Stuart Kaminsky - Murder on a Yellow Brick Road

We sat in the dark on the couch for a long time saying nothing. Then we made love. I forgot Grundy and my brother for a while, but the while was too short.

“I’ve got things that have to be done,” I said.

“I know,” she said.

“You want me to take you home first?”

“No,” she said, taking my hand. “I’ve got my car. Call me when something happens, and take care of yourself.”

I walked her down to her car, which was parked on the side of the building, and I headed back to my own, parked near Judy Garland’s dressing room. It was dark. There were lights in a few offices and the sound of activity on a stage not far away. I passed two women in fluffy costumes talking about someone named Norman.

I opened the trunk of my car and dropped the film in. When I closed the trunk I heard something behind me.

“Just open it again,” said Grundy.

I faced him. He was wearing a thin jacket and a. 45 automatic. He stepped toward me. I opened the trunk and pulled out the can.

“Meant to ask you something the next time I saw you Barney. Is Nimble really your middle name?”

He didn’t answer, just reached out for the can after shifting the gun from his right to his left hand. The gun was in the wrong hand and he was a rotten shot. If I didn’t do something, I was sure I’d be joining Cash and Peese. His hand was almost touching the can when I brought it down as hard as I could on the gun. The. 45 flew into the dark, and the can rolled after it. Grundy was nimble. He was on me before I could get the. 38 out. I bounced back into the trunk and kicked up at his face. He stumbled backward. As I came up I lost my. 38 in the trunk. I groped for it, but Grundy pulled me out and my back cracked against the ground.

He stood over me, breathing heavy. Blood was trickling out of his nose, and he didn’t look too pleased with me.

“Let’s talk,” I gasped.

He shook his head no and picked me up as if I were a Shirley Temple doll. He was going to kill me with his hands and fists, and he was going to enjoy it. I punched him low in the stomach, but nothing happened. I threw a knee at his groin, but he twisted and took it with his calf. His right hand tightened around my throat, and he pushed me back hard against a nearby wall. My head screamed in pain, and I went out.

There was a tunnel in front of me, and I jumped into its darkness, followed by grinning flying monkeys. My old pal Koko the Clown took my hand and led me tumbling into the darkness to a little black and white shack. A cartoon version of Grundy, bouncing muscles, lifted the top of the shack, exposing me and Koko. Behind Grundy was a skyful of flying monkeys. Koko took my hand again, and we raced across a frozen lake with Grundy and the monkeys in pursuit.

Koko and I jumped into a bottle of ink and pulled the top over us. We swam in cool darkness, safe and protected.

The moon was swaying gently in the sky. It was a dull red against the darkness. I watched it, almost hypnotized. Something was behind the moon, but I ignored it. I had never seen the moon swaying before. The thing behind the moon became clearer. It was a face. Not only did I have a murderer to deal with, I had to figure out why the moon was swaying and why there was a face behind it.

A streak of pain hit my head and I moaned. I was lying on my back and the floor was cold under me. I pushed myself up in pain and touched my head where Grundy had banged it against the wall. My hand came away wet and sticky.

The moon was red because my own blood was dripping into my dazed eyes. I looked at the moon again and the face behind it became clear; it was Clark Gable. Then more of the moon mystery was solved. The moon was a small light bulb dangling from the ceiling, rocking gently in front of a portrait of Clark Gable. The bulb didn’t give much light, but I could see a sky full of paintings in front of it and behind it.

The pain and blood told me I probably wasn’t dead. By straining with the information I was getting, I figured out that I was on the floor of a big prop room.

When I tried to stand, I went back on my knees and leaned against something that was not quite a prop. It felt like a human knee. My hands found the rest of the body, and I could tell from what I felt that it was Grundy or someone else who had spent a lot of time worrying about his body. Whoever it was had no more earthly worries. A knife was sticking firmly in his chest.

With a lot of effort and some help from a table, I pulled myself up and held the light bulb toward the body. It was Grundy. His eyes were opened and startled. As far as I could see, there was no trail of blood on the floor. It looked as if he had been killed where he sat.

In contrast, there was plenty of blood where I had been lying on the floor. It was my blood. My mind was working well enough to tell me to get the hell out of there, but my head wouldn’t cooperate. There seemed to be a kind of aisle going past Grundy’s body. I made my way along it, feeling past furniture and props as I went.

In a few thousand years, I reached the door of a freight elevator, which I managed to get open. I got myself inside and leaned against a wall, not knowing if I was up or down. I pushed all three buttons on the wall and the elevator moved. When it stopped, I staggered out. It was almost dawn, and I wanted to get somewhere where I could think. If Grundy was the killer, who killed Grundy?

Whoever did it had saved my life, but I had little else to thank them for. They’d left me with a corpse. I couldn’t figure out where I was on the lot, so I wandered around for about ten minutes. Then I saw Hoff’s office and made it to my car. Someone was leaning on it. Someone else was standing next to the leaner. The guy leaning on my car was my brother the cop. The guy with him was Sergeant Steve Seidman.

I stopped, waiting for Phil to rush at me and lay me out with a right to whatever part of my body least expected it. He did move toward me quickly, but there was no punch. I must have looked great.

“What the hell happened to you?” he hissed between his teeth.

“I got fresh with Joan Crawford,” I said, and fell forward in his arms.

I didn’t quite go all the way out this time. Events took place over and around me in a kind of soup as the sun rose. Officer Rashkow appeared from nowhere, and Phil told him to get an ambulance. Seidman was told to try to figure out where I had come from. Phil picked me up and brought me somewhere, but I couldn’t make it out. Then Judy Garland’s face appeared above me.

“Mr. Peters? Oh, Mr. Peters, are you all right? Will he be all right?” She sounded scared and concerned and I wanted to reassure her, but I couldn’t talk.

Then I felt myself lifted and traveling. There were sirens, and I wished they would shut up so I could rest.

When I opened my eyes again, the sun was bright above me, but it wasn’t the sun, it was the ceiling light in an emergency room. The face above me was familiar. It belonged to a kid named Dr. Parry who had fished that bullet out of me not long ago. He was dressed in white and had blonde hair and glasses. He was sewing my scalp.

“You are a stupid man, Peters,” he said, sewing away. “Your head is a battleground of contusions and fractures. The human body is not built to take this abuse. That head’s going to come open like an egg one of these times.”

“How bad is it?” I asked.

Neither he nor I could make out what I said. I tried again slowly. “How bad?”

“Concussion, hairline fracture, fifteen stitches,” he said. “Maybe sixteen.”

A nurse stood next to him and said nothing. She reminded me of my father’s favorite reading lamp-tall, thin, and white.

When he’d finished, they helped me up. My jacket was gone, and my shirt was bloody.