Excerpt: Death and the Titan

Chapter One The Rocket and the Minotaur

When the movie star spilled his vodka and tonic on the Minotaur’s watch I knew the night was going to end badly. The Minotaur's name was Henry Long, he was a B-movie actor and Titan, better known to the world at large as Longhorn, star of such noteworthy stinkers as Gene Autry and the Devil Bull and the forgettable Curse of Buffalo Hump. He was also renowned around town for his inability to hold his drink.

Fond as I was of anybody with more drunk and disorderly convictions than myself, he wasn't the reason I was here. I was following the movie star. Giovanni Roccograndi, aka Johnny Rocket, matinee Idol, gold-record crooner, Titan and degenerate poon-hound. Rocket was the idol of about a million teenyboppers all over the country and Impresario Studio's number one box office draw for 1949. He was good-looking, he had a perfect baritone, he could bench press a Buick and he could fly. Lucky for him because he couldn't act. He was also going through a divorce with his third wife, the lovely and talent-less Esther Manning.

Esther was paying me fifty bucks for each incriminating photo of Rocket that she could show to the judge in divorce court. That was on top of my usual rate, so it was a good gig as far as divorce work went. I'd been tailing Rocket for a little more than two weeks and so far bupkis. Never let it be said that Ray Fabian, dirt-digger to the rich, famous and super-powerful wasn't diligent. And, as they taught me back in detective school, diligence pays.

It was the night of the wrap party. Rocket and Longhorn had just finished shooting some Greek epic called Theseus and the Labyrinth. The film wrapped up on Thursday. Saturday night found Rocket and his new co-star and bosom chum, Longhorn out for a night on the town. They made the most of it, club hopping around The Strip hitting every major night spot. They picked up a couple of girls at Vispi's Baghdad Lounge and turned it into a party. Everyone had a blast. Longhorn got plastered, Rocket groped, fondled and made out with his blonde. I took a couple rolls of photographs from a discrete distance.

Three AM found the group at an open air night club called The Patio. It was on the seedier side of town, it had a first-rate big band that swung hard enough to blow out the tiki torches. My good judgement urged me to go home. My instincts said stay. I weighed the options.

Fuck it. They had no idea I was trailing them. I needed a drink to take the edge off. I slipped my small portable camera and a handful of spare flashbulbs into my pocket. I went inside. The band was good the place was jammed to the rafters. I worked my way through the crowd to the interior bar. I ordered two doubles of rye, neat. I tossed the first one back and it burned it’s way happily down my throat. I sipped the second one as I pushed my way to the patio outside.

The band was Denny Starr and the Constellations. They were The Patio’s house band and they were peeling the paint off the walls. Cuddling couples, serious-faced hipsters and sharply dressed negroes rubbed shoulders. They packed themselves in along the cast iron fence and squeezed in tight clots around small tables that crowded almost right up to the bandstand. The wailing cacophony of bop roiled through the air. There were signs posted: No Lindy Hopping.

I spotted Longhorn and apparently he couldn’t read. He was bellowing and flailing around in a rough approximation of a dance. A circle had cleared around him. Not surprising, he was almost seven feet tall. Rocket reached up, tapped Longhorn on the shoulder.

Longhorn turned. Rocket stood face to pectorals. Rocket stood on his toes and brough his head forward. He spoke very seriously to the minotaur. The two girls looked at each other, laughing nervously. Longhorn's face was wide, his snout oddly delicate. Not quite a bull's face and not quite a man's. His eyes were black as coal, shining flinty-dark from under the shadow of his heavy brow and the eighteen inch bull-horns that jutted out on either side of his skull. He swayed slightly, visibly drunk. He nodded once, then twice. As if taking everything Rocket had to say with the greatest seriousness.

I edged closer. My impulse to stay had been the right one. I might be able to get a decent picture of Longhorn causing some trouble, the kind of photo I could turn around and sell to one of the daily rags for a quick buck. The tension seemed to pass. The mood lightened a little.

The closer I got the more I began to think about Longhorn’s watch. I knew what it would feel like in my hand; I knew exactly how much of the chrome was worn away on the back plate. I knew about the tiny gouge made by a jeweler’s screw driver; the plate had been stubborn last time it was serviced. I could feel it ticking distractingly. I felt, rather than heard the slightly imperfect drag of one of it’s gears. I knew it was a 1922 Gruen, purchased from Macy's in New York City. I knew it was the only thing that his old man had ever given him. I was trying to push the watch out of my head when it happened.

Longhorn got carried away again. He forgot himself one more time and started to swing his arms. He reached for one of the blondes. He wanted to dance. He brought one arm wildly, carelessly back. That’s when Rocket moved to intercept Longhorn’s swing and the vodka and tonic in his hand , sprayed everywhere. It soaked the watch. I winced, feeling the moisture sink into the mechanism, water, alcohol and sugar plumbing the intricate depths, planting the seeds of corrosion deep within the tiny gears. It soaked into the leather, wetting it with the promise of brittle shrinkage. I flinched for the sake of the watch. There would be beads of moisture on the interior of the crystal tomorrow. Poor little watch.