CHAPTER 77
YOU KNOW THAT CHOCOLATE POP CALLED Yoo-hoo?? Fric asked.
?I?ve had it a few times,? Mr. Truman said.
?It?s cool stuff. Did you know you can keep Yoo-hoo just about forever and it won?t go sour??
?I wasn?t aware of that.?
?They use a special steam-sterilization process,? Fric revealed. ?As long as it?s unopened, it?s as sterile as like, say, a bottle of contact-lens solution.?
?I?ve never drunk any contact-lens solution,? said Mr. Truman.
?Did you know that civet is used in a lot of perfumes??
?I don?t even know what civet is.?
Fric brightened at this admission. ?Well, it?s a thick yellow secretion that?s squeezed from the anal glands of civet cats.?
?They sound like remarkably cooperative cats.?
?They aren?t really members of the cat family. They?re mammals in Asia and Africa. They produce more civet when they?re agitated.?
?Under the circumstances, they must be agitated all the time.?
?Civet stinks terrible,? Fric said, ?in full strength. But when you [496] dilute it with the right stuff, then it smells really good. Did you know when you sneeze, all bodily functions stop for an instant??
?Even the heart??
?Even the brain. It?s like a temporary little death.?
?That?s it then-no more pepper on my salads.?
?A sneeze puts humongous stress on the body,? Fric explained, ?especially on the eyes.?
?We always do sneeze with our eyes shut, don?t we??
?Yeah. If you sneezed violently enough with your eyes open, you could pop one out of the socket.?
?Fric, I never realized you were such an encyclopedia of unusual facts.?
Smiling, pleased with himself, Fric said, ?I like knowing things other people don?t.?
Dinner had progressed immeasurably better than Fric had feared that it might. The chicken breasts in lemon-butter sauce, the rice with wild mushrooms, and the asparagus spears were delicious, and neither he nor Mr. Truman had yet died of food poisoning, though Mr. Hachette might be saving murder for dessert.
At first, conversation had been stiff because they started with the subject of films, which inevitably led to Manheim movies. They weren?t comfortable talking about Ghost Dad. Even if they said only nice things, they seemed to be gossiping behind his back.
Fric asked what it was like to be a homicide detective, and sought especially to hear about the most grotesque murders, hideously mangled bodies, and bugshit-crazy killers that Mr. Truman had ever encountered. Mr. Truman said much of that stuff wasn?t suitable for table talk and that some of it wasn?t fit for the ears of a ten-year-old kid. He did tell cop stories, however, most of them funny; a few were gross, although not so gross that you wanted to puke up your lemon-butter chicken, but gross enough to make this by far the best dinner chat that Fric had ever experienced.
[497] When Mr. Truman noted that Mr. Hachette had prepared a coconut-cherry cake for dessert, Fric tapped his knowledge about the island nation of Tuvalu, exporter of coconuts, to make a contribution to their conversation.
Tuvalu led him to lots of other things he knew about, like the biggest pair of shoes ever made. They were size forty-two, cobbled for a Florida giant by the name of Harley Davidson, who had nothing to do with the motorcycle company. Size forty-two shoes are twenty-two inches long! Mr. Truman was properly amazed.
Giant shoes led eventually to Yoo-hoo, civet, and sneezing, and as they were finishing dessert-as yet showing no signs of arsenic ingestion-Fric said, ?Did you know my mother was in a booby hatch??
?Oh, don?t pay attention to ugly stuff like that, Fric. It?s an unfair exaggeration.?
?Well, my mother didn?t sue anyone who said that stuff.?
?In this country, celebrities can?t sue for slander or libel just because people tell lies about them. They have to prove the lies were told with malice. Which is hard. Your mom just didn?t want to spend years in a courtroom. You understand??
?I guess so. But you know what people might think.?
?I?m not sure I follow you. What might people think??
?Like mother, like son.?
Mr. Truman appeared to be amused. ?Fric, no one who knows you could believe you?ve ever been in a booby hatch or ever will be.?
Pushing aside his empty cake plate, Fric said, ?Well, say like someday I see a flying saucer. I mean, really see one, and a bunch of big greasy extraterrestrials. You know??
?Big and greasy,? Mr. Truman said, nodding and attentive.
?So then if I tell anyone, the first thing they?ll think is Oh, yeah, his mother was in a booby hatch.?
?Well, whether or not they remembered those stories about your [498] mom, some people in this world wouldn?t believe you if you had one of those big greasy extraterrestrials on a leash.?
?I wish I did,? Fric murmured.
?They wouldn?t believe me, either, if I had one on a leash.?
?But you were a cop.?
?Lots of people are unable to see all kinds of truths right in front of their eyes. You can?t worry about them for a minute. They?re hopeless.?
?Hopeless,? Fric agreed, but he was thinking less about other people than about his own circumstances.
?If you came to me or Mrs. McBee, however, we?d drop anything we were doing to run and see those big greasy freaks because we know you can be taken at your word.?
This statement immensely heartened Fric, and he sat up straight in his chair. Into his mind crowded all the things about which he wanted to tell Mr. Truman-Mysterious Caller stepping out of a mirror and flying through the attic rafters, spirits trying to come through the telephone cord and into your ear when you pressed *69, guardian angels with strange rules, child-eating Moloch, the Los Angeles Times with the story of his kidnapping-but he hesitated too long, trying to put all this stuff in order, so it wouldn?t gush out of him in one hysterical torrent.
Mr. Truman spoke first: ?Fric, until I can troubleshoot it and figure out what needs to be repaired, this voltage-flow problem in the alarm system has me concerned.?
The security chief?s words might as well have been the three-pronged hook on a fisherman?s well-cast fly, so firmly did they snare Fric?s full attention. The phony voltage-flow story again.
?Nothing?s going to happen, but I?m a worrier. Your dad pays me to worry, after all. So until this is fixed, I?d rather you didn?t sleep alone on the third floor.?
An edgy quality in Mr. Truman?s eyes suggested that he himself had seen big greasy ETs, or expected to see them shortly.
?I?d like to set up camp for the night in the living room of your [499] suite,? he continued. ?Or you could come down to my apartment, sleep in my bed, and I?d move to the sofa in my study. What do you think of that??
?Or I could sleep on your sofa, and you wouldn?t have to give up your bed.?
?That?s thoughtful of you, Fric. But I?ve already changed the sheets on my bed in case that was the option you chose. Now if it turns out I changed them for no reason and used up an unscheduled set of linens, I?ll have to answer to Mrs. McBee. Don?t put me in that position, I beg of you.?
Fric knew that Mr. Truman wanted the sofa for one reason and one only: He intended to be stationed between the entrance door to his apartment and the bedroom in which Fric would be sleeping, not because Fric might fall down a set of stairs while sleepwalking, but because maybe some thugs would break down the apartment door and try to get to Fric, in which case they?d have to go through Mr. Truman.
Something was going on, for sure.
?All right,? Fric said, worried but also pleasantly excited. ?I?ll come to your place, and you can have the sofa. This?ll be great. I?ve never stayed overnight away from home.?
?Well, you?re not exactly going to be away from home.?
?No, sir, but I?ve never been in your apartment,? Fric said. ?Not even before you came here. It?s unknown territory, like the dark side of the moon-you know?-so this is like a totally real sleepover.?
While he should have been brooding about how to avoid being kidnapped and killed, Fric instead found himself thinking that if they stayed up late, maybe they could make s?mores and sit on the floor by candlelight and tell ghost stories. He knew that this was a stupid idea, everything from the stupid s?mores to the stupid ghost stories, but the thought delighted him, anyway.
Consulting his wristwatch, Mr. Truman said, ?It?s almost eight [500] o?clock.? He got to his feet and began transferring dishes from the table to the stainless-steel cart on which he?d brought them. ?I?ll haul these to the kitchen, then we?ll get you set up at my place.?
?I?d like to go up to the library and get a book,? Fric said, though he actually wanted to pee in the potted palm.
Even in the security chief?s apartment, with a former cop standing armed guard, Fric wasn?t too keen on the idea of using the bathroom, where there would be mirrors. You were seriously vulnerable when you were peeing.
Mr. Truman hesitated, glancing toward the windows, at the night, the rain, the fog.
?I always fall asleep reading,? Fric pressed.
?All right. But don?t take too long, okay? And once you?ve got the book you want, come straight to my apartment.?
?Yes, sir.? He headed toward the exit from the pool room, but halted after two steps. ?Maybe later we can tell ghost stories.?
Frowning as if Fric had suggested that they blow up the west wing, maybe even turning just a little pale, Mr. Truman said, ?Ghost stories? Why would you say that??
?Well, ummm, because that?s, you know, what people do, like, at sleepovers. At least that?s what I?ve heard.? Stupid. But he couldn?t stop talking. ?They sit on the floor, ummm, by candlelight, you know, and they tell real scary stories, and then they, ummm, like sometimes they make s?mores,? Stupid, stupid. ?Or you can make, ummm, popcorn instead, and you can tell secrets.? Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Mr. Truman?s frown phased into a smile. ?Are you telling me that after all we ate for dinner, you could chow down on s?mores, too??
?Not right now, sir, no, but maybe in an hour.?
?And you have some deep dark secrets to reveal, do you??
?Ummm, I?ve got some stuff, yeah, some experiences I?ve had.?
?Experiences. Do they involve big greasy extraterrestrials??
[501] ?No, sir. Nothing that simple.?
?Then when I take these dishes to the kitchen, I?ll pick up the ingredients for a pile of s?mores. You?ve got me curious.?
Relieved in one sense, needing relief in a different sense, Fric went to the library to deal another blow to the dying palm tree.