The Glitter Dome (18 page)

But some of these old turtles were surely intimidated by it. And they were intimidated by the death squads hurtling by at blurring speeds, and Al Mackey was saddened, watching a rolling turtle gamely trying to skate backwards to impress some coked-out raspberry rocket in a molded-plastic Wonder Woman breastplate with her shorts sliding all the way up the valley of dreams. She didn't even
see
the old turtle when one of his jerky backward turns almost resulted in a bolt of black lightning striking him at thirty miles an hour. Which would have sailed him over the railing, crashing him into the walls of mirrors, and that would have taken his mind off hills and valleys and nylon wheels and put him into dental reconstruction and plastic surgery. It was fascinating but frightening to watch after a while, when you considered the possibilities.

Martin Welborn had momentarily stopped his search for the bald beanpole and was captivated with one of the solo skaters who held the center of the rink, all but oblivious to the giddy kaleidoscope encircling her. Her hair was pulled back into ropes of ash and pinned to stay put when she did her figures and slides. Ballet on roller skates. Martin Welborn hadn't thought it possible. She wore a champagne leotard and stockings and buff boots. She seemed to be skating for herself, deep in concentration. When she came to the rail to speak to someone in the gallery she smiled, and her teeth were as white as Martin Welborn's, which meant they were probably capped, but he could see she was nearly without makeup and her heavy eyebrows and matted lashes were her own. The body said twenty-five years old. The laugh, the voice, the lines by the eyes and mouth and on that lovely neck said thirty-five at least. Like all policemen, Martin Welborn looked straight at the hands.

The hands told many things and couldn't be camouflaged. They revealed the sex when it was in doubt, the age, and especially the intention. Watch the hands, the old-timers always said. Nobody can hurt you if you watch the hands.

And once, when Martin Welborn was a rookie walking a beat on Pico Boulevard, he broke up a fight in an Indian bar and watched the hands of a drunken brave so closely the Indian kicked him in the balls and put him in the hospital for two days, the exception that proved the rule. However, hands did reveal sex and age, and
usually
the intention.

Her hands were forty years old, but they were long and lovely. She looked at Martin Welborn, but didn't see him. He wondered what she did, if she was married, if she was alone. He hadn't been attracted to a woman so strongly since Paula had gone. He had never ceased being overwhelmingly attracted to Paula. She was the most desirable woman he had ever known, and now that she was gone every sexual fantasy, awake or asleep (and they were few), involved Paula. Strangely, he did not torture himself with fantasies of Paula with other men. He only thought of her with himself, where she belonged. Yet he had no illusions. She had left him forever.

There was something about this skater. She glided back to the center of the rink and resumed her difficult exercises.

At that moment Al Mackey jumped out of his seat and hustled toward the railing. He'd spotted a hairless scarecrow in magenta skates weaving in and out of a stream of girls who were dangerously cracking the whip. He was agile enough to skate under the arms of each girl, who held the waist of the girl in front of her. Only occasionally did he make a girl break her hold as he shot in and out. They all seemed to know him and held their little asses back, allowing him to make the seemingly impossible maneuver. Several of the people in the crowd applauded.

Al Mackey was wondering if Marty had spotted the skater, when another fifty-five-year-old stringbean flew by Al Mackey's face in a russet-colored, Ted Nugent wild-man wig that trailed behind him like flames. Al Mackey realized that the russet rover could also be bald under there. It was futile.

When Al Mackey got up close to the railing and away from the obliterating cloud of marijuana smoke and the wobbly tits next door, there were dozens of them who
could
be Mr. Wheels. Super-thin is in. Everyone was nearly as skinny as Al Mackey. After having sand kicked in his face all these years, he was in
style
. As long as he spent his life in Hollywood, U.S.A.

Then he saw Marty waving at him from across the gallery. They went up to the snack bar and had a cup of coffee and agreed it was hopeless.

“I asked the manager and at least a dozen of the hottest skaters if they knew Mr. Wheels,” Martin Welborn said. “No luck.”

“I talked to a few who knew a ‘Wheels' or a ‘Wheely' and even one who knew a ‘Mr. Wheels,' but he didn't come close to the description,” Al Mackey said.

“You want to go bowling?” Martin Welborn smiled.

“Marty, you don't wanna start hanging around that bowling alley parking lot every night,
do
you?”

“Just a couple nights?” Martin Welborn said. “
One
night, maybe?”

“For what? It's a long shot that Mr. Wheels even
saw
anything.”

“There might be a connection. He's the only thing living and breathing in that parking lot at that time of night. Except for Nigel St. Claire on
one
night.”

“We haven't determined for sure that Nigel St. Claire
was
living and breathing when he arrived in that parking lot,” Al Mackey reminded him.

“You're going to have a
very
tough time proving he committed suicide.” Martin Welborn grinned.

“I'm working on it! I'm working on it!” Al Mackey said, as the girl with the tank top wiggled by. “Jesus, let's get outa here, Marty, before I go bonzo and rent me a pair of skates and go down in flames the first trip around the floor chasing some coked-out cookie in cutoffs!”

“Okay, let's go home, my boy,” Martin Welborn said. “But let's just stop by the parking lot for a few minutes.”

“Christ.”

“Just for a few minutes? We might get lucky.”

A few minutes turned into half an hour. And then an hour, as Al Mackey knew it would. They sat in the dark of the detective car and watched the empty parking lot.

“You know, Marty, you gotta stop taking police work so seriously,” he said. “After all, you've got twenty years on the job. You're supposed to know better.”

“Nineteen years and eleven months,” Martin Welborn corrected him.

“I'm ready to go home. I've had it.”

“You've got a weekend to recuperate,” Martin Welborn said.

“What're you doing this weekend?”

“Oh, I think I'll just take it easy this weekend,” Martin Welborn said. “Nice and easy.”

And though he did not know it at this moment, that was as far from the truth as a telephone call could take him. The telephone call would make it the most agonizing weekend of his recent life. It would be worse than the weekend when Paula moved out.

They saw the skater enter the parking lot from Gower Street. Or rather they saw a shadow moving faster than a man on foot could move. Both detectives got out of the car. The shadow moved closer and it was not shaped like Al Mackey and Mr. Wheels. The shadow was shaped like Orson Welles.

The rotund skater did a few figure eights and puffed back out onto Gower, disappearing at Hollywood Boulevard.

“Let's
go
, Marty!” Al Mackey said, and Martin Welborn reluctantly nodded.

But when they arrived at the station Martin Welborn got an idea. “One minute, Al. Hang around just for a minute, okay?”

“
One
minute. If I don't get to The Glitter Dome before eleven o'clock on Friday, Wing gets nervous. Guys like Buckmore Phipps are more dangerous to steal from.”

“Just give me a minute,” Martin Welborn said, leaving Al Mackey in the empty squadroom, where he began putting away his cheap plastic briefcase and making the closing entries in the log. He was about to write their time in the sign-out sheet when Martin Welborn came running into the squadroom with that kid grin of his, which Al Mackey knew would make Wing very unhappy, forcing him to steal from somebody else tonight.

“Look at this, Al!” he said, showing him two F.I. cards, forcing Al Mackey to admit that the cops who were called to tell “Mr. Wheels” to keep the noise down weren't lazy pricks after all.

“I don't think it would've occurred to me,” Al Mackey admitted.

The skater's name was Griswold Weils. He had no moniker of Mr. Wheels. It was just the natural mistake of skaters who, during casual nocturnal introductions while flying backwards through life in a bowling alley parking lot, thought he said
Wheels
, a natural handle for a skater. Hence, Mr. Wheels.

They found Griswold Weils in a likely place: his apartment on Catalina Street, as correctly listed on the F.I. card. It was a typical Hollywood two-roomer which said that the unemployment compensation had nearly run out. He was indeed bald, as skinny as Al Mackey, and was exceedingly agitated at having
Friday Night at the Movies
interrupted by two cops who dropped in to talk about a murder. In fact, he was scared shitless and sat reeking of fear on the daybed while the detectives straddled kitchen chairs.

“I woulda called the cops, if I knew something to help ya!” Griswold Weils gnawed on smoke-brown knuckle calluses. “I never saw a body, honest I didn't. If I'd gone to the bowling alley that night and skated over Mister St. Claire's corpse, don't you know I'd a called the cops!”

‘You read about it?” Martin Welborn asked.

“A course I read about it,” Griswold Weils said. “And I saw it on TV and everything.”

“Why are you so
scared
, Griswold?” Al Mackey asked.

“I'm scared a cops.”

“How many times you been in jail?” Al Mackey asked.

“A couple times. Nothing much. Never in prison or anything.”

“What were you arrested for?”

“I did some … photography once. Twice.”

“What? Porn?” Al Mackey asked. “Kiddy porn?”

“Yeah. Vice nailed me both times. I quit for good. Never made no money at it anyway.”

“What do you do for a living?” Martin Welborn asked.

“Cinematographer. I used to be. Made a few movies. Real movies, I mean. Features. Did some television. Got drinking too much.”

“Is that when you got involved making kiddy porn?”

“Twice,” Griswold Weils groaned. “
Twice
. I got busted both times. It was the booze. I been off the stuff for over a year. I been into skating. I discovered a talent I didn't know I had. At the age a fifty-two I discovered I'm a flyer! You should see me on skates. It's changed my life. I'm trying to get back into television. I was wonderful with a camera. I did three features! I was on my way before the booze got me. I'm making a comeback.”

When they
reek
of fear, a detective runs a bluff: “How well did you know Nigel St. Claire?” Martin Welborn asked suddenly.

“Officer! I swear to you. I never met Mister St. Claire in my whole life. I swear to you!”

“You're lying,” Al Mackey said. And then, embellishing Marty's bluff, he added, “Partner, I think it's time to advise Mister Weils of his constitutional rights.”

“For what?” Griswold Weils asked. “For what?”

“We have to take you to the station,” Al Mackey said. “We're investigating a murder. We have a witness who says that you know something about it. You're lying, so maybe you know
a lot
about it.”

“Witness?
What
witness?”

“Your mind's going, Griswold,” Al Mackey said. “You think you're
me
. You're asking me the questions now.”

And then Griswold Weils got up off the daybed and sat down again. Got up and sat down yet another time. He looked as though he could skate right through the window. It was easy to imagine a man like Griswold Weils flying blissfully through empty parking lots in the black of night, outdistancing all the goblins chasing him in and out of bottles. He
reeked
of fear.

“Stop … your …
lying!
” Al Mackey said, more confidently now.

“I don't wanna go to the station,” Griswold Weils said. “I last seen Mister St. Claire, oh, maybe five years ago. About the time I shot my last feature. I never did see him when I was shooting TV commercials.”

“Why don't you just tell us
everything
and you'll feel lots better and you can catch the end of the movie after we go,” Martin Welborn said, getting up and turning off the portable set that Griswold Weils must have gotten in a Western Avenue junk shop.

“Well, I … it's
possible
I talked to him recently on the phone.”

“It's
possible
you talked to him,” Al Mackey said.

“I talked to
somebody
.” Griswold Weils was doing enough eye blinking, lip chewing, fist clenching, to make even the detectives fidgety. “What did the witness
say
about me?”

“Let's just skate on down to the station,” Al Mackey said. “You can talk plainer there. In a little room. No windows. No distractions.”

“Wait a minute, wait a minute!” Griswold Weils cried. “I mean I talked to
somebody
on the phone who
might
a been Nigel St. Claire. Kee-rist, I don't even remember what Mister St. Claire's voice sounded like! Five years since I heard his voice. I only made the one feature at his studio. I was at the wrap party when he made us a speech. He came on the set maybe two, three times because it was a twelve-million-dollar show and that was a big feature five years ago. Today, they blow twenty million like I blow a deuce at the two dollar window. The business is ruined by the kid wonders.”

“Griswold, did the person who
could
have been Nigel St. Claire telephone you here at your apartment?” Martin Welborn asked.

“Yes … no … kee-rist, I'm all mixed up! First, I got a letter through my guild and they forwarded it to me. No letterhead. Some so-called producer called himself … let's see, Mister Gold.”