“Constance!” I said. “How did you get past the guard?”
“Easy.” She laughed. “He was an old-timer. I reminded him I’d once attacked him in the men’s gym. While he was blushing, I roared in! Well, damn, if it isn’t the world’s greatest blind man!”
“You still working at that lighthouse, directing ships?” asked Henry.
“Give me a hug.”
“You sure feel soft.”
“And Elmo Crumley, you old s.o.b.!”
“She’s never wrong,” said Crumley, as she broke all his ribs.
“Let’s get the hell out of here,” said Constance. “Henry? Lead!”
“I’m gone!”said Henry.
On the way out of the studio I murmured, “Calvary.”
Constance slowed as we passed the ancient hill.
There was complete darkness. No moon. No stars. One of those nights when the fog comes in early from the sea and covers all of Los Angeles, at a height of about five hundred feet. The airplanes are muffled and the airports closed.
I gazed steadily up the little hill hoping to find Christ in
a drunken farewell-tour Ascension.
“J. C.!” I whispered.
But the clouds shifted now. I could see the crosses were empty.
Three gone, I thought. Clarence drowned in paper, Doc Phillips hauled up in Notre Dame’s midnight at noon, leaving one shoe. And now … ?
“See anything?” asked Crumley.
“Maybe tomorrow.”
When I roll the Rock aside. If I have the guts.
There was a waiting silence from everyone in the car.
“Out,” suggested Crumley.
I said quietly, “Out.”
At the front gate Constance shouted something obscene at the guard, who reeled back.
We went toward the sea and Crumley’s.
56
We stopped at my house. As I ran to fetch my 8-millimeter projector, the phone rang.
After the twelfth ring I snatched it up.
“Well?” said Peg. “How come you stood there for twelve rings with your hand on the phone?”
“God, women’s intuition.”