The Throat (92 page)

"Not yet, but
I'm going to take lessons," I said. "Do you have a phone book in this
room?"

Tom got up
and pulled the directory off a shelf beside his desk. "Lessons in how
to speak Millhaven?" He handed me the book.

"Just wait,"
I said, and looked up Byron Dorian's number.

Dorian
sounded unsurprised to hear from me: what did surprise him, mildly, was
that I was back in Millhaven. He told me that he was working on getting
a show in a Chicago gallery and that he had done another Blue Rose
painting. He asked me how my writing was going. I spoke a couple of
meaningless sentences about how the writing was going, and then I did
succeed in surprising him.

"You want to
learn how to talk with a Millhaven accent?"

"I'll have to
explain later, but it's important that the people I talk to think I'm
who I say I am."

"This is
wild," Dorian said. "You're even from here."

"But I don't
have the accent anymore. I know you can do it. I heard you do your
father's voice. That's the accent I want."

"Oh, boy. I
guess I can try. What do you want to say?"

"How about
'The police will be very interested'?"

"The
p'leece'll be very innarestud," he said immediately.

" 'This could
be important for your career.' "

"This cud be
importint f'yore c'reer. What's this about, anyhow?"

" 'Hello.' "

"H'lo. Does
this have anything to do with April?"

"No, it
doesn't. I don't want to go off on a tangent.' "

"Are you
saying that really, or do you want me to say it in Millhaven?"

"Say it in
Millhaven."

"I doan wanna
go off onna tangunt. The whole thing is to put your voice up into your
head and keep things flat. When you want emphasis, you just sort of
stretch the word out. You know how you say Millhaven?"

"Muhhaven," I
said.

"Close. It's
really M'avun. Just listen to the guys on the news sometime—they all
say M'avun. It's almost
maven
,
but not quite."

"M'avun," I
said. "H'lo. This cud be importint f'yore c'reer."

"That was
good. Anything else?"

I tried to
think what else I would need. "Movie theater. Beldame Oriental. This
manuscript has some interesting information."

"Movee
theeadur. Beldayme Orientul. This manyewscrip has got sum innaresteen
infermashun. Oh, and if you want to say a time, you know? Like five
o'clock? You just say five clock, unless it's twelve—you always say
twelve o'clock, I don't know why."

"I wanna meet
yoo at five clock to talk about sum innaresteen infermashun."

"Tock, not
talk—tock about. And ta, not to. Ta tock. Otherwise, you're sounding
pretty good."

"Tock," I
said.

"Now you're
tockin'," he said. "Good luck, whatever this is."

I hung up and
looked over at Tom. "Do you realize," he asked, "that you're probably
trying to learn to talk in exactly the same way you did when you were a
little boy?"

"I'm tryna
lurn ta tock like Dick Mueller," I said.

While Tom
paced around the room, I called each of them in turn—McCandless,
Monroe, and Hogan—saying that I was Dick Mueller, a good friend and
colleague of April Ransom's. I put my voice up into my head and kept it
flat as Kansas. H'lo. I jus happena to cum across this innaresteen
manyewscrip April musta hid beheyn the books in my office, because
that's where I founnit. Iss fulla innaresteen infurmashun, ya know?
Very innaresteen infurmashun, speshally if yur a p'leeceman in M'a-ven.
In fact, this cud be importint f'yore c'reer.

McCandless
said, "If what you found is so important, Mr. Mueller, why don't you
bring it in?"

Hogan said,
"The April Ransom case is over. Thanks for calling, but you might as
well just throw the manuscript away."

Monroe said,
"What is this, some kind of threat? What kind of information are you
talking about?"

I doan wanna
go off onna tangent, but I think iss importunt for you ta tock ta me.

McCandless:
"If you want to talk about something, come down here to Armory Place."

Hogan: "I
have the impression that we are talking. Why don't you just say what
you have to say?"

Monroe:
"Maybe you could be a little more specific, Mr. Mueller."

I wanna meet
you inside the ol movie theeadur, the Beldame Orientul, five clock
tomorrow morneen.

McCandless:
"I don't think we have any more to say to each other, Mr. Mueller.
Good-bye."

Hogan: "If
you want to see me, Mr. Mueller, you can come to Armory Place.
Good-bye."

Monroe:
"Sure. I love it. Give my best wishes to your doctor, will you?" He
hung up without bothering to say good-bye.

I put down
the receiver, and Tom stopped pacing.

"How much
time do you think we have?" I asked.

"At least
until dark."

"How are we
going to get in?"

"Who do you
think inherited the Lamont von Heilitz collection of picklocks and
master keys? Give me enough time, and I can get in anywhere. But it
won't take five minutes to get into the Beldame Oriental."

"How can you
be so sure?"

Tom let his
mouth drop open, raised his shoulders, spread his hands, and gazed
goggle-eyed around the room. "Oh. You went down and looked at it." He
came back to the couch and sat beside me. "The entry doors on Livermore
Avenue open with a simple key that works a deadbolt. The same key opens
the doors on the far side of the ticket booth." He pulled an ordinary
brass Medeco key from his jacket pocket and set it on the table.
"There's an exit to the alley behind the theater—double doors with a
push-bar that opens them from the inside. On the outside, a chain with
a padlock runs between the two bracket handles. So that's easy, too."
From the same pocket, he removed a Yale key of the same size and color
and placed it beside the first. "We could also go in through the
basement windows on the alley, but I imagine you've had enough B&E
to last you a while."

"So do you
want to go in through the front or the back?"

"The alley.
No one will see us," Tom said. "But it has one drawback. Once we're
inside, we can't replace the chain. On the other hand, one of us could
go in, and the other one could reattach the chain and wait."

"In front?"

"No. On the
other side of the alley there's a wooden fence that juts out from the
back of a restaurant. They line up the garbage cans inside the fence.
The top half of the fence is louvered—there are spaces between the
slats."

"You want us
to wait out there until we see someone let himself into the theater?"

"No, I want
you inside, and me behind the fence. When I see someone go in, I come
around to the front. Those old movie theaters have two entrances to the
basement, one in front, near the manager's office, and the other in
back, close to the doors. In the center of the basement there's a big
brick pillar, and behind that is the boiler. On the far side are old
dressing rooms from the days when they used to have live shows between
the movies. If I come down in front, he'll hear me, but he won't know
you are already there. I could drive him right back to the pillar,
where you'd be hiding, and you could surprise him."

"Have you
already been inside the theater?"

"No," he
said. "I saw the plans. They're on file at City Hall, and this morning
I went down there to check them out."

"What am I
supposed to do when I 'surprise' him?"

"That's up to
you, I guess," Tom said. "All you have to do is hold him still long
enough for me to get to you."

"You know
what I think you really want to do? I think you want to stick a gun in
his back while he's unlocking the chain, march him downstairs, and make
him take us to the notes."

"And then
what do I want to do?"

"Kill him.
You have a gun, don't you?"

He nodded.
"Yes, I have a gun. Two, in fact."

"I'm not
carrying a gun," I said.

"Why not?"

"I don't want
to kill anyone again, ever."

"You could
carry it without using it."

"Okay," I
said. "I'll carry the other gun if you come inside the theater with me.
But I'm not going to use it unless I absolutely have to, and I'm only
going to wound him."

"Fine," he
said, though he looked unhappy. "I'll go in with you. But are you
absolutely clear about your reasons? It's almost as if you want to
protect him. Do you have any doubts?"

"If one of
those three turns up at the theater tonight, how could I?"

"That's just
what I was wondering," Tom said. "Whoever turns up is going to be
Fielding Bandolier-Franklin Bachelor. Alias Lenny Valentine. Alias
whatever his name is now."

I said that I
knew that.

He went to
his desk and opened the top drawer. The computer hid his hands, but I
heard two heavy metal objects thunk against the wood. "You get a Smith
& Wesson .38, okay? A Police Special."

"Fine," I
said. "What do you have, a machine gun?"

"A Glock," he
said. "Nine millimeter. Never been fired." He came around the desk with
the guns in his hands. The smaller one was cupped in a clip-on brown
holster like a wallet. The .38 looked almost friendly, next to the
Glock.

"Someone I
once helped out thought I might need them sometime."

They had
never been sold. They were unregistered—they had come out of the air.
"I thought you helped innocent people," I said.

"Oh, he was
innocent—he just had a lot of colorful friends." Tom pushed himself up.
"I'm going to make the coffee and put it in a thermos. There's food in
the fridge, when you get hungry. We'll leave here about eight-thirty,
so you have about three hours to kill. Do you want to take a nap? You
might be grateful for it, later."

"What are you
going to do?"

"I'll be
around. There are a few projects I'm working on."

"You have
somebody watching the theater, don't you? That's why we're not already
on the way there."

He smiled.
"Well, I do have two boys posted down there. They'll call me if they
see anything—I don't think our man will show up until after midnight,
but there's no sense in being stupid."

I carried the
revolver upstairs and lay down on the bed with my head propped against
the pillows. Three floors below, the garage door squeaked up on its
metal track. After a couple of minutes, I heard a steady tapping of
metal against metal float up from inside the garage. I aimed the
revolver at the dormer window, the alligator, the tip of Delius's
pointed nose. Fee Bandolier aroused so much sorrow and horror in me,
such a mixture of sorrow and horror, that shooting him would be like
killing a mythical creature. I lowered my arm and fell asleep with my
fingers around the grip.

By
eight-fifteen we were back in the Jaguar, heading south toward
Livermore Avenue. My stomach was full, my mind was clear, and because
Tom's .38 hung on its clip from my belt, I felt like I was pretending
to be a cop. A fat red thermos full of coffee stood between us. Tom
seemed to have nothing on his mind but driving his pampered car. He was
wearing black slacks and a black T-shirt under a black linen sports
jacket, and he looked like Allen Stone without the beard and the
paranoia. In more or less the same clothes, black jeans, one of Tom's
black T-shirts, and a black zippered jacket, I looked like a
middle-aged burglar. About twenty minutes later, we were moving past
the St. Alwyn, and five blocks farther south, the Jaguar slowly cruised
past the front of what once had been the Beldame Oriental. On the far
side of the street, a black teenager in a Raiders sweatshirt and a
backward baseball cap squatted on his haunches and leaned against the
yellow brick wall of a supermarket. When Tom glanced at him through the
Jaguar's open window, the teenager shook his head sharply and bounced
to his feet. He flipped a wave toward the Jaguar and started walking
north on Livermore, rolling from side to side and tilting his head back
as if listening to some private music.

"Well, no
one's gone in through the front yet, anyhow,"

Tom said.

"Who's that?"
I indicated the swaggering boy.

"That's
Clayton. When we get to the alley, you'll see Wiggins. He's very
reliable, too."

"How did you
happen to meet them?"

"They came to
visit me one day after seeing a story in the
Ledger
. I think they were
about fourteen, and I believe they took the bus." Tom smiled to himself
and turned off to the right. Directly ahead of us on the left was a
white building with a sign that read
MONARCH PARKING
.
"They wanted to know if the story in the paper was true, and if it was,
they wanted to work for me." Tom turned into the garage and drove up to
the
STOP HERE
sign. "So I tried them out on a few
little things, and
they always did exactly what I asked. If I said, stand on the corner of
Illinois Avenue and Third Street and tell me how many times a certain
white car goes past you, they'd stand there all day, counting white
cars."

We got out of
the Jaguar, and a uniformed attendant trotted toward us on the curved
drive sloping down to the lower floor. He saw the Jaguar and his face
went smooth with lust. "Could be any time between two and six in the
morning," Tom said. The attendant said that was fine, he'd be there all
night, and took the keys, barely able to look away from the car. He
went into his booth and returned with a ticket.

Tom and I
walked out of the garage into the beginning of twilight. Grains of
darkness bloomed in the midst of the fading light. Tom turned away from
Livermore, crossed the street, and led me into the alley at the end of
the block. Ten feet wide, the alley was already half in night. A tall
boy leaning against a dumpster up at the far end straightened up when
we moved in out of the light. "Wiggins?" Tom asked. "Nope," said
Wiggins, his voice soft but carrying, "but check that chain." He gave
Tom a mock salute and sauntered off.