Planet Willie (5 page)

“Plus Grace
Kelly,” I say.

“Amazing,” he
says, and there may be hope for the kid yet.

“How did you
get into movies anyway, Darling?”

“A high school
job,” he says. “I worked at this video rental place on the weekends, and the
boss was always showing classics on the in-store screens. I must have seen
The
Killers
fifty times like that.”

“I worked in a
similar sort of establishment myself,” I say. “Tulsa, Oklahoma. I did
deliveries.”

Darling grins
and shakes his head. “Man, those were the worst.”

“Not so fast,
Darling,” I say. “There’s a lot to be learned out there on the road.
Principally what I learned – and this might be helpful someday for your friend
Loku – is that if you want the big tips you’re going to have to deliver more
than a movie. I mean people out there are longing for something more. People
need to get through the night, right? The women particularly tend to be
sensitive types.”

He feels it
coming, and brother he likes it. Hell, Darling’s longing for something more
too.

“Sometimes,” I
say, “it takes a few trips to get them to acknowledge this longing. But keep in
mind you’ve got the pick-up two days later, and the pick-up is generally where
you get the first-timers. Seeing you twice in two days just kills her.”

Darling shakes
his head and asks if I’d mind if he smoked a cigarette. I wave my hand like an
Arabian prince – all my people shall have cigarettes. He takes a pack from the
desk drawer and slides open a window about the size of his diploma, which only
opens about an inch, I’m thinking probably on account of the high suicide rate
among New York insurance professionals. As he blows out smoke, I move the
Madonna folder to my lap.

“If she’s a
new release,” I say, “nine times out of ten you can make the first move and she’ll
go along and forget it ever happened. Romantic comedies are more problematic,
for the obvious reasons. Your average romantic comedy has overly developed
expectations, not that you can’t meet those expectations. If it’s Action, on
the other hand, my advice is to bring protection. She may have done this sort
of thing yesterday.”

He flicks his
butt down to Fifth Avenue and tries to force down a grin. I move the Madonna folder
down towards my leg.

“Then of
course there is the genre known as exercise.” I say. “There was this one time.
This sweet thing in spandex did the complete Jane Fonda workout on tape, on me.
Wonderful program, Jane Fonda’s. That woman is a national treasure.”

“I loved her
in
Barefoot in the Park
,” he says, by which time the folder’s nice and
snug down my boot.

“You’re a
sensitive soul, Darling. A sensitive soul. And I want to thank you for seeing
me today.”

5

Walking back
downtown through Times Square, keeping an eye out for fedoras on my tail, I
begin noticing a little looseness around the waist of the Italian suit and get
to wondering if maybe Junie got my measure wrong. Then I recall the pants are
carrying around a good twelve plus dollars in quarters and realize that for the
first time in a long time, I may be in the financial position to set myself up
with something really stylish in the belt department. So what I do, I take me a
little detour over to the East Side, the location of Bobby Le Ray’s Famous
Western Store. I’m thinking ostrich skin or one of your finer large birds.
Maybe even pick me out a discreet luxury buckle. Little sculptures, Bobby Le
Ray’s buckles. Once found me a turquoise armadillo in the same location that
stood with me as faithfully as any hound dog through more than any armadillo
should be asked to bear. Ended up having to hock it to a Vietnamese pawnbroker
in Lubbock whose wife took to wearing it around her neck on a chain. Gave me
great pain whenever I happened to run into her in the supermarket.

Anyway, I made
his honored acquaintance but once, Bobby Le Ray, over a little misunderstanding
at the cash register, but two things Bobby knew were quality and women. Knew
how to hire the help, Bobby did. I recall a big beautiful thing called Louella
who once set me up in a pair of leather chaps I took to wearing around the
home. Knew how to make you comfortable in a pair of chaps, Louella did. So I
just stroll on in there and make my intentions known. Ostrich in belt form and
a little something special in the buckle department, specifically a turquoise
armadillo if they’ve got one. I go ahead and pull out the wallet to get them
moving. Nobody’s ever heard of Louella, but then it’s been a while, and Suzanne
couldn’t be nicer in her blue jeans.

She picks out
a belt that will do me. “Suzanne, sweetheart,” I say, “I’m no astrophysicist so
explain to me if you would how those jeans of yours work. I guess they just sew
them straight onto you at the factory. Must be quite an operation.”

She giggles
and looks down at her boots as she brushes this crazy curly hair back behind
her ears. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to contact a few acquaintances of mine
at the PBS channel and enlighten them to the potential of a half-hour
documentary on you in those blue jeans.”

Suzanne does some
more giggling so damn charming I find myself selecting a higher-end Manhattan
skyline done up in fourteen-carat silver with a little ruby for the torch of
Lady Liberty. Patriotic as hell, this buckle makes me feel. From California to
the New York Islands. Gets me thinking of wide-open spaces and the rack of
handmade cowboy hats they’ve got across the room next to the bolo department. I
catch a glimpse of me in the mirror wearing a calfskin number they call The
Kid, with this copper penny hat band that gives it that extra something. Never
had any homosexual tendencies myself, to be perfectly honest, but what I see in
that mirror is enough to make me reconsider. Suzanne sidles up next to me and
makes it amply clear that she’s under the same impression. She suggests a pair
of ostrich skin Lucchese boots to match the belt and for the hell of it, and
although it’s tempting coming from Suzanne, and though my Madonna-stuffed boots
have seen better days, they were made to measure by a former El Paso bootmaker
acquaintance of mine, and in matters concerning boots I tend towards the
sentimental. Belt and hat matters too, but that’s why I’m in Bobby Le Ray’s.
Storing up a little sentiment for a rainy day, so to speak. You really can’t
put a price tag on that kind of thing, which I make clear to sweet Suzanne by
going ahead and handing over the wallet.

“I’m an
environmentalist,” I say. “Keep the sack.”

She takes out
and keeps seven-hundred fifty two dollars while she’s at it. Hands me back the
wallet.

“How much was
that buckle, sweetheart?” I ask real polite, though I have to admit I may be a
bit less smooth here than is customary. Four hundred twenty dollar belt buckle,
apparently, but then again you’re the only guy out there carrying Manhattan around at crotch level, and you have to admit that’s something.

Out on the
sidewalks I am a beacon of well-tailored freedom, flashing Lady Liberty’s ruby
at the huddled masses. High-stepping it back downtown I cause at least one
traffic accident and an unconfirmed second in less than ten blocks. Apparently
Italian style combined with one of the finer hats money can buy will inflict a
sudden loss of motor skills on your average driver. I’m thinking there ought to
be a law.

By Union Square I’m also thinking that as proud as I am to be wearing a hat called The Kid,
there’s a reason the detectives don’t wear cowboy hats in the movies. A hat
like The Kid does tend to stand out, and there will be times in your
investigations when that’s exactly what you don’t want to do, specifically when
there’s a giant in a fedora who’s somehow managed to pick up your trail again.
Miss Madonna apparently has her admirers. Either that, or I’ve walked into the
wrong mystery, and if that’s the case, I’m really in a mess. It’s enough to
make a fella nervous. You start imagining the particulars of what a giant like
that could do to you, and the more you imagine it, the more nervous you get,
until you’re better off just imagining it all the way to the bitter end. Think
your way through death and out the other side again.

This is what I
do in my mind: I turn around and run straight for the beast. He’s ugly and
mean, I see as I close in, but when he comes for me I’m prepared and give him a
taste of my matador trick. I whip out my cape and spin away, then drop my fist
down on his skull like a sword. He is bullish, however, and that fist-sword of
mine is about as effective as a toothpick. He’s coming in tight with his fists
pumping like horns, sharp little blows that bust right through me. First
there’s pain, then there’s numbness, and then you don’t really want to know.
Struggling for breath, I fall to the sidewalk and see the cape there across the concrete. My cape, my last hope, but it’s too far, so I die there, my fingers
stretching out before making one last twitch.

Which does
return a little spring to my step. Even if he gets me in the end, he can’t do
anything that hasn’t already been done. Not that he’s any less prominent in my
rearview mirror. I might even consider running if it weren’t entirely contrary
to my whole philosophy. And it’s the philosophy you’ve really got to hold onto.
Kierkegaard, Kant, Mister Friedrich Nietzsche – they’ve stood by me in the hard
times, I stand by them. Not that the philosophy can’t sometimes use a little
refresher, which is just what I’ve got in mind when I fake right and duck left
into a bookstore south of the square. I figure I’ll wait him out. In the
meantime I head over to the philosophy section to bone up on what the great
minds advise in situations like these. Also it gives me a clear view out to the
entrance and anyone who might have a mind to separate me from my philosophy and
a few other things besides.

I do love a
bookstore, even when I’m not hiding out in one for the sake of my own person.
Just walking into one gets me aquiver with anticipation of great wonders. So I
get to scanning the shelves, alternating that with scanning the front door.
Makes you feel near-genius just to be reading these titles, and I’m getting
along into the E’s when I come upon a slim little book called
The Praise of
Folly
by Erasmus, a Dutchman according to the back cover. I flip around in
it a bit and find this: “A man who sees a gourd and takes it for his wife is
called insane only because this happens to very few people.” Well if that’s not
pure wisdom, somebody better tell me what wisdom is. I flip around a bit more
and see how I could get to like this Erasmus. A lot of your famous detectives
will have a partner, and I’m thinking you could do worse than a little
Dutchman.

Once I decide
the danger’s passed, I take the book over to the checkout line, where I find
myself stuck behind a middle-aged couple in interesting eyeglasses. They want
to discuss their purchases with the cashier. You know the type. Maybe we don’t
want the dictionary of Botswanan deconstructionism after all. They’re both a
little thick around the middle, and she’s got a shade of a mustache she’s
probably cultivated as a sign of her liberation from the restrictions of
non-Botswanan society or whatever. I’m getting a little edgy, I have to admit,
and the situation doesn’t improve when the Fedora walks right in, jingling the
door bells. His face is hidden by the hat, but I don’t need to see his eyes to
know where they’re looking. He spots me in line and decides to stand there by
the exit and browse through the bookmarks. You know how they’ve got all manner
of junk up by the cash registers these days.

I’m going to
need some kind of major diversion, I’m thinking, when I overhear a bit of the
endless conversation in front of me and discover that the word
thee
is a
working part of this pair’s vocabulary.

“But I thought
we’d get it for thee, Ligiea.”

“Thee are too
sweet, Didier, but isn’t it a bit expensive?”

“I’d like to
do it for thee,” he says.

“Ha Ha Ha,” she goes.
Sounds less like laughter than
singing rehearsal.

“How about
thee stepping aside until thee make up thee mind,” I say real polite. Maybe not
the best tack to take here, considering how they turn round nice and slow,
delaying the proceedings even further, but I’ve been tapping my foot like it’s
a square dance and they’ve paid me no mind. Now they give me this long up and
down designed to get me considering the rightness of my own existence. I take the
opinion that it’s my duty to convince them of it, Fedora be damned.

“I’m not
really what you would call a television-watching man,” I say as they stand
there blinking at me, “but it has come to my attention while watching various
of these so-called infomercials in the late evening that there are certain new
revolutionary products designed to remove pesky facial hair. Can’t say I’ve
ever tried it, though it might be worth thy consideration.”

Didier’s
quick, and I’m honestly a bit taken aback by the force he manages to put behind
a punch. Taken aback to about the floor, at which point the Fedora decides to
make his move. He comes rushing in as Ligiea gets me in three places with her
sensible shoes. Then Didier’s giving it to the Fedora so effectively that I
have no choice but to readjust my opinion of the academic profession. Behind
every Einstein there lurks a Mohamed Ali. Compensation, I believe it’s called,
and the Fedora’s getting compensated pretty bad. Didier catches him with an
uppercut, the hat flies off, and then I really get a shock. He’s Albanian, my
secret admirer, and his name is none other than Kafka.

“What the hell
are you doing?” I cry out, as Ligiea starts work on my shins.

Kafka doesn’t
manage a response, because the security guard’s now run over from the coat
check and is making it three against two. I mean Kafka and me versus the
infidels, but when security punches Kafka with something professional, it’s me
and the eyeglasses standing there awestruck as Kafka drops to the floor, taking
the bargain book bin with him. The whole place goes quiet. His nose starts
trickling blood out onto a copy of the
Lonely Planet Uruguay, 1994
,
which is about how he’s looking. He’s squirming around on the floor, arm
outstretched, fingers struggling to reach the hat. Must have a whole
collection, I’m thinking. Hats from every nation. I kneel down to check the
vital signs.

“What the
hell’s going on, kid?” I say. He whispers something I can’t make out. “Why the
secret agent routine?”

“
Give
,”
he whispers. I reach over and give him the fedora.

He shakes his
head and tries again. “
Give. Back. Madonna.
”