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“Christ,” Crumley examined my face. “Get inside. Get that inside.” Crumley handed me a beer.
I drank and told Crumley about the cathedral, Doc Phillips, hearing some sort of cry and a shadow sliding up in shadows. And the single black shoe falling to the dusty cathedral floor.
“I saw. But who could tell?” I finished. “The studio is nailing itself shut. I thought Doc was a villain. One of the other villains must have got him. By now, there’s no body. Poor Doc. What am I saying? I didn’t even like him!”
“Christ almighty,” said Crumley, “you bring me the New York Times crossword puzzle, when you know all I can do is the Daily News. You drag dead bodies through my house like a cat proud of its kills, no rhyme, no reason. Any lawyer would heave you out the window. Any judge would brain you with his gavel. Psychiatrists would refuse you shock privileges. You could motor down Hollywood Boulevard with all these red herrings and not get arrested for pollution.”
“Yeah,” I said, sinking into depression.
The phone rang.
Crumley handed it over.
A voice said: “They seek him here, they seek him there, they seek that scoundrel everywhere. Is he in heaven, is he in hell—”
“That damned elusive Pimpernel!” I yelled.
I let the phone drop as if a bomb had blown it away. Then I snatched it up again.
“Where are you?” I yelled.
Humm. Buzz.
Crumley clapped the phone to his ear, shook his head.
“Roy?” he said.
I nodded, staggering.
I bit one of my knuckles, trying to build a wall in my head for what was coming.
The tears arrived.
“He’s alive, he’s really alive!”
“Quiet.” Crumley shoved another drink into my hand. “Bend your head.”
I bent way over so he could massage along back of my skull. Tears dripped off my nose. “He’s alive. Thank God.”
“Why didn’t he call sooner?”
“Maybe he was afraid.” I talked blindly to the floor: “Like I said: They’re closing in, shutting the studio. Maybe he wanted me to think he was dead so they wouldn’t touch me. Maybe he knows more about the Beast than we do.”
I jerked my head.
“Eyes shut.” Crumley worked on my neck. “Mouth shut.”
“My God, he’s trapped, can’t get out. Or doesn’t want to. Hiding. We got to rescue him!”
“Rescue my ass,” said Crumley. “Which city is he in? Boston or the backlot? Uganda on the north forty? Ford’s Theatre? Get ourselves shot. There’s ninety-nine goddamn places he could hide, so we run around like sore thumbs, yodeling for him to come out, get killed? You go on that studio tour!”
“Cowardly Crum.”
“You betcha!”
“You’re breaking my neck!”
“Now you’ve caught on!”
