You Bet Your Life: A Toby Peters Mystery (Book Three)

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

  Through the crowd, the two familiar figures bubbled in and out of sight, searching faces. I ducked, pretending to listen to the conversation of the two talkers. One guy was saying something about subconscious wishes.

  If the elevator had come five seconds earlier, I would have made it clean—but you can check off the turning points of your whole life and punch them into a total of a few minutes of chance and choices.

  Chaney spotted me as the elevator doors were closing. I didn’t think he’d take a shot at me in a crowded lobby, but I wasn’t sure. I expected him to give out a yell or make a rush for me. Instead, his face twisted into a sour smile and he slowly moved forward.

  The elevator filled and the doors closed before Chaney made it to a close-up. I thought fast: there were two or three of them coming for me. If they knew what they were doing, one would stay in the lobby, another would go up the stairs, and the third would wait for the elevator and ask the operator if he remembered which floor I had gotten off. I had to figure they’d do it right. Nitti’s boys weren’t smart, but they had probably done things like this before.

  One of the guys in front of me was smoking a cigar. He had a short grey beard and looked like a picture I had seen once of Sigmund Freud. I rode with Freud and his bunch up to twelve and followed them into a maroon-carpeted lobby. A desk with a white tablecloth and a sign over it reading “Registration” stood ten feet from the elevator. A smiling women sat behind the desk, flanked by two unsmiling women. All three had flowers pinned over their right breasts. They looked like a plump, aging version of the Andrew Sisters getting ready to sing “You’re a Lucky Fellow, Mr. Smith” to a roomful of recruits.

  The woman in the middle looked at me hopefully and stood up. Her dress was a purple thing with big white flower patterns all over it. She nodded at me and I walked over, wondering if I should go to the fire escape. If they had the fire escape covered, that would be the worst way for me to go because there wouldn’t be any witnesses out there. I considered calling the cops and hiding till they arrived, but that would be the end of protecting Chico. He’d have no choice but to accept his brother’s offer. He was stubborn enough not to take that choice.

  I walked to the registration table. It was covered with ash trays, dirty coffee cups, and a handful of unclaimed name tags.

  “Yes,” I said to the woman.

  Her breath across the table was peppermint Life Savers.

  “Registration, doctor,” she said. “You are a bit late.”

  “Ah, yes,” I smiled at her, glancing back at the elevator door. I picked up a name tag and the trio sighed in unison, as if an enormous burden had been taken from their backs.

  “I’ll just go tell Dr. Agabiti that you’ve arrived.” She hurried off in the crowd of coffee drinkers to find Dr. Agabiti, who would, on sight, expose me. I looked at my name tag. It read, “Dr. Charles Derry, Capetown, South Africa.”

  The peppermint lady bustled through the crowd with bobbing breasts and a tall, white-haired man held firmly against one of them. She nodded at me, and the tall man squinted through round, hornrimmed glasses before he advanced on me with an extended right hand.

  “Dr. Derry?” he asked, a bit surprised. I knew I didn’t fit anyone’s image of a doctor, but if I pulled it off, I might be able to get into one of the meeting rooms and hide till Nitti’s crew had given up the search.

  “Yes,” I said, unsure of what a South African dialect should be. I started with a Germanic one and gave up quickly.

  “I’m Tom Agabiti,” he said holding my hand firmly in strong, thin, and very boney fingers. “We’ve been looking forward to your coming and had decided you weren’t going to make it. The weather and everything. But you’re here.”

  “I’m here,” I agreed, looking around the lobby at the wallpaper and dark fixtures with an approving air. I clasped my hands behind my back and waited for him to leave me alone. He didn’t, just stared at me with a silly grin.

  “We’ve read your book with great interest,” he said. “And we’re all looking forward to hearing your thoughts. I don’t mind telling you we didn’t think we’d be able to get you away from your work for this conference. First time in the states, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” I said, continuing to look at the walls.

  “Well,” he sighed. “You made it, and right on time, too. Shall we go?”

  “Of course,” I said, trying to imitate the soft confidence of a psychiatrist I had once met.

  Agabiti moved through the people in the lobby. There were a few women in suits, but it was mostly a male gathering. The crowd began to thin as we moved down the hall. People were going into little meeting rooms.

  We went into a room through dark oak double doors. About fifty men and a couple of women were seated on folding chairs facing a table with a pitcher of water and two glasses. Many of them turned when Agabiti and I entered, and I looked for a seat. But Agabiti wasn’t having any.

  “No,” he whispered. “You are on now.”

  He lead me to the little table, pointed to one of the two chairs, and put his hands together. It suddenly dawned on me, like the sun over Miami or the snow over Chicago, that I was to be the speaker, or rather the absent Dr. Derry was.

  I decided to get the hell out of there, but my eye hit the door. Chaney put his head in and looked over the people seated. He didn’t expect me to be at the head table. I sat down quickly and put my head down in my hands as if I had a headache or was in the process of deep preparatory thought. Through my fingers, I saw Chaney go over the crowd and move back out of the room. He might come back. He might even ask the Andrew Sisters at the desk if they had seen someone with my description, a dark little guy about forty with a pushed-in nose. They’d sing out that I was Dr. Derry.

  My best bet was to listen to what Agabiti was saying, but my mind kept exploring the thin blue stripes against the white of the wallpaper. Between the stripes, a recurrent pattern of designs that looked like old lanterns rose on top of each other. I was imprisoned by wallpaper and fifty faces looking at me and waiting.

  “Dr. Derry,” said Agabiti, “has not only studied with both Doctors Freud and Jung, but has been praised by both for his attempts to reconcile basic differences. As you know, his book Super-Ego and Ego vs. Self and Ego: A False Battle is a pioneer work—a controversial work, but a work that promises to mend a schism, close a chasm.” He showed his hands with outstretched fingers coming together slowly and firmly. “I could continue, but there would be little point when we have Dr. Derry here to speak for himself. He will speak briefly and then respond to questions. Dr. Derry.”

  They applauded and I smiled. The applause stopped and I poured myself a drink of water. There was something in the water. I showed Agabiti. He handed me the other glass. I inspected it to be sure it hadn’t been used. Someone coughed. I poured water slowly and drank. Someone shifted and a chair creaked. I looked at my watch, the door, and the wallpaper, and stood up.

  “My notes were lost on the plane from London,” I said with a sad smile, indicating I would go on in spite of the burden, “so my comments will be brief. Super-Ego, Self and Ego,” I said, looking at the faces in front of me and trying to do Paul Muni. “I think it is a false battle because we have not yet clearly defined what we mean by those terms.”

  There were a few nods of agreement, so I went on.

  “I’ve studied with both Freud and Jung,” I said humbly, wondering who the hell Jung might be, “and I tell you frankly I’m not sure that either of them has defined the terms to the point where it is reasonable to say a real battle exists.”

  More nods of approval, but even more nods of disagreement.

  “I don’t mean there isn’t a real point of controversy,” I said quickly, looking directly at one of the people who hadn’t liked what I had said. “There’s a difference between controversy and battle. What I am calling for and what I call for in my book is a concentration of definitions. Until we define, we are doing ourselves, our patients and patient
s for a hundred years to come a disservice.”

  Some wild applause.

  “We are physicians first,” I said holding up a finger, “and psychiatrists second.”

  They were talking among themselves, approving, nodding, arguing as I paused to take a long drink. Dr. Agabiti was grinning up at me with his arms crossed. I held up my hands.

  “I’ve had a long, difficult trip,” I said. “Time zones and all that. And I just arrived. So, I’ll move right to the questions.”

  One of the two women in the room stood up, pursed her lips and said,

  “I don’t quarrel with your desire for definition, Dr. Derry, but I fail to see how definitional problems are involved in the issue of Jung’s acceptance of a collective unconscious and Freud’s rejection of it.”

  I nodded sagely, looked at Dr. Agabiti as if we both knew the answer and spoke.

  “You are absolutely right,” I said. “It is a basic problem. It is something that cannot be reconciled and therefore it is something we accept and build on.”

  I punched my fist into my hand for emphasis, expecting someone to rise from the audience and throw a chair at me. No one did.

  The next question came from a young man with a Boston accent. His hair was brown and wavy. In five years he’d be fat. I could see he didn’t like Derry.

  “Nothing you have said so far, Dr. Derry, has any substance,” he said. “You’ve been evasive. What if I were to say that the case history in your book of Roy Wood’s breakdown revealed clearly that your suggested approach is of no value in affecting a cure?”

  “I would simply disagree,” I said.

  “And what if I were to say that your refusal to mention the drug used in that case indicates an unethical refusal to share medical knowledge that could help patients? Either your approach is without merit and insufficiently tested, or you should mention now before this body the specific drug you used.”

  The assembly thought this was a reasonable request. They had me. I could make up a drug, but they’d know it was a fake, or I could think up some real drug I had seen on Shelly Minck’s shelf back in the dental office. If they believed me, some of the people in the room might try it, and I had no idea what Shelly’s drugs might do to some poor nut.

  “Well?” said Boston, his hands folded in front of him.

  “The drug is scapalomine,” said a voice in the back of the room. “Dr. Derry doesn’t want to mention it because he and I are still conducting experiments in Capetown.”

  Groucho Marx stood up and continued. “I’m the chief of staff at Dr. Derry’s hospital in Capetown, and I suggested that he not give the information, but under the circumstances and with the warning I’ve just given, I think it will do no harm now.”

  “Dr.—” Boston began.

  “Hackenbush,” said Marx seriously. I expected a roar of laughter or recognition, but there was none. Maybe the doctors never went to the movies. “And now, gentlemen, I’d like to talk to Dr. Derry in the hall for a moment. I know this is unprecedented, but if you’ll just bear with us, I think I can persuade Dr. Derry to reveal something that will be of great scientific interest.”

  Agabiti looked confused and gazed around the room. No one appeared to know what to do.

  “I don’t think you can convince me, Dr. Hackenbush,” I said somberly, “but I’ll listen. I’ll be right back.”

  I hurried quickly through the door with Marx and whispered to him as we got in the hall.

  “Where did you get that scapalomine business?”

  “It’s true,” said Groucho, “I read this quack Derry’s book and asked some questions out at U.S.C. The drug is probably scapalomine.”

  “You read medical books?”

  “Of course,” he said. “I’m a doctor, aren’t I? Now what were you doing in there?”

  I explained about Nitti’s boys as we passed the Andrew Sisters, who looked surprised to see me out so early. There was no one else in the twelfth floor lobby. Everyone was in the various meeting rooms. In one room, there would be a long wait for Dr. Derry and Hackenbush to return.

  “My advice as your physician,” whispered Marx, “is to get the hell out of here. Let’s get back to our room and shove you under the bed.”

  We pushed the button for the elevator, and Marx kept going through the pantomime of serious conversation. Our chances looked good. Nitti’s men weren’t in the lobby, and they had a lot of territory to cover. A few seconds later I drastically revised our chances. Costello was in the elevator. He stood back against the wall with his hand in his coat pocket. There was no running from him. I nodded toward Costello so Groucho would know, and we stepped in as the doors closed.

  I wondered if Costello would shoot Marx, me, and the blissfully unaware elevator operator, or try to get me out where he could handle my demise slowly and painfully. I thought that painful demises were more his style.

  He leaned over my shoulder with familiar garlic breath.

  “I got a message,” he whispered. “Tonight at eleven, you be at the New Michigan with Marx. Servi will be there. You got the message?”

  “I got the message.”

  “Good,” he said. “Things don’t go right, I get you.”

  Groucho and I rode down with Costello to the lobby and watched him leave with the other two.

  He had probably thought Groucho was Chico.

  “What was that all about?” asked Groucho as we got back in the elevator.

  “My pal Al Capone remembered me,” I said.

  9

  O.K., I told myself. Assuming Servi does get Chico off the hook, you still have two questions. First, who killed Bistolfi, Morris Kelakowsky, and Canetta? The second problem was tied to the first—how to get the Chicago cops to unlist me as public enemy number three or four and moving up fast. The most obvious solution to problem one was that at least four people were involved in some scheme to cheat the mob and Nitti out of $120,000. The killer was determined not to split that money into smaller chunks. Maybe Killer was worried about my getting too close. That led to an obvious conclusion. Killer might want me dead now unless there wasn’t anyone left for me to get information from.

  He might also realize, if he was a member of either Nitti’s or Capone’s group, that as soon as Servi cleared Chico, Nitti might start looking for him.

  That got me just about nowhere, so I decided to solve problem number two. I got directions and headed South on Michigan Avenue. The wind knocked over an old lady in a black coat. She didn’t break her fall when the blast of iced air threw a block under her. The wind deserved a fifteen yard penalty for clipping. Instead, the old lady lost about three yeards. She got up, determined. The first and ten looked like it might be the Old Water Tower I passed on Chicago Avenue. I never found out. The old lady was still half a block back, struggling against the blast. I was a foreigner and more determined. Chicago had thrown its best flu at me, and I had made it through almost five days. I adjusted my ear muffs and leaned my way down Michigan, past book shops and fancy women’s stores with stiff-backed mannequins in their windows. In ten minutes, I made it past the Tribune Tower and across a bridge over the Chicago river. Ten minutes beyond that I was at City Hall on Clark. When I got to the one-block square lump, I kept my head down, pretending to fight the wind but really keeping my face covered from the cops who were walking in and out.

  I headed for the mayor’s office, not that I expected to get in to the mayor, but because I needed information I could get there. A receptionist sat inside the door marked “Mayor.” She looked young, red-haired and Irish. Her teeth were small and her smile long gone for the likes of me.

  “Yes sir,” she said.

  “I’d like to see the mayor’s secretary,” I said.

  “Do you have an appointment?” she said, looking past me for someone who was expected.

  “No,” I said, “but I have only one question and I’m a busy man.” I looked at my watch. “If Chicago won’t help me, Detroit will.”

  She was unim
pressed, so I went on.

  “I’m from Metro Goldwyn Mayer studio,” I whispered. “We’re thinking seriously of shooting a picture here next year about the Chicago Fire—a big thing, millions of dollars.”

  She was suspicious, but she couldn’t afford to make the kind of mistake that might happen if she kicked me out.

  “Did you see Mr.—”

  “No,” I said with a patient smile. “I saw no one. This is to remain strictly confidential until I get some reassurances from the Mayor’s office directly.”

  She could have asked why I was telling her, but she didn’t look that sharp. She wasn’t.

  “Let me check, Mr.—”

  “Pevsner,” I said. “Tobias Pevsner. If you’d like to call Mr. Mayer’s office, I’ll be glad to give you the number, Miss—”

  “Kelly,” she said with a small smile.

  I had discovered from the directory in City Hall that the Mayor’s name was Kelly, but I didn’t think it was the moment to note the coincidence.

  “Kelly,” I mused. “A good name for a lovely young lady. You remind me very much of Vivien Leigh. Hey. Viv will be starring in the Chicago picture and she’ll have a younger sister. Ever done any acting?”

  Her mouth dropped and closed.

  “A little, in a school play, Arsenic and Old Lace. I played the girl.”

  I pulled out my black expense book and gnawed pencil.

  “Your first name?”

  “Maureen, Maureen Kelly.”

  I wrote an expense item for a fifty cent breakfast and closed the book. She left and I looked around the bare little office with a single window facing nothing. It was a dreary place, and the man Maureen Kelly led out to see me fit perfectly. He was a prune of a man, pinched in by what must have been an enormous, tight rubber band under his jacket. Bowel movements must have been torture for him. His words fit the image—brief, clipped darts of words that traveled straight and allowed no echo.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Pevsner,” I said, not bothering to extend my hand. My plan was to one-up him on bad manners and efficiency before he could get the chance. “I haven’t much time so I’ll be brief. I want to know if the City of Chicago will cooperate in the making of A Song in the Fire. If not, we’ll shoot it on the lot and use Detroit for the exteriors.”