Tomorrow Is Another day tp-18

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

  "We are painfully aware of that," I said.

  "Not pipes or cigars," she said, looking at Shelly, who put his palms on his chest and squealed, "What did I do?"

  "We've all done things about which we are not proud," Mrs. Plaut said. "You appear to have done more than the rest of us."

  With that Mrs. Plaut departed.

  "I haven't done anything," Shelly insisted, shoving his glasses back on his nose just as they were about to tumble into his lap.

  "Violet Gonsenelli," I said, closing my eyes and regretting my words.

  "Violet Gon… I haven't… she… I, we need a receptionist," Shelly said, pleading his case to the indifferent Jeremy and Gunther.

  "That's it," I said, raising my voice. "That's it. People are dying out there. Some maniac may be trying to kill Clark Gable. Hell, he may be trying to kill me too. Let's, for God's sake, try to make some sense around here."

  Gunther sat in the rocker. Shelly considered a rejoinder and changed his mind. Jeremy put his pencil in his pocket, folded his notebook, and said, "The police are watching Mr. Varney, who appears to be one of the final two remaining witnesses to the events that took place on the night Spelling's father died."

  "Final two?" asked Shelly.

  "I'm the other one," I said.

  "Ah, good," said Shelly, sitting back with a satisfied smile.

  "While we may assume that you are capable of defending yourself under reasonable circumstances," said Jeremy, "these circumstances are not reasonable and I suggest we take turns watching you from a discreet but alert distance."

  Jeremy looked at each of us for comments. We had none, so he went on: "We have a series of poorly written poetic clues which present obscure hints to the identity of the next victim of Mr. SpeJJing."

  "Ah ha," said Shelly.

  Jeremy ignored him.

  "Also present in these versified notes are allusions to a threat to Clark Gable, who has also been telephoned by the would-be poet," Jeremy said. "Couple this with the suggestion that something will take place, perhaps a final murder or two, where the stars meet tomorrow. Conclusion?"

  "We're dealing with a nut," I said.

  "Or we are dealing with a killer who is leading you someplace, Toby," Jeremy went on. "He is a step or two ahead of you, turning his head, luring you forth with a wave of the finger, a clue, a murder. Where is he leading you to, Toby? Where and why?"

  "Jeremy, no offense, but we've got plenty of questions. What we need are answers," I said.

  "The stars," Gunther said suddenly. "Under the stars. And what was it Juanita prophesied, the grove. The Academy Awards are being given tomorrow night at the Coconut Grove."

  "Poetically appropriate," said Jeremy.

  "I don't get it," said Shelly, pouring himself a fourth, fifth, or sixth glass of iced saft.

  "Looks like our poet Spelling wants an audience for his next murder," I said. "He plans to kill someone at the Academy Awards dinner."

  "It makes sense," said Jeremy.

  "Who?" asked Shelly, ignoring the blue stain on his jacket from a dripping glass of saft. "Kill who? Why?"

  "Lionel Varney," I said. "Varney'll be at the Academy Awards dinner."

  "Then I suggest we say good-bye to Clark Gable, allow him to leave as he plans, and hope the police will do their job," Jeremy said, rising.

  "I'll call Phil and tell him," I said.

  "In case we are wrong, Toby," Gunther said, moving toward us as I stood, "may I suggest you remain as inconspicuous as possible."

  "I'll go for a ride in the desert or catch a double feature," I said. "Or I…"

  "I've got it," Shelly said, putting aside his glass of Mrs. Plaut's five-star saft and looking at us with a sappy smile. "Dental care for dentures. Special care of dentures for the stars. Discretion guaranteed. Newsletter on the latest denture research and inventions. I'll get a consultant. The West-mores. Well? What do you think?"

  Neither Gunther nor Jeremy responded so I was stuck with humoring Shelly. "It has possibilities. Why don't you work out the details, put them on paper, see if there're any flaws, and then move ahead."

  "No," Shelly said. "Inspiration. Came to me all at once. Perfect."

  "Like your ideas for animal dentistry and tinted teeth," I said.

  "Yeah, but even better," said Shelly. "Like, like I don't know. Magic. Maybe even God."

  "If God is interested in such inspiration," said Jeremy seriously, "then he either has a sense of humor which is truly unfathomable, or free will is no longer a tenable concept."

  "Yes," said Shelly gleefully. "You've got it."

  "Shelly," I warned.

  "Okay, okay, I'll discuss it with Mildred and Violet," he said, actually rubbing his chubby cigar-stained hands together. "Separately."

  Gunther had hurried to the front porch, looking, I was sure, for Mame Stoltz before Clark Gable stole her heart away.

  Jeremy stood silent, head cocked to one side until Shelly was finished and said, "Would you like me to stay with Gable tonight?"

  "No," I said. "I'll do it. Maybe I can persuade him to join me at some desert motel or…"

  Shelly was just standing there, working out the details, mumbling things like "It'll work" and "Low overhead. Maybe even work with Mark Marvel on the fourth floor. Therapy for celebrity denture-wearers. Learn to love your dentures."

  Jeremy was holding out his hand to me. He opened it. There was a key in the massive palm.

  "Van Nuys," he said. "Address is on the key. I'm remodeling the apartments, upgrading when I'm finished. That's the model. One bedroom. Everything including running water."

  I took the key.

  "Thanks, Jeremy," I said.

  "I'll see you in the morning, Toby," Shelly said, waddling past us and into the afternoon.

  "Alice would like to move," Jeremy said.

  "Move?"

  "To San Antonio. We both have relatives, and with the current market I can get a reasonable price for the Farraday and my other property and devote the remainder of my life to poetry."

  "You can do that in Los Angeles," I said.

  He shook his head and put a hand on my shoulder. "I cannot," he said. "Alice believes that you may eventually get me hurt or even killed. I've already committed one murder because of our association and…"

  "That was an accident," I said in a whisper, looking around to be sure we hadn't been heard.

  "I can deceive my mind but never my soul. Toby, Alice is right. We have Natasha. It would be nice if she had a father."

  "I won't ask you for help anymore, Jeremy," I said, crossing my heart. "Promise."

  "But I will offer or volunteer."

  "I'll move out of the Faraday, other side of town. You can't really be thinking about leaving because of me."

  "No," he said, removing his hand from my shoulder. "There are other reasons, private reasons. I've shared one public one with you, the one that touches our friendship. I'm not a young man."

  "Saft?" said Mrs. Plaut, staggering into the day room with the weight of a fresh gallon of liquid in a pitcher balanced on a tray she was carrying.

  Jeremy moved quickly to take the tray and place it on the table.

  "Everyone's gone," she said, looking around.

  "Miss Stoltz and the man who looks like Clark Gable are on the front porch smoking," I said.

  Mrs. Plaut nodded knowingly.

  "I think I put a touch too much gin in the saft," she said to us brightly.

  "How much gin was in-?"

  "One fifth to three-quarters of a gallon," she said. "Agnes Smeed's recipe. At least she was Agnes Smeed before she married Reed Clixco. I always thought it would be more interesting if he took her name when they married so he could be Reed Smeed, but, alas, that idea was long before its time which has not yet come except for the occasional suffragette and her passive concubine."

  "I must be going, Toby," Jeremy said. "Perhaps I can catch Dr. Minck before he tries to drive. He drank at least a gallon of Mrs. Plaut's refr
eshing saft."

  "We'll talk later, Jeremy," I said.

  He nodded, shook Mrs. Plaut's hand, and went in search of Shelly.

  "All in all a good tea party," Mrs. Plaut said, pouring herself a glass of saft.

  "All in all," I agreed, pouring myself a glass.

  "A toast, Mr. Peelers," Mrs. Plaut said, holding up her glass. "Absent friends."

  "Absent friends," I repeated, touching my glass to hers.

  I finished my glass at about the same time as Mrs. Plaut.

  "It's the nectar that does it," she said.

  "I'll help you clean up."

  "Only one who I allowed to help with cleanup was the Mister."

  I went through the day room into the hallway and onto the porch, where Mame Stoltz had already departed and Clark Gable was pacing and checking his watch.

  "Sorry about that, Peters," he said. "In there, I mean."

  "About what?"

  "I got a little impatient. Hell, I lost all my patience, looked around and saw… some people trying to protect a man in uniform during a war. You've got to admit that you're relying on a quartet too old, small, or blind to be on active duty."

  "Add lame," I said. "I'm both too old and I've got a bad back. You were right. We're a sideshow, but we're not half bad when the wind is blowing our way and the sun is shining."

  "And the gods are looking down," said Gable with a smile.

  I told him about our conclusion that Spelling would probably go for Lionel Varney at the Academy Awards the next night. It made sense to Gable. I told him that we might be wrong and that Spelling knew where Gable and I lived, so it might be a good idea for us to get out of LA. for the night and for me to take him to whatever transportation back to England he might find on a Saturday.

  "I don't hide, Peters," he said, sitting on the white porch railing.

  "Why risk getting killed?" I said, leaning against the wall and watching a pair of smiling young women tooling down Heliotrope in a convertible. "Besides, the papers probably know you're back by now. They'll probably be waiting for you in Encino."

  Gable shrugged and turned to see what I was looking at. The girl in the passenger seat looked up and saw him. She screamed and we could hear her squeal to the driver as they roared away.

  "Clark Gable. I swear. On the porch. Go around the block. Really."

  "I'm going home before they make it around the block, Peters," he said, getting up from the rail.

  "They might spot you," I said.

  "Naw, one of the nice things about a cycle is that you can wear a leather helmet and goggles and the police won't think you're about to rob a bank. Stay on the job and give me a call in the morning. I'll lock the doors and keep a gun next to my bed."

  "I think you should…"

  He was already down the stairs.

  "Hitler's boys have been trying to shoot me out of the sky for almost a year," he said with a familiar lopsided grin. "His best haven't done it. I'm not about to let a stateside lunatic give the Fuehrer some good news."

  I could hear the phone ringing inside the house. I couldn't tell if it was Mrs. Plaut's phone or the pay phone on the upstairs landing. Gable waved, a clipped little wave to the side, and hurried to his motorcycle parked at the curb. He was roaring down the street, head down, and went right past the girls in the convertible who had circled the block and were looking for the king. They paid no attention to the man on the motorcycle. I moved to the porch steps as the girls came up alongside the house.

  "My friend says Clark Gable is on your porch," the driver shouted.

  "He was," the passenger said.

  "My cousin Conrad," I said. "Stunt man. Done some work for Gable."

  "I could have sworn," said the passenger.

  They both looked at me, a heavyset Chrysler waiting impatiently behind them for the girls to finish their conversation.

  "Are you anybody?" the girl in the driver's seat said.

  Her hair was long and black. Her skin perfect and tan. Her teeth as white as memory.

  "No," I said. "I'm a plumber."

  The guy in the Chrysler lost his patience and hit the horn. The girls drove off, away from the sunset and toward Sunset Boulevard.

  "For you, Mr. Peelers," Mrs. Plaut said behind me. "Phone. Man from the brotherhood. Upstairs."

  I thanked her and went back in the house, taking the stairs one at a time, feeling a little sorry for myself, determined to give Anne a call, a night out, some conversation, when Spelling was locked up. I picked up the phone. It was Phil.

  "Can't give Varney any cover," he said abruptly.

  "Can't gi… Phil, I think Spelling's going to try to kill him at the Academy Awards dinner tomorrow night. Listen, if you read those notes carefully, you…"

  "Can't," Phil said impatiently, and I knew that if he was here standing next to me I'd either shut up now or find out what it felt like to be thrown down Mrs. Plaut's always clean and carpeted stairs.

  "Why?"

  "There's a war on," he said. "The Japs are getting suicidal. The R.A.F. is bombing Berlin."

  "So?"

  "So Mick Veblin is district supervisor," Phil said. "You know Mick Veblin?"

  "No," I said.

  "G. Lane Price, the chief of police of Glendale, knows him. Very well. I'm under investigation for not arresting you when there was sufficient evidence. And Mick is also curious about how I let Wally Hospodar get shot in the back seat of an unmarked police vehicle and why said vehicle is a mess. I have very little credibility here, Toby, and I'll be lucky to hold onto my job."

  "I'm sorry, Phil."

  "Hell," he said. "Let's just call it a birthday present from you to me."

  "Birth-? Phil. It's your birthday."

  "Every year at this time."

  "I forgot."

  "You always do," he said. "But I really don't give a shit. You're on your own with Varney, and Veblin himself will probably want to talk to you."

  "What do you want me to say to him?"

  "What do I… Toby, I want you to lie your ass off and save my job. Can you do that?"

  "I can do that."

  "Fine."

  "Listen, Phil…"

  He hung up hard.

  So the Los Angeles Police Department was out. It was going to be up to the second team. If I was lucky, I could reach Hy at Hy's for Him on Melrose before he closed. Gunther had his own tux, but Hy, who catered to the lost, lonely, and the once famous, had a tux in the back room that fit me, plus one for a giant and another for a small fat man who sweated a lot. I was feeling less sorry for myself already.

  Chapter 12

  I called Hy. I had done some odd jobs for him over the years-tracking his missing mother-in-law, spending a night looking through a hole hi the dressing-room wall to catch an employee who was making off with the merchandise, persuading a couple of down-and-outers to make a final and complete payment for goods. I wouldn't say Hy owed me, but then again being nice to people you do business with is good business. Hy was in and was willing to give me a rate on the tuxedos. I didn't tell him money was no object.

  I got in my Crosley and headed for Hy's, listening to "A Date with Judy" on the radio. "Night and day, at home or away, always carry Turns," the announcer said. I thought it was a good idea. For the next fifteen minutes, Judy Foster displayed acute anxiety to her brother Randolph about whether Oogie Pringle would call her about the most important school dance of the year.

  I double-parked on Melrose right in front of Hy's shop, under the red-on-white banner reading, "Absolutely Everything Must Go Even If It Breaks Me." A cartoon of Hy, complete with sad bulldog face and suspenders over a little belly, looked down at those of us seeking a bargain at his expense.

  Hy was at the door with the three boxes. I took them.

  "How's business?" I asked.

  "Between you and me," he said, looking around the busy shop to be sure no one was listening, "not so bad. Saturdays people buy like there's no tomorrow. I tell them there's no tomorrow.
The newspapers tell them there might not be a tomorrow. And me, I lost my lease and everything must go."

  "You own the building, Hymie," I reminded him.

  "I am not always easy on myself. You got a formal occasion or are you gonna dress up like a waiter again?"

  "Academy Awards dinner," I said.

  "Ooh, Coconut Grove. The whole schmeer. Best actor's gonna be Gary Cooper. Pride of the Yankees. Two years in a row. First Alvin York. Then Lou Gehrig. Can't beat the combo. You can bet on it. My sister's husband delivers sandwiches to the Academy. He heard. Bet on it."

  Hy had his thumbs in his suspenders and was rocking from his toes to his heels, Judge Priest himself.

  "Can I use your phone?"

  "You can use my sister if you promise to marry her."

  "You've got a sister?"

  "Three of them. All unmarried. Youngest is forty-one, give or take a couple years. Seriously, you want to meet them? Their offspring will be heirs to this gold mine and a couple of outlet stores in Pismo and Venice."

  "I want a phone, Hy."

  "A phone you got. Think about the sisters though. I'm serious."

  Boxes in hand, I moved around Hy and down the aisles, past couples haggling with middle-aged and ancient salesmen and women.

  "I call it a miracle," a sunken-chested old salesman with a pencil-thin mustache and badly dyed hair was saying to a young man in front of a shop mirror.

  The young man had a short military haircut and darting eyes that gave him away as someone who was about to ship out.

  "Fits like… I don't know what," the salesman said, stepping back to admire the young man, who was trying on a tweed jacket with leather elbow patches. A good twenty years too old for the kid. But then again, who knew if the kid had twenty more years.

  The salesman-it was Jack-Jack Benoit, who used to deal blackjack in Reno-grabbed my arm. I almost dropped my boxes.

  "Stranger," he said. "Does that or does that jacket not fit this young man like perfection? And the colors, textures. I'd swear it was custom-made in England for you." "Looks great," I said.

  The kid wasn't so sure. Jack-Jack needed more help from me, and I knew he was supporting a lot of people on his commission. But I had no heart for even a small con. I plodded onward, the voice of Jack-Jack Benoit behind me saying, "Did I tell you or did I tell you?" to the kid in the tweed jacket. "Now we get this fitted and let's look at some real bargains, vat-dyed twill shirts for two dollars and ninety-four cents, five pair of army socks for one buck."