Buried Caesars Read online

  “I’m grateful,” I said.

  “One,” said Pintacki, stroking the cat’s chin.

  I put my .38 on the table.

  “Good choice,” said Pintacki. “You can rum off your flashlight too.”

  I looked at the flashlight in my hand. I’d forgotten it was there. I turned it off, flexed my fingers, and waited.

  “Hungry?” asked Pintacki. “Thirsty? How about a beer?”

  I sat in the chair across from him.

  “Conrad, put your gun down and get our guest a beer,” Pintacki said. “Great cat.”

  “People seem to like him,” I said. Conrad handed his gun to Wylie and moved toward the kitchen door. “You want to keep him? He seems to like you.”

  “Maybe,” Pintacki said, looking at the cat. “I’ll think on it.”

  “Hammett,” I said. “Where is he?”

  “In a room in the tower, just like a fairy tale. I gave him some books he wanted from the library and we had a good talk.” Pintacki put the cat on the floor. “That man loves to read. Tells me he used to spend every day in the library in San Francisco. Walk his wife and child to the park, leave them there and spend the day reading, reading everything, anything. Can’t say I care much for his lack of religion, or his politics, though. You a political man, Mr. Peters?”

  Pintacki leaned forward on the table, his hands clasped as if my answer were the most important words he might ever hear.

  “I don’t think so,” I said. “I voted for Willkie.”

  Pintacki shook his head.

  “And you’d probably vote for MacArthur if he came back after the war,” Pintacki said. “War hero comes home. Everyone loves him. Takes over, the country. Sets us back twenty years. After this war, Peters, we won’t have twenty years to make up. Look back at history. Jackson, Grant, Taylor. Military leaders set us back every time. Godless military leaders.”

  “I have a feeling you have a better idea,” I said, as Conrad returned with open bottles of beer for all four of us on a tray, complete with pilsner glasses.

  “I do have a better idea,” Pintacki agreed, pushing a bottle of beer and a chilled glass toward me. “But we can wait till morning to discuss it.”

  We sat silently drinking our beer. Wylie drank his with his shotgun aimed at my head. The beer was cold and good. I grinned at Pintacki and he grinned back.

  “It’s late,” he said, when we were finished. “I’ve got work to do and you’ve got thinking. Conrad and Wylie will show you to your room.”

  We went through the kitchen and then through a darkened, wood-paneled dining room. At the head of the table in the dining room was a huge thronelike chair. I had an idea of whose it might be.

  Beyond the dining room was a hallway; marble floors, marble-topped tables, big ancient rugs on the walls. The cat followed me. Conrad and Wylie didn’t have much to say. They guided me up the wooden staircase that wound around the wall of the hallway. We went down a corridor and through another door and up a narrow flight of worn-down stone stairs to a door, which Conrad moved ahead of me to open while Wylie stood below us, cradling his shotgun. The cat and I went in the room and the door was closed behind us.

  I found the light switch and saw that I was in a small, round room with a bed. The walls were painted a dull gray and covered with oversized paintings of cowboy stars. Tom Mix, Ken Maynard, Buck Jones and Hoot Gibson smiled down at me. There was a table in the corner with a bedpan under it. The windows were narrow and barred.

  “Cat,” I said. “We’ve got a situation here.”

  The cat leaped onto the bed, curled up and fell asleep.

  There was no radio in the room and nothing to read, not that I wanted to read, anyway. I ran my fingers along my stubbly cheek, sat down, took off my shoes, let the sand inside fall on the floor and then undressed down to my not-too-dirty undershorts. I flipped off the light.

  It had been a tough night. It took me ten whole minutes to fall asleep.

  8

  A door closing, a big, thick familiar door covered with something soft and sticky, maybe honey, closed in front of me. I had to open it. Something was behind me but I didn’t want to touch the door. Light exploded over my shoulder. I winced, opened my eyes and knew I’d been dreaming. Conrad stood near the barred window, his hand still on the drapes he had opened to let in the morning. The window was open and a slab of warm air eased through it.

  “I dreamt I was in Cincinnati,” I said, tasting tin in my mouth.

  Conrad didn’t answer. He turned, folded his arms over the front of his overalls and faced me, letting me see that he was wearing a holster in which rested a large pistol.

  “How are you this morning, Conrad?” I asked, sitting up and rubbing my palm over my bristly face.

  “I had my way I’d punch your face in,” Conrad said.

  “Yeah,” I said, looking around the room. “It is one of those days that makes you glad to be alive.”

  “Punch it right in,” Conrad repeated seriously. His eyes went dreamy, as if he were imagining my face being crushed by his fist. It gave him a calm, almost benevolent look.

  The cat purred out from under the bed, stretched, blinked and looked around.

  “I think you have something to clean up under the bed, Conrad,” I said.

  “I don’t like cats,” he said. “I’d snap their necks if I had my way.”

  “Then,” I said, standing up and moving on not-yet-steady legs to the dresser against the wall, over which hung a mirror and on which sat a round, solid-amber ashtray, which immediately gave me ideas—“the cats of the world and I are grateful that you don’t have your way and, judging from your need for supervision, probably never will have your way.”

  “I’d snap your neck too,” he said.

  “Don’t doubt it for a minute, my friend. Jesus. Look at that.”

  I pointed at my face in the mirror. The dark hair flecked with gray clumped in different directions. The threatening beard was solid gray. It was depressing. The face itself had seen better days. It had to have seen better days.

  “What more could you do to a face like that, Conrad? I ask you. No, I think you should stick with visions of neck-snapping. Smashing my face wouldn’t give you much satisfaction.”

  I grinned at Conrad, who unfolded his arms, understanding for the first time that he was being needled.

  “I don’t like jokes,” he said.

  “No one likes what they don’t understand,” I said.

  Conrad stepped toward me, his mouth slightly opened, his teeth clenched.

  “I think you’re making jokes some more,” he said.

  Conrad was ready to be plucked. He was bigger, younger, confident, and he had the gun. Nothing to worry about. Tired old detective with a gray beard. He’d crack me with his bare hands like a coconut. The cat could tell something was going on. He jumped up on the bed, sat and, pretending to be half asleep, moved his eyes from me to Conrad lumbering toward me.

  I backed away from him and put my hand on the dresser. My fingers touched the heavy amber ashtray.

  “Remember, Conrad,” I reminded him. “You don’t have your way.”

  “I can just squeeze a little and make your eyes pop,” he said, holding his hands in front of me to show me what he planned to squeeze with.

  If luck were with me—and it owed me one—and Conrad’s head were made of anything less than the chrome steel that failed to keep King Korig in check, he would be dreaming of Cincinnati in a few seconds and I would be out looking for Hammett with Conrad’s gun in my hand.

  I blocked his view of the ashtray with my body and got a firm grip on the rough amber while I held up my free hand as if to keep Conrad back.

  “I guess I can’t tell you I was just joking,” I said. “You wouldn’t know what I was talking about.”

  He was in front of me now, ready. I was ready too, but the door opened and Wylie stepped in, shotgun in hand. He looked at the mirror and I could tell that he saw my hand on the ashtray.
r />   “Conrad,” he said. “The man’s about to spread what little brains you got around the room. Just step away from him. Mr. P’s waiting.”

  “If I had my way …” Conrad whispered to me.

  “You’d never grow old,” I finished.

  “You are a genuine crazy,” Conrad said.

  “Come on,” Wylie said. “Let’s get him cleaned up. Show’s at 0900 hours.”

  “Cat pooed under the bed,” Conrad said.

  “Pooed? You mean he shit? Well, clean it up and come down,” said Wylie with a sigh.

  Conrad stayed behind and Wylie headed me and the cat down the stairs to the lower landing and into a large bathroom with a claw-foot tub. On a rack hung a blue knit short-sleeve pullover shirt. My shoes stood on the floor with a pair of fresh socks rolled neatly between them.

  “Shave with the Gem razor on the sink and wash up. New toothbrush and powder right there. Even got a comb and aftershave. Mr. P likes guests to be clean and respectable for the show.”

  Wylie stayed safely away from me while I shaved, washed, brushed, put on the shirt, socks and my shoes. The cat leaped onto the sink and licked a few splashes of water from the counter.

  “Now?” I asked.

  “Show time,” said Wylie, pointing me out the bathroom door. We made our way down the stairs and through the front hall, where the desert light through the windows turned the inside of the castle orange. We made a turn into the big dining room, and Wylie nodded me to a seat across from Dashiell Hammett. The vacant place was set with plate, utensils, cup, glass of orange juice and linen napkin. I sat.

  Hammett was shaven, wearing a white shirt and tie and an amused look. Pintacki sat at the head of the table, between us and not too close, a six-shooter on the table within easy reach. Next to the six-shooter was a movie projector.

  Pintacki, open collar, looking cool in spite of the desert heat, motioned to Wylie, who. walked over and handed Pintacki his shotgun. Then Wylie disappeared through the door to the kitchen.

  “Mr. Hammett and I have been discussing what I should do with you both,” said Pintacki, slicing a piece of ham and putting it in his mouth. “I’m for making you my guests for an indefinite period, till I sort out a few things. He’s for getting you both killed. Now, that might be what I’ll decide to do anyway but I thought you might like to have a little hope. A little hope can’t hurt. Might help.”

  “I’m with you,” I said to Pintacki as Wylie came back through the door with a plate of food and moved along the table to hand it to me. When he had, Wylie backed away, retrieved his shotgun and went to stand in the corner.

  “Mr. Pintacki wants to be king of the United States,” said Hammett. “I think a king should be decisive.”

  “King?” I asked, digging into my plate of scrambled eggs, ham and potatoes.

  “Not quite,” said Pintacki with a smile. “I have plans for this country. Douglas MacArthur is an ambitious man. With the information supplied to me by Andrew Lansing, I may well convince the General to implement some of my major ideas when he becomes President. If not, I may give the information to a rival, who would be very grateful. The situation in this country is grave. The military has controlled our destiny. It’s time we controlled the military.” Pintacki leaned across the table and whispered, “Frankly, Peters, I am very wealthy. But it don’t mean a doodle and a fart if I can’t do something with it, like save the goddam country, if you know what I mean.”

  “Makes sense to me,” I said.

  “And to me,” Hammett agreed.

  “You’re humoring me, gentlemen,” said Pintacki with a laugh, as he dabbed his lips with a linen napkin. “I’m used to that, but I am a determined man. I didn’t want any of this to happen. The world is a mound of trash and tribulation. Anyone with half a mind and a sense of smell knows it. I built this place to get away. Got a five-year supply of water, a generator with two backups, fuel for the rest of my natural or unnatural life, whichever comes first, and no telephone. Let the whole damn world bomb itself to pieces. I didn’t give a lizard’s ass and tail. But I thought about it. I sat here night after night watching the classics of the cinema and I thought about it. Finally decided I’d give the United States one more chance.”

  “Decent of you,” I said.

  “Maybe so,” said Pintacki. “I like to think God found me like a saint in the desert and singled me out. Want some coffee?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  Wylie ambled into the kitchen.

  “Where was I?” Pintacki said, looking at Hammett and me.

  “God found you,” I said.

  “Right,” said Pintacki, playing with a piece of slightly burned and probably cold toast. “Paper today has an article by some kid named Walter Cronkite about the Japs blowing up the Wakefield. Just a transport, you say, but it’s not. It’s a damn symbol. It took me years to understand that you can’t run from reality. You can’t run from symbols. You can build a castle in the desert but they’ll come and find you, the way you two did, come and find you and ask you to pay taxes, fill out papers, give money to people you don’t like.”

  I considered reminding Pintacki that he had some responsibility for our being there.

  “So,” Pintacki said after an enormous sigh, “I figured if I couldn’t be left alone by the country, and God was calling me anyway, I’d have to come out of the desert like Moses, like the saints, and take charge. You following this so far?”

  Wylie put his shotgun down and walked down to us with pot of coffee. He poured some for me and Hammett.

  “We are fascinated,” said Hammett.

  “Maybe so, maybe no,” said Pintacki. “Lost my boy in the first days of this war. Not asking for sympathy. Don’t want it. I lost a boy and that’s that. If I’d have got the word sooner, I might have done something to save him, but that’s the past and past is past and he is in God’s domain.”

  Wylie placed the coffee pot out of our reach and returned to his corner.

  “Sorry,” I said.

  “’Bout what?” asked Pintacki.

  “Your son,” I said.

  “House boy,” Pintacki shouted. “Not my son. Filipino house boy. Blew him to pieces on some island. Can’t get help anymore. Not out this far.”

  “I think you should shoot us or let us go,” said Hammett. “I don’t think I want to listen to any more of this.”

  Pintacki’s face went red and he dropped his napkin on his plate.

  “I’m still fascinated,” I said.

  “I have a plan, a platform, an agenda,” said Pintacki, his eyes fixed on Hammett, who ignored him and drank his coffee. “First, a permanent, big army in new uniforms, yellow uniforms, symbols of the sun and of the everlasting light and power of the one and indivisible God, visible everywhere, patrolling every few feet of our threatened borders—Canada, Mexico. Second, no taxes. Everybody in the whole damn country gets paid fifteen percent less. The fifteen percent goes straight to the government. The people don’t even know it’s gone.”

  “It’ll pay for those new yellow uniforms,” I said.

  “You mock me again, Peters,” Pintacki said, pointing at me, “and Wylie will take you outside and turn you into rattlesnake bait. Besides that, you’ll miss the show. You wouldn’t want that.”

  “I wouldn’t want that,” I said.

  “We take over every country we beat in the war. Not just occupy it. Take it over. None of this namby-pamby live-and-let-live crapola. Make every country we take over one of the United States. Make them American. Japs, Germans, Eye-talians. Not the A-rabs though. Not the A-rabs. They’d suck us up like the desert and they don’t change their clothes. The others … give them a vote, representatives, senators, but don’t give them too many choices. Most of the whole damned world will be America. And the people in these new states will love it. Love baseball,” he said, holding up a finger. “Love hamburgers made with lean, red beef, lots of protein,” he went on, holding up a second finger. “Love com, love Kate Smith, love mo
vies, love everything American.”

  “Sounds like a great plan,” I said.

  “Sounds like bullshit,” Hammett said, standing up. “I don’t listen to bullshit and lunatics, not unless they own movie studios and pay me five hundred dollars a day. Pintacki, you are an extra, unnecessary hole in the rear end of civilization and I just don’t have time for you. I should be having my bridge work done and getting a plane east, not sitting in the middle of the desert with an overgrown ten-year-old who wants to play Nero. We’ve got enough of those in Europe.”

  Pintacki’s face had gone red, then purple and was now white. He stood to face Hammett across the table.

  “You are abusing my hospitality,” he said evenly. “You are comparing me with Hitler. I hate Hitler. I’d shoot the little paperhanger like a dog if I had him in front of me. I’d tie his dead carcass to a cactus and let his flesh rot and leave his bleached bones to ask God for forgiveness.”

  “Then I’ve obviously misjudged you,” Hammett said, wiping his mouth with a napkin and putting the napkin neatly next to his plate. “You are a avenging angel, possibly even a saint. Posterity will have to be the judge. Frankly, I’ve got you fitted for a straitjacket and a red, white and blue padded cell if you live out the season.”

  Hammett pushed back his chair and went on: “You can shoot me or beat my head in, either of which would allow me the pleasure of knowing that I wouldn’t have to listen to any more of your ranting, but I am leaving.”

  Wylie stepped forward, shotgun now raised and ready.

  “It’s show time,” Pintacki announced. “Sit down.”

  Conrad, who must have been standing outside the door, came into the room, set up a tripod screen and moved solemnly to the projector.

  “Sit down, Mr. Hammett,” Pintacki said again. “No more political talk. You’ve got my word, at least for now. I promised you a show, and by God and the memory of Alexander Hamilton and Saint Sebastian, I’m going to deliver.”

  “Hammett,” I said. “Let’s watch a movie.”