.

People must go to bed early around here, I thought as I looked at my watch—the old-fashioned kind with hands dipped in luminous paint that causes radiation poisoning of the wrist—because it was only eleven o’clock.

I thought about having a piece of Danish, changed my mind, and was halfway out the door when a voice called to me out of the darkness.

“Tracy.”

It was a woman’s voice, and I walked into the darkness of the dining room and found Dahlia Codwell at a table, still drinking martinis from a pitcher. The pitcher was full and cold with sweat.

“I thought it was you,” she said in her husky whiskey voice. “Birnbaum says you’re with the insurance company.”

“Right. Trying to keep McCue alive.”

“God, and I always thought there were some things people wouldn’t do, even for money,” she said. Without asking, she poured a drink from her pitcher into a glass and pushed it to me. “Have a drink. It’s fresh, I just made it.”

“Have you seen McCue?”

“He’ll be right back,” she told me. “Sit down.”

I sat and sipped the drink.

“So what do you think of our cozy little Hollywood family?” she asked me.

“I don’t know. I wasn’t ready for people dressing up like asparaguses,” I said.

“Arden is harmless. He just likes attention and he likes to play Cassandra. It’s the refuge of the witless.”

“Why witless?” I asked.

“Did you know, Mr. Tracy, that ninety percent of all movies take a bath?”

“No, I didn’t know that.”

“It’s true. So if you predict that any movie is going to be a flop, you’ve got a ninety-percent chance of being right. It doesn’t require any thought or brains. That’s what Arden does, and nine out of ten times he’s right and then people say how smart he was to predict it.”

“Are you trying to tell me that this movie isn’t as bad as everyone says it’s going to be?” I asked.

“Nine chances out of ten it’ll flop,” she said.

“If everybody knows that about movies, why bother making them?”

“Because it’s a paycheck for everybody: actors, directors, crew, trollops who think they’re actresses. And even on a flop, the producers steal a lot of money, so they wind up all right. And if it’s that one out of ten that makes it, then everybody can get very rich. Everybody keeps coming back for the dream. That’s the way it is.”

She refilled her glass and I said, “I’m very impressed, Miss Codwell.”

“By what?”

“By how much you can drink without collapsing.”

“It’s like getting to Carnegie Hall. It takes practice, practice, practice.”

“You said McCue said he’d be right back. Did he go to the men’s room?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t see him,” she said.

“Excuse me?” I said.

“I lied. I saw him going outside before and I heard his car start up. I wanted to give him a head start just in case he was on his way to get killed.”

“Thanks a lot, lady.”

“You might be upset, but the world will be better off,” she said.

I went out on the front steps. Sure enough, the white Rolls-Royce was gone. The son of a bitch had sneaked out.

It was only the end of September, but it felt like the new Ice Age had already started. It was freezing. Unfortunately, planning ahead wasn’t one of my strong suits, and there was no coat in my room. I was just going to have to be cold.

There was a guard at the gate and I rolled down the window and said, “Did McCue say where he was going?”

The guard was young and potbellied, with a mustache that hung down too far at the corners for my taste. Generally I find that people with Fu Manchu mustaches are people of low moral caliber.

He came over and looked inside the car, past me. “Which one are you?” he asked.

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t recognize your face.” He craned his neck trying to look on the floor of the back seat.

“I’m not an actor. I’m McCue’s goddamn nursemaid,” I said. “Now, if you’re finished inspecting the upholstery, where the hell did he go?”

“Sorrrrry,” the young man said, and I decided to get out of the car and hit him. Then I decided not to, just in case he was tough. He said, “McCue asked me where the nearest cocktail lounge was.”

“What’d you tell him?”

“I told him New York City. He wasn’t going to find no cocktail lounge up here. He said something like, Young man, a watering hole, if you please, and so I sent him to the Canestoga Tavern. You know where it is?”

“Yeah.”

“You going to get him out of there?”

“Yeah.”

“That should be fun. He was six sheets to the’ fucking wind.”

“That’s all right. So am I.”

I was a little surprised to see the parking lot around the Canestoga Tavern jammed with cars until I remembered that it was Thursday night—payday in most of the uncivilized world—and all those potbellied beer drinkers with wire cutters hanging from their belts would be in there getting shit-faced.

How long would it be before one of them decided to make himself a local reputation by punching out a big “moom pitchur” star? If one of them hadn’t already…

As I walked to the front door, I saw a basketball game on the television set. I didn’t see anyone flying through the air. Thank God for small favors.

There were a dozen men at the bar and McCue was sitting in the middle of them. There were a dozen glasses in front of him, half of them already empty.

Everyone looked over as I came in, and when McCue saw me, he yelled, “Hey, Trace, old peckerhead, come on over and have a drink.”

Somebody made room for me next to him at the bar, and I said, “Well, at least you’re not in a fight. I had this vision of picking up your battered body.”

“I learned a trick from Kirk Douglas that keeps me alive in strange saloons,” he said.

“What’s that? Snarl and grow a dimple?”

“No. I walk up and wait for everybody to recognize me and then I pound my fist on the bar and shout, ‘Every man in the house can lick me.’ That always seems to do the trick. Then I buy everybody a drink, and they buy me one back, and before you know it, we’re all friends.”

“And all drunk,” I said.

“Naturally. What in hell do you think I come to a tavern for? Hey, everybody, this is my friend Trace.”

Some guy with a stomach that belonged to the ages asked me, “You an actor too?”

“McCue, God bless him, answered for me. “No,” he said. “Trace is my bodyguard. Toughest guy in forty states.”

“Why only forty states?” the guy said, measuring me with a look that said I wasn’t so tough. I’d have agreed if McCue ever shut up and gave me a chance.

McCue said, “Because we haven’t been in fights in all fifty states yet.”

I said, “Thanks, pal. You’re on your way to getting my nose busted.”

“Think nothing of it,” McCue said with his best smile.

Before I could do anything about it, there were four drinks in front of me, and because I always worry about the people starving in India, I had to drink them. The bartender was the same charming fellow I’d met that afternoon. I told him no more drinks for McCue and me.

There were another dozen people sitting around at tables across the room, and occasionally one of them would pop up to the bar to buy us a drink. The bartender would nod and take their money and then follow my instructions and not pour us a drink.

The guy with the belly said to me, “You really that tough?”

The trouble with that question is that there’s no answer that doesn’t buy you trouble. If you say yes, you’re going to be challenged. If you say no, the guy’s going to think you’re making fun of him and you’re going to be challenged.

I sipped my drink and said. “Tony doesn’t need me to do his fighting for him. He’s the toughest man I ever saw.” That’d teach that bastard. Let him get his own nose broken.

The bartender announced last call at five minutes to one. The room let out a collective groan.

“Sorry,” he said. “Closing’s at one. Those are the rules.”

“You stayed open late last week when your stupid brother-in-law was here from Buffalo,” one man at the bar said.

“Yeah. But I was hoping he’d choke on one of the free drinks and die. Drink up. You guys are done for tonight.”

The guy with the belly went to the men’s room. I didn’t see him come out and I finally got McCue to his feet and told him we were leaving.

Naturally, he had to do an exit speech.

“Gentlemen,” he roared, and the bar quieted down. “We want to thank you all for showing us such a good time. We’ll be back again to see you all. Bring the wives and kiddies.”

He left two twenty-dollar bills as a tip. They vanished into the bartender’s hands with the speed of light, I guess before any of his customers could steal the cash.

Outside, I realized why I hadn’t seen the guy with the belly come out of the bathroom. He was standing near the trunk of McCue’s white Rolls-Royce, alongside a short wiry man whose lips sank in as if he had already taken out his false teeth in anticipation of trouble.

McCue was wobbling from side to side, lurching against me. He saw the two men standing together twenty-five feet away and staggered to a halt. “Trace, does this mean what I think it does?”

“I think it means you’re going to get your ass kicked,” I said.

“Surely you wouldn’t let that happen to me.”

“Why not?” I said.

“Damned if I know,” he said. “Wait. The movie. Think of all the people who are dependent on me. If I get a broken nose, there’s no movie. Oh, Trace. All those people out of work. The widows, the orphans.”

“Oh, you’re a pain in the ass,” I said.

I took a step forward and McCue said, “Across this land, women and children will go to bed, blessing your name in their prayers. God bless you, Trace. God bless you.”

“Listen,” I said. “When I’m killed, I don’t want anybody but you to speak over my grave. You’re the best I ever saw.”

“I’ll sneak you right into heaven,” he said, and grinned again. It was hard to be mad at a man who grinned like that.

I walked up to the Rolls-Royce and said, “What can we do for you, fellas?”

“You just back off, pal,” the one with the stomach said. “I want him.” He pointed past me at McCue. “I want to see if he’s as tough as he looks in the movies.”

“Unh-unh,” I said, and shook my head.

“You going to stop me?” he said.

“Look, pal, let’s not make this a talking contest. If Tony was allowed to, he’d wipe up the street with you. With both of you. But he’s on a movie and he’s not allowed to get his hands bloodied; it screws up the filming schedule. Now, we’re going to get in the car and drive away. If you want a fight, let’s get it on and get it over with, but let’s not stand here, who said, you said, I said, what said, it’s too goddamn cold for that. What’s your pleasure, pal?”

“This.” He lunged forward from the back of the car and threw a big roundhouse right hand, so slow you could have preserved it in amber. I leaned back. It missed. I leaned forward. I didn’t. I buried a left hand deep into his belly, and the air came out of him. He tossed himself forward and threw both arms around me. I ducked, slipped out, backed up a step, and hit him a right hand in the side of the face. He dropped.

I turned toward the smaller guy with the bad teeth. Before I could say anything, McCue was standing alongside me. He told the smaller man, “It’ll take two tougher guys than you to take us on.”

Us? I thought.

“Now get your friend out of here,” McCue said, “before you find out what trouble is really like.”

The smaller man nodded, helped Beer Belly to his feet, and led him away.

McCue and I watched them go, then the actor clapped his hands together, and said, “Hot damn. I love bad dialogue.”

“Let’s just get out of here before they change their minds and come back with their seven brothers,” I said. “Can you drive?”

“I can not only drive. I can sing while driving. ’I talk to the trees but them peckerheads won’t listen to me.’” He was roaring unmelodiously at the top of his voice.

“I’ll drive,” I said. “Where are the keys?”

“In the car.”

“You leave the keys to a Rolls-Royce in the car?”

“If I don’t, I lose them,” McCue said.

“All right.” All the car’s doors were open, so I kind of shoved him in the back seat and drove away from the ginmill.

Great ride. He was singing “La donna è mobile” in pig latin. I looked around. Somewhere the son of a bitch had found a bottle and was drinking from it. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. I looked back toward the road and he said, “The great tragedy of my life. I could have been a great operatic tenor.”

“What went wrong?”

“I turned out to be a baritone.”

“Right,” I said. “Who wants to be a baritone? The tenors get all the songs and all the women.”

“Exactly. It’s always the tenors who are hoisting their glasses and raising their voices in song. Baritones don’t get shit to sing,” he bellowed. “They might as well hum, for all anybody cares. I couldn’t stand not being noticed.”

“I’ve observed that peculiarity,” I said.

The guard at the gate was disappointed when he saw me driving, but he brightened when he saw Tony sprawled across the back seat, screaming, savaging “Di quella pira” from
Trovatore
.

“For you, my good and faithful servant,” Tony said, and handed the guard the bottle.

“Thanks,” the guard said as he went to open the gate.

“Don’t worry, Trace, I’ve got more,” McCue shouted into my ear.

I parked the car and left the keys in it. What the hell. I could be every bit as irresponsible as he was. Then I helped him up the steps toward the darkened Canestoga Falls Hotel.

There was a small night-light on as I helped McCue up the stairs.

He said, “Do you want me to recite ‘The Face on the Barroom Floor’?”

“No.”

“Okay. Then I’ll sing. “Oh, you can’t chop your poppa up in Massachusetts, not even if it’s meant as a surprise…”

“Shhh,” I said.

“Ooops, sorry. People sleeping, right?”

“Right. Listen, we’ve got to make a deal.”

“I’m all ears.”

“You stop trying to sneak out on me,” I said. “It’s a pain in the ass to have to drive around trying to find you.”

“That sounds like a rotten deal to me,” he said. “What do I get out of it?”

“I won’t try to stop you from drinking.”

“No?” he said.

“No. I don’t give a rat’s ass how much you drink.”

“Okay,” he said.

“A deal?”

“You have the word of a thespian on it.”

“What’s that worth?” I asked.

He stopped in the middle of the hallway, separated himself from me, and drew himself up to his full height. “Sir, I never lie. I deceive, but I never lie.”

“I’ll remind you of that,” I said. I left him off in front of his door and went back to my own room. On the floor inside the door, I found a note.

It read: “Your father called tonight. Telephone him tomorrow. Important.” It was signed “Snapp.”

If it had been real important, Sarge would have said to call him tonight, so I put that out of my mind and began to undress.

As I laid my jacket and shirt over the back of a chair, I realized that Chico was unreasonable. She always said I was a slob because I hung my clothes neatly on a chair when I take them off. I think this is elegant; she thinks it’s clear evidence that I am a dirtbag.

“Where
should
I put them?” I asked her once.

“In the closet, like everyone else does.”

“Hah. How little you know. Only fourteen percent of American men put their clothes in the closet when they take them off at night, and all those men watch the
Phil Donahue Show
. I read that in Chapter 912 of
The Playboy Philosophy
. Nobody hangs their clothes up, Chico. Suppose they’re dirty. Suppose they’re sweaty. Then they dirty and sweat up all the clean clothes in your closet. Best wait till morning till you’re sober, and you can make an honest evaluation of the state of your clothes. I’m surprised you didn’t know that.”

“What difference does it make?” she had said. “You wear them again anyway.”

“That’s just the way things work out sometimes. My clothes always happen to be clean because I am a very neat and orderly person.”

“Your clothes are always reeking with alcohol that you spilled on yourself during the night.”

“If you’re going to resort to personal attack, I’m not going to discuss this with you anymore,” I had said.

There are a lot of things women just don’t understand. I took off my pants and neatly put them across the back of a chair. Then I took the jacket from the bed and put that on the chair and then hung the shirt over it. I took off my socks and laid them neatly across the tops of my shoes to air out.

Satisfied that I had done everything good breeding and simple hygiene required, I was standing there in my underwear when the hall door was pushed open.

Tony McCue stood in the open doorway, wavering from side to side, his famous apologetic smile on his face.

“What’s the matter?”

“I seem to be having trouble opening my door,” McCue’said. “They don’t make doors like they used to.”

“Did you try turning the knob?” I asked.

“My first line of attack,” he said. “When that didn’t work, I swore. Then I kicked it. Nothing worked. It’s hopeless, Trace. I’m a man without a home. Can I bunk with you?”

“No,” I said. I walked past McCue and down the hall. He followed me. I turned the doorknob and pushed his door open.

“It seems to have magically corrected itself,” McCue said. Suddenly he threw his hand up to his mouth. “Help me in,” he said. “I think I’ve got to do va-va.”

“Va-va?” I said.

“Quick. The bathroom,” McCue said.

I grabbed his arm and steered him through the bedroom. He ran for the toilet, lowered his head over it, and threw up.

That was it, I figured. Chico might want to be a detective and carry a freaking gun, but if the work involved helping grown men throw up, it wasn’t for me. Case closed.

I started for the door, then stopped. Suppose McCue decided to drown himself in the toilet bowl? I would stay, but I wouldn’t watch him, though. I couldn’t stand to see a grown man puke.

I saw McCue’s pill bottles on the countertop of the sink. One of the bottles was on its side and pills spilled out. I remember they had been neatly stacked when I was up here earlier, looking for McCue.

He flushed the toilet, stood up, and washed out his mouth in the sink. Then he splashed cold water on his face.

“Must have been something I ate,” he said. “God, I feel like shit.”

“You look like it too,” I said.

He brushed by me and walked back into the living room of the suite. I saw him empty the single tray of ice cubes in the freezer into a silver-colored ice bucket. He found a bottle of gin in a dresser drawer.