A Graveyard for Lunatics (Crumley Mysteries 2)

At the far end of the long table, Doc Phillips had come back. He advanced no further but, with a sharp jerk of his head, indicated that he wanted Groc to follow.

Groc took his time tapping his napkin on his little rosebud smile, took another swig of cold milk, crossed his knife and fork on his plate, and scrambled down. He paused and thought, then said, “Not Titanic, Ozymandias is more like it!” and ran out.

“Why,” said Roy, after a moment, “did he make up all that guff about manatees and woodcarving?”

“He’s good,” said Fritz Wong. “Conrad Veidt, small size. I’ll use that little son of a bitch in my next film.”

“What did he mean by Ozymandias?” I asked.

16

All the rest of the afternoon Roy kept shoving his head into my office, showing me his clay-covered fingers.

“Empty!” he cried. “No Beast!”

I yanked paper from my typewriter. “Empty! Also no Beast!”

But at last, at ten o’clock that night, Roy drove us to the Brown Derby.

On the way I read aloud the first half of “Ozymandias.”

I met a traveller from an antique land

Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert … Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed.

Shadows moved over Roy’s face.

“Read the rest,” he said.

I read:

And on the pedestal these words appear:

“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.

When I finished, Roy let two or three long dark blocks pass.

“Turn around, let’s go home,” I said.