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We swerved around half a dozen ghosts of long-gone poles, as if pursued by a phantom trolley car.
“Rattigan,” I said.
She saw my solemn face.
“Beachwood Avenue?” she said.
It was four in the afternoon. The last mail of the day was heading north on the avenue. I nodded to Constance. She parked just ahead of the mailman, who trudged along in the still warm sun. He greeted me like a fellow Iowa tourist, plenty cheerful considering the junk mail he unloaded at every door.
All I wanted was to check Clarence’s name and address before I knocked at his door. But the postman couldn’t stop babbling. He told how Clarence walked and ran, what he looked like around the mouth: quivering. Nervous ears that itched up and down on his skull. Eyes mostly white.
The mailman punched my elbow with the mail, laughing. “A Christmas fruitcake, ten years stale! Comes to his bungalow door in a big wrap-around camel’s-hair coat like Adolphe Menjou wore in 1927, when we boys ran up the aisles to pee, away from the ‘mush’ scenes. Sure. Old Clarence. I said ‘Boo!’ once and he slammed the door. I bet he showers in that coat, afraid to see himself naked. Scaredy Clarence? Don’t knock too loud—”
But I was gone. I turned in quickly at the Villa Vista Courts and walked up to number 1788.
I did not knock on the door. I scratched with my fingernail on the small glass panes. There were nine of them. I did not try them all. The shade was pulled down behind so I couldn’t see in. When there was no answer I tapped my forefinger, a bit louder.
I imagined I heard Clarence’s rabbit heart pounding inside, behind the glass.
“Clarence!” I called. And waited. “I know you’re in there!”
Again, I thought I heard his pulse racing.
“Call me, dammit!” I cried, at last, “before it’s too late! You know who this is. The studio, dammit! Clarence, if I can find you, they can, too!”
They? Who did I mean by “they”?
I pounded the door with both fists. One of the glass panes cracked.
“Clarence! Your portfolio! It was at the Brown Derby!”
That did it. I stopped pounding for I heard a sound that might have been a bleat or a muffled cry. The lock rattled. Another lock rattled after that, and a third.
At last the door cracked open, held by an inside brass chain.
Clarence’s haunted face looked down a long tunnel of years at me, close by but so far away I almost thought his voice echoed. “Where?” he pleaded. “Where?”
“The Brown Derby,” I said, ashamed. “And someone stole it.”
“Stole?” Tears burst from his eyes. “My portfolio!? Oh God,” he mourned. “You’ve done this to me.”
“No, no, listen—”
“If they try to break in, I’ll kill myself. They can’t have them!”
And he glanced tearfully over his shoulder at all the files I could see crowded beyond, and the bookcases, and the walls full of signed portraits.
My Beasts, Roy had said at his own funeral, my lovelies, my dears.
My beauties, Clarence was saying, my soul, my life!
“I don’t want to die,” mourned Clarence, and shut the door.
“Clarence!” I tried a last time. “Who’s they? If I knew, I might save you! Clarence!”
A shade banged up across the court.
A door half opened in another bungalow.
