"I'd rather not. I need a favor, Shel," I continued. "Someone asks you, you hired me to get your payment. Al Ramone. Okay?"
"Can't be done," Shelly said, removing the cigar from his face and looking down at it as if it were some vile wet thing, which it was.
"I think your dental magazine is a great idea," I tried.
"No, you don't, Toby," he said.
"I think it's one of your best ideas," I said.
He looked at me again. "Can't be done," he repeated.
"What, the dental magazine or the favor?"
"Favor," he said. "Guy named Price already called. Asked if you were working for me, asked if I was interested in becoming a Glendale policeman."
"And you told him?…"
"You weren't doing any work for me. I'm a dentist and not interested in a career change."
I started toward my office.
"You're in trouble?"
I shrugged. He followed me.
"You shouldn't tell lies," he said behind me.
"Shelly, you tell more lies than Tojo."
"Well, yes, maybe, but that doesn't make it right."
I went into my office, a cubbyhole with a door, a box big enough for a small desk with a chair behind it, two small chairs in front of it. Behind the desk chair was a window, six floors above the alley. On the wall across from the desk, next to the door, was a framed photograph of my father, me, my brother Phil, and our dog Kaiser Wilhelm. I was about ten when the picture was taken. Phil was fourteen or fifteen. Our father was wearing his grocer's apron and the look of a man smiling through pain. Kaiser Wilhelm was expressionless. On the wall to our right as we came in was a painting that covered the entire available space, the painting of a woman cradling two identical children on her lap. The painting had been done by Salvador Dali.
"You should have called," Shelly said, closing the door behind him as I moved behind the desk and sat.
"I did," I said, looking at the top envelope of my morning mail. "You weren't here."
"How was I to know?"
"You weren't," I said. "Now, if you'll leave me alone, I've got a suicide note to write."
Shelly leaned over the desk at me.
"I'm for chrissake sorry, Toby," he said.
"You're for chrissake forgiven, Sheldon," I said.
"Does this mean you think my magazine idea stinks?"
"No," I said. "It's better than your Bernie the Bicuspid children's book."
"Tony the Tooth. Tony the Tooth," he corrected, shaking his head. "That was a good idea, Toby. A great idea whose time hasn't come. That's why I want to ease it into the new magazine. The grinder and incisor."
The outer door to the dental office opened and closed behind Shelly. He turned as someone walked in.
"New patient," he whispered, turning back. "Ten o'clock. Almost forgot."
He walked out, closing the door behind him.
I worked on a new lie while I opened my mail.
The first letter was from the Barbizon-Plaza Hotel in New York City. I'd stayed there on a case. The Barbizon told me it was famous for its continental breakfast, which came with rooms as low as three bucks a day. All rooms with private baths and radios.
I could tell Price that Shelly was lying. That he was afraid of bad publicity.
The second letter was from the San Diego Book Club, promising me a choice of / Saw the Fall of the Philippines, by Carlos P. Romulo, or Congo Song, by Stuart Cloete, for a nickel.
I could deny I had told Price anything. I'd never be able to return to Glendale, but there are worse exiles.
The last of my mail was a postcard with a map on the front that told me how to get to the Old Hickory Barbecue off of Echo Park Avenue. Two free parking lots. Open all night. Two minutes from downtown. There wasn't much room for the message on the front because the preprinted P.S. filled the bottom half with a message that the Old Hickory was the most unusual eating place in America.
"The first dead soldier is now really dead," the note said. "And the cage-e one is next. I began lame but I'll end able. Who am I? Just ask what I am d.o.i.n.g." It wasn't signed.
There was no stamp on the postcard. It hadn't come through the mail. I took the poem and the bloody note from my pocket, cleared a space on the table, and laid them crumpled and flat in front of me. They made no more sense than they had last night.
I got up, went to the door, opened it, and watched Shelly flashing a silver pocket flashlight into the mouth of a young man covered with a gray-white sheet. Sheldon Minck was singing "Straighten Up and Fly Right."
"Shel," I said. "When did you get the mail?"
"Usual time," Sheldon said, pausing in his song but not his work. "About eight."
"Downstairs?" I said, looking at the young man in the chair.
"Hold still, Mr. Spelling," Shelly said to his patient. "The best is yet to be. Downstairs."
"Thank you."
"Cool down, papa, don't you blow your top," Shelly sang, poking Mr. Spelling's teeth with something that looked like a chopstick with a needle at its tip.
Mr. Spelling grunted in what might have been pain or an urgent desire to plead for mercy.
"Won't take long. Won't take long," Shelly said, probing. "You want 'em clean, I've got to dig. Law of the dental jungle. Safari into the darkest cavities."
Mr. Spelling grunted and I returned to my desk and the poems as Shelly began to question his patient about his potential interest in a magazine devoted to teeth.
They die until you understand They die by weapons in my hand. My father wept to be so cut From fortune, fame deserved, but I'll avenge the wrongs and slight To be there e'er the Ides and right Those wrongs and claim his prize And give to you a great surprise. First there was Charles Larkin And next Al Ramone. Do harken For on it goes and blood be thine Unless you learn to read my s.i.g.n.
It made no more sense this time than it had the night before. I looked at the note that had been pinned to Al Ramone:
"Welcome to the game. 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."
I turned the notes and the postcard over, held them up to the window, wondered if I was hungry enough to take a break after a full five minutes of work. I didn't have to decide. My office door opened and Jeremy Butler entered when I called "Come in."
Six-three and three hundred pounds of Jeremy filled my office door. He was wearing dark slacks and a blue pullover sweater with long sleeves and a turtleneck collar. He looked more like the wrestler he had been than the sixty-three-year-old landlord who writes poetry.
"Just the man I want to see," I said, getting up.
"Two policemen were here early this morning looking for you," Jeremy said. "They asked me to tell you to see your brother as soon as you got in."
"They said my brother?"
"They said Captain Pevsner and left no address. I assumed they knew he was your brother."
"Why?"
"Why did I assume?" Jeremy raised his voice over the sound of Shelly's dental machine, set to chip away plaque and enamel. "Because they did not wait for you, though I said you would probably be in shortly."
"Thanks," I said. "Do me a favor, Jeremy. Look at these."
I turned the poem, card, and message toward him.
"May I sit?" he asked.
"Please."
He sat, removed a pair of half glasses from his pocket, put them on, and read.
"She's making lots of dough, working for Kokomo," Shelly belted out beyond the closed door.
Jeremy read slowly and then read a second time.
"The ides is the fifteenth of the month," said Jeremy, looking up and removing his glasses. "The ides of March was the day that Julius Caesar was assassinated. He was told to beware the ides of March, but he did not heed the warning."
"What about the ides of February?"
"No significance that I am aware of," he said. "Who are Charles Larkin and Al Ramone? And Lionel Varney?"
&
nbsp; "The first two are dead. Murdered by our poet. I don't know about Varney. I think they were all extras in Gone With the Wind," I said. And then I told Jeremy what had happened last night, including my meeting with Clark Gable and Captain Price.
"I see," said Jeremy, putting his glasses back on and looking again.
"I've got a nut here, Jeremy," I said, trying to ignore Shelly's attempt to simulate the sound of a riveting machine as he sang "Rosie the Riveter."
"A nut who likes to play with words," he said. "I like to play with words. If I may copy…"
"Take them, keep them safe, work on them," I said. "With my gratitude and blessing."
Jeremy took the material and placed it gently into his pocket. He nodded. "You see that each of his messages ends with a word broken into letters. S.i.g.n. T.h.a.t. D.o.i.n.g."
"I see," I said, seeing but not understanding.
"He wants to be caught, Toby," Jeremy said. "He leaves puzzles. Tells too much. Taunts. Challenges. This is a man to be wary of. Urges you to follow, leaving small crumbs on the trail. At the end of the trail, you may well find that he has lured you deeply into the woods."
"I'll be careful, Jeremy. Thanks."
Jeremy rose and so did 1.1 had done a good ten-minute office day and I had work to do. I'd see Captain Phil Pevsner after I'd gotten more answers from my client.
"One more thing," Jeremy said, pausing in the door. "Your murderer is willing to make too many sacrifices. Meter, rhyme, and the proper word give way to his passion to perpetrate the puzzle, to perplex. He has no real interest in poetry."
"Sorry to hear that, Jeremy," I said as Jeremy stepped into Shelly's office. I followed, closing the door behind me.
"Almost done," Shelly said to his patient. "Keep the mouth open wide."
He stepped back, retrieved his cigar from the nearby stand, put it in his mouth, and examined his handiwork. The young man in the chair had closed his eyes. His mouth was dutifully wide.
"I'll show these to Alice," Jeremy said, tapping the clues in his pocket. "She has a beautiful sensitivity to the written word."
Alice Pallis had been a pornography publisher in the Far-raday before she heard the muse and married Jeremy. Alice's primary qualification as a pornography publisher had been her ability to pick up the two-hundred-pound printing press and escape with it out the window when the cops came. For almost two years now, Alice had turned her interests to her husband, child, and the publishing of poetry.
"Thanks, Jeremy," I said.
He left and I turned to Sheldon, who was back in his patient's mouth.
"Good teeth," he was telling the victim. "An energetic cleaning was all you needed."
I went back into my office and made two phone calls. The first was to Mame Stoltz at M-G-M. She answered after the fifth ring with "Stoltz, Publicity."
"Peters, Trouble," I said.
"I'm busy, Peters Trouble," she said in her hoarse efficient voice.
"I'll make it fast."
"We've got interviews lined up on Madame Curie," she said, sighing. "I'm not gonna tell you how much we're sinking into publicity on this one, but I'll give you a hint. You could probably find a cure for measles with what we've got budgeted."
"You know Gunther Wherthman?" I asked.
"Composer, R.K.O.?" she asked, and I could tell that she was leaning back to light a Camel.
"No, munchkin from The Wizard of Oz. Friend of mine. Working with me on a case. Mind if he comes over and looks through the Gone With the Wind records?"
"That's Selznick stuff," she said. "We store some of it over in-"
"I'm talking about payroll lists. And a security report. Night of Saturday, December 10, 1938. Maybe accidental death of an extra."
"Atlanta burning," she said immediately. "We've got payroll and I'll see what I can do about security records, but I don't remember anybody getting killed that night… what's going on?"
"Dinner on me. Saturday. Sunday. Even Friday."
I'm no beauty, but I knew that Mame had a hard spot in her anatomy for mush-nosed cops, present and former. She had gone with a sergeant named Rashkow out of the Wilshire before he got drafted. Mame was no beauty, but she had something that could pass for class. She was too skinny for my taste, an efficiency copy of Ida Lupino with too much makeup. She did have a pouty mouth like Lupino, but there was nothing soft about Mame. I like soft. I also like doing what I get paid for, and Mame knew more about M-G-M and Selznick International than Mayer himself.
"I'll make dinner," she said. "Saturday. You know how to get to my place?"
"I remember," I said, recalling clearly my escape from Mame's little cottage in Culver City a year or so ago.
"Send the little man," she said. "I'll see what I can do."
I outlined what I needed for her and she listened, probably taking notes.
"When you have something, call me at this number," I said, giving her Clark Gable's phone.
"I know that number, Toby," she said. "I've called it hundreds of times. What are you up to?"
"Making a living," I said. "Mame, go along with me on this, please."
"You've been keeping up at the Y.M.C.A.?" she asked hi a whisper.
"When I can," I said.
"We'll see Saturday," Mame said.
And she hung up. I called Gunther and asked him to get over to M-G-M to see Mame as fast as he could, to get his hands on whatever he could find about the dead extra, and to track down Lionel Varney. He agreed and I hung up.
"I'm leaving, Shel," I said, going back into the outer office.
He didn't answer.
"I'll call in or be back."
"Right," he said over his shoulder. "Where you goin'?"
"To see the king," I said.
Chapter 6
Sunset to Beverly Glen and west along 101 following the Los Angeles River into the wilderness of Encino. It took almost an hour and I got a headache from the hot wind blowing from the east through the open window and the bad news on the radio from Raymond Gram Swing. The Japanese Army was digging into the Pacific Islands, burrowing tunnels, making the troops pay with ten lives an acre for places called Rabaul, Mindanao, Leyte, and Guam, places we didn't want in the first place. We were winning land and the war and losing lives.
I found a gas station, Jimmy Kelly's Gas and Sundries, specializing in Sinclair products and customer disdain. I used up my ration stamps for the week and bought a Pepsi and a small bottle of Bayer aspirin. I threw a handful of aspirin in my mouth and washed it down with Pepsi while the kid attendant shook his head and avoided my eyes.
When I left the station, I wasn't sure if I was on my way to losing the headache or was so full of aspirin that the question wasn't relevant.
Gable's directions to the ranch were fine and I pulled up in front of the modest white-brick two-story house just before noon. I got out of the Crosley and rang the front door bell. No answer. Something hummed far away behind the house. I rang again and then knocked. Nothing.
I looked through the curtained downstairs windows but the sun didn't help the view. So, I walked behind the house and found myself on a stone patio, looking down a slope toward a copse of grapefruit trees on the left and a white wooden stable on the right. The stable looked empty and the trees looked heavy with overripe fruit.
There didn't seem to be a swimming pool.
I knocked at the back door. No answer.
The metallic rumble beyond the stable grew louder. I turned and watched as a motorcycle burst through the trees along a dirt path and shot toward me.
I stood motionless as it buzz-sawed forward at about sixty miles an hour, shot over a small ridge and took off into the air, hit the grass, and screeched to a halt about ten feet in front of me. Gable, dressed in dark slacks and a short-sleeved yellow pullover shirt, his hair wild, turned off the engine, kicked down the stand, got off the bike, and pulled a small rifle from the tooled-leather holster tied to the bike.
"Don't move," said Gable, cocking the rifle and aiming i
t at me.
"Look," I began, and took a step forward.
Gable raised his rifle and fired. The bullet whined past my left leg and I hopped away from it.
"Hey," I shouted. "It's me, Peters. I work for you, remember?"
Gable dropped the barrel of the rifle and smiled.
"That's one reason I want you alive," he said. "Look."
I looked where he was pointing, just behind me. On the stone patio, about three feet away, a headless rattlesnake was writhing.
"Hot weather brings 'em out," said Gable, rubbing his unruly hair back. "Sun themselves on the stone. You almost stepped on him."
"Thanks," I said.
"Let's go inside," he said, walking past me. "I'll get rid of our friend later."
He went to the back door, opened it with a key on a small ring, and went inside. I followed into a huge kitchen.
"Sandwiches hi the refrigerator. Made them this morn-big. Beer, whatever. Help yourself."
He pointed toward a steel door in the corner.
"Be right back," he said. "Set up whatever you find in the dining room, through that door."
I crossed the kitchen and opened the door to a walk-in refrigerator. I found a plate of sandwiches, cucumber, onion, ham with butter. White bread. There was plenty of beer. I went for a row of Pepsis at the rear of a shelf about eye level. I juggled the food past a kitchen table covered with a white oilcloth decorated with little red flowers, pushed through a double door, and placed the food on the dining-room table. I opened the Pepsi with an opener on my pocket knife and looked around.
The room was dark and big, with an open bar on one wall and a whitewashed brick fireplace on another. The walls were dark wood, as was the polished floor. There was an oval rug under the wooden table and another smaller rug under a round game table in the corner. The chairs were wood, no cushions. This was a man's room except for the built-in cabinets on the walls filled with pink plates. A chandelier over the large table was made of old oil lamps.
"Find what you need?" asked Gable, coming in with the rifle under one arm and a dark wooden box under the other.
I pointed at the food and he sat down across from me, laid down the rifle, and opened the box.
Tomorrow Is Another day tp-18 Page 6