The Devil Met a Lady

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

“I’ll take a look,” I said, looking in the mirror at the face of Lon Chaney Pere in one of his more grotesque disguises.

  “Mr. Peters,” she said.

  I turned to face her. She looked a little unsteady. I wasn’t sure if it was her anxiety or my face.

  “Have you been drinking?” she asked.

  “No,” I said.

  “I didn’t think so. I’ve seen too much of it to be easily mistaken. Then I assume you have been working for me and Arthur.”

  “Right,” I said.

  “And?…”

  “The union endures,” I said.

  “Thank you, Mr. Peters.”

  “Call me Tobias,” I said. “Almost nobody else does, except my sister-in-law and my brother, and she may not be calling me anything in a day or two.”

  “Family trouble?” Davis said, fishing a cigarette from the pocket of the ragged shirt and lighting it with a Zippo.

  I had one hand on the frame of the bathroom door and my mind on the promise of hot water.

  “My sister-in-law’s name is Ruth,” I said. “She’s in the hospital. Probably dying. I think Ruth’s about your age.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said, and she sounded it.

  “Three kids,” I said. “Oldest is twelve.”

  “I’d like children,” she said.

  I looked up at her.

  “You don’t believe me?” she asked, holding her head up.

  “I believe you,” I said. “I’m just tired.”

  “Please keep the tap low and make a superhuman effort not to snore,” she said.

  I nodded and she moved to turn off the light. When I came out of the bathroom after an hour of soaking and dozing, she was in bed and breathing loudly.

  What I needed was a bowl of Wheaties with milk and a lot of sugar. What I got was a too-short sofa, some memories that wouldn’t leave, and a nightmare I couldn’t remember when I woke up. I vaguely remembered having a brilliant insight into who might have shot Grover Niles.

  The next day was uneventful. We got on each other’s nerves, played cards, and eventually found ourselves where I started this tale—in the elevator of the Great Palms Hotel surrounded by Jeffers, Hans, and Fritz.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  As you may recall, Bette Davis and I went quietly. I couldn’t help thinking that this was my third time in their hands and Bette Davis’s second. I tried to remember if Juanita had predicted anything positive. I couldn’t think of anything.

  We crossed the lobby with a nod to the clerk, who waved at us with his copy of Laura. Nobody returned his wave, but Jeffers did whisper in my ear.

  “Want to hear something disgusting?” he asked, as we neared the front door.

  “It’s what keeps me young,” I answered.

  “I think I’m going to cut your ears off and feed them to Fritz,” he said gently. “I’ll clean them first, of course.”

  “You think Fritz cares if they’re clean?”

  “It’s for me,” Jeffers explained. “I mean cleanliness. I wouldn’t be able to sleep thinking of his digestion … I’ve got a delicate constitution.”

  “Sensitive,” I said, as we stepped into the night.

  “I like to identify with Hamlet. You know what I mean. Vengeance, but with good taste.”

  “How did you find us?” I asked.

  “I’ll give you one guess,” said Jeffers with a grin. “For a silver dollar or a box of Snickers.”

  “Pinketts,” I guessed.

  “You’re a lemac now,” Jeffers said. “That’s camel spelled backward.”

  “I know. What did Pinketts say?”

  “Asked if we could all be friends. Forgive and forget, if he turned you in. He said you’ve got the record; came to his house, tried to get him to work with you. He turned you down and then followed you to this flea trap.”

  “Wiklund believe that?”

  “I can say, with confidence, not for a second,” said Jeffers. “But then who can argue with success?”

  The Graham was at the curb. It had been through almost as much body damage as I had.

  “Wiklund tracked down the car in the gas station where you left it,” said Jeffers. “He’s not happy about its condition.”

  My mind was racing about as fast as a one-legged drunk, but that was fast enough to tell me that, if I got in the car, there wasn’t much chance of me coming out of it alive. I was carrying the suitcase. My gun was inside it. It would take me about five seconds to get it open, find the gun … Not a chance.

  Hans was standing behind Bette Davis. Fritz held the door open, and Jeffers jammed a pistol in the space just below my left ribs.

  The rain had stopped. The night was cool and I was out of ideas. I decided to take a swipe at Jeffers’s arm, hope he didn’t hit me with his first shot, and go for the gun. Before my arm could come down, Jeffers backed away.

  “No more mistakes, Peters,” he said. “I can be fooled, but I’m no fool.”

  I looked around the street for help. And there it was. Out of the shadows near the hotel entrance a massive figure stepped forward and lifted Jeffers by the neck.

  Jeffers made a sound like “gughhh” and tried to turn his weapon on the creature behind him, which was a little difficult with his legs dangling about three inches from the ground and his face turning red. The creature held Jeffers with one hand and chopped at the gun hand with the other. The gun clattered to the sidewalk. I dropped the suitcase and moved for the gun, but Hans or Fritz had me by the shoulder and pushed me back toward the car. I hit it hard and tumbled through the open door.

  Half sitting, I could see Hans let go of Bette Davis, who moved toward me.

  Jeremy shook Jeffers two or three times like a wet Labrador and threw him in the general direction of Nevada. I struggled to get out of the back seat to give Jeremy a hand with Hans and Fritz, who looked like more than an uneven tag team. Jeremy was old enough to be their father. Hell, he was probably old enough to be their grandfather. Hans and Fritz had no respect for age.

  Hans circled to Jeremy’s left as Fritz closed in for a punch to Jeremy’s stomach. Jeremy did nothing to stop the punch. Fritz’s fist bounced off, and Hans leaped behind Jeremy and threw a thick arm around his neck, grabbing his own wrist and starting to pull tightly.

  Jeremy looked amazingly calm as he spun around.

  “Help him, for God’s sake,” shouted Bette Davis, trying to pull me out of the back seat.

  “He’s doing fine,” I said.

  And he was.

  Jeremy was turning quickly in a circle, and Hans was lucky he had a solid grip or he would have flown into the hotel wall or over the roof of the car. Fritz tried to close in, but Hans was parallel to the ground now, about a lethal five and a half feet off the ground as Jeremy continued to spin.

  Then Jeremy reached up, pulled Hans’s arm from around his neck, and brought the back of his shaved head firmly against the face of the dizzy blond Hans, who flew back and sprawled on the steps of the hotel. Fritz leaped forward, grabbing for Jeremy’s head. He managed to get his fingers and nails into Jeremy’s scalp, but Jeremy caught Fritz in a bear hug. Fritz was a few inches taller than Jeremy, so Jeremy had to lean back to lift him from the ground.

  “I see what you mean,” said Davis, watching Fritz’s face go purple. “Maybe you should appeal to him before he kills them.”

  “No,” I said, leaning against the car. “Jeremy’s a pro.”

  Jeremy released Fritz, who crumpled to the sidewalk with a dreamy groan.

  “Mr. Butler,” Davis said, moving forward. “We’ve got to take care of your head.”

  There were thin streaks of red across Jeremy’s scalp where Fritz had scratched him. Two of the streaks were trickling blood.

  “It is of no consequence,” Jeremy said, as I looked around for the gun Jeffers had lost. I didn’t see it.

  Far off a police siren wailed. There was a good chance it was wailing toward us.

  “I have suffered worse on many occasions,”
said Jeremy, brushing a trail of blood from his forehead. “April 13, 1932, Nick ‘The Granite’ Basilica bit me on the cheek. A well-read man but with a touch of both the poet and madness. And then there was the night of June 16, 1928, New York City. Black-tie gathering. A gangster named Sharbil climbed into the ring to challenge me and brought a bottle with him.”

  “I think the cops are coming,” I said as the sirens grew distinctly louder. “Let’s talk someplace else.”

  “I’ve got a better idea,” came Jeffers’s voice behind us. “You and King Kong go somewhere and discuss it while the Academy Award winner and I take a ride.”

  We turned toward Jeffers. His hair fell madly over his eyes, he was bent over in pain, and he was holding the gun he had dropped. He had better eyes than I did.

  “I think not,” said Jeremy, taking a step toward him.

  Jeffers shook his head once and fired. The bullet missed Jeremy and chipped into the stone step of the hotel no more than half a foot from the confused Hans, who jumped away from the zing and splatter with a choking sound.

  “One more step and you’ll be working on your elegy as you wait for Saint Pete,” said Jeffers.

  “Colorless prose,” Jeremy said.

  “I’ll give you the insult,” said Jeffers, “but I’ll take the movie star. Miss Davis, will you kindly get in the car right now or I’ll shoot both of these circus freaks. I don’t know why you’d care, but I’ll give them the chance.”

  Bette Davis looked at me and Jeremy, motioned us to stay where we were, and climbed into the passenger seat of the car. The sirens were close now, maybe a block or two away. Jeffers circled the car quickly, keeping the gun leveled at us. Then he jumped in, slammed the door, and took off.

  “I’m sorry, Toby,” Jeremy said.

  “You did great, Jeremy. I’m glad you were on the shift out here. It could have been Shelly.”

  The police car pulled up in front of the hotel as Jeremy rounded up Hans and Fritz and I picked up my suitcase.

  The cops came out with weapons drawn. One was overage and wore thick glasses. Were it not for the war, he would have been growing oranges in Lompoc. The other cop was just a little bit older.

  “We were jumped by these two,” I said, pointing at Hans and Fritz. “This gentleman happened to come by and save my wallet, my suitcase, and maybe my life.”

  The orange-growing cop from Lompoc stepped around the police car with his gun leveled at my chest and took a look at me and then at Jeremy.

  “Looks like they worked you over,” he said. “We better get both of you to the emergency room.”

  “Sounds right to me,” I said.

  Fritz looked like he wanted to shoot some holes in our story, but a look from Hans shut him up. In an exchange of accusations, the Katzenjammers stood a good chance of more than unarmed robbery. They went quietly.

  The emergency-room nurse patched up Jeremy’s head with iodine and strips of gauze held down by tape, and then she took care of me. She was dressed in white, smelled like rubbing alcohol, and reminded me of my ex-wife, Anne. The nurse’s name was Joanne Writz. Her hair was yellow, her body thin. She didn’t look the least bit like Anne, but she noticed that my wounds were not fresh and she looked at me with the disapproving eyes of someone who expected no better from men.

  “I saw them enter the hotel,” Jeremy explained as he watched me being cleaned and chastised. “I wasn’t sure it was them or I would have come inside.”

  “We’ll find her,” I said.

  “You sure you want me to hear this?” asked Joanne the nurse.

  “You plan to talk to anybody about it?” I asked.

  “Only if I’m asked,” she said, touching a rib. “Body’s not bad, if you ignore the scars.”

  “You like movies?” I asked her.

  “Sure,” she said, wrapping tape around my chest.

  “Judy Garland and Gene Kelly in For Me and My Gal?” I tried.

  She looked at Jeremy and then at me.

  “Are you asking me for a date?” she said, putting her hands on her hips.

  “Says ‘Miss’ on your name tag,” I answered with a grin.

  “I don’t go out with suicidals and children,” she said.

  “I’m not suicidal.”

  The nurse looked at Jeremy. He looked back at her and nodded.

  “I’m sorry, Toby,” he said. “But she may be right.”

  “Anne used to say I wouldn’t grow up,” I said, as Joanne stepped back to survey her work.

  “Hmm,” she said, satisfied.

  “Anne’s my ex-wife,” I explained.

  “From what I can see, she’s a wise woman,” said Joanne. “You can go now. Come back when you grow up. Now, if you’ll please slouch out of here, I’ve got a gunshot, a kid with a split head, a woman who may have taken too many pills, and I’m taking orders from an eight-year-old who thinks he’s an intern.”

  We left. It was after one and I had the beginning of an idea about finding Bette Davis.

  “Where are we going?” asked Jeremy.

  “You can head home, Jeremy. I’ll pick up my car and some money, get a few hours’ sleep, and see if I can do something without getting a friend beaten or a client’s wife kidnapped.”

  We walked past the bleeding boy, a woman who lay on a stretcher in the hall while a sweating nurse pushed a pipe down her throat, and assorted victims with bangs and whimpers.

  “You are blaming yourself too much, Toby,” Jeremy observed.

  “Only because I lost her. I let her get taken three times in two days,” I said as we walked into the night and out of the smell of medicine. “I’ve got to get her back before I set a new record for losing a client in a single week.”

  “I’d like to help,” he said as we looked for an all-night cab in front of the hospital.

  “I’ve got something they want, Jeremy,” I said. “I think I can do some trading with them.”

  “If you can find them,” he said.

  “I think maybe they’ll be trying to find me,” I said. A Black and White cab pulled up. “But I’m not going to wait for them.”

  The cab driver took a quick look at us and kept on going.

  It was a nice night for a walk.

  CHAPTER NINE

  I woke up from a few hours of guilty sleep. What woke me was Mrs. Plaut clattering into my room to announce, “Mr. Peelers, a man with his hair parted down the middle, claiming to be the police, has been looking for you, and Arthur Godfrey is on the phone.”

  I had slept in my dirty boxer shorts and no shirt, a fact which did not seem to interest Mrs. Plaut, who looked over the room quickly to be sure I hadn’t painted nude murals on the walls during the night.

  “Arthur Godfrey?” I grunted over my cracked tongue as I tried to sit up, fell backward, and almost hit my head on the edge of the small table on which sat Mrs. Plaut’s manuscript.

  “Mr. Peelers, you look a fright, if you do not mind my saying,” she said, holding up a stick she produced from behind her back. “And you have not been sleeping in your bed for two nights. If you do not mind, I must remind you that I do not cater to transients.”

  “When, Mrs. P.,” I answered, managing to sit up in great agony, “have you ever been the least concerned about what I minded?”

  I had been certain she would not and could not hear my question, but, as so often happened in my nearly half-century of error, I was wrong.

  “I was raised to politeness,” she said. “And cleanliness.”

  With this she pointed the stick toward the corners of the room.

  “Spontaneous combustion,” she said.

  I pulled myself up, using the sofa arm.

  “The corners are so dirty that they’ll suddenly break out in flame?” I grunted.

  “Dirt. Dirt breeds dirt.”

  “Spontaneous generation, I think that is.”

  “Dirt breeds dirt,” she repeated with satisfaction, returning her stick to her side.

  I considered my c
rumpled trousers, an agonizing arm’s length away. “Will you tell Arthur Godfrey I’m on my way? I’ll be there within a generation.”

  “I’ve seen it happen,” she said, straightening her blue dress with white flowers. “Room locked tight. Even a bottle locked tight. Nothing in it, nothing alive. Just some dust. Bang.”

  She thumped the stick down on the wooden floor, and I had to grab for the sofa arm to keep from falling.

  “Bang,” I said through tight teeth, as I put on my pants and wondered how long Godfrey would wait.

  “Bang,” she repeated, complete with thumping stick. “These little flying living things were in the bottle or wherever.”

  I despaired of getting a shirt or shoes on.

  “Spontaneous combustion.”

  “Generation,” I corrected.

  “Life goes on.”

  “It’s not true, Mrs. Plaut.”

  “Life doesn’t go on? Are you an insane madman, Mr. Peelers?”

  “No,” I said, taking a tentative, barefooted step toward her. “Spontaneous generation. Living things from not-living things. It can’t happen.”

  She shook her head tolerantly.

  “Have you seen Dumbo?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “I think I will have seen everything when I see an elephant fly. That was a joke. But I’ve been around enough to have seen everything, including spontaneous …”

  “… generation,” I aided.

  I was at the door now, inching past her. At the end of the landing a few hundred yards away I could see the telephone receiver dangling. She held her stick up in front of my face.

  “Mop handle,” she said.

  I inspected the stick and found it a reasonable conclusion.

  “It is recalcitrant,” she said. “It does not yield to my attempts to reattach it to the mop head.”

  From behind her back, in her other hand, there came the head of a mop. I took handle and head like a good soldier as she examined my face.

  “You need a poultice,” she said.

  The last poultice Mrs. Plaut had prepared and given me to apply to my body had been remarkably effective. It had also smelled like dead ancient underwater things, and the smell had clung lovingly to me for weeks. Pain and I were old neighbors I could live with, but the prospect of that smell, on the other hand, was not something I wanted to wear into the semicivilized land of Angeles.