Umney's Last Case (6 page)

`Òf course I do,'' I said, and I did. I just couldn't come up with it, that was all-it was stuck there on the tip of my

tongue, like Mavis Weld's phone number, which had been BAyshore something-or-other.

``How about your mother's?''

``Quit playing games with me!''

``Here's an easy one--what high school did you go to? Every red-blooded American man

remembers what school he

went to, right? Or the first girl he ever went all the way with. Or the town he grew

up in. Was yours San Luis

Obispo?''

I opened my mouth, but this time nothing came out.

``Carmel?''

That sounded right . . . and then felt all wrong. My head was whirling.

`Òr maybe it was Dusty Bottom, New Mexico.''

``Cut the crap!'' I shouted.

``Do you know? Do you?''

``Yes! It was--''

He bent over. Rattled the keys of his strange steno machine.

``San Diego! Born and raised!''

He put the machine on my desk and turned it around so I could read the words floating

in the window above the

keyboard.

``San Diego! Born and raised!''

My eyes dropped from the window to the word stamped into the plastic frame surrounding

it.

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

``What's a Toshiba?'' I asked. ``Something that comes on the side when you order a

Reebok dinner?''

`Ìt's a Japanese electronics company.''

I laughed dryly. ``Who're you kidding, mister? The Japs can't even make wind-up toys

without getting the springs in

upside down.''

``Not now,'' he agreed, `ànd speaking of now, Clyde, when is now? What year is it?''

``1938,'' I said, then raised a half-numb hand to my face and rubbed my lips.

``Wait a minute--1939.''

`Ìt might even be 1940. Am I right?''

I said nothing, but I felt my face heating up.

``Don't feel bad, Clyde; you don't know because I don't know. I always left it vague.

The time-frame I was trying for

was actually more of a feel . . . call it Chandler American Time, if you like. It

worked like gangbusters for most of my

readers, and it made things simpler from a copy-editing standpoint as well, because

you can never exactly pinpoint the

passage of time. Haven't you ever noticed how often you say things like `for more

years than I can remember' or

`longer ago than I like to think about' or `since Hector was a pup'?''

``Nope--can't say that I have.'' But now that he mentioned it, I did notice. And that

made me think of the L.A. Times. I

read it every day, but exactly which days were they? You couldn't tell from the paper

itself, because there was never a

date on the masthead, only that slogan which reads `Àmerica's Fairest Newspaper in

America's Fairest City.''

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

``You say those things because time doesn't really pass in this world. It is . . .''

He paused, then smiled. It was a terrible

thing to look at, that smile, full of yearning and strange greed. `Ìt is one of its

many charms,'' he finished.

I was scared, but I've always been able to bite the bullet when I felt it really

needed biting, and this was one of those

times. ``Tell me what the hell's going on here.''

`Àll right . . . but you're already beginning to know, Clyde. Aren't you?''

``Maybe. I don't know my dad's name or my mom's name or the name of the first girl I

ever went to bed with because

you don't know them. Is that it?''

He nodded, smiling the way a teacher would smile at a pupil who's made a leap of logic

and come up with the right

answer against all odds. But his eyes were still full of that terrible sympathy.

`Ànd when you wrote San Diego on your gadget there and it came into my head at the

same time . . .''

He nodded, encouraging me.

`Ìt isn't just the Fulwider Building you own, is it?'' I swallowed, trying to get rid

of a large blockage in my throat that

had no intention of going anywhere. ``You own everything.''

But Landry was shaking his head. ``Not everything. Just Los Angeles and a few

surrounding areas. This version of Los

Angeles, that is, complete with the occasional continuity glitch or made-up

addition.''

``Bull,'' I said, but I whispered the word.

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

``See the picture on the wall to the left of the door, Clyde?''

I glanced at it, but hardly had to; it was Washington crossing the Delaware, and it

had been there since . . . well, since

Hector was a pup.

Landry had taken his plastic Buck Rogers steno machine back onto his lap, and was

bending over it.

``Don't do that!'' I shouted, and tried to reach for him. I couldn't do it. My arms

had no strength, it seemed, and I could

summon no resolve. I felt lethargic, drained, as if I had lost about three pints of

blood and was losing more all the time.

He rattled the keys again. Turned the machine toward me so I could read the words in

the window. They read: On the

wall to the left of the door leading out to Candy-Land, Our Revered Leader hangs . . .

but always slightly askew. That's

my way of keeping him in perspective.

I looked back at the picture. George Washington was gone, replaced by a photo of

Franklin Roosevelt. F.D.R. had a grin

on his face and his cigarette holder jutting upward at that angle his supporters think

of as jaunty and his detractors as

arrogant. The picture was hanging slightly askew.

`Ì don't need the laptop to do it,'' he said. He sounded a little embarrassed, as if

I'd accused him of something. `Ì can

do it just by concentrating--as you saw when the numbers disappeared from your

blotter--but the laptop helps.

Because I'm used to writing things down, I suppose. And then editing them. In a way,

editing and rewriting are the most

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

fascinating parts of the job, because that's where the final changes--usually small

but often crucial--take place and the

picture really comes into focus.''

I looked back at Landry, and when I spoke, my voice was dead. ``You made me up, didn't

you?''

He nodded, looking strangely ashamed, as if what he had done was something dirty.

``When?'' I uttered a strange, croaky little laugh. `Òr is that the right question?''

`Ì don't know if it is or isn't,'' he said, `ànd I imagine any writer would tell you

about the same. It didn't happen all at

once--that much I'm sure of. It's been an ongoing process. You first showed up in

Scarlet Town, but I wrote that back

in 1977 and you've changed a lot since then.''

1977, I thought. A Buck Rogers year for sure. I didn't want to believe this was

happening, wanted to believe it was all a

dream. Oddly enough, it was the smell of his cologne that kept me from being able to

do that--that familiar smell I'd

never smelled in my life. How could I have? It was Aramis, a brand as unfamiliar to me

as Toshiba.

But he was going on.

``You've grown a lot more complex and interesting. You were pretty one-dimensional to

start with.'' He cleared his

throat and smiled down at his hands for a moment. ``What a pisser for me.''

He winced a little at the anger in my voice, but made himself look up again, just the

same. ``Your last book was How

Like a Fallen Angel. I started that one in 1990, but it took until 1993 to finish.

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

I've had some problems in the interim.

My life has been . . . interesting.'' He gave the word an ugly, bitter twist.

``Writers don't do their best work during

interesting times, Clyde. Take my word for it.''

I glanced at the baggy way his hobo clothes hung on him and decided he might have a

point there. ``Maybe that's why

you screwed up in such a big way on this one,'' I said. ``That stuff about the lottery

and the forty thousand dollars was

pure guff--they pay off in pesos south of the border.''

`Ì knew that,'' he said mildly. `Ì'm not saying I don't goof up from time to time--I

may be a kind of God in this

world, or to this world, but in my own I'm perfectly human--but when I do goof up, you

and your fellow characters

never know it, Clyde, because my mistakes and continuity lapses are part of your

truth. No, Peoria was lying. I knew it,

and I wanted you to know it.''

``Why?''

He shrugged, again looking uneasy and a little ashamed. ``To prepare you for my coming

a little, I suppose. That's what

all of it was for, starting with the Demmicks. I didn't want to scare you any more

than I had to.''

Any private eye worth his salt has a pretty good idea when the person in the client's

chair is lying and when he's telling

the truth; knowing when the client is telling the truth but purposely leaving gaps is

a rarer talent, and I doubt if even the

geniuses among us can tap it all the time. Maybe I was only tapping it now because my

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

brainwaves and Landry's were

marching in lock-step, but I was tapping it. There was stuff he wasn't telling me. The

question was whether or not I

should call him on it.

What stopped me was a sudden, horrible intuition that came waltzing out of nowhere,

like a ghost oozing out of the

wall of a haunted house. It had to do with the Demmicks. The reason they'd been so

quiet last night was because dead

people don't engage in marital spats--it's one of those rules, like the one that says

crap rolls downhill, that you can

pretty much count on through thick and thin. >From almost the first moment I'd met

him, I'd sensed there was a violent

temper under George's urbane top layer, and that there might be a sharp-clawed bitch

lurking in the shadows behind

Gloria Demmick's pretty face and daffy demeanor. They were just a little too Cole

Porter to be true, if you see what I

mean. And now I was somehow sure that George had finally snapped and killed his wife .

. . probably their yappy

Welsh Corgi, as well. Gloria might be sitting propped up in the bathroom corner

between the shower and the toilet

right now, her face black, her eyes bulging like old dull marbles, her tongue

protruding between her blue lips. The dog

was lying with its head in her lap and a wire coathanger twisted around its neck, its

shrill bark stilled forever. And

George? Dead on the bed with Gloria's bottle of Veronals--now empty--standing beside

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

him on the night-table. No

more parties, no more jitterbugging at Al Arif, no more frothy upper-class murder

cases in Palm Desert or Beverly

Glen. They were cooling off now, drawing flies, growing pale under their fashionable

poolside tans.

George and Gloria Demmick, who had died inside this man's machine. Who had died inside

this man's head.

``You did one lousy job of not scaring me,'' I said, and immediately wondered if it

would have been possible for him to

do a good one. Ask yourself this: how do you get a person ready to meet God? I'll bet

even Moses got a little hot under

the robe when he saw that bush start to glow, and I'm nothing but a shamus who works

for forty a day plus expenses.

``How Like a Fallen Angel was the Mavis Weld story. The name, Mavis Weld, is from a

novel called The Little Sister

By Raymond Chandler.'' He looked at me with a kind of troubled uncertainty that had

some small whiff of guilt in it.

`Ìt's an hommage.'' He said the first syllable so it rhymed with Rome.

``Bully for you,'' I said, ``but the guy's name rings no bells.''

`Òf course not. In your world--which is my version of L.A., of course --Chandler

never existed. Nevertheless, I've

used all sorts of names from his books in mine. The Fulwider Building is where

Chandler's detective, Philip Marlowe,

had his office. Vernon Klein . . . Peoria Smith . . . and Clyde Umney, of course. That

was the name of the lawyer in

Playback.''

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

`Ànd you call those things hommages?''

``That's right.''

`Ìf you say so, but it sounds like a fancy word for plain old copying to me.'' But it

made me feel funny, knowing that

my name had been made up by a man I'd never heard of in a world I'd never dreamed of.

Landry had the good grace to flush, but his eyes didn't drop.

`Àll right; perhaps I did do a little pilfering. Certainly I adopted Chandler's style

for my own, but I'm hardly the first;

Ross Macdonald did the same thing in the fifties and sixties, Robert Parker did it in

the seventies and eighties, and the

critics decked them with laurel leaves for it. Besides, Chandler learned from Hammett