A Fatal Glass of Beer (8 page)

“You’ve done an admirable job of containing your curiosity about our little trio,” Fields said.

“Not often a prizefighter, a dwarf, and W. C. Fields come into the Altoona,” he said. “Time was, during vaudeville, we had lots of stars. You stayed here more than once. Fanny Brice. Burns and Allen. The Byrne Brothers.”

“The Byrne Brothers?” Fields said with sudden energy. “They were my inspiration to become a juggler.”

“Lots of stars,” said the old man. “Almost all polite and quiet. Too tired from running across the country and working to cause a ruckus. Wife handled show people mostly. She’s gone now.”

Gunther had brought in all the luggage: my suitcase, his, and Fields’s two large bags. Gunther wasn’t even panting. He had once been part of a circus act in which he leapt through flaming circles after sailing off a teeter-totter, picked up a full-size clown and stuffed him in a suitcase, and performed various other acts of lunacy in the hope of getting a paycheck, some applause, and the respect of his fellow workers. That was a while ago, but Gunther had remained in shape.

I had checked the registry when I signed in. There was no Hipnoodle, or any other name in the least bit suspicious.

Fields leaned on the counter and whispered to the old clerk, “We should prefer to remain incognito. Business.”

“Suit yourself,” said the old man, glancing at the hotel register.

I had signed it twice, writing once, printing the second time. Fields had frowned at my lack of creativity, but understood that this was not the time to draw attention to ourselves if our pursuer or Hipnoodle happened to be checking the limited number of hotels in Altoona.

“Mr. and Mrs. Vernon Sawyer and Mr. and Mrs. John Welch,” the old man read. “Sawyer?”

I raised my hand, pointed at Gunther.

“Which leaves me as Mr. and Mrs. Welch,” said Fields. “Leave a call for us, bright and early, eight.”

“I will do so,” said the old man, closing the book. He handed us the keys and pointed down the hall to his right. The rooms were next to each other, and I told Fields that I would be happy to bring him something to eat, but that he and Gunther should stay in their respective rooms. They were a little too easy to spot. I wasn’t exactly inconspicuous with my flat nose, battle-scarred face, and the look of an extra in a Warner Brothers B gangster movie, but I was the closest we had.

Gunther had told us that the car was parked and locked behind the hotel in a corner behind some trees, where it would be difficult to find.

I dragged Fields’s suitcases into his room. He had carried his own picnic basket, which I was sure contained a thermos or two of martinis.

“A small crabmeat salad,” said Fields, as he looked around his small room. “At least the chair looks comfortable. I shall, aided by the pages of Mrs. Plaut’s memoirs with which you have supplied me, sit in my skivvies and silk robe until something that resembles sleep or at least rest overtakes me.”

“I’ll knock four times fast,” I said. “Don’t open the door unless you hear four fast knocks.”

Fields nodded, took off his hat, and opened his trunk.

Gunther and I settled in quickly next door. There were two beds. I let Gunther have his choice and took his dinner order. He asked for a ham and cheese sandwich and hot tea. By the time I left, he was already sitting in a chair, listening to music on the radio, and reading a book in a language I guessed was Russian.

“Hungarian,” he corrected when I made my guess. He offered no further information.

I asked the desk clerk where I could find a restaurant where I could get some take-out food. The old man headed me toward a Greek joint a few blocks away. Ten minutes later I was back with Gunther’s order, a turkey on rye with mustard and a Pepsi for me, and a chicken salad and coffee for Fields, though I had little hope he would eat. The restaurant had nothing resembling seafood, unless you count catfish.

“Fascinating tome,” Fields said with sincerity, pages of Mrs. Plaut’s manuscript in his hand after my four quick knocks got him to open the door.

“Fascinating,” I agreed. “Might be another movie in that.”

“Might, indeed,” he said. “My meeting with La Cava will be longer than I thought.” He accepted the chicken salad and coffee reluctantly, but said that he might try to consume some of it.

“See you in the morning,” I said.

“I want to be there when the bank opens,” he said. “At least a minute or two before nine.”

I agreed and went to Gunther’s and my room and pulled the mattress onto the floor. Gunther was wearing a robe over neatly ironed pajamas. He ate his meal and went right to bed, reminding me that he had just driven across a continent, and that I had had a long day.

It was still early. I wanted to call Anita or go see a movie, but I did neither. I took a bath to ease my back, shaved and washed so I’d be ready in the morning.

I must have been more tired than I thought. I usually sleep in nothing. I wore clean underwear tonight and took the .38 out of my suitcase and placed it on the table next to my bed before I turned off the light.

I’m not much of a shot, and the few times I’d had to shoot I had done more bad than good and usually hit something or someone I wasn’t aiming for. But a bullet or two certainly gets a person’s attention, and if they were close enough, it might also get them shot.

I turned off the light and lay on the bed on top of the blanket rumpled on the mattress. I planned to lie there working out a plan. Gunther was asleep, breathing lightly. Before I could get a grip on the first step of a plan I was asleep.

The dreams came. Most of them I can’t remember, except for bits and pieces. All of them were about Koko the Clown. I always had Koko the Clown nightmares. Sometimes Betty Boop was in them, but not often. This time Koko and I were running across a field and a giant head was floating after us, singing, “I’ll Be Glad When You’re Dead, You Rascal You.” The head was Louis Armstrong and he smiled as he sang. Koko and I were suddenly in a hotel room. He motioned for me to follow him. We jumped into a drawer and he closed it behind us. We lay in the dark. Koko giggled. Outside the room came the sound of a door opening and heavy footsteps thumping around the room, opening doors, searching. I could hear a drawer above us open. I put my hand over Koko’s mouth to keep him from giggling. A second drawer opened. And then our drawer opened and we looked up at Louis Armstrong, who grinned and said, “Gotcha.”

I remember clinging to Koko, who shouted, “Scat.”

Louis Armstrong disappeared. I looked at my hand as we climbed out of the drawer. It was covered in red greasepaint from putting it over Koko’s painted mouth to stop him from giggling. The greasepaint looked like blood.

Koko without some of his makeup looked like someone else, someone I recognized but couldn’t place.

“You’re … you’re …” I said and then felt myself being shaken.

“Toby,” said Gunther. “It’s time to get up.”

I sat up. He was already dressed. Casually for Gunther. Pressed slacks, shirt and tie, and a tweed sports jacket.

My back felt a little better. I took two pills, used the washroom, brushed my teeth, checked to see if I needed a fresh shave. I did, but I didn’t stop to take one. I was still waking up and I didn’t want to take the time to patch any razor cuts from my not-yet-steady hand.

When I was dressed and ready, it was eight-thirty. We were both packed. I knocked four times on Fields’s door. He opened it, neatly dressed, bags ready. I glanced at the table next to the chair. Some of the chicken salad had been eaten. He was wearing his disguise mustache. I didn’t bother to try to talk him out of it then, when we checked out, when we got in the car, or as Gunther started to drive. I needed coffee and at least a sinker. Gunther agreed.

“Long as we’re at the bank before nine,” said Fields. “I’ll guide you there. It’s not far, as I recall.”

We stopped at the same restaurant I had been to the night before, got two carry-out coffees, and we were on our way.

“It’s the Chimp,” said Fields as we drove. “Figured it out last night. Couldn’t be anyone else.”

“Is he Hipnoodle or the guy who’s trying to stop us?” I asked, not looking at his face or his ridiculous mustache.

“Perhaps both,” said Fields triumphantly. “Perhaps the accomplice of Hipnoodle, who is his twin brother or a fiendish cousin. No doubt about it. It’s the Chimp, my traitorous driver. Evidence that you should never trust anyone, even a man in the electric chair with nothing to lose. The human mind has a penchant for dissembling. I learned that when I was twelve.”

I nodded and wondered about my Koko dream, tried to see clearly the face under the greasepaint. It wouldn’t come clear and I knew if I didn’t get it soon, I’d lose it forever.

“Finished your Mrs. Plaut’s chapter,” Fields said, reaching for a morning drink, probably not his first. “Woman’s a clear match for Thurber or Perlman. Want to read the whole book. Listen.”

He fished Mrs. Plaut’s manuscript from the picnic basket on the floor and began to read:

Cousin Antonio Pride who fancied himself special because he came from the Kingman branch which boasted of few who were feeble of mind and several who had finished high school, was a salesman of some stature in Goldfarb’s Haberdashery in Steubenville, Ohio. Antonio was short of build, dark of color, and even of white teeth, a full and radiant mouthful that dazzled customers and pleased Mr. Goldfarb. One morning Cousin Antonio Pride, who had a wife and three children, fell prey to the family curse. He was thirty-nine years of age. He was in the process of fitting a stylish derby on the head of a customer whose hair was parted in the middle leading Mr. Goldfarb later to surmise that the customer was a bartender. Cousin Antonio Pride left the customer, walked out of the front door of Goldfarb’s Haberdashery in Steubenville, Ohio, got on the four o’clock train heading west, held up said train with a pair of weapons originally belonging to his stepfather Hugo Arthur Slade, not his real father, Mario Pride, who had similarly departed several decades earlier never to be heard from again. Antonio’s booty was from passengers and train personnel. (He did not take any goods or cash from the porters, though the conductor was not exempt from his criminal outburst.) Two bags full of cash, watches, jewelry including rings, and odd mementos later, Cousin Antonio Pride leapt from the train as it slowed at a turn onto a trestle over a river. Word came back years later that he had gone to Tampico, Mexico, converted his booty to cash, and opened a bar where he could thrash obdurate and noisy drunks with impunity. It was said that he had taken a young Indian girl of passable looks as his illegal wife. Exactly twenty years to the day he had walked out of Goldfarb’s Haberdashery in Steubenville, Ohio, he emptied his cash register and the safe in his office and, at the age of fifty-nine, leaving behind a second wife and two dark children, headed farther south carrying with him a book called
Basic Portuguese
according to the dry goods salesman who sat next to him on the train and drummed up a conversation. The salesman later related the conversation to James Earl Pride, Antonio’s second son from Steubenville who had set out in search of his father with the intent of making him pay for his desertion. James Earl, who was twenty-five at the time, passed the information on to his mother and brother who still resided in Steubenville. He had learned of his father’s departure from Tampico from the Indian wife his father had abandoned. James Earl took pity on the woman and her two sons, gave up his search, and returned to Tampico where he married her legally, took over the bar, and lived comfortably until the age of seventy-nine when he was shot by a jealous husband with whose wife he was caught in a situation. The husband was a member of the constabulary.

The town gave him a good mourning in Spanish. Upon his death, a novel was discovered in James Earl’s hand concerning the bloody bandit life of Al Jennings of Oklahoma who James Earl claimed to have known. The book was sold to and published in both Mexico and the United States to poor reviews and even poorer sales. Antonio was never heard from again. These events, however, suggest that there is in the blood of our family a drive toward abandonment, carnal activity till late in life, and a desire to engage in the creation of literary works.

“The bank,” said Gunther.

Fields had more to read but his head shot up suddenly and he stuffed the pages of Mrs. Plaut’s manuscript back in his picnic basket. “Five minutes to nine,” he said. “We’ve beaten Hipnoodle here, and today we shall have our satisfaction.”

Fields was wrong on both counts.

There’s no room in the White House for a man with barber’s itch.

While we watched the front door of the First Consolidated Bank of Altoona, we listened to “Aunt Jenny’s Stories” on the radio. In the episode a woman had lost her husband and had to take over raising her three young children and running her husband’s real-estate office. Love came to her in the form of a wealthy widower who was looking for a small house where he could mourn with a beautiful view. Fields listened attentively, his eye fixed on the door of the bank. He hadn’t taken a drink yet.

“The gold digger’s looking for a free ride,” said Fields finally, pointing at the radio. “Taking advantage of a grieving man to stop working and sit home eating cashews and holding the old man’s hand while she clothes her brats in diaphanous dresses and fine lace.”

Aunt Jenny seemed to think the marriage of the widow and widower was the happy ending.

“Turn on the news,” Fields barked.

Gunther changed the station.

“Never did find out what killed the first husband,” Fields muttered. “Probably poisoned by the greedy wench.”

We caught the tail end of the morning news and heard from the deep-voiced announcer that one hundred flying fortresses had battered Sardinia and destroyed twenty-six ships and seventy-one Axis airplanes.

“Gotta remember to put a pin up for that one when I get back home,” Fields said.

People entered the bank and came out. None, even if they were wearing disguises, were tall enough to be Hipnoodle. Gunther and I kept looking back for the black Ford.