HE WOKE UP IN THE early morning with the night winds still ripping across the lake, tearing at the windows of his bedroom. He’d been dreaming hard, and when he woke he was sure the cops were hot on his tail for the murder of his wife—only he was tight-lipped, grim-eyed Alan Ladd in The Blue Dahlia, worried about the metal plate in William Bendix’s head, wishing he didn’t have to say goodbye to Veronica Lake. It took several scary minutes to get it all straightened out, and while he worked at it he clung to his blanket, holding it tight to his chin. The return of the lapses bothered him, intensified the unreality of the truth of his situation. But then, maybe that was the key to getting through what lay ahead: accept the unreality and play it like a movie. That was essentially what Morgan had told him the night before; she’d stressed that all you could go by in a situation such as his was what she’d learned from the mystery novels she’d spent her lifetime reading. Look, she’d said, this is the way they do it. He relaxed his grip on the covers and felt his heartbeat slowing down. He felt suspended uneasily between reality and illusion.
He had a hell of a time recognizing himself in the bathroom mirror, and over coffee and toast Morgan emphatically assured him that he looked like he’d just come back from lying in the Acapulco sunshine and bore very little resemblance to Toby Challis. “The eyes,” she said, “we can’t do much about the eyes …” She shrugged; as far as the eyes went, he’d have to trust to luck. Finally she stood up. “It’s time.”
She called the sheriff in Cresta Vista while Challis listened on the extension.
“Jeff, I thought I’d take your advice and check on the roads. I’d like to drive into Los Angeles this morning …”
“The sooner the better, Morg,” he said. “The snow’s supposed to start again this afternoon, but right now I’d say it’s okay.”
“I guess everything went all right with the kids,” she said.
“Sure, sure.” The sheriff sounded tired, harried. “Honest to God, Morg, I’ve never seen anything like the past few days. We’ve been going crazy since yesterday afternoon … the choppers got a break in the weather, went in, and found that downed plane … the prison plane, y’know? They found it just before nightfall, and we had a helluva snowslide between us and it about midnight. Worked all night on the snow, and this morning the wind’s too bad for the choppers, so we’re still trying to get there on the road. I’m telling you, I’m bushed.”
“Can they tell if there are any survivors?”
“Pretty hard to see in among the trees. It’s amazing they found it at all, really, with the weather and all … but they didn’t report any movement.” He sighed heavily and made a slurping noise. Challis could see the paper cup and smell the coffee in his mind. “All we can do is get there as soon as we can. Well, anyway, they’re honking the horn for me. So drive careful-like, and take your time.”
“I will, Jeff. And good luck.”
“We’ll be all right. It’s those guys in the plane, that Challis fella and the rest of ’em, they’re the ones need luck.”
In the garage, Challis opened the rear door of the green Mercedes sedan. The backseat was covered with cardboard boxes of books addressed to Murder, He Says, Bookshop. Morgan stood beside him, holding three wool plaid blankets and an old raincoat. It was cold and damp in the garage. He could see their breath.
“Take your pick—the trunk or the floor. We can’t run the risk of your being seen. The mountain’s a small world, and everybody knows me. I didn’t bring anybody up the mountain, and I’d better not bring anybody extra back down.”
“I’ll get on the floor in back,” he said. “Cover me with the blankets, tilt some of the boxes out over me.”
It was a tight fit, brought a reminder of the aches and pains of the past few days. She drove with the radio on. His body seemed to absorb each bump and turn.
In a little while she said, “Hang on. We’re just entering Cresta Vista.”
When she stopped for a traffic light, irrational fear took over: he felt eyes boring into him. He held his breath. It took forever; then they were pushing forward. “The town’s full,” she said. “Everybody doing their stocking up while there’s a break in the storm. We’ll be out of it in a couple of minutes.”
The winding, slippery drive curling down the side of the mountain left him clawing at the floor, his foot braced against the door. Every few minutes claustrophobia would set in, he’d begin gagging in the heat and the wool of the blankets; then a sudden swerve and he’d see the Mercedes hurtling off into the abyss, plummeting down to disappear among the pines, and he’d forget the heat and the wool and pray for survival.
Finally, in the outskirts of San Bernardino, she pulled off onto a side road and stopped.
“Okay, can you get out?”
“I can’t reach the door handle.” He heard her get out and open the back door. He pushed forward, struggling like an inchworm, until he’d worked his way out and onto the gravel roadbed. He staggered to his feet and smiled, followed her into the front seat.
They drove through the cool, soft fog with a promise of more rain in the air. He smelled the Pacific. Morgan stuck the tape of Sidney Bechet into the underdash deck, and “Sweet Lorraine” filled the car. He looked at her as she drove. He was connecting the song and the woman, her level sandy eyebrows, long nose, and what now struck him as the key to her face: the wide mouth with the little steeple point in the center, the built-in impishness to the hint of smile which remained even when she was intently watching the road unwind.
She hooked off to the south and slid on into the Fox Hills shopping center. Rain had begun to speckle the windshield. The red monolith of the May Company building loomed over them.
“Give me your sizes,” she said, turning off the headlamps. It was dark, though it was just past noon. “I’ve got to get you some clothes so you’ll look like everybody else. A sport coat, a couple of shirts, a pair of slacks, underwear, socks, shoes, a sweater, a raincoat …”
He gave her all the sizes, said, “I haven’t got any money—”
“Don’t worry. I’m going to get you some cash, and I’ll charge all this stuff. You just sit here and think about what you’re going to do when I get back.”
“Morgan,” he began, “I don’t know what to say. … You’re nuts to be doing this—”
“Look upon yourself as research. Don’t forget my book.”
He listened to the radio news and heard that the rescue crews from Cresta Vista and the California Highway Patrol were trying to reach the sighted wreckage of the light plane carrying blah-blah-blah … He knew the story. But they still didn’t know he was missing: as far as anyone knew, everyone in the plane was dead and accounted for. He inspected his face in the mirror on the back of the sun visor. It was quite incredible: the dark tanned face, the sandy hair and eyebrows that appeared to be sun-bleached. It was Toby Challis’ face and it wasn’t: he felt anonymous, but he also felt as if everyone passing the car was staring at him.
She’d been gone an hour, and came back heavy-laden. He saw her coming and got out to help. She was laughing: it was a game. Rain dampened her face; he wanted to kiss her, knew he had no business entertaining such a thought. There wasn’t really time for being human: he wasn’t quite human, anyway. He was a convict. And he was newly back from the dead.
She pulled into a gas station on Sepulveda and he changed clothes in the men’s room. A gray-herringbone-tweed jacket, a blue cotton shirt, tan straight-legged slacks, brown-and-black saddle shoes, black socks, a plain leather belt, a Burberry raincoat. He put a blue V-neck sweater, another shirt, another pair of identical slacks, some toilet articles, extra underwear and socks into one sack and ran through the pelting rain back to the car. The neon lights of the station reflected on the wet paving, in the windshield.
She handed him a bank envelope, thick. “Here’s some mad money.”
He opened it. “My God, this is too—”
“Toby! Don’t be an idiot. It’s five hundred dollars in tens and twenties. It’s all you’ve got, all you can get, and you can’t use any credit cards—we went through this last night. Take it, shut up about it, and tell me where we’re going.” She pulled back onto Sepulveda, heading north.
“The Beverly Hills Hotel,” he said.
“And what are we going to do there? Maybe they’ll page you in the Polo Lounge.” She stopped at a red light, and an LAPD black-and-white drew alongside. The driver glanced over at Toby, who froze. The cop smiled faintly, nodded. Toby nodded back, feeling weak: he was going to have to get the hell over that. The light changed, and they moved away together.
“Look, we are not going to do anything. You are going to drop me off and I’m going to … well, begin. Alone.”
“I’m going to come with you. I want to help—”
“Listen to me, Morgan. I don’t want to sound corny, but there are some things a man has to do alone.”
“You’re right. You don’t want to sound corny, but you do anyway.”
“I’m not kidding. I’ve got to be alone and try to figure this out. It’s my life we’re playing around with. I can’t drag you in any further. They catch me now, you’re still clear. … I can’t let you risk your own welfare—”
“You know, Toby, you actually talk like one of your screenplays.”
“Please don’t make this any harder for me than it is, Morgan. Please. Just leave me at the hotel—”
“Oh, God, all right,” she said peevishly. “But I’m going to give you my address and telephone number. You never know. You might want to buy a book—you could stop by the store. Or come to the house and borrow one.” She turned right on Olympic, left on Beverly Glen, and was headed north toward Sunset. The rain swept past them, muddy in the gutters. She’d started the cassette again, and the piercing wail of Bechet’s “Laura” filled the car. Ahead of them the Bel Air gates loomed out of the rain. A light glowed in the guardhouse. Bel Air looked like a rain forest. Three Rolls-Royces stood in a row at the traffic light, waiting to make their sorties out into the real world. The first one was turquoise, and he’d never seen a turquoise Rolls-Royce before. All the Roth family drove Rolls-Royces, but none of them were turquoise. Dumb color for a Rolls.
She maneuvered the sharp left from Sunset into the hotel driveway. Above them the rain seemed to weigh the towering palm trees down, and the pink hotel looked crummy, water-streaked. It was meant to bake in the sunshine, welcoming Elizabeth Taylor back to her customary bungalow. Looking crummy and damp, it welcomed the convicted murderer.
She stopped at the crest of the glistening black driveway and waved the parking attendant away. She took a notepad from her purse and jotted down the address and the telephone number. Watching her, he already felt lonely. Left behind on an island full of ungodly dangers.
“Call me,” she said. “And give me a kiss.”
He leaned over and kissed her. Her mouth was like ice.
“For God’s sake, be careful,” she said. She was looking straight ahead, down the driveway. He opened the door, retrieved his sack from the seat, and shut the door. He watched as the Mercedes slid off down the driveway, back toward the traffic on Sunset.
One parking attendant was on the telephone. There were no waiting guests, no arriving cars. Another attendant was standing under the long marquee up the steps by the entrance to the lobby. Challis walked toward him, trying to catch his eye. He stopped beside him. In the lobby, logs roared in the fireplace.
“Eddie,” Challis said. The attendant, his face blank, eyes helpful but unrecognizing, looked him head-on. Challis had never seen the place so deserted. The only sound was the rain drumming on the marquee and running off the sides. “Eddie …”
“Can I help you, sir?”
“You don’t know me?” Challis whispered. “Come over here,” he said, tugging at his sleeve, drawing him into the wall.
“Ah, what can I do …? Hey, wait a—”
“Eddie, my boy, compose yourself, prepare yourself, and don’t scream or anything … it’s me, Challis.” He held Eddie’s arm tightly. “Come on, don’t give me any shit, Eddie. Look, it’s me.”
Eddie’s face went peculiarly gray. “Who’s shitting who … whom, I mean. It is you, isn’t it?” He looked off at the driveway, doing a take. “I mean, it is, you are, aren’t you?” He looked away, looked back again. “Where the hell’s your beard?” He was whispering, too, but he was having understandable difficulty grasping what was in fact the evidence of his eyes and ears. “Anyway, you’re supposed to be in jail … holy shit, man,” awe on creeping into his voice, “You’re supposed to be dead in that plane crash!” He was a tall, skinny kid who’d always made Challis think of the way Henry Aldrich should have looked on the old radio show. Maybe it was the way Eddie’s high voice kept losing hold of itself. Eddie was twenty-five, and Challis had gotten to know him simply because he had recognized Challis, an unusual experience for a writer. Eddie wanted to write screenplays; everyone parking cars or pumping gas or waiting tables wanted to get into the show business, and played every card dealt them. Fate had dealt Challis to Eddie, and Eddie had pursued it. One Sunday Challis had even asked Eddie and his girlfriend to stop by the place in Malibu for brunch, and the day had turned out well. The kid’s work showed some talent, and Challis’ agent, Ollie Kreisler, had said he might be willing to represent Eddie on a one-shot movie-of-the-week deal. It hadn’t panned out, but Eddie was grateful. And so, in need of transportation, it was to Eddie at the Beverly Hills Hotel that Challis had come.
“I didn’t die,” Challis said, holding Eddie in place. “I got out of the plane. I’m here and … Stop looking at me like that, damn it, I’m a customer talking to you about my car. I’m here, and nobody knows it yet. I’ve got to do what I can to find out who killed Goldie … it’s my only hope, Eddie.”
“Jesus, in your shoes, man, I’d try to escape, Mr. Challis. Ship out on a freighter to the Far East, y’know, or head for Mexico … you’d have a better chance, y’know what I mean?” He’d accepted Challis’ presence, just another oddball turn of events in Movieland. Nobody back in Dubuque would believe it.
“Eddie, look, I need a car …”
A faintly crafty expression lit Eddie’s long, permanently adolescent face: freckles, blue eyes, wide all-American mouth. “Listen, I’ll make you a deal. If, say if, you somehow beat the frame they hung on you, you have to promise, I mean swear, man, you’ll get this thing I’m working on to Maximus … to Aaron Roth himself. Promise me, and you got yourself a set of wheels. Deal?”
“I promise, for God’s sake.” A black Stutz pulled up, but the other attendant got it. “Where’s the car?”
“Show you the kind of pal I am, I’ll let you have mine … ’65 Mustang ragtop, dark green, needs a little work on the chrome, but—”
“Eddie, does it have a wheel at each corner? Fine. The chrome doesn’t worry me.”
“No, but the puke might.”
“Puke? What puke? This is no time to play games with me.”
“No, I’m serious, man. You know Matilda, the girl I brought out to your place? Well, we were out at Catalina around Christmas, see, and on the way back, on the seaplane, y’know? Well, Matilda got to feelin’ a little queasy …”
“Really, it’s okay, Eddie.”
“And she kept it down until we landed, but about five minutes after we got in the car, I had to stop for this asshole runnin’ a red light, and poor Matilda let fly with about a quart of dago red. I told her to do it out the window, but then this guy has to run the light … anyway, the dago red went straight ahead, hit the window and the dashboard and ran down inside the heating ducts on the dash. So the car can get to smell like puke, but otherwise—”
“Eddie, for God’s sake!”
“Come on, we’ll go get it.”
They walked through the rain to the lot where the Mustang squatted next to a couple of sleek Mark Vs.
“The keys are in it,” Eddie said, opening the door. “Top’s manual.”
Challis slid in behind the wheel. Eddie was peering down at him, as if making a final identification check. “So you think it was a frame?”
“Shit yes. Mr. Kreisler was in here during the trial—well, he’s in here all the time, of course, but he said hello, remembered me from that time you took me to his office, and we shot the breeze for a minute, he said he figured the fix was in … called it a half-assed investigation, said Hilary Durant still needed help to tie his shoes and wipe his bottom, and said it all went back to Goldie … that it was all Goldie’s fault, whatever the hell that meant.” Eddie shrugged. “So, if I can help, lemme know. But I still think you should hop a freighter to somewhere a hell of a long way from here.”
Challis nodded. “Thanks, Eddie.”
“Anyway, that Oscar meant too much to you. I remember how you handled it when you showed it to Matilda and me. You wouldn’t have killed her with that Oscar, no way.”
Challis smiled. “I never even thought of that, but I hated to see it introduced as evidence. Maybe you’re right …”
“I’m really sorry about the puke, Mr. Challis. And … shit, man, good luck. As far as I’m concerned, you’re up on the mountain dead.” He tapped on the fabric top, Challis rolled up the window, and as he swung around to leave the lot, Challis saw the gangly figure standing in the rain, watching him, shaking his head. Huck Finn wondering at the passing parade.
Challis was hungry.