Murder Takes a Break (34 page)

"And you brought in your cockatoo.
 
Whose idea was that?"

Franks gave me an indignant look.
 
"Well, it wasn't mine.
 
Lyman thought maybe we could get by with it, substitute one for the other, but you saw how they were acting out there."

No cockatoos!
I thought.

And then I thought,
But why not?
 
This bunch was just goofy enough to go for it.

T
he whole maniacal assembly was looking at me expectantly as I stood in the doorway between the cages of Gus and General Joe, which was the cockatoo's stage name.

"I've cracked the case," I said.

No one looked more surprised than Birch.
 
"You have?"

"That's right."

"Where's my parrot, then?" Voucher asked.

"Right there," I said, pointing to the cockatoo.

"Huh?"
 
I think all of them said it at once.
 
And then someone said "No cocka-- "

"Hold it!"
 
They held it.
 
"This is
not
a cockatoo.
 
This is Cap'n Bob in
disguise
."

"Huh?"

Birch caught on fast.
 
"I
thought
that bird looked familiar," he said.

"Are you sure?" Voucher asked.

"Let the cat out," I said.
 
"And we'll see."

Birch had to wake Gus first, but he finally managed to drag him out of the cage.
 
There was a feather in there, all right.
 
Birch and Franks had cleaned up, but they hadn't gotten that one.

Gus stretched out his front legs and spread his toes while his rear end went up high.
 
He swished his tail a time or two.

"Now, Cal," I said, and Franks let the cockatoo out.

It was hate at first sight this time, too, and General Joe shot off the perch like a V-2.
 
Gus sprang to a drawing board and then to the head of the guy wearing the aviator's cap.
 
He hit a hanging light fixture as he jumped to another guy's head, and then he was back on the floor, scuttling under tables and upsetting everything while General Joe patrolled the airspace and waited for a chance to dive bomb him.

By that time people were cheering and whistling and clapping, and even Voucher believed that his parrot was back.

In disguise, of course.

When Gus cleared the tables and the cockatoo dived, I snatched up a drawing board and got it in his way just in time.
 
He thudded into it and dropped to the floor.
 
Franks grabbed him and stuck him in the cage.
 
I didn't see where Gus had gone.
 
Probably to the supply room.

B
irch saw me to the door amid a general atmosphere of hilarity and relief.
 
"The Maltese Parrot" would be finished on schedule, Franks' cockatoo would be a star (in disguise, since he'd be drawn as Cap'n Bob), Voucher had his bird back (also in disguise), and all was right with the world.

Birch thanked me and clapped me on the back as he wished me well.

When I got to the Chevy, I took the "KICK ME" sign off and threw it in the back seat before I went to tell Gober the good news.

By Tom Piccirilli

P
arks got off the bus at the stop around back of Louie's Suds'n'Slop, where the whores and the moonshine runners rattled the trailers on the other side of the parking lot.
 
Louie's jukebox twanged and mewled about motherless kids, dying dogs, and broken hearts.
 
The yeehaws, boot-stompin', and the sharp crack of the cue ball busting up the rack made Parks' teeth ache.

So, after a pretty wild run of luck, he was already burned up.
 
You could swear ten thousand times that you'd never return to where you'd come from, but when you had no place else to go, you went right back.
 
Jesus, look at the place--he thought he'd never even come within a thousand miles of the whole damn state, and now he was home again.

The edges of his vision had been lit with swirling streaks of red over the last fifty miles of state highway, and now his hands were cold and aching.
 
For the last three days, it had felt as if a steel band had been tightening around his chest, another around his head.

Parks had been gone six years, married and divorced, and had written and directed two films.
 
The first had been a sleeper hit which garnered feel-good reviews and a fair amount of cash.
 
There'd been talk of an Academy Award nod.
 
Though it hadn't happened, the very buzz about the possibility was nearly as good as if it had short-listed.
 
He'd been prepped as a director to keep an eye on, and the studio had shined his ass and given in on some pretty stupid demands on his part.
 
When you can get away with it, you push.
 
So he did.

The second film had gotten him kicked completely out of the biz.
 
His wife had taken half of what he'd owned and the lawyers had chopped the rest down to a hole in the ground.
 
He learned quickly who his real friends were.
 
He didn't have any.

Now Parks was twenty-seven, bankrupt, and on his way back to see his older brother Floyd, who hated him, just so he could steal Floyd's land.

The ride wasn't over yet, and in some ways it was only starting.
 
It'd make a good story for cable three-four years down the line.
 
Rebuilding a career from the rubble, tragic figure rises to face new challenges.
 
He could sell it down on Wilshire Boulevard so long as it had the right packaging.
 
He could play himself once he got back into the game, so long as he had enough for the ante.

The farm was just under five miles from the Suds'n'Slop but Parks walked it.
 
He had no luggage besides a small satchel with a change of clothes and his latest script.
 
He didn't intend to stay long.
 
He already had a new attorney going through the paperwork back in Beverly Hills, but he owed it to Floyd to put in a visit face to face.
 
It was going to be hell.

Already Parks had lost all the calm and slickness he'd nurtured in L.A., and could feel it bleeding out from him as he moved from the highway onto the dark dirt roads.
 
There was enough moonlight that he could still see, but he didn't even need it.
 
He knew the way home and could find it blind.

It took about an hour.
 
By the time he saw the broad expanse of the farmhouse opening up through the starlit stalks, he was covered in sweat and smelled like his brother, his grandfather and father and all his many cousins who worked the earth.
 
He trudged up the trail of flattened grass past the rusted hulks of pickup trucks and tractors that spotted the terrain like lost battlements of the ancients.

Parks had just hit the first stair of the porch when Floyd flung open the broken screen door, said, "Come on in, if you must," and receded into the house.
 
The mousetrap hinges on the screen had squealed their last, with the screws pulled completely free from the rotting wood.

Parks stepped inside, feeling his mother somewhere behind him, out in the dark fields.
 
It got to him so much that he actually turned around and had to take a quick look.

Floyd was across the room drinking a can of beer, foam flecking his chin and collar.
 
He had a farmer's muscular arms and a trucker's gut.
 
His wife, Myrtle, had paled and softened into a doughy plumpness, and she now wore only a vacuous bovine expression of complacency.
 
Her vacant eyes skittered over Parks' face but she couldn't seem to place him.

They'd had four kids when Parks left for the west coast, but he didn't remember any of their names.
 
Now six children were spread out on the first floor, and there was all kinds of thumping going on upstairs.
 
Sounded like at least three more.
 
They looked so similar–-shaggy blonde heads, sexless placid faces, plain overalls–that he thought of them almost as a single child.
 
Seeing only the one kid at various stages of life rather than several running around.
  
Somebody dropped a plate of cinnamon rolls on the floor and called out, "Broom!"

Père Hull sat in a wheelchair in the middle of the room with a little TV tray in front of him, facing away from the television, which had a truck show on, guys screaming and engines roaring, crashing into shit.
 
The old man was crocheting a teal scarf that looked about twenty feet long already.
 
Even though the knuckles of his huge fists bulged with arthritis, the needles quietly clicked together at an incredible speed.
  
Parks was impressed.
 
His grandfather gave a grin and said, "You must be hungry.
 
Long trip you've been on.
 
Go eat something.
 
Come talk later, if you got a mind to."

"We're about to have dinner," Floyd said.
 
"Come sit.
 
We set a place for you."

So Parks went into the kitchen and stood at the foot of the table where he'd taken his meals for the first twenty years of his life.
 
He felt an odd tension as his head slowly crowded with mixed memories.
 
Not of the house or his family, but instead all the reviews, the pitches, starlets, agents, and executive meetings.
 
This life could swallow your entire future, all your ambitions and expectations, if you let it.
 
You had to hold on to whatever gave any kind of definition and meaning to your existence.
 
It's what got him writing screenplays and fooling around with a video camera in the first place.

The Brooms carefully seated themselves around the table.
 
Parks thought if he blinked too fast they might all converge into the one kid.
 
He kept waiting for chatter but there wasn't any.
 
Floyd made no introductions and Parks took the last remaining empty chair.
 
Of course, his brother had set his place in the same seat where he'd eaten all those years before.
 
Telling Parks, in a sly way, welcome back.
 
You thought you were out but you can never really leave.

They poured gallons of fresh milk, straight out of the cow.
 
The Brooms gave him the occasional glance but nothing more.
 
They ate in silence and Parks decided to do the same.
 
He kept clenching and unclenching his hands.
 
It felt like he had a touch of arthritis himself.

Despite the trouble he knew was coming, he still had an appetite.
 
In other circumstances, the meal would've been wonderful.
 
He hadn't eaten like this since he moved out to the west coast, where everybody was a vegan or bulimic or counting their carbs or getting their gastric bypass surgery.

Mounds of steak, mashed potatoes, fresh bread, and a number of vegetable dishes passed into his hands.
 
You had to pay four hundred bucks at Spago's to eat a third as well.
 
The American heartland.
 
He hated everything about it except the food.

They worked the plates across the table with the well-practiced actions of a fire bucket brigade.
 
As they were finally winding down, Floyd asked him, "Hey, you think you can help me with my pickup tomorrow?
 
I got to overhaul the engine.
 
Got my tools out on the porch, we can give it a crack before lunch."

"I don't know much about cars, Floyd," Parks said.
 
Christ, this could get out of hand very soon.

"You don't need to in order to help somebody out."

"That's true enough.
 
Give me a minute here, okay?
 
I'll be right back."

"Seein' the man about a mule, eh?"

Something like that.
 
Parks headed down the hall and past the bathroom to the gun rack on the wall.
 
Père Hull watched him but said nothing, the needles little more than a blur.
 
Parks drew the bolts from the two rifles and stuck them in his back pocket.

He did a quick search of the house, checking all the usual spots.
 
A loaded double-barrel shotgun rested upright in back of the hall closet.
 
Parks broke it open and emptied it, scrounged around on the shelf until he found a box with only six shells it.
 
He pocketed them all.
 
He didn't think Floyd would have any handguns around, but it would be best to check.