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A Graveyard for Lunatics: Another tale of two cities
I heave great sighs: survived another day! I work until two each night, without facing real people, real light. I had some contact lenses made two years ago. Threw them out the window! Why? I saw pores in peoples faces, my face. Moon craters. Pockmarks. Hell! look at my recent films. No sunlit people. Midnight Lady. The Long Dark. Three a.m. Murders. Death Before Dawn. Now, child, what about this goddamn Galilean turkey Christ in the Garden, Caesar up a Tree!?

Maggie Botwin stirred despondently in the shadows and unpacked her hand camera.
I cleared my throat. Must my narration paper over all the holes in this script?
Cover Caesars ass? Yes! Fritz Wong laughed and poured more drinks. Maggie Botwin added, And were sending you to discuss Judas with
Manny Leiber. Why!!?

The Jewish Lion, said Fritz, might enjoy eating an Illinois Baptist. He might listen while he pulls off your legs.
I slugged down my second drink. Say, I gasped, this isnt half bad.
I heard a whirring sound.
Maggie Botwins camera was focused to catch my moment of incipient

inebriation.
You carry your camera everywhere?
Yep, she said. No day has passed in forty years that I have not trapped the mice among the mighty. They dont dare fire me. Id cut together nine hours of damn fools on parade and premiere it at Graumans Chinese. Curious? Come see.

Fritz filled my glass.
Ready for my closeup. I drank. The camera whirred.

Manny Leiber was sitting on the edge of his desk, guillotining a big cigar with one of those one-hundred-dollar gold Dunhill cigar cutters. He scowled as I walked in and around the office, studying the various low sofas.

Whats wrong?
These sofas, I said. So low you cant get up. I sat. I was about a foot from the floor, staring up at Manny Leiber, who loomed like Caesar, astride the world.
I grunted myself up and went to collect cushions. I placed three of them on top of each other and sat.
What the hell you doing? Manny scuttled off his desk.

I want to look you in the eye when I talk. I hate breaking my neck down there in the pits.
Manny Leiber fumed, bit his cigar, and climbed back up on the desk rim. Well? he snapped.
I said, Fritz just showed me a rough cut of his film. Judas Iscariots missing. Who killed him?
What!?

You cant have Christ without Judas. Why is Judas suddenly the invisible disciple?

For the first time I saw Manny Leibers small bottom squirm on the glass-top desk. He sucked his unlit cigar, glared at me, and let it blow.
I gave orders to cut Judas! I didnt want to make an anti-Semitic film! What! I exploded, jumping up. This film is being released next Easter,
right? That week, one million Baptists will see it. Two million Lutherans? Sure.

Ten million Catholics? Yes!
Two Unitarians? Two?

And when they all stagger forth on Easter Sunday and ask, Who cut Judas Iscariot out of the film? how come the answer is: Manny Leiber!
There was a long silence. Manny Leiber threw down his unlit cigar. Freezing me in place, he let his hand crawl to the white telephone.
He dialed three studio digits, waited, said, Bill? He took a deep breath. rehire Judas Iscariot.

With hatred, he watched me replace the three cushions on the three easy chairs. Is that all you came to talk about?
For now. I turned the doorknob.

Whatta you heard from your friend Roy Holdstrom? he said, suddenly. I thought you knew! I said, then stopped.
Careful, I thought.

The fool just ran off, I said, quickly. Took everything from his apartment, left town. Stupid idiot. No friend of mine, now. Him and that damn clay Beast he made!
Manny Leiber studied me carefully. Good riddance. Youll like working with Wong better.

Sure. Fritz and Jesus. What?
Jesus and Fritz. And I went out.

I walked slowly back to my grandparents house somewhere in the past. You sure it was Roy running by an hour ago? asked Crumley.
Hell, I dunno. Yes, no, maybe. Im not coherent. Martinis, middle of the day, thats not for me. And I hefted the script I got to cut two pounds off this and add three ounces. Help!
I glanced at a pad Crumley was holding. What?

Called three autograph agencies. They all knew Clarence Great!
Not so. All said the same. Paranoid. No last name, phone number, or address. Told them all he was terrified. Not of being burgled, no, but murdered. Then burgled. Five thousand photos, six thousand autographs, his nest eggs. So maybe he didnt recognize the Beast the other night, but was afraid the Beast knew him, knew where he lived, and might come get him.

No, no, that doesnt fit.
Clarence, whatever-his-name is, the agency people said, always took cash, gave cash. No checks, no way to trace him that way. Never did things by mail. Showed up, regular, to make deals, then disappeared for months. Dead end. Dead end, too, the Brown Derby. I walked nice and soft, but the maitre d hung up on me. Sorry, kid. Hey Just then, on schedule, the Roman phalanx reappeared, far off, double-timing. With jovial shouts and curses they approached.

I leaned wildly out, holding my breath.
Crumley said: Is that the bunch you mentioned, and Roy with them? Yeah.

Is he with them now? I cant see
Crumley exploded.

Goddamn, what the hell is that stupid jerk doing running around the studio anyway? Why doesnt he get the hell out, escape, dammit?! Whats he sticking around for? To get himself killed?! Hes had his chance to run, but hes putting you, and me, through the wringer. Why!?

Revenge, I said. For all the murders. What murders!?
Of all of his creatures, all his most dear friends. Crap.

Listen, Crum. How long you been in your house in Venice? Twenty, twenty-five years. Planted every hedge, every bush, seeded the lawn, built the rattan hut out back, put in the sound equipment, the rain makers, added the bamboo and the orchids, and the peach trees, the lemon, the apricot. What if I broke in one night soon and tore up everything, cut down the trees, trampled the roses, burned the hut, threw the sound deck out in the street, what would you do?

Crumley thought about it and his face burned red.
Exactly, I said, quietly. I dont know if Roy will ever get married. Right now, his children, his whole life has been stomped down in the dust. Everything he ever loved was murdered. Maybe hes in here now, solving these deaths, trying, just as we are, to find the Beast, and kill him. Maybe Roys gone forever. But if I were Roy, yeah, Id stay on, hide, and keep searching until I buried the killer with the killed.

My lemon trees, huh? said Crumley, looking off toward the sea. My orchids, my rain forest? Done in by someone? Well.
The phalanx ran by below in the late sunlight and away into the blue

shadows.
There was no great gawky whooping-crane warrior with them. The footsteps and yells faded.
Lets go home, said Crumley.


At midnight, a sudden wind blew through Crumleys African garden. All the trees in the neighborhood turned over in their sleep.
Crumley studied me. I can feel something coming. It came.

The Brown Derby, I said, stunned. My God, why didnt I think sooner!? The night Clarence ran off in a panic. He dropped his portfolio, left it lying on the walk by the Brown Derby entrance! Someone mustve picked it up. It might still be there, waiting for Clarence to calm down and dare to sneak back for it. His address would have to be in it.
Good lead, Crumley nodded. Ill follow up.

The night wind blew again, a very melancholy sigh through the lemon and orange trees.
And And?

The Brown Derby again. The maitre d might not talk to us, but I know someone who ate there every week for years, when I was a kid
Oh, God, Crumley sighed. Rattigan. Shell eat you alive. My love will protect me!
God, put that in a sack and well fertilize the San Fernando Valley. Friendship protects. You wouldnt hurt me, would you?
Dont count on it.

We got to do something. Roys hiding. If they, whoever they are, find him, hes dead.

You, too, said Crumley, if you play amateur detective. Its late. Midnight. Constances wake-up hour.
Transylvania time? Hell. Crumley took a deep breath. Do I drive you? A single peach fell from a hidden garden tree. It thumped.
Yes! I said.

At dawn, said Crumley, if youre singing soprano, dont call. And he drove off.
Constances house was, as before, a perfection, a white shrine set to glow on the shoreline. All of its doors and windows stood wide. Music played inside the huge stark white living room: some old Benny Goodman.

I walked the shore as I had walked a thousand nights back, checking the ocean. She was there somewhere racing porpoises, echoing seals.
I looked in at the parlor floor, littered with four dozen circus-bright pillows, and the bare white walls where, late nights until dawn, the shadow shows passed, her old films projected from the years before I was born.

I turned because a wave, heavier than the rest, had slammed on the shore To deliver forth, as from the rug tossed at Caesars feet
Constance Rattigan.

She came out of the wave like a loping seal, with hair almost the same color, slick brown and water combed, and her small body powdered with nutmeg and doused in cinnamon oil. Every autumn tint was hers in nimble legs and wild arms, wrists, and hands. Her eyes were a wicked wise merry small creatures brown. Her laughing mouth looked stained by walnut juice. She was a frisking November surf creature rinsed out of a cold sea but hot as burnt chestnuts

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I heave great sighs: survived another day! I work until two each night, without facing real people, real light. I had some contact lenses made two years ago. Threw them