Hollywood North: A Novel in Six Reels Page 15

  “Your friend’s a regular Jack Benny, eh?” McGrath said.

  Yeah, McGrath was all smiles and chuckles as he brought us into his office. I beamed with confidence, as rehearsed. I set the Manila envelope on his desk and slipped out the old-time-movie cards I’d found. And, Jesus, McGrath’s face ruptured in dumbstruck fury; he was goddamn freaking Dracula and I’d just pulled a crucifix on him. “What the hell. What the hell.”

  He shut the door to his office with a heavy hand, rolled ink-stained shirtsleeves up ink-stained arms to scabby elbows. He lit a cigarette, tossed the match, glanced at Jack, inhaled, scowled at me, exhaled, contemplated the floor, inhaled, exhaled, picked tobacco from his tongue, stared out the window, inhaled, and sprang—marched me across the floor, behind his desk, and up against the wall, plowed his forearm hard across my chest, and exhaled into my face. Fumes. Threat. Extinction. “Where did you—where did you get these?” I cowered weak and inconsequential, The Incredible Shrinking Man astray in the cellar, fresh meat for the resident black widow. “Who gave these to you?”

  The heat of his cigarette singed my cheek. Any closer and my left eyebrow would be a three-alarmer. If only I hadn’t sworn on my mother’s life.

  Jack came to my rescue. “Nobody gave them to him,” he said. “He found them. Hanna Park. Wasn’t it, Gus?”

  I blinked frantic confirmation.

  McGrath gritted his teeth, waited a beat, and backed off. “Who else has seen them?”

  “What’s going on?” Jack said. “Sir?”

  McGrath cleared two overtaxed ashtrays from a corner of his desk and sat. He took a long, thoughtful drag of his cigarette, examined the length of ash at the tip.

  I slunk toward the door, begged Jack to heed my telepathic plea to follow.

  “Sir?” Jack said. “Mr. McGrath?”

  As if all this wasn’t cuckoo enough, McGrath chose this moment to regale us with poetry, his delivery hoarse and laden with menace. “‘There are strange things done in the midnight sun by the men who moil for gold; And the Arctic trails have their secret tales that would make your blood run cold. . . .’”

  “Pardon?” Jack said.

  “It’s ‘The Cremation of Sam McGee,’” I croaked. “Robert Service.” It was the only poetry I liked, outside of “Casey at the Bat.” Not that I cared much for it in the moment.

  “Jesus H. Christ! Can’t you see I’m speaking metaphorically? I’m making a point here, boys.” McGrath stubbed out his cigarette, crumbled the unfiltered butt between thumb and forefinger. He spun from his perch, pressed a fist to the window, his forehead to his fist. “Not a place on Earth doesn’t have its secret tales. Given time, not a place you’d go that wouldn’t make your blood run cold. This town . . .” He came at me again. “I’m telling you, this find of yours, let it go. Trust me. For your own good.”

  “But why?” Damn that Jack. The idiot didn’t know when to quit. “We’d heard they used to make movies here. Right? And we were thinking these cards are from back then. They could be, couldn’t they?”

  “Who filled your head with that hogwash, Levin? Same clowns who told you the town was disaster central? Movies? Trenton?” He slapped his side and guffawed.

  “Nobody told me,” Jack said.

  “Pulled it out of thin air, did you?”

  “I heard, that’s all. We heard. Gus and me. Right, Gus?”

  I said nothing.

  “Yeah, and there used to be unicorns in stables across the road, too. Jesus Christ, boys! The two of you, you need to stop now. Cease. Desist. Shut the hell up. They’re gonna put you away, you keep mouthing off nonsense. What are you gonna come to me with next, Levin? Hubcaps from a flying saucer?” And to me: “You. The cards—that the lot of ’em?”

  “What?” I’d yet to get my head around the unicorns.

  “The cards? How many you got?”

  “What was it you told me, Gus?” Jack maintained the sham. “Forty-something?”

  “Where are they?”

  I’d forgotten the answer we’d rehearsed. Fortunately, Jack hadn’t. “My garage.”

  “Ah, the world famous museum of the unexplained, eh? Figures.”

  “We thought they’d be safer there.”

  “Yeah. Well. Safe doesn’t begin to tell the story.” McGrath switched it up, a yellow finger, locked, loaded, and aimed between my eyes. “Listen and listen well. You’re gonna pack them up, these and whatever else you got. And you’re gonna burn every last one. All ‘forty-something.’ You read me?”

  “Yes, sir.” My throat was tight. My voice Mickey Mouse. I’d take Malbasic’s twenty-eight any day over whatever the heck McGrath was dishing out. The principal was out to maim. McGrath was out to God-knows-what.

  “No, sir. No.” And there was Jack, mouthing off again, like he was debating bedtime with his mom or dad. “Not without a good reason.”

  “You’re mighty protective of something you claim you didn’t find, son.”

  “Gus found them. Hanna Park.”

  “Then why’s it you with all the answers, Levin?”

  “You’re not being fair. You can’t tell us to burn them for no good reason. I won’t do it.”

  “What do you know about fair? Some shit deserves explaining. Some shit doesn’t. Plain as that. Explanations won’t change a thing. Sometimes there is no explaining. You, Levin—you’re gonna help your little pal, make sure it gets done right. Capiche? And then the two of you are gonna forget you ever saw ’em or that we ever talked about ’em. You’re gonna walk out my door. This never happened. You got that? I’m not kidding. You were never here.”

  “But why?”

  “But but but. But but but . . . I’m warning you, Jack—you and the Boy Wonder here—you need to stop finding shit. You need to stop asking shit. You need to stop listening to shit. You need to stop thinking shit. You don’t have a clue, the damage you can do.” He weaved back and forth between us, poking, prodding, shadow-boxing. “You love your folks? Your mother, your father? Do you, boys? You love your brothers and sisters? Your puppy dogs? Your parakeets? Please. I said please. Do what I’m telling you. Because it’d be a crying shame otherwise if you brought anything bad down upon any one of them. I’d hate to see it and, I’m telling you, you will hate it a good lot more. Burn them. We on the same page? Burn them. It’s not a request, it’s an order. You do what I say. Or else.”

  “Just like that?”

  McGrath collided with Jack, bumped his chest into his chin. “Just like that. Close. Cover. Before. Fucking. Striking.” The guy should have been spitting bullets, he was wound so damn tight. He was trembling, too, from rage or fear or both, which made the moment all the more incomprehensible to us.

  And Jack, that stubborn ass—same as when he took on the school bullies—he did not budge. “And if we don’t?”

  “Goddammit, Levin. There is no if.” McGrath thumped him into the wall as he’d done to me. “How many times you going to make me ask? Do you love your family?”

  “Of course.”

  “Me, too,” I volunteered.

  “Then do what needs to be done. I’m not your enemy here, boys. I am as far from an enemy as a friend can be.”

  “Okay. Okay.”

  “Smart boy.” McGrath eased off, nodded relieved. “Agreed?” he said cheerfully. “Agreed?” He proffered his hand, and the two of us shook in turn.

  “Uh-huh,” Jack said.

  “Agreed,” I said. His hand was cold and sweaty, which flew in the face of the grade school science I’d acquired to date.

  McGrath reoccupied the corner of his desk, lit up another smoke, vowed he’d be watching us, and burst out laughing. “Gus, is it?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You’ve got the handshake of a dead fish.”

  Three

  Cha-cha teachers at large

  “Jesus, Jack, why’d you make me lie? Now he thinks—”

  “You wanted to be a finder, didn’t you?”

  “We need to kill h
im.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Before he kills my mom. We need to kill McGrath.” Scaredy-cats are nothing if not practical.

  “You weren’t listening, Gus. He’s not going to kill anybody. And neither are we. He was talking about circumstances. Don’t you see, he was trying to scare us? The look on his face when he saw the cards. He wouldn’t touch them. He was more frightened than you, Gus.”

  “Of what? Cardboard?”

  “I haven’t the foggiest. Could be the cards are worth something. Like stolen diamonds. And the thieves who lost them will try and steal them back.”

  “Or maybe it’s what the cards are made of. Maybe it’s not cardboard, but diamond dust or sheets of platinum or uranium. . . . Or what if they’re atomic secrets? How to build the bomb? Or what if they’re cursed and whoever finds them . . . Jeez.”

  “Your guess is as good as mine, man. But I know who can set us straight on one point—where we should’ve gone first.”

  “Or we could just burn them,” I said.

  “Spend five minutes on a stool in the Marquee. Adults tell you all sorts of dumb shit. You ever sift flour for your mom? It’s like that. You got to shake out the crud. The day you see me believing and doing everything I’m told, put me out of my misery. And then run like crazy. Because it’ll be a sure sign the Brain Eaters have landed—and you’re next.”

  “I’ll keep it in mind.”

  “I’m not joking.”

  “Jesus, Jack.”

  “You know what I’m saying. Like you’re some goody-goody? Don’t give me that. I know you, Gus.”

  “What Mr. McGrath said . . . I’m afraid.”

  “You think I’m not? But I’ll tell you this, it’s a whole lot better than being bored. There’s only one thing we need to be afraid of. And that’s growing up, ending up like McGrath, flying off the handle over nothing, sticking your head in the sand.”

  “I know. Growing up changes everything.”

  “And not in a good way, not that I’ve ever seen.”

  Jack was on fire. He strode ahead. I simmered behind.

  Solving mysteries was risky. California’s Lost Ship of the Desert. The Oak Island Money Pit. Many good men had lost their lives in the pursuit of riches. I could understand. Gold and silver could turn poor saps into rich pricks. But the Trenton Movie Cards were different, the payoff far from clear. And there had to be a payoff, damn sure. McGrath’s madman routine made that plain as day. I skipped ahead, caught up with Jack. “What if the cards are code for something? What if they tell a story, where to look for something?”

  “Like a treasure map.”

  “Or some big secret.”

  “Like a message from outer space.”

  “And all we have to do is put them in the right order.”

  “McGrath. He’s afraid we’ll figure it out. That’s what it is. McGrath’s afraid we’ll find out what he knows—what he doesn’t want us to know.”

  “Thinks we’re dumb kids. Thinks he can throw us off, keep whatever it is for himself.”

  “Burn ’em, eh? My ass! You don’t get to the bottom of a mystery by destroying your clues.”

  “I’m in, Jack. I’m all in.”

  “Never doubted it for a second, pal.”

  As we made our way from the Record to King Street, I looked again to The Hardy Boys and their Detective Handbook for assistance—summoned what I recalled about shaking off tails. “You’re crazy.” Jack laughed, glanced left and right, and over his shoulder. “Relax. McGrath’s not following us.”

  “Yeah, right. Coming from you, the guy who said the cards would put me on the front page. . . .”

  We stuck to my roundabout route, the sudden turns and about-faces, and reached the dry cleaners without picking up any suspicious types. Far as we could tell. The five-minute walk took ten. A costly ten.

  We were too late. Sure Press was closed. Fridays, 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. I should’ve known. We peered through the glass. Jack tapped on the window. No sign of anybody.

  “Hey,” I said, pointing. In among the buttons of the cigar box on the witch’s table was Simon Lebel’s sweetheart bracelet.

  “Jeez, shows you how much it meant to her. . . .”

  “It’s an omen,” I said.

  “You think?”

  “Feels like it.”

  “Good or bad?”

  I had no answer. Either the world was getting crazier or Jack and I were. For now, it was a toss-up.

  We decided to try Blackhurst’s again on Monday after school. Just then I heard my name. Helmut Swartz was crossing toward us from the police station on market square. He wore a bandage the size of a sleeping bag on his hand. Story was, he had tried to save Dottie. Had the injuries to prove it. Cut himself up bad, smashed the glass to get at the lifesaver. “Hi, Leo,” he said. “How are you, kid?”

  “Okay,” I said. “You?” He didn’t look great. He could have used a shave and a haircut. Dark circles ringed his famous blue eyes. They were black and beady, sunken within the dark harbour of his skull. Dottie had raved to my mother about Helmut’s eyes, how they made her swoon.

  He held the door to the dance studio ajar. “Blackhurst closes early on Fridays. Everybody’s open till nine, but him. Lazy old coot.”

  “Yeah. We know.”

  “I miss her terribly. I want you and your mom to know, Leo. Because some folks, well, they’re saying I don’t. They’re saying terrible things.” He looked over to Jack, nodded an aggrieved howdy, and the door carried him inside.

  Jack exhaled. “They used to come to the Marquee a lot—him and her. Haven’t seen him since she drowned.”

  “I don’t think you’re supposed to go to restaurants after somebody dies. At least until after they’re buried.” The funeral had been delayed. The police were holding onto Dottie’s body.

  “They’re saying he pushed her in?”

  “Honest?” I said. “Did he?”

  “That’s what they’re saying.”

  “But he’s walking around. Like he’s normal. Like anybody.”

  “Like you and me,” Jack said.

  And I looked about the street, at the people going by, men, women, kids, window shoppers and window washers, jaywalkers and loiterers, people with purpose and people with none, and I wondered. Wondered. If what Jack had said was true of Helmut, it had to be true of others. People you pass everyday as you go about your life. People who have murdered with no one the wiser. People who have murdered and gotten away. People who had murdered, served their time, and who were hankering to kill again. People who had killed by accident. By negligence. By stupidity. There had to be hundreds. Thousands. Walking around like they were you and me. And if this was true of Trenton, it was true of everywhere. You couldn’t help but pass a murderer or two or three or fifty every day of your life. And every one as free as Jack and me and Helmut Swartz.

  “Jack,” I said, “there’s something I need to show you.”

  I went home to get the clippings, then met him at his garage.

  “How long you been holding onto these?” he said. He used tweezers to examine the clippings, the paper brown and brittle.

  “A bit,” I said, looking back over the months to my first burglary. “I worried they might not be what we were looking for. Not enough dead, I mean.”

  “Are you kidding? Murder? The numbers don’t matter when it’s murder. These are great. Old papers, eh?”

  “In our cellar.” The first rule of lying is to keep your answers concise.

  “Were there follow-ups? Did they catch who did it?”

  “None I could find.”

  “Great work, Gus. Really.”

  I tell you, seeing him add my finds to our list felt damn good and I regretted my delay in bringing them to him.

  1933 – Two girls stabbed to death on Mt. Pelion, first body found in May, second in August

  1950 – Bodies of a boy and girl found under the water tower on Pelion—police torn between �
��lover’s leap” or “foul play”

  “Maybe you got a knack for this, Gus,” Jack said. “Could be your specialty is murder. On Pelion.”

  “I’m just getting started,” I said.

  But then, in short order, murder proved to be Jack’s specialty more than mine, and our list grew longer still.

  1919 – Four bodies found after barn burns down, pitchfork wounds evident

  1926 – Two sisters beaten to death on Pelion

  1930 – Family of three stabbed to death in Hanna Park, father, mother, toddler

  No denying, he took the wind out of my sails. What was the point? I ended my burglary spree. The dust had been getting to me anyhow, like I had a permanent cold.

  Four

  Mom in mourning

  Mom would apologize whenever I’d catch her crying in the first couple of weeks after Dottie. She’d pluck up, put on her brave face, and give me the life-goes-on baloney, the dying-is-a-natural-part-of-living baloney. She never gave me the she’s-in-a-better-place baloney, though I hoped she might. A sunnier outlook, however fuzzy, would have done me good. Living life without a net was wearing us down. Mom’s brave face was sadder than her sad face. (Sadder sights were in store for me, of course. But her early Dead Dottie days would remain among my top-five saddest.)

  Her going through the paces was the part I couldn’t bear. She’d mope along half-human, half-robot, fixing breakfast, making her bed, watching TV, only to go over the top with delight or joy at the drop of a hat, over nothing I could see as delightful or joyful.

  I observed her closely, waited till she had both feet in the Land of the Living before telling her how I’d bumped into Helmut. “He said he misses her, no matter what people are saying about him.”

  “I would hope so.” Mom gave the potatoes a final mash and brought the pot to the table.

  “Do you think Helmut pushed Dottie into the water?” I said.

  “What?”

  I repeated the question.

  She froze, the spoon and potatoes suspended above my plate. “All that matters now is what people want to believe.” The potatoes fell, buried my meatloaf.