The Black Marble (20 page)

He was halfway through the cigarette when Pattie Mae said: “I just don't know what's wrong with the schnauzer, Mr. Skinner. She's acting so strange. Like she doesn't even know us. Gosh, this morning she was licking you and jumping around every time you came near her. What's wrong with her, Mr. Skinner? I think she's gone squirrelly or something.”

“Squirrelly,” he said. Smoking. Staring off in the distance. Wondering if convicts get to have pets. The Bird Man of Alcatraz. Maybe they'd make a movie about him, his cell full of terriers. It might not be so bad. A few years if he confessed. By then the gamblers would forget. Well, maybe he'd make something from the movie and he could pay them. Get out, start all over. The Dog Man of San Quentin …

“Mr. Skinner, you're so pale. I think you're going to faint from the shock of being bit! You better sit down. Do you think I should call a doctor? Sit down, Mr. Skinner.”

Philo Skinner obeyed. He stepped woodenly over to his director's chair, sat, and smoked until the butt singed his calloused fingers. Pattie Mae put Vickie in Tutu's cage and said, “Mr. Skinner, since we're through for the day, do you think we could just load up and go home? Honest, I'm so tired I don't even want to stay for the end. I never thought I'd wanna leave early, but I'm so tired I just can't believe it. What a weird day!”

“A weird day.”

“Can we go home, Mr. Skinner?”

“Go home.”

“Yes, can we? Do you want me to go get the van?”

Philo Skinner looked around at the thinning crowd. The losers were already packing up to go. The bulk of the crowd would of course stay for the final judging, but a good many of the handlers who would not be part of it were folding up the exercise pens and grooming tables.

“Mr. Skinner, damn it, I think you're either in shock from that dog bite or you're tripping on that Colombia Gold. You wanna know the truth you're acting like a re-tard and I'm getting tired of it! Now you can fire me or not, but I'm going home! This is your last chance. Do you want me to get the van and help load up?”

“Get the van and help load up,” Philo echoed, and Pattie Mae was off in an ankle-turning jog toward the parking lot.

When they were loading the dogs into the back of the van, Vickie began making a fuss. She started whimpering, and then she began to bark. It was a throaty, frightened bark at first. Then it got chesty and angry.

“Hush. You hush!” Pattie Mae said as they loaded the grooming table, exercise pens, and animals. “Hush now.” And then: “Mr. Skinner, what's this schnauzer's name anyhow? You never did tell me. And I asked you ten times!”

“Name? Oh, that's Vic—Tu—” Jesus Christ, he'd almost forgotten he snatched Tutu too. Tutu too. Jesus! “The schnauzer's name is Fred.”

“Fred. A bitch named Fred?”

“How the hell should I know why they named a bitch Fred!” Philo was coming around, getting miserable and whiny again instead of catatonic. “It's probably short for Fredricka. Jesus Christ, I know lots of girls named Freddie. I know a guy named Shirley, for chrissake. Handles poodles. At least we call him Shirley, the stinking fag. Goddamnit, is it
my
fault they call her Fred? Let's get the hell outta here. I had enough dog shows to last a lifetime and I ain't woofing.”

Fifteen minutes later he was saying good-bye to Pattie Mae in the parking lot.

“You did a great job today, honey,” he said as she jumped out of the van and clonked over to her Volkswagen. “Here's a little thank you from Philo. Hope you didn't mean it about quitting. Think it over for a week.”

A week. In a week he'd be following the sun and she could have Skinner Kennels, her and Mavis. Maybe before he left though he'd get one last chance to throw this little bitch his bone.

She looked at the five-dollar bill contemptuously. “I paid more than that for the grass you smoked up,” she said. “Thanks a lot.”

“Wait a minute, Pattie Mae,” Philo whined. “I'm tapped right now. You just wait till your next paycheck. There's gonna be a little bonus in there from the boss. You won't be sorry. Just wait till next week. Meantime I'm gonna give you a call tomorrow night, talk about that dinner I promised you.”

“Yeah, see you,” she said, heading toward the beat-up Volkswagen.

“You wait till you get your check next week, sweetie!” Philo yelled. “Just wait.”

Yeah. Wait till next week, he thought. I'll send you a fucking postcard with a dog on it. A chihuahua! Puerto Vallarta, get ready for Philo Skinner!

But Philo Skinner had one bit of unfinished business before the crime was consummated—the letter. He got it out of the glove compartment and checked it over. It was a lulu. Bits of newsprint glued to a piece of plain bond paper, just like in the movies. Only trouble is, he couldn't find names in the newspaper that worked out. He had smoked dozens of cigarettes and sat up until 3:00 a.m. trying to find something that had a
whit
in it. The goddamn L.A.
Times
should print something with a
whit
but they didn't. He found the
field
easy enough. Then he searched futilely for the word
bitch
in a family newspaper. Then he realized he had to cut one letter at a time.

Philo had worn rubber gloves when handling the extortion note. He was doing fine after he got past the
Mrs. Whitfield
except that he smoked a butt too far down as usual, and since the gloves had been soaked in rubbing alcohol which he used to swab a tick bite on a Lakeland terrier, he caught his hand on fire. Lucky for Philo Skinner the basin of foamy water was handy. For once Mavis' failure to clean up didn't rile him. The burning glove barely singed his fingers.

When he finally got the extortion note glued and trimmed and scrawled with crayon, it said:

Mrs. Whitfield

By now you know you do not have your bitch. Keep the bitch you have until you get orders from me. You will hear from me by phone. I will get your unlisted number by calling Biggs Kennels tomorrow and telling them I am your friend Richard. You will instruct them to give Richard your phone number. Do not say anything more to Biggs or to the police or you will not see your bitch alive.

The
Richard
was in honor of Richard Burton, whom Philo would do his best to imitate as a retired don in Puerto Vallarta. Wouldn't it be something if Richard Burton's villa was the one Philo finally settled in? Wouldn't
that
be something?

Everything was going just swell until he encountered the residue of the Super Bowl traffic pouring out of the inadequate access roads to the Rose Bowl in Pasadena. Philo almost got catatonic again when a Pasadena traffic policeman waved him to a stop when he entered the area of the Arroyo.

A cop! I'll come peaceably, Officer! I should have realized that crime doesn't pay!

“Can't you go around, buddy? Where you heading, Linda Vista?”

“Pardon?”

“I said, can't you go around? You trying to get up to Linda Vista?”

“Linda Vista.”

“Well go around, buddy! Can't you see the traffic's backed up clear to the Bowl? Go around!”

And Philo went around, searching for the address in the dog show catalogue. He went around in a looping circle of ten miles. Philo Skinner ended up on the Ventura Freeway, got off, doubled back, got lost in Glendale, back on the freeway. He rechecked her address, looked at his street map of Pasadena, and was on and off the freeway three more times until he found the Mediterranean mansion.

Philo parked a hundred yards down the road near a score of Canary Island pine trees. Then, after looking in both directions, he moved along the stucco wall and past a wall of oleander, stopping every few seconds to listen for voices or footsteps. Nothing but birds, and sprinklers spraying vast lawns. Nothing but white oaks, pines and eucalyptus. Then he was at the iron gate. Philo stopped, looked both ways again, and broke into a lung-searing lope straight for the front door where he threw the letter. He scuttled back down the driveway, but after fifty yards he stopped. Philo coughed, gagged up a chunk of black phlegm and skulked back to the front door. He picked up the letter, glancing over his shoulder fearfully, and wiped the letter under sweaty armpits to remove fingerprints.

Two minutes later, looking as though he'd run a marathon, he was wheezing, creaking, gasping toward the waiting van where Vickie howled. She knew where she was. Her howls were heartbreaking even to Philo Skinner.

“Please shut up,” he begged. “You'll be home in a few days. Please shut your trap. Philo won't hurt you.”

Madeline was laughing and chatting with her friends and well-wishers, waiting in unbearable anticipation for the last stages of the competition.

“Mrs. Whitfield.” Chester Biggs' face was gray.

“Yes, Chester.”

“You better come. Vickie's sick.”

Madeline Whitfield's nightmare began when she tore her panty hose and cut her leg stumbling down the steps of the grandstand. She didn't remember running with Chester Biggs, banging through the crowds, bumping the stands of concessionaires, almost knocking a photographer on the seat of her pants as she was snapping a Pomeranian bitch for a proud owner who would pay anything to get
her
picture in a dog magazine and to hell with the bitch. It's every girl for herself.

The schnauzer looked as though she were dying. Madeline gasped and picked her up from the grooming table against the advice of a veterinarian Biggs had found.

“Vickie, Vickie! Oh, Vickie!”

“I think this animal's been drugged,” the veterinarian said. He put his hand on Madeline Whitfield's arm as she held the schnauzer against her face and cried, “Oh, Vickie! Vickie!”

“Ma'am, I think somebody's drugged your animal.”

“That's impossible!” Chester Biggs said. “How could anybody drug Vickie? I've been right here. Right here all the …” Then he looked at the kennel boy with the skin magazine sticking out of the back pocket of his jeans. “That's impossible!” he repeated, thinking about the lawsuit she might slap on him. I'll kill that pimply little son of a bitch! thought Chester Biggs.

The schnauzer's eyes were glassy and heavy lidded. She was gasping for breath. Her tongue hung to the side frighteningly. Madeline hardly recognized her.

“The animal's a bit better than she was five minutes ago,” the veterinarian said. “I think she's going to be all right.”

The kennel boy was already retreating from Chester Biggs, who looked like an English bulldog as he walked toward the horny kid with the magazine, and said, “Come here, Junior, I want to
talk
to you.”

Fifteen minutes later, the schnauzer was being rushed by Chester Biggs to Madeline's veterinarian in San Marino, who had been called from home and was in his office prepared to work on the bitch. Chester Biggs had one passing thought while speeding up the Pasadena Freeway. The schnauzer looked different. Almost as though the furnishings were … well, it must be her condition. She whined and squirmed around the floor of the crate.

Madeline Whitfield was sent home by the veterinarian, who suggested she see her doctor for a tranquilizer of her own. She wasn't in any condition to drive, and was taken home by the pimply kennel kid. He drove Madeline's Cadillac Fleetwood like it was a hearse, and spoke not a word.

The kid was wondering if he should take a bus clear out of the state. It wasn't
his
fault. It was that yawning fur on the broads in that magazine! But before the pimply kid went pushing, he saw the envelope on the doorstep. It had big newsprint letters stuck on it. It said: “Urgent.”

“Mrs. Whitfield,” he said, as Madeline fumbled with her keys and dropped them.

“Thank you. Thank you. Oh, I'm sorry.” She started dropping keys again.

“Mrs. Whitfield, this letter must be for you. It says urgent.”

“Urgent.”

“Mrs. Whitfield, give me the keys. I'll open the door.”

Three minutes later the pimply kid was high stepping down the road, jumping in the bushes every time a car came by that might contain the murderous dog handler, Chester Biggs.

It took Madeline three minutes to get the letter opened. She was literally bouncing off the walls. There were a good number of chairs, couches, settees in this part of the mansion yet Madeline couldn't seem to find a place to sit. Finally she sat at the kitchen table. She was holding the envelope in her hand, but she was so numb she didn't know what to do. She might not have opened the envelope were it not for Philo Skinner's criminal training at Saturday matinees. The bizarre bits of newsprint brought her around enough to tear it open. She had to smooth it out on the kitchen table. Two of the b'
s
had come unglued and were lying upside down on the table. Coincidentally, both
b's
were in the word
bitch.
The first sentence read: “By now you know you do not have your itch. Keep the itch you have until you get orders from me.”