Stuart Kaminsky - Melting Clock

Doc looked at me and shifted his black bag to his other hand.

“Want me to look at your nose?” he asked.

“I’ll be peachy,” I said.

“Any other wounds need tending?” he asked. “I usually have to do a little patching in the wake of the Rangleys.”

My head was throbbing and the ache in my side sucked deep and sharp.

“I feel great,” I said. “Trooper Rangley knows how to treat a fella.”

Doc looked at me and shook his head.

“Never that simple, mister,” he said. “Beau and Mel are the last of the Rangley brothers. Rick died on Guam. Sam got killed in Morocco on a tank. And Harry, well, they never found enough of him to make it official. The oldest brother, Carl, he took a broken beer bottle in the gut half a year before the war broke out. Beau and Mel are draft-free and they promised their mother they wouldn’t join. So, every time they’re introduced to a new friend like you, they make ’em welcome. Rangleys are none too brilliant. You know what sublimate means?”

“No,” I said. “Let me guess. They feel better when they kick someone’s teeth out.”

“Something like that,” Doc agreed. “But to give you your due, the Rangleys weren’t a friendly bunch even when there was an even half dozen of them. Sheriff Nelson, what say you let the innocent man out and all of us go over to Hijo’s and have a few beers before my date with the deceased?”

Nelson’s legs were back, at least back enough for him to nod and get up.

“Why not?” he said wearily. “I’ve got to give my wife a call first.”

Doc took the keys from Nelson and moved toward me as Nelson picked up the phone.

“One more painting?” Doc asked as he opened the cell door.

“One more clock,” I added, stepping into the office where Nelson was whispering into the receiver.

“Running out of time,” said Doc, looking at the keys.

I looked out the window at the retarded man, who was still watching me with a happy grin. This was probably the most exciting day of his life.

“There was fresh blood on the floor of the antique shop,” I said low enough so Nelson couldn’t hear me from across the room.

“Not the victim’s,” said Doc. “Probably not the killer’s either. I’d imagine whoever did it was long gone and far away before dawn.”

I pointed to the window. Doc looked where I was pointing and saw the handprint.

We moved past Nelson’s desk. The sheriff gave us a shrug, turned his back to us and continued whispering into the phone.

“Martin Sawyer,” I said, looking at the retarded man.

Doc looked up as we reached the door.

“Like many of the inhabitants of Mirador, I delivered him.”

“Harmless?”

“Harmless,” said Doc, stepping out onto the sidewalk and holding the door open for me.

Nelson, still on the phone, waved us ahead.

We were standing in front of Martin Sawyer now, and Sawyer turned from the sheriff’s office window and smiled gently at us as Doc sighed.

“Let me look at your hand, Martin.”

Martin took his right hand out of his pocket and held it out. It was pink with flecks of fast-drying blood.

“Peters,” said Doc, looking at the hand. “Martin Sawyer is incapable of committing violence.”

“But not of witnessing it.”

Through the window we could see Sheriff Nelson hang up the phone.

“I’d prefer that Martin not go through the pain of arrest and questioning,” said Doc, guiding Martin’s hand back to the overall pocket.

“I know who killed him,” said Martin Sawyer happily. His voice was soft and high.

Nelson was moving toward the door through which Doc and I had just come.

“Who” asked Doc.

“Last night, Mr. Claude told me a name. Then I came back before and Mr. Claude was, was, was …”

“Dead,” I said.

Martin Sawyer looked frightened. His eyes moved to Sheriff Nelson, who was coming out of the door.

“What was the name Mr. Claude told you, Martin?”

“Gregory Novak,” said Martin. “Mr. Claude said, ‘Gregory Novak wants to kill me, but I’ll fool him.’”

“What?” asked Nelson. “Martin Sawyer, go home to your sister. There is nothing here for you.”

Sawyer rubbed his head and looked at Nelson.

“Gregory Novak,” he said.

Nelson shook his head and pushed past Sawyer, heading toward Hijo’s bar.

“Martin just told us that Claude believed someone named Gregory Novak was planning to kill him,” said Doc.

“Hold it,” I put in. “Juanita said someone would be killed by a guy called Guy or Greg, a guy with a beard.”

“Juanita?” asked Doc.

“Fortune teller in L.A.,” I explained.

Sheriff Nelson stopped, his back to us, paused for a beat and turned to look at the three of us.

“Gentlemen,” said Nelson, “I anticipate both an eventful confrontation with my spouse and a future of less than cordial social interaction with the brothers Rangley. The respite of a bottle or two of Drewery’s will be most welcome. It is my opinion that Gregory Norvell-”

“Novak,” Martin Sawyer corrected helpfully.

“Novak,” Nelson said with a weary sigh. “I stand corrected. It is my opinion that Gregory Novak is the name of a character on Mr. Keen or some other radio show which Martin Sawyer is unable to separate from reality. Now, I am going into the Mex bar and have a beer. Your companionship would be welcome, but it would not be the first time I have had a beer by myself.”

Doc touched Martin Sawyer’s arm and told him softly to get in Doc’s car and wait for him. Then we joined Nelson in the bar.

At a table, one of four in Hijo’s, Doc gave me a handful of aspirin for my head. I downed them with a bottle of some unknown and unnamed yellow liquid with a faint taste of beer. We sat drinking while Sheriff Nelson brooded over life, his wife, and the brothers Rangley. The radio behind the bar played a Treasury War Bond show. Jane Froman and Lanny Ross sang a duet-“This Love of Mine”-followed by a sketch with Betty Grable and Preston Foster as a married couple trying to get ready for a dinner while their maid, played by Joan Davis, gave them a hard time.

I got on the road as soon as I could and headed north. The Crosley wasn’t in a hurry and my head had a lump the size and shape of a yucca leaf. I pulled in at South Carlsbad Beach just before Oceanside, had a hot dog at a shack called Hernie’s, looked at the ocean and a white wooden naval lookout tower on stilts. I sat on a piece of driftwood and helped the tower look for the Japanese armada for about an hour. When I got up, my head throbbed and my back twinged, but it could have been worse.

I passed San Juan Capistrano as the sun was going down. The written history of California began at the Mission San Juan Capistrano. History was the one subject I had enjoyed in high school. In my one year and a little more at the University of Southern California, the only class I could pay attention to was history. I remembered one afternoon when Father Zephpyrin Engelhardt, the historian of the California Missions, had come to class complete with dark robes tied with a white rope and a little black skullcap on his head. He had a long white beard and carried an ancient book. I’d looked up Father Z in 1936 on my way through San Juan Capistrano, but he had died two years earlier.

It was Father Z who told us how California got its name. Father Z said, I’ve still got the notes somewhere, that a novel called Las Sergas de Esplanadian - The Adventures of the Esplanadian -by Garcia de Montalvo had been published in Spain in 1510. In the novel, which Father Z had read, there’s a fantastic island of wealthy Amazons. For reasons which no one knows, Montalvo called the island California, a word he never defined. A word, in short, which has no meaning.