Stuart Kaminsky - Melting Clock

“Take it out carefully.”

I unzipped my windbreaker, showed my holster and took out my.38 very carefully.

“On the bed. Throw it on the bed.”

I threw it on the bed. It didn’t bounce.

“Now, close the window and pull down the shade,” he said.

“I think-” I started.

“Close it now or I’ll kill you.”

His voice was vibrating like a cello string and he looked scared enough to mean what he was saying. I turned to the window, considered diving out, changed my mind and did what he told me.

“I opened it for you,” he said as I turned to face him again. “The police locked everything. Cars are my living. I could have spotted your Crosley from the sound of the engine two blocks away.”

“How did you get in?” I asked.

“Key. Adam Place was my cousin.”

“Claude Street?”

“We got a mutual friend in Carmel.”

“It doesn’t pay to be related or friendly with you,” I observed.

“I didn’t kill them,” said Taylor nervously. “Why should I kill them?”

“And you didn’t shoot at Dali tonight?”

I took in the room without being too obvious about it, hoping there was something I could use, get to, someplace I could hide. The bed was there, still bloody. The bear was there, too. But the painting was gone. So was the clock. The rest of the room looked pretty much the way it had twenty-four hours ago, like a tidied-up version of Renfield’s room in Castle Dracula.

“I shot at Dali,” he admitted. “But not to kill him.”

“Not to kill him.”

“No, to get him to pay for the painting I still have, for the last clock. Don’t you see? I got to get out of L.A.”

“You want to run?”

“Someone killed Adam and Claude after they agreed to watch a clock and a painting for me. I have the last clock, the last painting. I want to give them back. That Dali’s crazy. His wife’s crazier. It was just supposed to be some kind of publicity thing, you know?”

“I know,” I said.

“Hey, I just need a little money so I can get away. Police are gonna be after me. I know it and someone’s killing- Look, I was gonna call, but you tell Dali. Tell him, tell her I need twenty-five thousand dollars and he can have his painting and his clock back. It’s all their fault anyway.”

“Their fault?”

“Stop doing that,” he warned, pointing the gun in the general direction of my face.

“What?”

“Asking me questions. I’ll tell you what you have to know. I wrote those messages on the paintings. It was Dali’s idea, Dali and his wife. If they’d just have let me alone. We was doing all right.”

“We?”

“Me, I. I like my work. Zeman treats me fine. I love cars. You love cars?”

“Adore them,” I said.

“You’re lying,” he said, his voice rising. “I see what you’re driving, how you don’t take care of it.”

“You’re right,” I said. “I hate the goddamn things.”

When you talk to a nervous man with a gun, remember he is always right.

“Where was I?”

“Messages on the paintings,” I reminded him.

“Yes,” he said. “I wasn’t supposed to take the clocks, the third painting. It was just a publicity stunt. I take the two paintings. They hire someone to look for them.”

“Me.”

“Yes, they hire you to look for them. I leave the messages and you get the paintings back. Then the newspapers come in. Maybe Lowell Thomas and Movietone. That’s what they said. And I’d get a thousand dollars.”

“Did Zeman know?”

“That,” he said, “is a question. If you ask another question …”

“The clocks and the paintings,” I reminded him, careful not to make the reminder a question.

“I needed help carrying the paintings. I drove to Carmel with Claude. When he saw the third painting and the three clocks, he was, I don’t know, crazy. He told me we could make thousands and thousands.”

I almost asked how, but caught myself and switched to, “Lot of money for a painting and some clocks. He must have thought they had some special value.”

“Claude was smart. Claude knew about art, history, stuff like that. He could speak languages-Spanish, Russian, Dutch. I don’t know anything about all that, painting, clocks,” Taylor said. “I only know about-”

“-cars,” I finished.

Taylor was shaking his head now. The finger on the trigger of the rifle was twitching nervously.

“I didn’t kill anybody,” he said.

“Gregory Novak,” I tried.

“Gregory Novak. Who the hell is Gregory Novak?”

“Someone who might have killed Claude Street, maybe killed Adam Place, too.”

“I don’t know anybody named Gregory Novak,” he said. “I’ve got the last painting and the last clock. Dali wants them back, he gives you twenty-five grand by noon tomorrow.”

“You mean tomorrow, Tuesday.”

“Monday.”

“Today’s Monday. It’s after midnight.”

“Today. I’ll call you at your office. You don’t have the money, I don’t know what I’ll do. I’ll kill Dali or I’ll call the police, tell them about the whole thing, tell them it was Dali and his crazy wife’s idea and they got Adam and Claude killed. I don’t know what I’ll do.”

He was scared and ranting now.

“I’ll let him know,” I said as calmly as I could.

“The second clock’s not here,” he said. “I looked for it all through the house. Where is it?”

“Police probably took it.”

“Why?” he asked. “Did they give it back to the Spanish loony?”

“They didn’t tell me, Jim.”

“Don’t call me Jim. I’m not your servant.”

“They didn’t tell me, Mr. Taylor.”

“Now you’re making fun of me.”

“What do you want me to call you, for Chrissake?” I asked.

The gun went off. Either he was serious about shooting me if I asked a question or the finger-twitching had worn down the trigger spring. The bullet tore past me into the wall and I turned and dived through the window, taking the shade with me. The shade kept me from getting cut by the shattering glass. I did a belly flop on the grass and lost my wind. I tried to get up but didn’t have the air so I rolled to the right, pushing the torn window shade from me and expecting another shot from Taylor. He might not be able to shoot straight, but given enough chances at a close target he was bound to meet with some success eventually.

No shot came as I got to my knees, but I did hear Taylor coming out the window after me. Lights came on in the house on the other side of the fence as I heard Taylor move toward me in the darkness.

“Twenty-five thousand, cash, by noon,” he said. “I’m a desperate man.”

And I’m a weary one, I thought, but said nothing. I couldn’t have said it even if I wanted to. I was still trying to get a near-normal breath. He moved past me, running toward his car across the street, the rifle in his right hand.

I hobbled in the general direction of the Crosley. There was no telling how long it would take the cops to show up; I’d guessed wrong about that the last time I was here. Taylor was down the street and long gone when I made it to my car and got in. There were no more lights on in the houses along the street, but I had the feeling people were watching from dark windows. They couldn’t have missed the shot and the explosion of glass.

No police cars screeched around the corner ahead of me to cut off my escape and I saw none in the rear-view mirror. I should have gone back for my gun after Taylor had left. It was too late now. I headed for Beverly Hills, half shot near sunrise, in need of a shave, and trying to think.

I stopped at the all-night Victory Drugstore on La Cienega and got change from a woman of who-knows-what age behind the counter. She had a round pink face and a smile that said she was either simpleminded or believed fervently that Jesus was coming no later than Wednesday to take her out of this miserable job.