I looked up Celine in the Webster. 1891-1961. It was 1993. Saying he was alive, that would make him 102 years old. No wonder Lady Death was looking for him.
And that fellow in the bookstore had looked between 40 and 50. So, that was it. He wasn’t Celine. Or maybe he’d found a method to beat the aging process. Look at the movie stars, they took the skin from their ass and stuck it on the face. The skin on the ass was the last to wrinkle. They all walked around in their later years with buttock faces. Would Celine do that? Who would want to live to be 102? Nobody but a fool. Why would Celine wish to linger? The whole thing was crazy. Lady Death was crazy. I was crazy. The pilots of airliners were crazy. Never look at the pilot. Just get on board and order drinks.
I watched two flies fucking, then decided to call Lady Death. I unzipped and waited for her voice.
“Hello.” I heard her voice.
“Ummm…,” I said.
“What? Oh, it’s you Belane. You getting anywhere on the case?”
“Celine is dead, he was born in 1891.”
“I’m aware of the statistics, Belane. Listen, I know that he is alive…somewhere…and the guy in the bookstore could be him. Are you closing in on anything? I want this guy. I want him badly.”
“Ummm…” I said.
“Zip up!”
“Huh?”
“You fool, I said, ‘zip up!’”
“Uh…all right…”
“I want positive proof whether this guy is or isn’t! I’ve told you that I’ve got this crazy mind block on this matter. Barton recommended you, he said you were one of the best.”
“Oh yes, I’m also working for Barton right now, as a matter of fact. Trying to locate a Red Sparrow. What do you think about that?”
“Listen, Belane, you solve this Celine thing and I’ll tell you where the Red Sparrow is.”
“Oh will you, Lady? Oh, I’d do anything for you!”
“Like what, Belane?”
“Well, I’d kill my pet cockroach for you, I’d belt-whip my mother if she was here, I’d…”
“Stop babbling! I’m beginning to think Barton may have given me a bum steer! Well, you better get going! Either solve this Celine thing or I’m coming after you!”
“Hey, wait a minute, Lady!”
The phone was dead in my hand. I placed it back in its cradle. Ow. She had no block of any sort in getting right to me.
I had work to do.
I looked around for a fly to kill.
Then the door swung open and there stood McKelvey and a big stack of subnormal manure. McKelvey looked at me, then nodded toward it.
“This is Tommy.”
Tommy looked at me with his tiny dim eyes.
“Pleased ta meatcha,” he said.
McKelvey grinned a horrible grin.
“Now, Belane, Tommy is here just for one purpose and that purpose is to slowly pound you to bloody henshit. Right, Tommy?”
“Uh huh,” said Tommy.
He looked like he weighed about 380. Well, shave his fur and you might get him down to 365.
I gave him a kindly smile
“Now look, Tommy, you don’t know me, do you?”
“Uh-uh.”
“Then why would you want to hurt me?”
“Because Mr. McKelvey told me to.”
“Tommy, if Mr. McKelvey told you to drink your peepee, would you do it?”
“Hey!” said McKelvey, “stop mixing my boy up!”
“Tommy, would you eat your mother’s poo-poo just because Mr. McKelvey told you to eat your mother’s poo-poo?”
“Huh?”
“Shut up, Belane, I’ll do the talking here!”
He turned to Tommy.
“Now, I want you to rip this guy apart like an old newspaper, just tear him to shreds and throw him to the fucking winds, got it?”
“I got it, Mr. McKelvey.”
“Good, then what are you waiting for, the last rose of summer?”
Tommy stepped toward me. I slipped the luger out of the drawer, pointed it towards Tommy’s gross immensity.
“Hold it, Thomas, or you’ll be spouting more red than the jerseys of the Stanford football team!”
“Hey,” said McKelvey, “where’d you get that damned thing?”
“A dick without a gat is like a tomcat with a rubber. Or like a clock without hands.”
“Belane,” said McKelvey, “you talk goofy.”
“I been told. Now tell your boy to back off or I’ll put so much daylight through him that you’ll be able to toss a grapefruit through!”
“Tommy,” said McKelvey, “come on back here and stand in front of me.”
They stood there like that. I had to figure out what to do with them. It wasn’t easy. I’d never won a scholarship to Oxford. I’d slept through biology and I was weak in math. But I had managed to stay alive up until now.
Maybe.
Anyhow, I momentarily held some kind of an ace in some kind of a stacked deck. I had to make a move. Now or never. September was coming. The crows were in council. The sun was bleeding.
“All right, Tommy,” I said, “down on your hands and knees! Now!”
He looked at me like he didn’t hear so good.
I gave him a wan smile and clicked the safety catch off the luger.
Tommy was dumb but not totally.
He dropped to his hands and knees, shaking the whole 6th floor like a 5.9 earthquake. My fake Dali fell to the floor. The one with the melted watch.
Tommy clumped there like the Grand Canyon and looked at me.
“Now, Tommy,” I said, “you are going to be the elephant and McKelvey is going to be the elephant boy, got it?”
“Huh?” asked Tommy.
I looked over at McKelvey.
“Go on! Get on! Mount!”
“Belane, are you nuts?”
“Who knows? Insanity is comparative. Who sets the norm?”
“I don’t know,” said McKelvey.
“Just get on!”
“All right, all right! But I never had trouble like this before when a lease ran out.”
“Get on, asshole!”
McKelvey climbed onto Tommy’s back. He had real trouble getting his legs over the sides. Almost split his butt.
“Good,” I said. “Now, Tommy, you’re the elephant and you’re going to carry McKelvey on your back, down the hall and into the elevator. Begin now!”
Tommy began crawling across the floor of the office.
“Belane,” said McKelvey, “I’ll get you for this. I swear by my mother’s pubic hairs!”
“Mess with me again, McKelvey, and I’ll ram your cock down a garbage disposal!”
I opened the door and Tommy crawled out with the elephant boy.
He crawled on down the hall and as I slipped the luger back into my coat pocket I felt something in there, a crumpled up piece of paper. I took it out. It was my examination paper for the written test to renew my driver’s license. It was full of red marks. I had failed.
I tossed the paper over my shoulder and followed my friends.
We reached the elevator and I pressed the button.
I stood there humming a bit from “Carmen.”
Then out of nowhere I remembered long ago reading about how they found Jimmy Foxx dead in a skid row hotel room. All those home runs. Dead with the roaches.
The elevator came up. The door opened and I gave Tommy a boot in the ass. He crawled in bearing McKelvey. There were 3 people in there, standing, reading their newspapers.
They kept reading. The elevator went down.
I took the stairway. I was 30 pounds overweight. I needed it.
I counted 176 steps and then I was on the first floor. I stopped at the cigar stand, bought a cigar and The Daily Racing Form. I heard the elevator coming.
Outside, I moved through the smog resolutely. My eyes were blue and my shoes were old and nobody loved me. But I had things to do.
I was Nicky Belane, private detective.