"I'm a cop too," said Frank, glaring at me. "Who are you?"
"An ex. I'm civilian," I said, holding my hands up.
"Who's your sister?" the other guy with Frank said.
Gable sighed, shook his head, and dug something out of his pocket as he stood up.
"My home phone," he said, handing me a card. "I'll be there."
The sailors had stopped when they heard the word cop, and the air-corps kid at the bar had disappeared with Lester's child.
"Son of a bitch," said Frank, looking at Gable as he stepped out of the shadow of the booth. "It's Robert Taylor."
"No," said one of the women. "He's Clark Gable's grandpa."
The other woman laughed.
Gable was almost as big as the two cops and in better shape.
"Call me," said Gable evenly.
"I'll call," I said, pocketing poem, clip, and envelope as Gable turned to the sailors and said, "Gentlemen, I suggest we retire for the evening."
"Gentlemen, I suggest we retire for the evening," Frank mocked drunkenly, stepping in front of Gable, who tried to move past him toward the door.
"That does it," Lester shouted. "That does it. I'm calling the police."
"Wow," screeched Sidney.
Gable and Frank, who was a half-head taller, were face to face.
"Got something else cute to say?" Frank said, winking at the ladies.
"You," said Gable, "are a foul-mouthed sack of horse shit. Now, if you'll step out of my way, I'll leave the trough to you and your friends."
I was halfway across the room now, heading toward the dark hole to the left of the stage where Al Ramone and the piano player had disappeared. I stopped when I heard Gable and turned to see him rub his nose with his right hand, take a deep breath, and throw a solid right to Frank's stomach, followed by a left to his kidney as the big man spun to his side. One woman gasped. The other screamed. Frank's partner went for Gable but the old sailor was on his back.
I went through the heavy curtain as everyone in the bar-Lester, sailors, women, and cops-screamed and started breaking furniture and each other.
There wasn't much light backstage at the Mozambique, but there wasn't much to see either. A dirty wooden floor. A door with an exit sign over it. Three other unmarked wooden doors and a sputtering light bulb to guide the way.
I went for the first door, opened it, and found myself in a closet set up like a dressing room. Just enough space for a small table and chair and a peeling mirror. Table, chair, and mirror frame had all been painted a sick, thick, and uneven green. The room was empty except for the furniture and a photo tucked into the corner of the mirror. I took a look at the scratched photo. A group of guys in Confederate uniforms were lying on the ground and holding up their hands to Vivien Leigh, begging. One of the guys was circled in ink, He was lying in the dirt, his hands crossed in death. He was skinny and bearded, but Al Ramone's fake teeth gave him away. I looked at the photograph for another few seconds and had the feeling that I had seen this lost patrol before.
A motorcycle cranked up outside. I moved to the open window and pushed the dirty curtain aside in time to see Clark Gable roar into the Glendale night. Behind him and me the battle raged on.
I left the room and tried the next door. It was a closet that smelled of something strong and acrid.
That left one door next to the exit. I pushed through and found myself facing a sink ringed with brown-yellow stains. The faucet dripped. There were two toilet stalls. One was open and needed flushing. The other was closed.
"Ramone?" I said, looking down at the pair of feet below the closed stall's door. Someone's pants were down, and his pale, hairy ankles were showing.
No answer. The battle continued to rage in the lounge of the Mozambique, but I could barely hear it as I pushed open the stall and found Al Ramone sitting there, his hairpiece in his lap, his teeth pushing forward against his pursed lips, his sagging suit supporting a sagging rod of dark metal that had skewed him to the papered wall. He had looked better as a dead Confederate soldier than as a dead crooner.
I stood over Al Ramone for a few seconds before reaching for a piece of paper folded neatly and pinned to Ra-mone's sleeve. Since it said "Toby Peters" on it, in what looked like the same pen and block letters as the poem in my pocket, I figured it was for me, unpinned it, and started to unfold it. Something creaked behind me and I shot back through the stall door, throwing my back against the wall next to the dripping sink.
I was breathing hard now, half expecting someone to rush through the toilet door with a big surprise for me. No one came. The battle went on. Sidney screamed "Wow" in the distance and I read the note, wishing that I had brought my duly registered and seldom used.38 with me. Who knew?
"Welcome to the game," the note read. "No time for a proper poem, but cage-e is next. There is more than one way to spell t.h.a.t. And then Lionel Varney."
For a beat or two it made no sense, and then something came through. I recalled the name Varney, the burning of Atlanta. The actor in the Confederate uniform who said he had been beaten out for Rhett Butler.
"Shit," I muttered.
Everyone's a writer, an actor, a producer, a director. I like my jobs straight and simple. No poems or newspaper clips. No riddles or games. You get a threat. I protect. Someone is after you. I find him. You lost your cat or your aunt or your gold fillings, and I'm on the job. I don't do crazies if I can help it. But sometimes you can't help it. I tucked the bloodstained note, the poem, the clipping, and the card into the envelope Gable had given me. It was getting thick and, with the sound of a siren very nearby, it was getting hot.
I got out of the toilet as the police car, from the sound of its siren, pulled up in front of the Mozambique. I could make it though the window in Al Ramone's dressing closet and probably be in my Crosley and on the way home in less than thirty seconds, but Lester knew my name and I was easy to find.
I did go back to Al's dressing room, plucked the photograph of him pretending to be dead and found Varney, or what might have been Varney, in the picture, lying at the far right, beard covering his mouth. I folded the photo into the now-bulging envelope, hurried into the broom closet, where I stood on top of an overturned bucket and stashed the envelope under a carton of Gold Dust Cleanser boxes. It wouldn't be good for me or Gable for the police to find that envelope and what was in it.
I put the bucket in the corner, closed the closet, and moved back onto the stage of the Mozambique, where I was transported back a decade. The place looked bombed. All that was missing was Andy the giant Samoan standing on someone's stomach. Two uniformed cops had sat the sailors down against the bar. Frank, his pal, and their dates or wives were sitting at what was left of their table. Frank spotted me and said, "That's him."
I longed for the bad old days.
"That's him," Lester confirmed.
The two cops looked over at me and I said, "There's a dead baritone in the toilet."
Behind me, the piano player, who had appeared from nowhere, launched into a melancholy version of "After You've Gone."
Chapter 2
Captain G. Lane Price was sitting behind his desk, wearing what looked like the same uniform he had worn a little over ten years ago when he'd shaken my hand, wished me well with my life as a civilian, and gone to lunch with the mayor of Glendale.
Captain G. Lane Price was leaning over to polish his shoes with a spritz from the bottle of Griffin ABC Liquid Black that sat on his desk.
The "G" stood for Gene. Lane Price did not think of himself as a "Gene." At least he hadn't two or three decades ago when he was considering a career in movies, politics, or public relations, whichever came first.
"Pevsner," he grunted, looking up at me for an instant and then returning to the task of shining his shoes. "Don't look much different. A pound here, there. A little gray at the sideburns."
"The scars don't show," I said, standing in the large masculine office complete with leather-covered chairs, a massive desk, an
d pictures on the walls of dead animals and dead politicians.
"Something to be thankful for. Have a seat."
"And I changed my name to Peters a long time ago, Toby Peters."
"Suit yourself," he said. "Nothing new in the City of Angels."
I sat.
Lane Price was a little more bald, a little more hefty, and a lot darker under the eyes than he had been when I left the Glendale Police Department. Price had always looked like a man who just woke up. Now he looked like a man who wanted to go back to sleep.
"How they look to you?" he said, pulling his chair out from behind the desk so he could show me his shoes.
"Ready for inspection by Patton himself," I said.
"Maybe," he said, pursing his lips and examining his work. "Maybe. But I don't figure the wife and her brother'll be after my shoes. There's plenty to criticize on the way down to keep them occupied." He rolled his chair back behind the desk, tapped his fingers on the clear surface of the desk, and continued, "Last I heard you were doing security at Columbia."
"Warners," I corrected. "Got canned for punching a cowboy star."
"Not Bob Steele?" the chief asked seriously.
"No," I said, to his relief. "I'm a licensed investigator in L.A. County."
"How's the wife?…"
"Anne and me," I said, wanting to kick off my tight shoes. "We got divorced when I was at Warners."
"Happens," said Price with a sympathetic shake of the head. "You kill that guy in the Mozambique?"
"No," I said.
G. Lane Price nodded. I wasn't sure what the nod meant. He robbed the top of his head like Guy Kibbee.
"Somebody killed him," G. Lane went on.
"Looked that way to me," I agreed.
We were getting along just fine so far.
"Two of my men, Frank Oznati and Carmen Harris. They were in the Mozambique with their wives, they say your friend, one who looks like Robert Taylor, started a fight and ran, and you went after Ramone."
"Carmen?" I asked. "There're cops named Carmen now?"
Price shrugged.
"Tends to put a chip on your shoulder," he said. "You went after Ramone. Lou Canton says…"
"Lou?…"
"Old piano player. Says when he and Ramone left the stage when the fight started, Ramone said he saw someone he knew in the audience. Canton says Al looked scared. Canton helped him to his dressing room and went out to call the station. No phone backstage and he was afraid to go back into the bar."
"Interesting," I said.
"Depends," said Price. "Maybe two, three minutes after you go backstage, you come out and announce that Ra-mone's dead."
"Right."
"Right," Price said, nodding and pursing his lips. "Questions. Why did you go backstage? What did you see? Who was the guy you were with? And what were you doing in the Mozambique?"
"Which one do you want first?" I asked.
"Take your pick and take your time," the chief said, leaning back and folding his hands behind his head. "Longer we take, the less time I have to spend at my wife's brother's house. Then, after you tell me, you tell it all to Officer Cooper, who takes it down so you can sign."
"I need a lawyer?" I asked.
"This day and age everyone needs a lawyer," Price said, sighing.
"Al Ramone used to be an actor," I said.
"That a fact? Which question you answering?"
"He owed my client a few dollars," I said, turning my most sincere unblinking look at the chief. It was wasted. His eyes were closed.
"A few?" he said, eyes still closed.
"Two hundred and change," I said. "I get forty bucks if I collect from Ramone."
"Client got a name?" Price asked dreamily.
"Everybody's got a name," I said.
"Can I trouble you for it?"
"I don't…"
"Just to check if you're on the up-and-up about this," he said, opening one eye to watch my reaction.
"Sheldon Minck," I said. "A dentist in L.A. In the Farra-day Building."
"Report says Ramone had a full set of dentures in his lap. What'd he need with a dentist?"
"Old bill," I said.
"This dentist, he doesn't happen to look like, say, some movie star, Robert Taylor maybe?"
Both of Price's eyes were open now.
"Dr. Minck is five-six, about two hundred pounds, bald, and sporting glasses as thick as Yorba Linda."
"Guy who was with you who started the fight…" Lane Price went on, checking his watch.
"Don't know anything about him. Just a guy who had a few drinks and was looking for someone to tell his troubles to. He offered me a beer. I took it. He started to tell me the story of his life and wife in Omaha. Then Ramone came out… and everything started when the guy from Omaha punched your man and was gone. Ramone left the stage and I went after him." ' "Guy from Omaha looked like a movie star," the chief said, sitting up again.
"Maybe," I said. "A little like Edward G. Robinson maybe."
"Not the way I heard it," said the chief.
"Closest star I can give you," I apologized, holding my hands up.
"Backstage. Next scene," said Price. "And slow it down. This is a homicide."
"Looked for Ramone. Couldn't find him. Went into the toilet and there he was."
"That's it?"
"That's it. Didn't see anybody. Didn't hear anything."
The chief started to open his desk drawer, changed his mind, and closed it again.
"Curtain rod from his dressing room," said Price. "Skewered like that Hungarian stuff I hate."
Price demonstrated a two-handed jab with a curtain rod aimed, I guessed, at an imaginary brother-in-law.
"Damn thing doesn't even have a point," he went on. "I mean the curtain rod. Take some strength, don't you know, even if you got lucky and went in right under the ribs, which he did."
"Take some strength," I agreed.
Price stood up and worked the kinks out of his legs.
"Got the knees of an old ballet dancer," he said.
I held back a good comeback with another one in the wings and just nodded. Price had no sense of humor.
"Hell," he said. "I'll buy your story but I'll check it out. Can't see any reason you'd go coconuts on me with a curtain rod for forty bucks. Hell, these are boom times, boom times this side of the Rockies. People don't kill for forty bucks, but you never know."
"You never know," I agreed.
He was standing over me now, looking down, his face sour with the realization that he'd soon be back with the little woman and her brother.
"Some of what you told me is maybe half true," he said. "I find it's not and you killed Ramone, I'll haul you back to Glendale so fast your ears'll bleed."
"I'm always happy to come back home," I said, "but I didn't…"
"Hell," he said with another sigh. "I'm shorthanded here, Peters. You get cleared on this I'll take you back, promotion to sergeant."
I stood up now.
"Damn war's got my good men. Thinking of taking on women for street work," he said to a photograph on the wall of Herbert Hoover.
"I'll think about it," I said as Price walked to his door and opened it.
"No, you won't," he said. "I'm gonna have to make it for the duration with Carmen, Frank, amazons, little kids, and dwarfs."
"Little persons," I corrected.
He looked back at me, puzzled.
"Little persons. They don't like to be called dwarfs. My best friend is a little person."
"That a fact?" said Price.
I nodded as he called out the door for Officer Cooper.
"Those sailors didn't start that fight with our cops, and the guy in the booth didn't either," I said as he stepped away from the door, leaving it open. "Your boys started it."
"Figures," said Price, adjusting his suit jacket. "Damn thing is I can't get rid of 'em. They're tough, stupid, and 4-F, one for a trick shoulder and the other for flat feet. Best I can do. When Johnny comes marc
hing home, Frank and Carmen can join the job market. Wait. Now things are coming back to me here. You used to live on…"
"Linden," I said. "My dad had a grocery store on Canada."
"You had a brother…" he said, squinting at me and trying to remember.
"Phil. He's a cop. Wilshire District. Captain."
"Change his name too?"
"No," I said. "He's still Pevsner."
"Think he'd be interested in a return to his family roots?" asked Price hopefully.
"You can ask," I said as Officer Cooper, lean, teen, and neatly pressed, came in with a notebook in hand.
"How do I look?" asked Price, tugging at his jacket.
"Elegant," I said before Cooper could speak.
"Distinguished," said Cooper seriously.
"Can't trust either of you," Price said. "Take his statement and send him home."
Cooper nodded.
"My car's still at the Mozambique," I said as Price went out the door.
"Cooper," called the chief.
"I'll take him back," said the young cop as the door slammed.
"Doesn't care for his brother-in-law," I said.
"Brother-in-law's the county water commissioner," Cooper was whispering, even though the chief's freshly polished shoes were tapping well down the hallway.
I checked my watch. It told me it was eight-twenty. My watch was wrong as usual. It was the only thing my old man left me besides memories.
"It's five after midnight," Cooper said.
"Let's get to it," I said, sitting again.
Cooper didn't take the chief's chair. He sat opposite me in a chair in front of the desk, balancing the notebook in his lap.
"You know there's more than one way to spell cagey," I said.
"Never thought much about it," Cooper said, smoothing his pants and taking out his pencil.
It took about ten minutes to give my statement and another twenty for Cooper to type it up for my signature. I signed and he drove me back to my car in the parking lot of the Mozambique. There was one other car in the lot, an old Ford that glowed with wax or fresh paint by the night light of the Mozambique window.
"Ramone's car?" I asked.
"Wouldn't know," said Cooper.
Tomorrow Is Another day tp-18 Page 3