“Well?” I asked as a flurry of white uniforms went past us.
“We go out, get into the car which is waiting, and have a talk. How does that sound to you?”
“Like a great idea,” I said.
We walked to the entrance, Wiklund’s arm around my shoulder.
“If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me,” he said. “Macbeth. I was just on the way up to your room when I saw you. Another few seconds either way and … but then Mr. Jeffers is watching the door and he surely would have seen you coming out. So …”
“Is she all right?”
“You shall see,” he said. “You shall soon see.”
And I did. The Graham was parked, engine running, about twenty feet from the hospital entrance, just far enough away to be outside the glare of the entrance lights.
“I must tell you that Mr. Jeffers and his associates are not pleased with you,” Wiklund said, urging me forward toward the car with the hand barrel of the gun under his coat. “I think they would like to have a serious discussion with you.”
“What do you want with me, Wiklund?” I asked.
We were almost to the car. I couldn’t see inside.
“What do I want? You know my name. You know my plan. You could do enormous damage.”
Wiklund nodded as two couples in hospital whites walked past us, talking about the famine in China.
“How?” I asked reasonably.
“You could give the press or the police the recording,” he explained. “You could destroy the value of one of the two things we have to trade with Arthur Farnsworth, his wife and her reputation.”
“So I’d ruin my client’s reputation,” I said, leaning forward to get into the car.
“By taking away both of our chips,” he said. “You might see it as your patriotic duty. Ruin a reputation and protect a military secret. No, I cannot risk erratic behavior on your part, Peters. Please get in. My client is already having some doubts about the professionalism of my little troupe.”
I got into the back seat next to Jeffers. Wiklund slid in next to me. Bette Davis was in the front passenger seat looking back at me with concern. Inez was in the driver’s seat.
“Are you all right?” asked Davis.
“Considering the situation,” I answered as Wiklund began to remove his makeup.
“You look terrible,” Davis said. Inez stepped on the gas and started to drive.
“Maybe a nice ride will bring the pink back to my cheeks.”
“This isn’t funny,” Davis said, looking at Jeffers and Wiklund. “They say they’ll kill you if Arthur doesn’t give them what they want.”
I looked at Wiklund, who shrugged.
“Well,” he said softly. “We can’t very well kill Bette Davis, can we? If we kill you, I doubt it will make the Blue Network news, what with the war. Did you know the Japanese have launched a new battle for the Solomons?”
“No,” I said.
“My goddamn head hurts,” Jeffers said, looking at me. “You hit me in the face. You almost break my head. I’m beginning to run out of restraint.”
“You’ve not treated me with great courtesy either,” I reminded him.
Wiklund laughed and put an arm around my shoulder. “Peters, you are admirable. In the face of likely death, you can’t stop displaying sarcasm. You should have considered a career on the stage or in film.”
“I missed my calling,” I said, trying to convey confidence to Bette Davis, who was still peering over the front seat with a look of alarm.
“I do not want this man harmed,” she said.
“Nor do I,” said Wiklund. “I like him, and he has something which belongs to me. But, my dear lady, what choice do I have? Your husband, in spite of our reasonable threats and promises, seems recalcitrant. I am afraid that I may have underestimated his patriotism. He may, it seems, prefer to sacrifice his wife’s reputation and possibly her life to safeguard his country’s secrets. Now, I find that admirable, but not humane or loving, and I hope I am wrong. So … would you like to supply the scenario, Mr. Peters?”
“So,” I said. “He wants you to tell Arthur to give them what they want. If you don’t, they’ll give the recording to …”
“When you return the recording to me, Mr. Peters, we will have many options. Who knows,” said Wiklund lightly. “British newspapers, Jack Warner. It could yet yield a profit and you might pass what remains of your not-very-meaningful life in peace.”
“How long do you think you can keep me a prisoner before the press finds out?” Davis tried.
“Not long,” admitted Wiklund. “And we don’t intend to keep you. The trick is to convince your husband that you are in danger. No, I’m sorry to say that the amusing Mr. Peters is the one in quite serious trouble.”
“I’m not sorry to say it,” said Jeffers.
Wiklund patted my shoulder.
“We’ve given Mr. Farnsworth a day for an answer,” Wiklund said. “Arbitrary, perhaps, but a deadline which must be met. I’d have no reputation at all in my business if my clients thought I would not deliver on threats.”
“I’ll call Arthur,” Bette Davis said.
“Ahh,” said Wiklund, sitting back.
Inez, who had said nothing, lit a cigarette and offered one to Davis, who took it and sat facing forward.
As the car filled with smoke and Inez turned the radio on, I did some quick thinking. First, the record of Davis and Howard Hughes was no longer in Wiklund’s hands. For some reason, he thought I had it. Why? Answer: It had been in the house last night. Who had taken it? Jeffers, Hans, Fritz, Inez? My money, and maybe my life, was on Andrea Pinketts, who had taken off like the wind the second we had gone through the wall.
Jeffers’s face was inches from mine and he was regarding me with a very small, satisfied smile.
We were heading west on Olympic toward Santa Monica, and Frank Gallop’s deep voice was coming over the car radio, telling us that this was the Mutual Network and we were about to hear the “Cresta Blanca Carnival.”
“C-R-E-S-T-A B-L-A-N-C-A,” Gallop chanted. “Cresta.” Violins. “Blanca.” More violins.
The show was fine. George S. Kaufman and Oscar Levant told some jokes about the Japanese. Stu Erwin did a comic sketch about a defense-plant worker. Eileen Farrell sang an aria from The Barber of Seville, and Morton Gould conducted Gershwin’s Concerto in F. We were having a swell time till we pulled onto a dark road and started up a long driveway.
The house at the end of the driveway was big, white, wooden. It looked as if it had been transported from another time and another coast.
“Nice,” I said.
“Yes,” said Wiklund. “Owner travels a bit, American Export Lines. Shall we go inside and make you uncomfortable?”
He got out and closed his door. Jeffers stepped out and motioned for me to follow him. Inez stepped out too. She didn’t have the keys in her hand. Wiklund had his hand on the door next to Bette Davis.
“Lock that door,” I whispered to Davis as I started to slide toward Jeffers who, gun in hand, was waiting for me to get out.
I didn’t get out. I reached forward, slammed the door shut, pushed down the lock button, and reached over the front seat to lock the driver’s door. I thought I caught a glimpse of the key in the ignition on my right and a look of horror on Inez’s face out the window on my left, but I didn’t have time to think about it.
“Drive,” I shouted to Davis—I twisted back and locked the rear door as Wiklund reached for it.
Wiklund’s face was against the window. He was no longer amused by me.
They were screaming at each other outside the car, and Jeffers did what to me seemed reasonable. He shot a hole through the rear window of the car and almost killed me. The bullet squealed and hit metal. The car lurched forward as Bette Davis hit the gas. I went down on the floor and a second shot took out the front window.
With the windows now open, I could hear their voices as a third shot thudded through the tr
unk of the Graham. I sat up and looked back. Davis had put some distance between the three of them and us, but we were continuing down the driveway toward a garage.
Help was on the way. Not for us. For the bad guys. The front door of the house opened and Hans and Fritz, who had obviously heard the noise, stepped out, armed.
The Graham stopped.
“There’s no place to go,” shouted Davis.
“Then back up,” I said.
She threw the car in reverse and did a pretty good job of keeping it on the driveway, if you didn’t place too high a value on the flowers and bushes she crushed. Wiklund and his group jumped out of the way as Bette Davis roared the Graham back up the drive.
Jeffers got off another shot, but it didn’t even hit the car. Davis stopped again.
“I think I can turn around here,” she said. “But that birdbath …”
She was right. There was a stone birdbath on the grass in front of the house and right in our way. She could try backing down the long twisting driveway in the dark, but we both figured that Hans, Fritz, and Jeffers had a good chance of getting to us if we tried it. There wasn’t time for discussion. She gunned the Graham in first gear, slammed by the group, hit the birdbath, and lurched over it with the right-front tire. The axle groaned as we ground forward. Hans was next to the car now, reaching in for my neck. I slid back away from him as Davis changed gears again and we shot down the driveway.
I looked back through the rear window, wondering if they had another car. Maybe the Graham had emptied the communal pocketbook. All five of them were on the driveway, glaring at us and gesticulating, getting smaller as we drove. Jeffers began running after us. He had no chance of catching up, but he was giving it his best.
We hit the street and Davis skidded to avoid an oncoming car. When we were reasonably safe a few blocks away, she pulled to the side and turned to look back at me.
“Are you all right?”
“I’m alive,” I said. “You?”
“Frightened, angry, tired, perspiring. What do we do now?”
“Lot of choices,” I said. “We can go to the police.”
“Who won’t believe us,” she said.
“Wiklund gave your husband a day,” I said. “If he hasn’t got you to bargain with and he hasn’t got the record to trade, he misses his deadline. So, we call your husband, tell him you’re all right and not to worry about any threats to release that record. Then we find the record before Wiklund does and, meanwhile …”
“… we hide,” she concluded.
She put the Graham in gear. The front axle was bent and we limped along, but even limping the Graham was twice the car of anything we met heading back toward Olympic.
Juanita had said I’d be kidnapped three times, and Davis twice. By my count, we both had one to go, and I didn’t think Wiklund would make any mistakes the next time.
CHAPTER SEVEN
We headed for a phone at a drugstore after parking the Graham at a closed gas station on Olympic. While Bette Davis waited outside in a doorway, I called Gunther at Mrs. Plaut’s, told him to forget about finding Wiklund, and to track down Pinketts. I told him I’d get back to him in the morning.
Then I bought a cheap suitcase, a pair of pajamas, a couple of toothbrushes, a big tube of Kolynos toothpaste, two coffees, an Atlantic Monthly, and some stale donuts to go.
We ate the donuts, drank the coffee, and caught a cab, leaving the wounded Graham for the guy who owned the gas station.
All we had to do now was hide.
It was then that I got the less-than-brilliant idea of hiding at the Great Palms Hotel on Main Street. Back in 1938 I had hidden a grifter named Albie Buttons in the Great Palms for almost a week. It was from the hotel, with Bette Davis listening, that I had called Gunther the next day and was told that he had found Pinketts.
“Pick me up in front of the Great Palms at nine,” I had told him.
That had been fine with Gunther. We hung up.
“Gunther found Pinketts,” I explained to Bette Davis as I waited for the operator so I could make another call.
“Then let’s go get the record,” she said, reaching for her handbag.
The hotel operator came on and I placed my next call, to Jeremy Butler. When I finished, I turned to Bette Davis and said, “You can’t be seen.”
“I’ll wear a disguise,” she said with exasperation. “I’ll be a plump, frightened little thing with my hair pulled back and no makeup.”
“Now, Voyager,” I said, making yet another call. “Someone will spot you.”
“But—” she began.
I held up my hand to stop her when my brother picked up the phone at his house in North Hollywood and said, “Yeah.”
“How is Ruth, Phil?” I asked.
“Still alive,” he said, his voice flat, the voice of a man thinking about something he may have left off a grocery list. “Still alive. She lost another half pound. You believe that? She couldn’t have weighed more than ninety yesterday, day before.”
“Who’s taking care of the kids?”
“I told you. Ruth’s mom’s here again,” he said. “She hardly had time to get back to Iowa before she had to turn around and come back. Next time, who knows?”
“But Ruth’s alive,” I repeated.
“So far. As of seven-ten tonight,” he said. “They won’t give me odds on tomorrow or even later tonight. I just came home to lie to Ruth’s mother and the kids that Ruth is doing well.”
“A nurse at the hospital said she thought Ruth would make it,” I said.
“Depends on which nurse you ask.”
“I’m sorry, Phil,” I said. “If you want me …”
“John Cawelti’s looking for you. He missed you at the hospital.”
“Phil, if you could tell him …”
“Toby, I don’t give a shit who killed Grover Niles or why. You know why I don’t give a shit?”
“Yeah,” I said, watching Bette Davis pace the floor with a fresh cigarette, never taking her eyes off of me.
“Then get off the phone so I can finish here and get back to the hospital,” said Phil.
I didn’t say anything. He grunted and hung up.
“I’m going,” I said, putting the receiver back on the cradle. “Gunther’ll be downstairs in a few minutes.”
She stopped pacing, folded her arms, and looked hard at me. She was wearing the dark blouse and skirt from the night before.
“I’m calling Arthur,” she said, moving to the phone. “If you can do it without being listened to by the hotel operator, I—”
“She listened,” I said, heading for the door. “She just doesn’t understand what it means. You get on that phone and you’ll have operators, clerks, morning maids, and guys from room service up here looking for your autograph.”
She picked up the receiver and gave me a look of lip-twisting contempt. Then she gave a number to the hotel operator, using a vaguely Eastern European accent. It didn’t sound anything like Bette Davis.
“You may leave, Mr. Peters,” she said in the same accent, turning her back to me.
I hung around without bothering to pretend I had forgotten something. I just stood and listened.
“Is this there Arthur?” she said, her accent thickening.
I don’t know what he said, but her side of the conversation did not make enormous sense.
“It is me,” she said gleefully, her patois intact. “Elizabeth Ruth,” she said. “Your vife.”
Pause.
“I am just fine. And Mr. Giddins is fine also. He expect to purchase a most valuable record.”
Pause, while she listened and avoided looking at me.
“If there is more than vun copy, I am sure Mr. Giddins he vill locate it.”
She was looking at me with that one. I decided to make my exit.
“Fine,” she said to Farnsworth. “And if Mr. Warner’s assistant calls again, tell him I had to go to hotel and think some. Yah. Gute Nacht.”
She hung up. I was at the door again.
“Do you approve of my performance?” she asked.
“Great,” I said. “Now the hotel operator thinks you’re a Nazi spy.”
“I shall call room service and tell them I’m Rumanian,” she said.
“And how are you going to work that into the conversation?”
“Stay and listen,” she said.
“Lock the door behind me,” I said, and went out to meet Gunther.
He was early. In fact, he was waiting for me when I stepped out in front of the hotel. It wasn’t exactly raining. More like a Los Angeles damp-rag drizzle, the kind that oozes into your clothes and weighs them down. Just enough to keep people off the streets.
Gunther drove a big black Daimler with built-up pedals. I got in and said, “Hi.”
“Your face is lacerated,” he said.
“I know.”
“I assumed that you knew,” said Gunther. “My observation was one of concern, not information.”
“I’m sorry, Gunther. Let’s go. I’ll tell you the whole bloody tale.”
“If you wish, only the salient points,” he said, driving into the downtown night.
“The good parts,” I said.
“Precisely.”
So I told him. The drizzle turned to rain as we headed toward and eventually reached Inglewood. Gunther made a right off of Hawthorne Boulevard onto Hardy and we were in a land I didn’t know.
“How the hell did you find him here?” I asked as Gunther slowed down, looking for the right house.
“As you suggested, Pinketts is not a common name. I found two of them in all of Los Angeles County. One was a Negro gentleman, Simon Pinketts. Extraordinary individual. I wish you could hear him, Toby. His Creole was precise, clear, grammatical. Of course, I do not comprehend the nuances of Creole.”
“He wasn’t the right one,” I said.
“I’m sorry,” Gunther said soberly. “I have digressed while your story was precise.”
“Let’s call it even, Gunther. The second Pinketts.”
“… was a relative of Andrea Pinketts. There. There is the house.”
The Devil Met a Lady Page 11