Death Is a Lonely Business (Crumley Mysteries 1)

“Armpits,” said Henry, quietly.

Startled, I waited and whispered, “Armpits?”

“On the street outside the tenement,” whispered Henry, staring at a sky he could not see, speaking from the corner of his mouth. “Inside, the halls. By my room. By Fannie’s room. The smell. Him. The one.” A pause. A nod. “Armpits.”

My nose twitched. My eyes began to run. I stirred my feet, wanting to get away, go see, find.

“When was this, Henry?” I whispered.

“The other night. Night Fannie went away forever.”

“Sh!” said someone nearby.

Henry shut up. When there was a change of speakers I whispered, “Where?”

“Crossing the street early on,” said Henry. ‘That night. Powerful, real powerful smell. Then, later, seemed to me the armpits came into the hall behind me. I mean, it was so strong it cleared my sinuses. Like having a grizzly bear breathe on you. You ever smell that? I froze halt-across the street, like I been hit with a baseball bat. Thought, anyone smells like that’s got a grudge against God, dogs, mankind, the world. Step on a cat rather than walk around. Bad-ass mean. Armpits, like I said. Armpits. That help you any?”

My whole body was frozen. I could only nod. Henry said, “That smell’s been around the halls some few nights now, but just got stronger is all, maybe because that dumb son-of-a-bitch was getting closer. I was tripped up by Mr. Smell, I know that now. I got it figured.”

“Sh!” said someone.

An actor spoke, and a priest, and a rabbi, and then the Hall Johnson Choir from the First Baptist Church on Central Avenue filed through the tombstones and gathered to sing “Great Day in the Morning,” “In the Sweet Bye and Bye,” and “Dear God, Toy Me When I’m Gone.” And their voices were the voices I had heard in the late Thirties, chanting Ronald Colman over the snow peaks and down into Shangri-la, or standing on white clouds in the fields of the Lord in Green Pastures. By the end of their radiant singing, I was overflowed and joyed and Death had had a new coat of sunlight and time, and die hummingbird came back for nectar, and the dragonfly sank down to scan my face and go away.

“That,” said Crumley, on the way out of the graveyard, with Henry walking between us, “is the way I want to be sung out of the world. God, I’d love to be that whole damn choir. Who needs money when you can sing like that!”

But I was staring at Henry. He felt my stare.

“Thing is,” said Henry, “he keeps coming back. Armpits. You’d think he’d had enough, sure? But he’s hungry-mean, can’t stop. Scaring people is like Cracker Jack to him. Hurt’s his byword. Pain is a living. He figures to get old Henry, like he got the rest. But I won’t fall again.”

Crumley was listening with some seriousness.

“If Armpits comes again—”

“I’ll call you, immediamente. He’s fiddling around the rooms. Caught him fiddling Fannie’s locked door. It’s padlocked and pasted over by the law, right? He was fiddling it and I yelled him off. He’s a coward for sure. Got no weapons, just goes around putting his foot out so blind men take a whole flight of steps in one jump. Armpits! I yelled. Scat!”

“Call us,” said Crumley. “Can we give you a lift?”

“Some of the ugly ladies from the tenement brought me, thanks, and will take me home.”

“Henry,” I said. I put out my hand. He took it swiftly. It was almost as if he had seen it coming.

“How do I smell, Henry?” I said.

Henry sniffed and laughed. “They don’t make heroes like they used to. But you’ll do.”

Driving back toward the beach with Crumley, I saw a big limousine pass us at seventy miles an hour, putting a lot of space between it and the flowered graveyard. I waved and yelled.

Constance Rattigan did not even glance over. She had been at the graveside somewhere, hidden away to one side, and now she was roaring home angry at Fannie for leaving us all and maybe angry with me for somehow bringing Death to present a bill.

Her limousine vanished in a great white-gray cloud of exhaust.

“The harpies and the Furies just screamed by,” observed Crumley.

“No,” I said, “only a lost lady, running to hide.”

I tried calling Constance Rattigan during the next three days, but she wouldn’t answer. She was brooding and mad. Somehow, in some dumb way, I was in cahoots with the man who stood in halls and did terrible things to people.

I tried calling Mexico City, out Peg was off lost forever, I was sure.