Shamus In The Green Room (16 page)

want to bump into him. But maybe there was no one there.

Maybe it wasn’t a break-in. Maybe it was just the wind. I took

several deep breaths and listened to the silence.

One, two, three, four, five.

Nothing.

I tiptoed toward the closed door of my bedroom and slowly

turned the knob.

Six, seven, eight, nine—all of a sudden, I felt something

touch me, and I let out a piercing scream.

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To my chagrin, I realized that what had touched me was

Buster, who seemed to think this was a good time for an early-

morning stroll. I scooped him up and moved cautiously down

the hall.

Still no sound.

I glanced into the bathroom. The usual mess.

Into Annie’s old room. Ditto.

Into the kitchen. Ditto. I reached into the drawer and

pulled out a corkscrew. I would’ve gotten the butcher knife,

but it was in the sink, with bits of fontina cheese stuck on it.

Fight or flight?

I’m from Jersey. Please.

“Who’s here?” I called out. Then, again, in a louder voice,

“Get the hell out of my house!”

There was no response.

“I have nothing!” I screamed at the top of my lungs. “Not

even a big-screen TV!”

Still no answer.

Whoever had been here was gone. That was something, at

least.

Corkscrew still in hand, I walked into the dining room,

which faced the street. And right away I saw it, in one of the

windows.

Lines radiating out in all directions, like the filaments of a

spider’s web. At the center, a small hole, maybe a third of an

inch in diameter.

A hole the size of a bullet.

I brought my hand up to my mouth. The corkscrew slipped

to the floor. I looked down, dazed. Tiny bits of glass glittered,

like diamonds.

Now Buster started barking.

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“You’re a little late, boy,” I breathed in his ear. He wriggled

out of my grip and ran in the other direction.

But it didn’t make sense. Burglars don’t shoot into houses

and then just go away.

Then, with a shiver, I remembered the bad guys.

The bad guys Maren was involved with.

The bad guys she was running from.

Maybe they knew I was asking about Maren. Maybe they

knew she wasn’t dead. Maybe they thought I knew where she

was. But that was absurd. How could they know any of it? I

didn’t even know if they existed.

I peered out the dining room window. The sun was starting

to come up. A Laura Scudder’s potato chip truck thundered

down the street. The sky was filled with gray clouds. It was go-

ing to rain. I sidestepped the glass, walked over to the front

door, and cautiously, taking my time, opened it and looked

outside.

It didn’t look like the end of the world. It looked, in fact,

like a perfectly ordinary day. Butch was walking his terrier.

Marlene was roaming the street in her ancient dressing gown,

carrying two cans of cat food. The trash containers were out

front, waiting for the early-morning pickup. The L.A. Times

was right where it belonged, on my welcome mat. And there

was the New York Times, in its blue plastic wrap, just under the

broken window.

Oh, shit.

Of course it wasn’t a bullet hole.

Me and my taste for drama.

It was the paper guy: he’d hit the window with the New

York Times, and broken it.

I laughed out loud.

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Man, oh, man—he could’ve at least had the courtesy to

ring the bell and let me know. I picked up the papers, brought

them inside, and put on a pot of coffee. I’d sweep everything

up after coffee. I had masking tape somewhere. I’d cover the

hole until I could get the glass company over here.

The delivery guy missed.

That was all.

I spent the rest of the day thinking it was so.

CHAPTER

EIGHTEEN

In all the commotion I wound up missing breakfast, which

was a good thing because when I finally found Rafe in the

lounge just off the rear entrance of the Beverly Wilshire Hotel,

he forced me to ingest a lobster corn dog with sweet-and-spicy

mustard, a mini ahi-tuna burger with onion marmalade and

apple-smoked bacon, and a smoked-salmon pizzelle with shallot-

chive crème fraîche and caviar, which only in Beverly Hills con-

stituted bar food.

“The management sent them over,” Rafe said, tipping his

cap in the direction of the hostess, who was on the phone, no

doubt alerting sundry friends and relations that Rafe Simic was

in the house. “Siri would kill me if I ate shit like that.”

“Do I look like a trash can?” I asked, licking my fingers.

“Don’t answer that.”

Rafe signaled for the waiter, who came over accompanied

by a busboy holding a sheet of hotel stationery and a pen.

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“Can you sign this for my aunt?” he asked shyly. “She loves

your movies.”

“No problem,” said Rafe. “What’s her name?”

“Angelica.”

“Did you need something else, sir?” the waiter asked.

Rafe handed the autograph to the busboy with a smile.

“Two Beverly Hills iced teas.” The waiter bowed his head as

they left.

A couple in matching warm-up suits clutching Niketown

bags appeared in their wake. “Can we get a picture with you

two?” The wife had a New Jersey accent. It made me homesick.

I still owed my mother a call. But I was hanging up if she ut-

tered so much as a word about the bat-wing-sleeve sweater. My

mother disapproves of my passion for vintage clothing. Actu-

ally, she disapproves of me in general.

“Earth to Cece,” said Rafe. He pulled me close while the

husband drafted the hostess into taking the shot. They had

brand-new camera equipment, so we all had a short tutorial.

Following their departure, the waiter appeared with our

drinks. They were impressive. Mint leaves, umbrellas, and

cherries were involved. I consulted the menu. A Beverly Hills

iced tea consisted of Bombay Sapphire gin, Ketel One vodka,

Cointreau, and lime juice, topped off with Veuve Cliquot. Just

the thing for an eleven a.m. business meeting, if that’s what

this in fact was.

I took a sip and studied Rafe doing the same. Siri was really

doing a number on him. He was looking awfully thin—a lot, in

fact, like Hammett on the original dust jacket for The Thin

Man, except for the slouchy tweeds, hat, and cane part. That was

the point, of course. Siri was getting paid what was no doubt a

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serious wage. And the movie started shooting in exactly nine

days.

That photo of Hammett was famous. It played off of

Knopf’s promotional material, in which the author’s charm

figured as much as the book’s racy content. It also made the

case that Hammett had based the suave drunk, Nick Charles,

on himself. But Nick was not, in fact, the thin man. The thin

man wasn’t the hero of the piece. The thin man was the vic-

tim, the murdered inventor, Clyde Wynant.

Nobody sees him come, nobody sees him go.

Rafe rubbed his upper lip distractedly.

“Is that a mustache you’re growing?” Hammett was famous

for his mustache.

“It’s an experiment,” Rafe answered. “What do you think

of your iced tea?”

I took another sip. “Good. But I think we should get

started. Did you see the vitrine in the corridor?”

“The one with the Pretty Woman script in it?”

Pretty Woman had been filmed at the Beverly Wilshire,

which was Hollywood’s vision of Old World luxe. Back in the

thirties, when Hammett lived here, it must’ve been something,

but the Four Seasons chain, which had bought it recently, put

way too much stock in marble and crystal, if you asked me.

“No, of course not,” I answered. “I meant the one with the

Hammett memorabilia.”

“I was supposed to do a movie with Julia Roberts last year,

but the financing fell through.” Rafe’s phone rang. “Excuse me.”

Movie people liked to talk about other movie people. Also,

herbs and dietary restrictions. That about summed it up.

Now my phone was ringing. Actually, it was Gambino’s.

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I’d charged it up and taken it with me, because mine was un-

findable, as usual.

“Hello?”

They hung up.

“Wrong number?” Rafe asked. “Sorry, I’m on hold. It’ll be

just a minute.” He pulled out his wallet and started rearranging

his credit cards.

“They have a three-page manuscript in that vitrine,” I said,

apparently for my own benefit exclusively, “with a page of hand-

written notes, from Hammett’s last, unpublished story, ‘Some-

thing, Somewhere Else.’ ”

Rafe indicated his cell. “I hate when they play elevator

music.”

“In those notes,” I persisted, “it looked like Hammett was

working through names: Abe (Swede) Grundquist, Lee Branch,

Paulie Horris. You can see the list he made out. He was a ge-

nius at names: Tin-Star Joplin, Bunny Keough, the Whosis

Kid.” I paused, waiting for a sign of life. I was getting tired of

fighting for this man’s attention.

“Rafe? Hello? Calling Rafe Simic!” I shouted the words into

my mini-microphone. “Nine days until D-day!”

“I don’t have earphones on, Cece,” he said coolly. “What

are you doing?”

My phone started ringing again.

“Who is this?” I snapped.

“It’s me,” Gambino said. “Look, just turn off my phone,

okay? Then you won’t be bothered. Any calls will go straight to

the machine.”

“Love you,” I said grimly, hanging up.

Rafe hung up, as well.

“Let’s get another round,” he said, starting to signal the

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waiter. “You do remember the party tonight, right? My place,

around nine. Bring whoever.”

I pushed my drink away and slammed my napkin onto the

table. “Are you feeling prepared, Rafe? Are you ready to play

Dashiell Hammett? Do you understand what made him tick?

Have you ever even heard of the House Un-American Com-

mittee? Do you realize Hammett was grilled by Roy Cohn,

that he went to jail rather than betray his friends? Do you

know about the whole Lillian Hellman thing? How she com-

mandeered his legacy? I’m asking because I’m getting the sense

that you’re pretty much done with my services. And if that’s

the case, that’s fine, really it is. Because the last thing I want to

do is bore you.”

I stood up, shaking with rage. I knew it was misdirected, at

least partially. I was still upset about what’d happened in the

morning. But I was also angry. Angry at myself for what I

hadn’t done. Angry at Rafe for what he had done. The things I

knew about, and the things I didn’t.

Rafe looked surprised. “Cece, c’mon. You knew from the

beginning that I wasn’t exactly a model student.” His laughter

rang hollow. “Seriously, this has been kind of intense for me,

this whole thing. But you’re off the hook, believe me. You’ve

done a good job.”

“Spare me, please.”

“I didn’t tell you, but I finally finished your book. It wasn’t

easy, but I did it.” He started fiddling with his key ring, then

stuck it in his pocket. “So I get it. I get the left-wing politics. I

get what led up to it—that part I really get. I get that Hammett

fucked up in Hollywood. I know about all the money he owed

the hotel, the parties, the hookers he brought up to the pent-

house. How he infuriated the studio by not attending meetings,

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blowing off his responsibilities. How he nursed this fantasy of

writing a real novel while shoveling shit for MGM. Things got

kind of out of hand. He was making a hundred thousand a

year during the Depression. It’s hard to handle all that money,

and even harder to live with people’s expectations.”

He stared into space for a minute, then pulled out his key

ring and started playing with it again.

I blinked hard, then sat down.

“People count on you,” Rafe went on in a quiet voice, “for

whatever they need. You give them what they need, they’re

happy. The machine keeps on humming. You let them down, it

comes grinding to a halt. That’s how it works. The pressure

sucks. It can get so bad that you just want to escape. Into

booze, sex, whatever. Because you know you’re not good

enough. You’ll never be good enough. You fooled them for a

while, but they’ll figure you out soon enough. And then what

do you have? You get by on luck, but what good are you if your

luck’s gone?”

He almost had me, until he got to that last line.

It was stolen directly from The Glass Key.

I looked him in the eye, and he gave me a wicked smile.

At that moment, he looked exactly like a blond Satan.

CHAPTER

NINETEEN

Another round of Beverly Hills iced teas later, we went

our separate ways.

Rafe went to pick up the alcohol for his party.

I went to see the man Maren Levander had accused of rape.

Oscar Nichols. A legendary board shaper at the age of

twenty. He was a shaman, a maker of magic. Those types don’t

stray far from home.

I found him no more than fifteen miles from Lunada Bay.