Millions. My brain became a fine screen, filtering out everything but the notion of money.
“That’s a lie, and you’re a liar,” Fanny said in that tone of hers. “Solly told me that he never stole anything, and he wouldn’t lie to me.”
I’d’ve lied to Saint Peter for just a hundred thousand dollars.
“Is that all you have to say?” the cop replied.
Fanny was too angry to speak.
“Maybe you think you can get away with it. But I’m watching you.” He expanded his hands to include me and Fearless. “All of you.”
“Every cop I ever seen been watchin’ me, officer,” Fearless offered. “I once spent three months on a Texas chain gang for spittin’ on the sidewalk instead’a the street.”
“If you could do that, I guess you’d kill for some good money, eh, son?” Latham asked.
“I wouldn’t rob ya,” Fearless replied. “But I would spit on you after you was dead.”
That was the line right there, the line that should never be crossed with a cop. Once you stood straight up and looked him in the eye he had to knock you down, or the whole system would stop working.
The problem was that Latham couldn’t knock Fearless down. He didn’t have backup, and they were in close quarters there in the doorway. I knew from his war stories, and from that dark San Francisco night, that Fearless was trained to kill professional killers hand to hand. If Latham tried to do something, Fearless would do something back, and there was nowhere for a man to run after he’d killed an active member of the LAPD.
I was trying to think of a way to head off the inevitable when Fanny started screaming, “Get out of my house, you Cossack! Get out of here! Out of here!” She ran at Latham, and I leaned back against Fearless.
“Get off ’a me, Paris!”
“You can’t help Fanny if they got you.”
Fanny was pressing to get Latham out of her house, but he didn’t budge.
“I could take you all down now,” Latham assured us. “But I’ve got time. We know the crime, we know the criminals. You won’t be free for long.”
“And where is it you’d take us to?” I asked. The question I hoped would be a buffer between the cop’s stupidity and Fearless’s rage.
“What?” Latham asked.
“You gonna take us to the Hollywood jail?”
Latham’s right eye twitched. That was the whole story right there, that twitch. All I had to do was figure out what it meant.
“If we are not under arrest, then go,” little Fanny said.
Latham took his time staring at her and then Fearless and me in turns. The glare was intended to frighten, and I guess it worked if you consider that I was scared for his life. Finally he left. Fearless stood at the open door, watching him go.
“What do you know about this millions stuff?” I asked our host.
“He made it up,” Fanny said. “He had to. We don’t have that kind of money. And why steal it if not to spend? We don’t have children to leave it to. Why live here?”
“Hmm. Yeah. I don’t know,” I said. “There was once a woman lived down the road from us when I was a kid. She was poor as corn husks, barely kept the flesh on her bones. We all thought that she couldn’t have made more than a dollar a week the way she lived. But she must’a made two, because when she died at eighty-eight they found three thousand silver dollars hid up under her bed.”
“You’re welcome to look under my bed, Mr. Minton.”
10
FANNY HAD CALLED the hospital before I woke up. They told her that Sol was being given a series of blood tests and X rays and wouldn’t be able to have visitors until the afternoon.
After breakfast I spent a couple of hours on the phone trying to get a line on the Messenger of the Divine church. I called every religious group listed in twelve different counties and every soul that I knew. I wanted to ask Reverend Grove a question or two; like when had he last seen Elana Love and was she driving my red Rambler.
There was a certain urgency behind my search because I was bothered by Latham’s visit. Why had he come? L.A. cops didn’t make friendly visits to warn you that they were watching. They didn’t come to the door unless they were serving papers or making an arrest.
So I went on thinking and calling, fretting and drinking Fanny’s homemade lemonade. She spent the morning baking noodle pudding and making meals for later. She told us that cooking calmed her nerves. We didn’t complain. Both Fearless and I were bachelors, and when a woman came around she did very little cooking — food, that is.
Fearless played catch with Blood. They were completely happy roughhousing and relaxing on the sunny lawn. Since he was just out of the lockup, a day in the sun was heaven for him.
At one Fearless took Fanny and Blood to pick up Gella and go for a drive down to see Sol and maybe let the dog have a run in the park. I couldn’t see where they needed me, so I stayed by the telephone making useless calls.
“Hello,” one man answered.
“Council for the Baptist churches of greater L.A. county?” I inquired in my pretend official tone.
“Yes.”
“I was wondering if you could help me find a minister.”
“A particular minister?” the soft-spoken secretary asked.
“A Reverend Grove or a Father Vincent. They’re affiliated with a church called Messenger of the Divine.”
“Never heard of the institution,” he said with quiet distaste. “Doesn’t sound like one of our congregations at all.”
“No Grove or Vincent?”
“What is this concerning?”
“An exorcism,” I said.
“A what?”
“I got a white man locked up in my basement and I wanna see if an old-time Holy Roller can call the devil out of him. That way maybe I can save the world from his evil… Uh-oh, he’s trying to break out of his cage. I’ll call you back.” I hung up and laughed a mean laugh.
Before my venom was through, the phone rang. I had the immediate and irrational fear that somehow the Council for the Baptist churches knew the numbers of the sinners that called them. I let the ringing go on for a while before answering.
“Tannenbaum residence,” I said brightly.
“May I speak to Hedva Tannenbaum, please?” a man asked. He spoke in perfect but not necessarily American English. His tone was haughty, that’s really the only word for it. The words were mannered, but the voice was not.
“Who’s askin’?” I said in response to the voice.
There was a moment’s hesitation and then, “John Manly.” The name didn’t sound right on his tongue.
“Well, Mr. Manly,” I said. “Mrs. Tannenbaum doesn’t want to speak to anyone just now. She’s had a pretty rough time of it the past few days and doesn’t want to be disturbed.”
I was being hard on Mr. Manly for no other reason than that his tone reminded me of the snootiness of the secretary at the Baptist Council.
“To whom am I speaking?” Manly inquired.
“To whom,” I replied, “doesn’t matter. What matters is that Fanny isn’t gettin’ on the phone, so either you gonna tell me what you want or we gonna break off the connection right here and now.” For an instant the image of that bureaucrat sitting at the window of the courthouse flashed through my mind.
“Excuse me? What did you say?” Manly asked.