Let’s All Kill Constance

“Why the hell that?” said Crumley.

“Don’t stop the boy,” came the whisper from under the dust blanket. “ ‘Jean Harlow, dead at twenty-six. Uremic poisoning. Services mañana. Forest Lawn. Nelson Eddy, Jeanette MacDonald duet at the obsequies.’ ”

“My God!” I exploded.

“Pretty damn smart, huh? More!”

“May third, 1942,” popped from my mouth.

“ ‘Carole Lombard killed. Air crash. Gable weeps.’ ”

Crumley turned to me. “Is that all you know? Dead film stars?”

“Don’t fret the kid,” said the old voice six feet under. “What you doing here?”

“We came—” said Crumley.

“It’s about—” I said.

“Don’t.” The old man whirled a dust storm of thoughts. “You’re a sequel !”

“Sequel?”

“Last time anyone climbed Mount Lowe looking to jump off, he failed, went back down, and was hit by a car that cured his living. Last time someone really came was … noon today!”

“Today!?”

“Why not? Come find the old crock, drowned in dust, no rolls in the hay since ’32. Someone did come a few hours ago, shouted down those tunnels of bad news. Recall that fairy tale porridge mill? Say ‘go!’ it made hot porridge. Kid got it started. Forgot the ‘stop’ word. Damn porridge flooded the whole town. People ate their way door-to-door. So I got newsprint, not porridge. What did I just say?”

“Someone shouted down—”

“The corridor between the London Times and Le Figaro? Yeah. Woman, braying like a mule. Yells emptied my bladder. Threatened to tiddlywink my stacks. One shove and it’s dominoes, she screamed, whole damn print architecture squashes me!”

“I should think earthquakes—”

“Had ’em! Shook the hell out of ‘Yang-Tse River Deluge’ and ‘Il Duce Conquers,’ but here I am. Even the big one, in ’32, didn’t kick my poker stacks. Anyway, this wild woman screamed all my vices and demanded certain papers from special years. I said try first row on the left, then the right; I keep all the raw stuff high. I heard her wrestle the stacks. Her cursing could have set ‘London on Fire!’ She slammed the door, skedaddled, looking for a place to jump. I don’t think a car got her. Know who she was? I been holding out on you. Guess?”

“I can’t,” I said, stunned.

“See that desk there in cat litter? Scrap the litter, lift the stuff with fancy type.”

I stepped to the desk. Under a tangle of sawdust and what seemed to be bird droppings, I found two dozen identical invitations.

“ ‘Clarence Rattigan and—’ ” I paused.

“Read it!” said the old man.

“ ‘Constance Rattigan,’ ” I gasped, and went on. “ ‘Are pleased to announce their marriage atop Mount Lowe, June tenth, 1932, at three in the afternoon. Motor and rail escorts. Champagne following.’”

“That hit you where you live?” said Clarence Rattigan.

I glanced up.

“Clarence Rattigan and Constance Rattigan,” I said. “Hold on. Shouldn’t Constance’s maiden name be listed?”

“Looks like incest, you mean?”

“Strange peculiar.”

“You don’t get it,” the lips husked. “Constance made me change my name! It was Overholt. She said she was damned if she’d give up her first-class moniker for a second-rate hand-me-down, so—”

“You got baptized before the ceremony?” I guessed.

“Never was but finally did. Episcopal deacon down in Hollywood thought I was nuts. You ever try to argue with Constance?”

“I—”

“Won’t take yes for an answer! ‘Love Me or Leave Me,’ she sang. I liked the tune. Hit me with the baptismal oil, laid on the unction. First damn fool in America to burn his birth certificate.”

“I’ll be damned,” I said.

“No. Me. What you staring at?”

“You.”

“Yeah, I know,” he said. “I don’t seem like much. Wasn’t much then. See that bright doohickey on top o’ the invites? Mount Lowe train motorman’s brass handle. Rattigan liked the way I banged that brass. Me, the motorman on the Mount Lowe trolley! Jesus! Is there any beer anywhere?” he added suddenly.

I gathered my spit. “You claim you were Rattigan’s first husband and then ask for beer?”

“I didn’t say I was her first husband, just one of some. Where’s that beer?” The old man gummed his lips.

Crumley sighed and pulled some stuff from his pockets. “Here’s beer and Mallomars.”

“Mallomars!” The old man stuck out his tongue and I placed one on it. He let it melt on his tongue like a Jesus wafer. “Mallomars! Women! Can’t live without ’em!”

He half sat up for beer.

“Rattigan,” I urged.

“Oh, yeah. Marriage. She rode up on the trolley and went wild with the weather, thought it was my creation, proposed, and after our honeymoon, one night, found out I had nothing to do with the climate, grew icicles, and vamoosed. My body will never be the same.” The old man shivered.

“Is that all?”

“What d’ya mean, all?! You ever throw her two falls out of three?”

“Almost,” I whispered.

I pulled out Rattigan’s phone book. “This clued us onto you.”