The Devil Met a Lady

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

  The bad news was that, while the window was beyond the inner wall, there was also an outer wall beyond the window.

  “I’m tired,” Pinketts sang out.

  “I’m working,” I screamed.

  “They are going to move the cans,” he bellowed over his own banging.

  I climbed up into the space I had cleared. My back told me no, but I kept going. Then I got my back against the back of the shelving, propped the chair leg in the open space, got a grip on the top of the back of the shelves with my left hand, and kicked through the window with both feet. A sharp-toothed shock bit down my spine, but my feet went through a layer of stucco over thin plasterboard. Getting my feet back out was the trick of the night.

  “Hurry,” said Pinketts, banging a little more slowly.

  “I’m through,” I said.

  “Don’t give up now,” cried Pinketts. “They’re almost inside.”

  “No,” I shouted, now jabbing at the stucco wall with the chair leg. “I’m through.”

  Andrea Pinketts renewed his din.

  Sweat was stinging my eyes. I joined Pinketts in song. I was going nuts. The hole was big enough. Maybe.

  “Now,” I shouted.

  Pinketts stopped banging, but the guys at the door pressed on. Film cans tumbled. Pinketts made his way next to me behind the bookshelf.

  “You did it,” he said, looking into the night through the hole.

  I made a step with my hands and let him climb up and slither into the night through the hole. I wasn’t sure I had enough left in my back to follow him. I clutched the club like an armed Neanderthal, leaned through the hole, and pushed my way through with my feet. I got a bonus. As I tumbled through into the night and I heard a final crash of flying film cans, the shelves behind me tipped over from my final push.

  Someone inside shouted, “Shit,” and I tried to roll over.

  “Let’s get going,” I said, trying to get up.

  I had a simple plan. Run to the nearest neighbor. Tell them to call the police. Do the same at two or three houses and then come back here to try to figure out a way to save Bette Davis.

  I discovered several important things very quickly, things which severely changed my plans.

  First, and least important, Pinketts was gone.

  Second, and very important, I couldn’t run. I could barely get up.

  Third, and most important of all, Jeffers was standing in front of me with a gun in his hand.

  “Peters, you are a dead fool,” he said.

  “What the hell’s all the noise?” a man’s voice came from the darkness behind him.

  Jeffers held a finger to his lips and aimed the gun at my face.

  “That you, Scott?” came another man’s voice from the left. “I think it’s Parrish’s house.”

  Jeffers knelt at my side, gun to my right temple, battered face inches from mine.

  “Zipper on the mouth,” Jeffers whispered, making a zipper motion from left to right. “Or I shoot and run.”

  Someone broke through a row of bushes and I looked up at a man in his seventies wearing a blue-and-white striped bathrobe.

  “Who the hell are you two?” the man asked, looking down at us.

  Jeffers turned his weapon toward the man, who saw it and staggered backward.

  My right hand, holding the chair leg, came up slower and not as hard as I wanted, but hard enough to catch Jeffers in the back of the head. The “klunk” was hollow. Jeffers tumbled forward and the man in the robe ran like hell.

  Jeffers wasn’t quite out, but he wasn’t quite at home either.

  He writhed around moaning as I forced myself to my knees and grabbed for his fallen gun.

  That was the cue for Hans and Fritz to come running around the side of the house. They saw Jeffers on his knees, groaning, before they saw me with the gun in my hand. Hans stopped. Fritz didn’t. He had a sharp-pointed white fencepost in his hands.

  “Hold it,” I yelled.

  Fritz didn’t hold it. I shot. Low. I didn’t hit him but I was close enough to make Fritz stop, think, and lose his fencepost. From Hans’s position, it must have been a hell of a sight. Fritz gritting his teeth by the light of the almost-full moon. Me crouched with a pistol leveled at him. Jeffers was now on his feet, dazed, looking in the wrong direction for the Melrose bus.

  There were voices all around now. Neighbors. Angry voices. Frightened voices.

  “I’d say you’ve got five minutes till the police are here,” I said to Hans, who was the closest thing to leadership I could find to deal with.

  On the other side of the house I could hear the gentle purr of the Graham’s motor coming to life. Wiklund, Inez, and Bette Davis were going off to who-the-hell knows where, and I couldn’t move.

  “We’ll just sit and …”

  I hadn’t been paying attention to Fritz, who now earned not only his Purple Heart but a gunsel’s Medal of Honor. His arms were around me, squeezing, and I dropped the gun. I started to pass out from the pain but not before I heard a screeching sound.

  A fuzzy orange missile flew out of the hole in the wall of the house and landed on Fritz’s head.

  Fritz let go of me and rolled away, but Dash tore after him, going for his face.

  Another sound. A siren. Either it was an air raid or help was on the way. My last semiclear image was Hans stepping in front of me and hitting me in the face with the back of his hand. And then I was out.

  I figured myself for dead. The sirens were gone. A cool breeze touched my face. The taste and smell of my own blood struck me as fascinating. I didn’t want to open my eyes till I got wherever Koko the Clown, who had appeared at one side to pick me up, was taking me. He pulled some trick and had me floating in front of him. Koko pushed me as if I were a cloud, and I went sailing away like a helium-filled balloon. I liked it. It was a hell of a lot better than being beaten by killers.

  Koko pointed to something in front of us. Since he was pushing my shoulders and I was lying flat, I had to look down past my shoes. I couldn’t believe what I saw.

  Jeremy, Gunther, Shelly, and my brother. Their hands were out to catch me. Koko pushed again and I shot forward toward them. I wanted to tell them to get out of the way, that I was going to mow them down like bowling pins. But I couldn’t speak. I tried, tried to speak, tried to move as I shot ahead, feet first, the human cannonball.

  I closed my eyes and waited. When there was no thud, I opened my eyes again and felt pain, in my chest, my back, my nose. I opened my eyes and saw a snarling, ancient face full of impure hate. I hoped I was wasn’t looking into a mirror.

  CHAPTER SIX

  This the joker?” the face in front of me said.

  “Yeah,” came a familiar dry voice from behind the face a few inches from my nose, breathing hellfire and garlic.

  “Never saw him before,” said the guy in front of me.

  About this time I realized I was on my back and there was no sky beyond this guy who had never seen me before. There was only a white ceiling with a white glass fixture over a bright bulb.

  “Take your time, Mr. Braddock,” the voice said.

  “Said I never saw him before,” Braddock said, standing up.

  Now I could see the guy with the dry voice. My brother Phil was sitting in a chair near the bed I was on. His head was bent forward and he was rubbing the bridge of his nose. A bad sign.

  “Thank you, Mr. Braddock,” Phil said.

  “If I’d seen him before, I’d remember,” Braddock said. “Face like that. I’d remember.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Braddock,” Phil repeated, still rubbing his nose.

  “What I want to know is why?” asked Braddock, turning to Phil, standing over him. “I want to know why and I want to know who’s paying. And I goddamn sure want to know now. Sonofabitch goes loony nuts, tears holes in my house. I got a right.”

  “We’ll get back to you, Mr. Braddock,” said Phil softly.

  I wanted to warn him, but decided it might be better if Phi
l focused his ire on Old Man Braddock rather than on me.

  “Not good enough,” said Braddock, leaning over Phil.

  I was propped up on two pillows in the hospital bed and I could see that Braddock was big, old but big.

  “Mr. Braddock,” Phil said, taking his hand from his face and removing a handkerchief from his pocket to wipe his sweating palm. “I have a rotten temper. I also have a headache. I think you should get the hell out of here before my temper and headache get together. We’ll get back to you.”

  “Braddock,” I said. It came out as a sandy croak. “Run for the door. Save your life.”

  “What the hell do you know about it?” Braddock asked, turning to me.

  “He’s my brother,” I said.

  Braddock looked back at Phil and then at me.

  “That beats all,” he said. “That just about beats all. Cops and robbers holding hands. I’m gonna see Al Farlant. Believe you me. Al Farlant will hear about this in the hour.”

  Braddock stomped out of my hospital room and slammed the door. I missed him before the room stopped rattling. There was no one between Phil and me.

  “Who the hell is Al Farlant?” I asked.

  “Who gives a shit?” said Phil.

  “Where’s Seidman?” I asked.

  “It’s six in the morning,” said Phil, looking at me with tired, red eyes. “We finished our shift at two. I got to bed at three and took the call about you at five. Seidman is sleeping.”

  Phil walked closer to the bed and looked down at me. He shook his head in disgust.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Bruise on the left cheek. Bruises on half your ribs. Cuts … Someone worked you hard, Toby, but nothing’s broken. You’ll live. Tell me your story. Make it short and make it true.”

  He stood over me with his arms folded. He hadn’t even bothered to put on a tie, and his jacket had a brown stain just below the pocket. I decided not to tell him about the stain.

  “I was kidnapped,” I said.

  Phil blinked and nodded for me to go on. I did.

  “Bette Davis and I were kidnapped.”

  Phil neither blinked nor nodded.

  “The guy who shot Niles,” I said. “His name, maybe not his real name, is Jeffers. He works for an ex-actor named Erik Wiklund, at least that’s the name he gave us.”

  “Us?”

  “Me and Bette Davis,” I explained, reaching down to feel what I was wearing and touched a short hospital gown. They took me to the house in a Graham, locked me in the film room. I got behind the case in front of the window, made a hole with a chair leg, and got outside. They …”

  “Wiklund and Jeffers?”

  “No, Hans and Fritz. Not the ones in the funny papers. Two big ones with no names,” I said, watching Phil’s eyes. He wasn’t buying any of it. “They were waiting for me. Then Jeffers came and they started to beat the hell out of me. Then, I don’t know, I was here. They were gone. I …”

  “No one saw anyone but you, Toby,” Phil said.

  “But the neighbor, he saw Jeffers with the gun.”

  “He says you had the gun,” said Phil calmly. “You were sitting in the backyard with a chair leg in one hand and a gun in the other, talking to yourself.”

  “Phil, wait, there was a woman there. I mean with Wiklund. Her name was Irene. No, Inez. And, wait. How could I forget this. Pinketts. Andrea Pinketts, the private detective. He was there.”

  “Hell of a party,” Phil said. “All you needed was the USC cheerleaders. How did you get up there, Toby? A cab? We can check the cabs. Someone drop you?”

  I laid back and closed my eyes.

  “They drove us in the Graham, a convertible,” I explained.

  I had the sudden sensation of floating off into vast space. I opened my eyes, scared as hell. Phil was gone. I looked around the room. He was back in the chair with his head in his hand.

  “Phil?” I said, trying to sit up.

  It wasn’t as hard as I thought.

  “Phil?” I repeated.

  Phil held up his free hand, a signal for me to stop.

  “I didn’t come here to see you, Toby,” Phil said. “Ruth’s been here for three days. She’s on the next floor. They brought her back for more surgery. They don’t know if she’ll make it.”

  “I didn’t know she was back in,” I said.

  “You haven’t called,” he said, lifting his head and sighing. “I tried to reach you.”

  “The boys, Lucy?” I asked, moving toward Phil on bare feet and shaky legs.

  “Ruth’s mother.”

  “Phil, I’m …”

  “You know how much she weighs? I mean best weight on a good day. Forget about being sick, the operation.”

  “I don’t …”

  “Ninety pounds. You should see her now. No, you shouldn’t see her now,” he said, taking a deep breath. “I’m taking my leave. I’ve got about three months saved, maybe more. If Ruth gets out of here, I’m staying home with her and the kids. If she … then I’ll stay with the kids.”

  “If I can do anything …”

  “You can do a lot,” said Phil, looking up at me. “You can stop acting like a goddamn kid. I got enough kids. I’m not Pa.”

  “What I told you about last night was true,” I said.

  “Toby, you’re not listening. I don’t care if it’s true. Two days ago you’re with a guy who gets killed. Last night you’re making holes in people’s walls. I’m telling you, Toby. I just don’t have the heart or gall for your shit anymore. I don’t even want to talk to your client. Get dressed. Go look for the bad guys if there are any. But don’t call me to save your ass next time. I won’t be there. I’m turning the Niles murder over to Cawelti.”

  Something kicked my stomach from the inside. John Cawelti was neither brother nor pal. We hated each other. Cawelti was a big redheaded sergeant with a bad complexion, his hair parted down the middle like a barkeep, and no sense of humor.

  “I’m not filing on this,” said Phil, moving to the door. “I just paid a visit to my sick brother. Cawelti can book you if you’re still here when he gets the call and runs over here.”

  “Thanks, Phil,” I said.

  “It doesn’t matter, Tobias,” he said, opening the door. “If he doesn’t get you this time, he’ll get you the next. Just walk through the door and find you with your big toe up your nose.”

  “Phil …” I began, but he was out in the hall, pushing the door shut behind him. He didn’t slam it. Just closed it. Then he came back in.

  “The gun you picked up on Niles’s stairs,” he said. “The one your friend Jeffers had. It didn’t kill Niles. Niles was killed with a .45.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  Phil was gone.

  I found my clothes on a hook in the bathroom and got dressed, trying not to pay too much attention to the purple and yellow patches on my chest and the pain in my ribs.

  What with the plaster dust, grass stains, and a few tears, my pants, shirt, and jacket looked like hell. I looked in the mirror. I looked worse than hell. My right cheek was puffy and purple. There was a cut over my right eye and I needed a shave. I brushed my hair back with my hand and tried to wash my face. The left side was fine. I couldn’t touch the right side.

  My wallet and keys were in the night table next to the bed.

  There was no cop on the door. There wouldn’t be. From the way I looked, whoever dropped me here must have been sure I wouldn’t be moving. Probably went down as a drunk or nut breaking into a house in the hills and making a hole in the wall.

  I hit the corridor on a shift change and decided to play the bereaved visitor who had been up all night.

  “Why did it have to happen to Mike?” I said, rubbing my eyes as a pair of nurses in white walked by.

  They had no answer and didn’t even want to deal with the problem.

  I went down to the floor below using the stairway, not wanting to run into John Cawelti in case he got the good news early and decided to r
un over to the hospital and pay me a visit.

  There were two nurses at the desk.

  “Ruth Pevsner,” I said.

  One of the nurses, who looked as if she had been brought out of a long retirement because of the war, squinted up at me over her glasses. I knew what I looked like.

  “Relative,” I said.

  “Relative?”

  “Brother-in-law.”

  “No visitors,” she said. “She is not conscious.”

  “Is she?…”

  The other nurse, also in white, but young enough to be the first nurse’s granddaughter, looked at me.

  “Really don’t know,” said the nurse. “Officially, her condition is critical. Unofficially, I think she’s going to make it, but … you never know. Tell a doctor I said that and I’ll call you a liar.”

  “I won’t tell a doctor,” I said. “Thanks.”

  “You look like you need a doctor,” the young nurse, plump little girl with large teeth, said.

  I did something in her direction that I hoped was taken for a smile.

  “I’m fine,” I said. “Fell on my face running here.”

  Before they could think about this I walked, hands deep in my jacket pockets, to the stairway.

  There was no one in the stairwell, and when I hit the main floor I opened the door a crack and looked into the corridor.

  Nothing.

  I stepped out and made my way toward the hospital entrance. I was watching for Cawelti or another cop I might recognize. I wasn’t watching for the man in the trim beard, spectacles, and bushy hair who bumped into me.

  “Many pardons,” he said with a bow and a heavy German accent.

  “It’s okay,” I said, starting to move away.

  “No,” he said, taking my arm. “You are not well. You should not be leaving from the hospital. You need help.”

  “I’ll be fine,” I said. “I just fell when …”

  “Feel this,” he said, his accent gone.

  Something was jammed into my already sore ribs. His arm was around my shoulder.

  “I feel it,” I said.

  “Guess what it is,” he said.

  “A gun,” I said.

  “Not just any gun,” said Wiklund. “Your gun. I can shoot you and be out of here before anyone notices, and even if they do, the description they would give would fit a man who does not exist.”