A Graveyard for Lunatics (Crumley Mysteries 2)

On the way, I passed Stage 13. It was triple-locked and sealed. Standing there, I imagined what it must have been like for Roy, going in to find some maniac had destroyed his reasons for living.

Roy, I thought, come back, build more beautiful Beasts, live forever.

Just then, a phalanx of Roman troops ran by, double-time, counting cadence, laughing. They flowed swiftly, a bright river of gold-and-crimson-plumed helmets. Caesar’s guard never looked better, moved faster. As they ran, my eye caught the last guardsman in flight. His great long legs jerked. His elbows flapped. And what looked to be a hawk’s beak plowed the wind. I gave a muted cry.

The troops rushed around a corner.

I ran to the intersection.

Roy?! I thought.

But I could not yell and let people know an idiot hid and ran amongst them.

“Damn fool,” I said weakly. “Dumb,” I muttered, going in the commissary door.

“Stupid,” I said to Fritz, who sat drinking six cups of coffee at the table where he held his conferences.

“Enough flattery!” he cried. “Sit! Our first problem is Judas Iscariot is being cut out of our film!”

“Judas!? Has he been fired?”

“Last I heard he was down in La Jolla soused and hang-gliding.”

“Ohmigod.”

And then I really exploded. Great earthquakes of hilarity burst from my lungs.

I saw Judas hang-glide the salt winds, Roy in the Roman phalanx running, myself drenched by rain as the body fell from the wall, and again Judas, high above La Jolla, drunk on wind, flying.

My barking laugh alarmed Fritz. Thinking me choked on my own bewildered upchuck, he pounded my back.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” I gasped. “Everything!”

The last of my cries faded.

Christ himself had arrived, his robes rustling.

“Oh, Herod Antipas,” he said to Fritz, “you summoned me to trial?”

The actor, as tall as an El Greco painting, and as haunted by sulfurous lightning and storm clouds, which shifted in his pale flesh, slowly sank into a chair, without looking to see if it was there. His sitting was an act of faith. When his invisible body touched, he smiled with pride at the accuracy of his aim.

A waitress instantly placed before him a small plate of salmon with no sauce and a tumbler of red wine.

J. C., eyes closed, chewed one bite of fish.

“Old director, new writer,” he said at last. “You have called me to confer on the Bible? Ask. I know it all.”

“Thank God, someone does,” said Fritz. “Most of our film was shot overseas by a hyperflatulent director who couldn’t get it up with an erector set. Maggie Botwin’s in Projection Room 4. Be there in one hour,” he signaled me with his monocle, “to see the whole shipwreck. Christ walked on water, but how about deep shit? J. C., pour sweet oil in this boy’s unholy ear.” He touched my shoulder. “And you, child, solve the problem of the missing Judas, write an ending for the film that will stop the mobs from rioting to get their money back.”

A door slammed.

And I was alone, scrutinized by J. C.’s blue-skies-over-Jerusalem stare.

Calmly he chewed his fish.

“I can see,” he said, “you’re wondering why I’m here. I am the Christian. Me? I’m an old shoe. Comfortable with Moses, Mahomet, and the Prophets. I don’t think about it, I am it.”