I found a taco, place, sat in a corner near a window where I could watch the dark Ford that had picked me up again, and thought about things. I thought that I was eating too much and always did when I was on a job. With two jobs I was eating even more. I thought that the guy in the dark car might not be from the Faulkner case. There was a good chance that he was Lugosi’s pen pal. I thought that Los Angeles was a strange place to work and that people here found the strangest way to die. I thought of Billie Ritchie, the Charlie Chaplin imitator, who had died of internal injuries after being attacked by ostriches while making a movie. I thought until the thinking hurt as much as my knee, and I knew I was ready. I was ready for one more Pepsi and a final taco before I played another round of tag with the Ford.
It was just about dark when I lost him. He was easy to lose because he didn’t want to get too close. I made some plans for getting a good look at him the next day if he kept up the game. It might be the best lead I had in one of my cases.
Back home I avoided Mrs. Plaut and borrowed a handful of nickels from Gunther. The next day was Sunday. Gunther volunteered to drive up to Bel Air and keep an eye on Camile Shatzkin, follow her if she left. I didn’t expect much to happen, but at least I’d be on the job through Gunther. Gunther’s car was a ’38 Oldsmobile with a built-up seat and special elongated pedals put on by Arnie the garageman for a reasonable price. The car was inconspicuous enough, but a midget was not the ideal person for a tailing job. I had no choice. I called my poetic office landlord, Jeremy Butler, and asked him to spend Sunday keeping an eye on the Lugosi house just in case the threat was real. Butler heard my story and said he would park discreetly with a book and keep an eye on the house. A near giant is no less conspicuous than a midget, but as I said, my options were limited, and as a bodyguard Jeremy Butler had no peers. I couldn’t say the same for his poetry. My last set of nickels went for a phone call to North Hollywood, where my sister-in-law Ruth answered the phone.
“Ruth, Toby. Hey, I thought I’d take the boys to a show to see Dumbo tomorrow if they’re not doing anything.”
“I’m sure they’d love it, Toby. What time will you pick them up?”
“About noon. I’ll take them for lunch first.”
“I’ll have them ready,” she said and hung up.
Below me the weekly Saturday night roomers’ poker game was starting, presided over by Mrs. Plaut with a retired postman as the perennial big winner. I had sat in once and likened the experience to Alice’s at the tea party. My knee was feeling a little better. I turned off the lights, got into bed, and listened to the reborn rain on the roof and my radio. I caught the guy on the news saying, “General Douglas MacArthur’s Philippine defenders are carrying on a grim and gallant battle against tremendous odds on the island fortress of Corregidor at the entrance of Manila Bay. They have successfully driven off the third bombing attack on the island.”
The Chinese high command reported that 52,000 Japanese had fallen, but the Japanese had taken Changsha. The Russians were still giving the Nazis hell, but the British were taking losses 280 miles from Singapore.
I turned off the radio and went to sleep, wondering whether there were some place on the earth not at war. I had a trio of dreams. One took place in Cincinnati. A vampire was flying through the streets dropping little pellets. Anyone who touched one or was touched by one turned to stone. The second dream had something to do with airplanes in a small room, and the third dream struck me as brilliant, something I’d have to remember in the morning so I could tell Jerry Vernoff the next time I saw him, if ever. It would make a perfect plot card. It involved a murder in a locked room. The victim was bludgeoned to death but there was no weapon. Just the victim and the murderer. In the dream I figured out that the killer, who looked something like my brother Phil, had frozen a huge banana, used it as a weapon, and then eaten it peel and all. The victim looked something like me.
When I woke up, I reached for my pants and notebook to write down the dream and then thought better of it. It didn’t seem so clever on a Sunday morning with the light through the windows and a layer of fuzz on my tongue.
My knee was stiff but not terribly painful as long as I didn’t bend it. I dressed and ate a big bowl of Kix while I read the Sunday funnies in the Times. I skipped the news. Red Ryder and Little Beaver had returned to Painted Valley. A “Sinister Sheik” was about to slash Tarzan. Dixie Dugan was trying to get her father out of his easy chair, and Fritzie Ritz and Phil were taking a walk. Joe Palooka was in the Army, and Tiny Tim was getting thrown into a Mason jar by Hoppy. The comic book insert—Brenda Starr, Kit Cabot, Spooky, and Texas Slim—inside the funnies kept me busy through another bowl of Kix.
By the time I got to my brother’s small house on Bluebelle in North Hollywood it was almost noon. The baby was toddling around the living room with a padlock in her hand and a four-toothed grin for me. Nate and Dave came out ready to go. Nate was twelve and Dave nine. I tried not to compare them to me and Phil. Dave had just recovered from a car accident, which had added to the Pevsner financial burden.
“Did you kill anybody yesterday, Uncle Toby?” Dave asked brightly.
“You’re a zertz,” Nate broke in. “He doesn’t kill people every day. He hardly ever kills people.”
“I hardly ever kill people,” I agreed.
I picked up the baby, who hit me with the small but heavy padlock and grinned. I was grinning back when Ruth came in the room, looking like Ruth: skinny, tired, with tinted blonde hair that wouldn’t stay up and a gentle smile. I took a step forward and saw Phil at the kitchen table with his head in the funnies trying to avoid me.
“What happened to your leg, Toby?” Ruth said, with some concern.
“Shot,” said Dave. “Probably Nazis.”
“Nazis,” I agreed, loud enough to be sure Phil heard. “They attacked me when I wasn’t looking for putting my feet on their secret spy desk.”
Ruth shook her head, thinking I was making a fool joke and being willing to tolerate me. I handed Ruth the baby, who gave me a final blow with the padlock, and I promised to have the boys back by five.
“Give my best to Phil,” I said as we went out the door.
“Your car is nifty-looking,” Dave said.
“Thanks,” I said, letting them in. When we were on our way, I cleared my throat and said, “You want to see Dumbo or some scary movies?”
“Scary movies,” the boys said in unison.
“Right,” I agreed, “but you have to tell your mother and father you saw Dumbo. It’s part of a case I’m on. Okay?”
They agreed, and I headed for Sam Billings’s adobe theater. We ate at the taco place across the street, and Nate complained about a sore stomach while we waited in line. The line consisted mainly of kids of all sizes with a few adults and a hell of a lot of noise. When we got to the box office, I asked the girl where I could find Billings, and she said he had an emergency dental appointment.
“Boys,” I said. “Here’s a quarter for candy. Watch two of the movies and meet me out on the sidewalk in front of the theater when they’re over. What movies are you going to see?”
“Revolt of the Zombies,” grinned Dave.
“Dumbo,” overrode Nate wisely.
I made it to the Farraday Building in fifteen minutes and took the elevator up because of my leg. That took another ten minutes. The building echoed empty on a Sunday morning, and I knew not even Jeremy Butler roamed the halls. He was watching the Lugosi house and probably worrying about someone defacing the sacred walls around me.
Billings was, indeed, cringing in the chair with Shelly hovering over him when I entered.
“Toby?” Shelly said, turning his glasses in my direction.
“Right,” I said. Billings looked in my direction. His eyes showed recognition.
“Got the book I was telling you about,” Shelly went on cleaning a silver mirror by blowing on it before inserting it in Billings’s mouth.
“Right over there. Civil Air Defense by
Lieutenant Colonel A. M. Prentiss. Every type of bomb and every means of defense.”
“Terrific,” I said, moving closer. “How’s Mr. Billings’s mouth?”
“Emergency,” Shelly said in a whisper that not only Billings but also anyone in the corridor could hear. “Lots of work. Bad situation. Never saw anything quite like it. Wears false fangs. Throws his bite off. Can you imagine?”
“Yes,” I said. “I’m the one who sent him to you, remember?”
“Right,” Shelly agreed, searching for his stub of a cigar somewhere among the magazines and instruments.
“Can I ask Mr. Billings a few questions? Quick ones?” I said, deferring to Shelly’s professional position.
“Ask, ask,” Shelly sang in delight while he continued his search.
“Mr. Billings, I need your help,” I said. Billings tried to sit up, but the chair was tilted, and Shelly reached out to push him firmly back. He didn’t want this one to escape.
“Mr. Billings,” I said, leaning close. “I need the names and addresses of all the members of the Dark Knights of Transylvania. I need the real names and real addresses, and I need them fast.”
“Mr. Peters,” he said with a determined protest, “that can’t be done. The Dark Knights of Transylvania isn’t a club, it is a sacred commitment. Our membership consists only of those who believe in vampires and who are determined that the image of vampirism be respected. The world has always been full of those who do not want to know the truth. We must remain secret until the world is ready to accept the truth.”
“This is an emergency,” I said, moving my face close to his and showing my clenched teeth.
Billings looked determined, so I went on before he made it too difficult to give in, which I wasn’t going to let happen even if I had to torture the names out of him, which I didn’t think would be difficult or necessary.
“Mr. Billings,” I said. “Someone has been trying to frighten Bela Lugosi, and I have reason to believe it is one of your Dark Knights. Yesterday Lugosi got a phone call threatening his life. This is a serious business.”
Billings’s eyes had gone wide and his face pale when I mentioned the phone call. I wasn’t sure what there was about that part of my story that got to him, but it did.
“I don’t understand,” he sputtered.
“I don’t either, but I’m going to find out. Now you either give me the names and addresses out of concern for the good name of your organization, a sense of decency, and concern for Lugosi, of I smash your nose into a duplicate of mine.”
“And he could do it,” Shelly agreed over his shoulder, continuing to hum a tune.
Billings gave me the names and addresses, and I wrote them in my notebook.
“Thanks,” I said, patting him on the shoulder. “Shelly will give you his preferred patients discount, won’t you, Shel?”
“Right,” agreed Shelly, anxious to get to work on Billings’s distorted mouth. “The usual. I’ll definitely get an article out of this. A nut whose mouth has been distorted by vampire fangs. I’ll call it the vampire syndrome, a first in dentistry.”
“Has a nice ring,” I said, heading for the door. “You’re in good hands, Mr. Billings.”
Billings’s pudgy hand rose in response to my goodbye wave, and I headed for the door. Before I got there, Shelly told me I had a call from Jerry Vernoff. I went back to my office and called him.
He answered after almost a dozen rings.
“Vernoff,” he said in a deep businesslike voice I didn’t recognize.
“Peters,” I said.
“Oh,” he answered, his voice returning to normal. “I thought it was Zugsmith, the producer. I hear he has a spy serial he needs plot work on. I have a call in to him. I’ve been clipping newspaper articles on spies for the last year, a diamond mine of plots, enough to keep five series going.” His voice was filled with excitement.
“Sounds terrific,” I said. “You called me?”
“Right,” he said. “I thought I’d try to help on the Faulkner business. If I hadn’t driven him up the wall he wouldn’t have gone out the door, and either he’d have an alibi or he wouldn’t have done Shatzkin in.”
“I prefer the alibi option,” I said.
“I tried to find a bartender who remembered seeing him,” Vernoff said. “No luck. Tried for a housemaid or something in the hotel, but nothing doing. There’s an elevator operator who thinks he saw Faulkner around nine, but he can’t be sure. I’ll keep at him, and maybe he’ll get more sure unless you want to talk to him.”
“No,” I said, testing my knee to be sure I was able to move with some show of normal animal ability. “You keep at it.” It didn’t sound like much of a lead. Even if the elevator operator started to grow more sure, he’d be cut down in a trial if it ever came to one.
“Great plot material,” Vernoff said. “Hey, I don’t want to be morbid or anything, but a man can’t help thinking professionally. You know what I mean?”
I knew what he meant. Most people had long since stopped being people to me. They were potential victims or victimizers. That’s all there was in the world except for the bedazzled and bemused semiguilty who wandered through life. The world wasn’t a place with a few dark corners, but a place with countless numbers of places to hide.
“I know,” I said. “Give me a call if you find anything. I appreciate any help I can get, and I’ll let Faulkner know.”
“Right,” he said. “And if you come up with anything, I’d really appreciate talking. I can’t help feeling a little guilty about what happened to Faulkner.”
“I know,” I said.
“I better get off the phone now,” Vernoff laughed. “Zugsmith may be trying to get through.”
I hung up so Vernoff could spend a few minutes or hours or forever waiting for that call. Vernoff had probably spent years of his life waiting for that phone to ring so he could pitch plots.
CHAPTER SIX
The list was short with no phone numbers and no home addresses, only businesses:
Bedelia Sue Frye, Personality Plus Beauty School, in Tarzana.
Wilson Wong, New Moon Cantonese Restaurant, on Seventh Street in Los Angeles.
Simon Derrida, The Red Herring, in Glendale.
Clinton Hill, Hill and Haley Contractors, Beverly Hills.
It was a pretty broad geographical and social spread. Since it was Sunday, there was a good chance I’d catch none of them at work. On the other hand, I had three and a half hours before I picked up Nate and Dave. Wilson Wong was the closest and, since restaurants are open on Sunday, the most likely to be at his address. The sun had warmed up the day and my disposition. Doing my Alan Ladd act on Billings had also done wonders for my ego. It’s not everyone who can threaten a short, fat, helpless would-be vampire in a dental chair.
The New Moon had its own parking lot, with eight cars in it. The restaurant itself had a wooden facade painted red and designed in late Charlie Chan. The inside was dark and filled with whispering customers having a late lunch.
A skinny Chinese guy with a small, polite smile came up to me.
“How many in your party?” he said.
“None,” I answered, trying to look tough. The image of Alan Ladd was still with me. “I want to see Wilson Wong. Business. Private.”
“Certainly,” said the waiter, who motioned me to follow and made his way between tables. I followed him to a door down a corridor past the men’s and women’s rooms. He knocked and paused.
“You like football?” said the waiter while we waited and he knocked again.
I told him I did.
“That’s a trouble living in California,” he confided. “No good pro football. You think the Bears will clobber the All-Stars?”
“No,” I said, “with Baugh at quarterback, the Bears will be lucky to win.”
“Maybe so,” he said doubtfully as the door opened to reveal Wilson Wong, who wore a dark business suit and tie and a surprised look.
The two men exchang
ed words in Chinese and Wong turned to me as the waiter left.
“Please come in, Mr. Peters,” he said. “It is Peters, isn’t it?”
“Right,” I said as he closed the door behind us.
It was less an office than a library. Three walls were filled with books. If there was a window, it was covered by books. A firm reading chair stood in one corner with a light over it, and a desk stood off to the right with neat piles of notes. Wong offered me a chair and I sat down. He joined me, passing up the reading chair so we’d be at the same level of comfort or lack of it.
In the basement of the theater two nights earlier, Wilson Wong had appeared the energetic gadfly. In his office, he looked anything but.
“It was my belief that our real names were to be kept secret,” he said, “but I am not surprised. Mr. Billings is not the most discreet of souls. Can I offer you some coffee, tea?”
“Tea,” I said, thinking it appropriate for the setting.
Wong went to his telephone, pressed a button, and said something in Chinese. I assumed he was ordering tea or my assassination, depending on whether I had come to the right or wrong suspect. He settled himself back in his chair and looked at me with curiosity.
“Now,” he said. “What can I do for you?”
“The easiest thing is for me to tell you the story and you to give me some answers,” I said. He thought that would be fine so I got comfortable, meaning I let my sore leg hang free, and told him the Lugosi tale and my part in it. He listened, nodded, and paused only to answer the knock at his door and the delivery of tea on a dark tray. He put the tray on the desk and poured us both cups of tea.
“I’m afraid I can’t help you greatly, Mr. Peters,” he said. “Unless your visit convinces you to eliminate me from your list of suspects, thus simplifying your task.”
“That’s one way,” I said. “Now can you convince me that you have no reason to give Lugosi a bad time?”
“Rather easily, I think,” said Wong with a smile. “I have almost no interest at all in Mr. Lugosi. If you look around at my shelves, you will discover two kinds of books in both English and Chinese. Many of my books are sociological in nature. Some are historical and quite a few are on the occult. Although this business is mine through inheritance and is one in which I take deep familial pride, my primary interest is in the exploration of social groups, cults if you will, that use the occult as a focal point. While I do not display it prominently as a matter of pride, I hold a Ph.D. degree in sociology from the University of Southern California and I do some teaching at the university. I have also written two books on the subject we have been discussing for the University of California Press.”
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