Stuart Kaminsky - Tomorrow Is Another day

Dash didn't care, but Mrs. Plaut, who had returned and opened the door without my hearing her, did have some ideas.

"First," she said, ignoring my yelp of surprise, "it is most assuredly too late for you to grow up for you have already done so. Second, I do not know what you will leave behind if Wendell Willke kills you. Actually, I think you must be seriously deluded to believe that Mr. Willke would have the slightest interest in you. But if you were to be hit by a Red Car on the Melrose line, I, though grieved, would request that one of your cronies take your cat."

"You are always a comfort to me in moments of indecision and self-doubt," I said.

"They are still waiting downstairs. They have consumed all of the remaining orange snail muffins, and the little fat one with the thick glasses and odious cigar has drunk one quart of saft and spilt another pint on the rug."

"I didn't invite Shelly," I said.

"And I hope you have not invited Keats or Byron," said Mrs. Plaut. "I am playing the "Song of India" for those assembled, but while I am the gracious landlord, I always ask myself what the departed Mister would say in a situation."

"What would he say?" I said, buttoning my shirt.

'Tell them to keep their feet off the furniture, including the hassock, and that minimal refreshments will be served this day."

"I'm on the way down," I said.

"You said that once before," she said.

I took the box of dominoes off the manuscript, hoisted the tome in two hands, and handed it to her.

"Fascinating," I said.

"And all of it a factual chronicle," she said.

Far behind her, well beyond her doubtful hearing, someone shouted, then someone answered, then the shouting rose.

"I think we'd better get downstairs," I said, moving past her.

Dash dashed between my feet into the hallway, and Mrs. Plaut mumbled to herself that the age of chivalry had gone to rest with the Mister.

I went to the bathroom, brushed my teeth and hair, and looked at myself in the mirror. Mrs. Plaut's poultice was doing its job. The cut was clean, tight, small, and no longer discolored. I was ready for guests.

When I got to the day room, Shelly was standing in the center of the floor squinting through his bottle-bottom glasses at Gunther, who stood below him but didn't give an inch.

Jeremy sat on the sofa, arms folded, ignoring the confrontation and making notes on a pad. Next to him was Clark Gable, who sat, arms folded, shaking his head in disbelief. He was wearing a pair of worn khaki fatigue pants and an olive-colored long-sleeved shirt with a turtleneck.

Mame Stoltz sat on the Mister's rocking chair, reputed to have been the property of Mr. Abraham Lincoln's secretary of something or other. Mame was sleek, lean, hair short and dark, piled up to show her neck. She wore a gray blouse and matching skirt, with white pearls and plenty of makeup. She looked up when I came in and smiled.

"Toby," she said. "Landlady or no landlady, Clark and I are going to smoke."

Gunther and Shelly continued to glare at each other. Shelly made a low growling sound.

"Is that what they're fighting about?"

"They're fighting about someone named Mildred," Gable said, rubbing his forehead.

Without turning his gaze from Gunther, Shelly whined, "He made remarks about my wife."

"I said that Mrs. Minck bore no resemblance to Miss Stoltz," said Gunther, who looked at me seriously.

"Mildred is a Venus compared to her," Shelly said.

I glanced at Mame, who was playing with an unopened pack of Old Gold's.

"Mrs. Minck is of no anatomical distinction," Gunther insisted. "Physiological comparisons are of the most superficial kind."

I tended to agree with Gunther but I knew that folly and defeat lay in pursuing it with Sheldon, who had an unexplained loyalty to Mildred who vaguely resembled Marjorie Main on a bad day. Mildred had once run off with a Peter Lorre imitator and when he was dead returned to Shelly and took all the money the beachball of a dentist had hidden in an old vase.

"Shelly," I said, going for the idea that a strong offense would obscure the argument, "what are you doing here?"

This got his attention and he turned to me somewhat sheepishly while Gunther moved to Mame's side. Seated in the rocker, Mame was about the same height as Gunther, a mating made in Hollywood heaven.

"I heard that we were meeting. Jeremy said…"

"I did not," Jeremy said without looking up from his pad.

"Sit down, Shelly," I said.

"But that little…"

"Down, now, Sheldon," I said.

"I'm not apologizing," Shelly said, looking for a chair and finding a wooden one in the corner. "No. He'll apologize."

"Fine," I said, "let's…"

"But I will apologize to Mr. Gable," Shelly said, standing next to the chair.

"Apology accepted," Gable said with a smile and a glance at me that made it clear he was losing patience.

"In fact," Shelly said, as if he had a flash of inspiration, "I'll be glad to work on your teeth, cleaning, fillings, whatever, for half the celebrity price."

Mame whispered something to Gunther, who nodded.

"No, thank you," Gable said, pulling a cigarette from his pocket and putting it to his lips.

"But…" Shelly went on as Gunther moved quickly to his side and touched his arm. Shelly wanted to brush him away but Gunther insisted. Shelly sat hi the wooden chair and Gunther whispered in his ear.

"No," said Shelly, looking at Gable, who looked as if he was seriously considering a run for the door. "Clark Gable? False teeth?"

"That's it," said Gable, rising. "Peters, I'm going out on the front porch with Mame. We are going to have a cigarette. When we are finished, I'm going home, where I will pack what few belongings I've brought to the States with me, and tomorrow I'll catch the first military air transportation I can find back to England. I'd like to get my hands on this Spelling, but there's a war going on and I think I'd better escape this…"

"Sideshow?" Mame suggested.

"I'll go with that," Gable said. "Five minutes."

He looked at his wristwatch and strode to the door with Mame a step behind him. Gunther stood blinking at the temporary loss of Mame to the call of tobacco and the company of Clark Gable.

"More saft?" Mrs. Plaut said amiably, coming into the room with a pitcher of dark liquid. "Iced this time."

I sat next to Jeremy in the spot Gable had been. No one answered Mrs. Plaut, who placed the pitcher on a wooden block on the coffee table.

"Thanks," I said.

"What happened to the lady and the man who looks like Robert Taylor?"

"Smoking on the front porch," I said, feeling that the businesslike atmosphere I had hoped for had vanished in smoke rings.

"I don't allow smoking in the house," Mrs. Plaut said, standing straight, smiling, and wiping her hands on the apron she had put on.

"We are painfully aware of that," I said.

"Not pipes or cigars," she said, looking at Shelly, who put his palms on his chest and squealed, "What did I do?"

"We've all done things about which we are not proud," Mrs. Plaut said. "You appear to have done more than the rest of us."

With that Mrs. Plaut departed.

"I haven't done anything," Shelly insisted, shoving his glasses back on his nose just as they were about to tumble into his lap.

"Violet Gonsenelli," I said, closing my eyes and regretting my words.

"Violet Gon… I haven't… she… I, we need a receptionist," Shelly said, pleading his case to the indifferent Jeremy and Gunther.

"That's it," I said, raising my voice. "That's it. People are dying out there. Some maniac may be trying to kill Clark Gable. Hell, he may be trying to kill me too. Let's, for God's sake, try to make some sense around here."

Gunther sat in the rocker. Shelly considered a rejoinder and changed his mind. Jeremy put his pencil in his pocket, folded his notebook, and said, "The police are watching Mr. Varney, who appears to be one of the final two remaining witnesses to the events that took place on the night Spelling's father died."