Country of Old Men by Joseph Hansen Page B

his breath. He’d been as alarmed as he could remember ever being in an often alarming lifetime. “Dave?” Helmers frowned. “Where the hell did you come from?”
    “I brought some lunch.” Helmers’s glasses lay under the table. Dave reached for them, handed them to him. “From Max Romano’s. I wanted to talk to you. What’s going on?”
    Helmers grunted, struggling to sit up. The dog was all over him. “Would you get away, please!” he roared. “Give a man a chance, Duffy.” Duffy backed off. Dave set the chair straight and helped heavy old Helmers to his feet. “What’s going on”—the writer dropped onto the chair, wiped a hand down over his face—“is inspectors from the God damn fire department came up here yesterday about sunset and said they’d got a report this house was a fire hazard and made me let them in.” He picked up the mug, slurped at the coffee, lit a cigarette. “Claimed they never saw anything to equal it, gave me exactly twenty-four hours to clean it up or pay a fine. You know how they are about fires up in this canyon.”
    “I know how the fires are,” Dave said. “So do you.”
    “So I didn’t even eat supper. I worked till I dropped. Midnight, maybe later. And I was up at sunrise, no breakfast, right back at it again.” He looked at the old rectangular Hamilton on his thick wrist. “I was taking a coffee break, is all. Guess I fell asleep, didn’t I?”
    “You shouldn’t have tried to do it yourself,” Dave said. “You should have hired help.”
    “Nobody rents out elephants up here,” Helmers said. “No, I didn’t want strangers coming in, seeing how I’ve neglected Katherine’s house.”
    “They didn’t know her,” Dave said. “They wouldn’t care.”
    “She’d never forgive me.”
    “All she ever wanted was for you to do your writing. And you sure as hell haven’t neglected that, have you?”
    Helmers grunted. “Self-indulgence.” He turned on the chair, which creaked. He raised his head, sniffed the air. “Did you say lunch? Something smells absolutely glorious.”
    Dave eyed him. “You sure you’re all right? You don’t want me to drive you to U.C.L.A. Medical Center?”
    “Hell, no—thank you.” Helmers stuck the cigarette in the corner of his mouth, pushed to his feet, and began to open the boxes. “I’m not sick, I just worked too hard and forgot to eat. I’m starved.” He lifted plates out of the boxes and set them on the table. He shook his fingers. “Still hot,” he said. “Sit down, sit down.” He rattled forks from a drawer, plates from a shelf, dusted the plates with his shirtsleeve, and clacked them down on the grubby table. He sat again, stubbed out the cigarette in a full ashtray, then began pulling the foil wrappers off the plates from Max’s. His eyes lit up. “Linguine with clams?” He bent to the second plate, inhaling deeply through his nose, the lenses of his glasses steaming up. “What’s this?”
    “Max made it with veal. Alex opts for chicken breasts. Boned, skinned, rolled in seasoned bread crumbs and Parmesan, and sautéed in butter, then baked with Swiss cheese, sliced onions, basil, oregano, and a sweet tomato sauce that was one of Max’s great culinary secrets—Campbell’s Soup. Nobody ever tumbled. Gourmets, restaurant critics, chefs from Europe begged him for the recipe. Max only chortled and told them he was happy they’d enjoyed their dinner.”
    Helmers forked a taste into his mouth, closed his eyes in bliss, and hummed. “Sure as hell beats the freezer section at Vons,” he said.
    Dave split the plate of linguine between them. Helmers tied into it. “This could get to be an expensive habit, Dave. Till you took me out the other day, I’d forgotten how good food can taste.” He peered over the glasses slipping down his nose. “You’ve got to let me pay the tariff here.”
    “Forget it.” Dave got up and fetched the champagne and a couple of spotty water tumblers from the dish rack