Think Fast, Mr. Peters

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

  “I don’t know why, but I know where. The glove compartment of my car. That’s where it was.”

  “Right where a car thief could get it and then maybe go out and shoot a few citizens,” Phil said without anger. He was sounding more and more like a woeful, forgiving rabbi. I didn’t need guilt. I needed my brother to push, drive me to look for answers.

  “One of those people shot Kindem,” I said.

  “Which one, Steinholtz? Who the hell is Steinholtz? The only one with a motive was Mildred Minck, your client. The guy fooled her, got a chunk of dough from her, made her look like a stupid … I don’t know what. She had motive. She knew your car. So did that brother of hers. They’re the ones I should be holding, but I don’t have evidence. None.”

  He sat down, folded his hands, and looked at me.

  “Phil, you really think Mildred Minck or her brother shot that carbon copy?”

  It was my turn to get up.

  “No. I don’t know,” said Phil. “Maybe I don’t even care. Get out. Go play detective. I’ve assigned Seidman to the case but he’s up to his ass with other cases. He’s got a hold-up team working around St. Vincent’s, a wife who maybe did maybe didn’t poison her husband with fertilizer, three other homicides. I’ve got more cases than … and all we’ve got around here are guys who should retire and 4-F kids. Ironic. If it weren’t for the damn war, I wouldn’t have gotten promoted. Too many good-natured guys ahead of me. They all went into the army and I got a fast move up.”

  “We’ve been through that already. Can I go?” I asked leaning over the desk. “I can’t stand to see an overgrown man cry and I don’t like to hear the same complaint twice. I’m a suspect in a murder here. I have a right to some respect. Where’s my grilling? What about the threats? No one’s pushed me around, violated my rights. I’m getting the feeling I’m not wanted.”

  “You like, I’ll turn you over to Cawelti,” Phil said with a smile.

  Sergeant John Cawelti was my ancient enemy. Cawelti looked like a Gay Nineties bartender with red hair parted down the middle and plastered down. His mustache flamed red with wax and he hated me with more than passion.

  “Can I go?”

  “Go,” he said with a wave of his hand as he swiveled away from me on the chair and looked at the intriguing view of the wall across the way. “We’re letting Mildred Minck go, too, at least until we come up with something more. Maybe we’ll serve a warrant on that quack husband of hers for health code violations and hold her as an accessory. We’re letting them all go.”

  “I’ll see you, Phil,” I said. I wanted to ask when I’d get my gun back but I knew better.

  “Yeah,” he answered, his back to me.

  It was a little after five when I left the Wilshire station and took cab back to Beverly and Burlington to retrieve my car. The cabbie talked all the way about how some guy in a defense plant said women were doing better than men. Since the cabbie was a woman, I just grunted. Hell, maybe she was right. Maybe Phil should be replaced by Ruthie. Everyone liked Ruthie. I didn’t think she’d clobber many bad guys, but she’d be great at the ladies’ clubs. Somehow, though, I couldn’t see skinny Ruthie in a uniform.

  I gave the cabbie a nice tip for the short ride and wrote the amount in my notebook. Shelly was going to pay. I had found Mildred and, I guessed, she would be going back to him if he wanted her. I’d done my job, earned my day’s wages.

  The drive back to Mrs. Plaut’s on Heliotrope was quiet. I listened to Tennessee Jed on the radio. “That a boy, Tennessee,” said his faithful sidekick. “Got him. Dead center.” Hell, maybe Tennessee Jed had killed Sidney Kindem.

  I was tired, in need of a bath and shave and change of clothes. To escape the clutches of Mrs. Plaut was my greatest desire. I would gladly forgo finding out who killed Sidney Kindem if God would let me get past Mrs. Plaut, but God is a joker. If you want proof, just look in your local mirror.

  “Mr. Peelers,” she cried as I tiptoed up the stairs.

  “Mrs. Plaut,” I responded with a smile.

  “I’m glad that you arrived early from whatever you do with bugs and things so that you can talk to Mr. Tortelli in re: his contributions to the scrap rubber drive.”

  She stood below me squinting through her glasses, hands on hips.

  “I’ve had a trying day, Mrs. Plaut,” I said. “I witnessed a murder, a murder with my gun. I’ve just been questioned by the police and I may lose my license.”

  “It sounds no different to me than your other days,” she said. “A good night’s rest and a worthwhile deed for country and hearth will make you feel like a new man. My mister used to say, work erases all doubt.”

  “He died of overwork, Mrs. Plaut,” I reminded her.

  “Perhaps,” she conceded, “but he was in no doubt about who he was when the end came.”

  “A major consolation,” I said.

  “Mr. Tortelli,” she said, waving at me with a thin, white finger and off to Mr. Tortelli’s we went.

  “Be persuasive, Mr. Peelers,” she reminded me.

  “I’ll be persuasive,” I said as we walked up the walk to the small, white house on the corner. The radio was on and Guy Lombardo was playing “East of the Sun.” I knocked gently.

  “No one’s home,” I said with a sad smile.

  She pushed past me and hammered on the door.

  “Coming, coming,” called Mr. Tortelli.

  Mrs. Plaut, not hearing radio or voice because she had chosen not to wear her hearing aid, pounded again.

  “Coming, damn it,” Tortelli cried, and appeared at the door holding a carrot.

  He was a little man with a little belly who always wore suspenders. He had a little mustache and very little hair. Both mustache and hair looked like a bad dye job.

  “What?” he asked looking at us. “I’m eating and listening.”

  “Mr. Peelers has a speech,” Mrs. Plaut said, poking me in the side.

  “Well, not exactly a speech, Mr. Tortelli,” I said.

  “Who’re you?” Tortelli asked reasonably. “I think I seen you.”

  “I live in Mrs. Plaut’s boarding house next door. My name’s Peters.” I held out my hand. He shifted the carrot to his left hand and shook my hand. “I don’t believe in giving no rubber,” Tortelli said. “That’s before you start.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “On general principles,” he said.

  “Make your speech, Mr. Peelers,” she urged.

  “I pay my taxes,” Tortelli went on. “I got a son in the navy, a daughter in the WACS. I buy defense stamps. You want to see my collection?”

  “No thanks,” I said. “But every piece of rubber helps.”

  “OK,” he said.

  “OK?”

  “You convinced me,” said Tortelli. “I got no time for this. I gotta get to work and I don’t want you coming back. I’ll go get something rubber.”

  I looked at Mrs. Plaut when Tortelli disappeared. She was smiling with approval.

  “That was a good speech, Mr. Peelers,” she said, patting me on the back.

  “I didn’t give my speech,” I told her.

  “Nonetheless,” she said with sparkling triumph.

  We stood on the porch listening to The Royal Canadians play and sing “The Lady in Red” and “All I Do the Whole Day Through” before Tortelli returned minus his carrot and plus a dirty automobile tire. He pushed open his screen door, deposited the tire in my arms, and slammed the door on us.

  “I misjudged Mr. Tortelli,” Mrs. Plaut said, taking my arm as we walked back down the street. My jacket, shirt, and pants were filthy from the tire I clutched in both arms.

  “He’s a saint,” I said.

  “Maybe we should bake him some raisin twinkle cookies,” she mused.

  “If anyone deserves them, it is Mr. Tortelli,” I said. “Now where do you want this tire?”

  I got the tire into Mrs. Plaut’s garage and made my weary way back into the house and up the stairs. I stopped at th
e top of the stairs, got the L.A. telephone book, found a number, dropped a dime in the slot and asked the operator to get me the chief of police.

  I didn’t get the chief. I didn’t expect to. I got a telephone operator who asked if she could help me.

  “This is Deever Van Lewenhook,” I said, pinching my nostrils. “I wish to speak to the chief of police.”

  “May I connect you with one of the chief’s assistants, who will …” she began.

  “This is Deever Houk Van Lewenhook,” I repeated with a touch of pity at her ignorance. “President Roosevelt’s deputy assistant for domestic interaction with urban law enforcement. I’m calling on behalf of the president of the United States and I really don’t have much time. If you’d like to have your chief call me back at the White House in a few minutes, that will be acceptable but I can’t really wait very long.”

  The trick was simple. The woman would never remember the name I’d given her, or the title. She might ask me again, if she had the nerve, but I’d make it even longer. It would be easier for her to put me through to the chief than risk screwing things up on a call back to the White House. She’d get on the phone to someone and tell him somebody from the White House wanted to talk to the chief fast.

  “I’ll connect you, sir,” she said.

  Seconds passed and a male voice came on.

  “Can I help you?”

  “Is this the chief of police?” I asked.

  “No, sir. I’m his deputy, Deputy Chief Harkness and I’d be happy to …”

  “Is there no end to this?” I said with weary patience. “Deputy Harkness, I have a long list of calls I must make for the president this evening. It is several hours later in Washington than it is in Los Angeles and I’m quite tired. If you’d like, I’ll ask the president to get on the line right now and reassure you, but he is not in the best of moods. Mr. Molotov is due here within hours and …”

  “OK, right, Mr …”

  “Deever Houk Van Lewenhook,” I said slowly and then, over my shoulder to an imaginary assistant, “can you believe this? Don’t these people read The New York Times?”

  “I’ll connect you with the chief, sir,” Harkness said.

  The chief came on a few seconds later. His voice was high and sounded as if it would soon crack.

  “Mr. President?” he said.

  “No,” I sighed. “This is Deever Houk Van Lewenhook.”

  “I’m honored by your call,” the chief said. “How can I help you?”

  “One moment,” I said and pretended to ask a question to someone behind me. I stuck the phone under my shirt and did a third-rate FDR imitation. “Tell him about Captain Pevsner and get on with it, Deever,” I said. It was at that point I noticed Mrs. Plaut had come up the stairs and was watching me. I couldn’t stop.

  Into the phone I said, “The president asked me to tell you that a certain captain in the Los Angeles Police Department has rendered a most important service to the country, one which we are not at liberty to divulge till the war ends. It has come to the president’s attention that this captain, Captain Philip Pevsner of the Wilshire District, will soon be retiring. We would like you to persuade Captain Pevsner to stay on the force, at least for the duration of the war. His services might again be needed. And please, do not let Captain Pevsner know that the president has intervened. It might even be best if you say nothing of this to members of your staff or the mayor.”

  “Captain Pevsner won’t retire,” the chief said. “Assure the president that I will persuade him to remain on duty.”

  “Fine,” I said. “The president would like a brief word with you.”

  I looked at Mrs. Plaut, grinned, took my fingers from my nostrils, pushed my nose back and did my FDR.

  “Chief,” I said into the phone. “I wish to express not only my personal thanks for this service, but the appreciation of the entire country. In addition, I may well be calling on you to come to Washington for consultation on some matters of urban security, if you are interested in serving.”

  “I’d be honored, Mr. President,” the chief said. This time his voice did crack.

  Mrs. Plaut’s mouth opened to speak and I hung up before her piercing voice could destroy the illusion.

  “What are you doing, Mr. Peelers? Telephones are not for pranks.”

  “I was auditioning, Mrs. Plaut. Auditioning for a radio show. ‘The Major Bowles Amateur Hour.’”

  “You shall lose, I’m afraid,” she said. “You’d best stick with editing and bug spray.”

  As she turned, the phone rang. Normally there was no beating Mrs. Plaut to the phone, but I was standing next to it and just managed to grasp it ahead of her.

  “Plaut Boarding House,” I said.

  “Toby,” came Phil’s voice. “Get back down here.”

  “What’s up?”

  “A man named Imperatori got hit by a car on Rosabell near Union Station. He’s dead. Another guy, a comic named Bernard, got a death threat on the phone.”

  “I got a feeling you’re not just calling me to help clean up the morning blotter.”

  “Both guys are Peter Lorre imitators,” Phil said.

  “I’ll be right there.”

  6

  When I stepped into Phil’s office, I knew things were back to seminormal.

  “What kind of shit are you sitting in now, Toby?” he asked, collar open, coffee clutched in his right hand. His face was red and angry. He glanced down at a pile of reports on his desk.

  Lieutenant Steve Seidman, Phil’s former partner, a tall, pale man who always looked as if he knew how sad the world was and had a right to be, leaned against the wall holding his own cup. Seidman’s tie was on. Phil’s wasn’t.

  “Me?” I said innocently, looking to Seidman for sympathy and understanding. “I’ve got nothing …”

  “We’ve got a witness says you were with Lorre this morning at Levy’s Restaurant,” Seidman said. “Less than two hours later a Lorre mimic gets shot with your gun.”

  “And now they’re dropping all over the place,” shouted Phil, smashing his cup down on the desk.

  “Maybe the world will be a better, saner place without them,” said Seidman, straight-faced, “but we can’t go around using that for a reason or we’d have half the population of Los Angeles County on marble slabs.”

  “Toby,” Phil said, looking at me as he leaned over with both hands on his desk, “talk to me.”

  “We talked this morning,” I reminded him.

  “That was before someone started collecting Lorre trophies,” Phil said. “You know how many people in this town do Peter Lorre as part of some act or schtick?”

  “Three hundred and thirty-seven,” I guessed.

  “No way of knowing,” said Seidman, looking into his coffee cup sadly for an answer. “No way of knowing.”

  Since no one was going to ask me to sit, I pulled out the chair in front of the desk and sat.

  “You might ask Lorre if he has some idea,” I suggested.

  “I saw him an hour ago,” said Seidman. “Nothing.”

  Phil pounded the desk.

  “Hey, you’re not here to tell us how to run an investigation. You’re here to answer questions. First, why did you go to see Lorre?”

  “Shelly thought he’d run away with Mildred. I already told you that, Phil.”

  “Got it,” said Seidman, who had put down his coffee cup and, still leaning against the wall, was taking notes.

  “By tomorrow morning, this could be all over the newspapers, the radio,” said Phil. “Some goddamn loony wants to get rid of Peter Lorre imitators.”

  “So do I,” I said.

  “But you don’t, for Christ’s sake, go around killing them,” shouted Phil. “Or do you? Where were you all afternoon after you left here?”

  “Collecting a rubber tire from Mr. Tortelli,” I said. “That’s T-O-R-T-E-L-L-I. It’s for the scrap rubber drive. Mrs. Plaut was with me. That’s P-L …”

  “Knock it off,” said Phi
l, coming around the desk toward me. “No jokes. Just answers.”

  I put up my hands to indicate that I would cooperate.

  “OK.” He went on pacing next to me, pounding his right fist into his left palm. “So Mildred Minck ran off with this fake Lorre.”

  “I went to the real thing first and found out it wasn’t him,” I explained. “Then I went to a theatrical agent I know to get a line on Lorre imitators. That led me to Kindem. He got shot …”

  “With your gun,” Phil reminded me.

  “With my gun,” I admitted. “And that was it.”

  “Lebowitz, Mildred’s brother,” Phil shot back.

  “Maybe. Protecting his sister’s honor, he shot the bastard who ruined her name,” I said. “Makes sense. Lock him up. Case closed. Phil, I told you I didn’t even talk to the guy.” Which wasn’t quite true.

  A thick hand circled my neck and lifted me from the chair. I let out some kind of gurgle as Phil grunted, “I told you no jokes.”

  “Phil,” Seidman said patiently, soothingly.

  Phil dropped me back in the chair and I sat for a few seconds trying to reach the ache in my neck and ignore the dancing red amoebas I was seeing.

  “On that roof,” Phil said, walking back behind his desk to see if anything was left in his coffee cup (there wasn’t), “What did you see?”

  “I told—”

  “Toby,” Seidman cut in.

  “OK,” I sighed, and told it all again. “Now what?” I said when I’d finished.

  “Now nothing,” said Phil. “We work on it, hope this nut is finished, try to keep the papers from making a connection, go back to the suspects, find out where all of them were this afternoon. But it looks like our killer might not have been someone on the roof. Might have been someone who stuck his head in, shot, threw your gun down, and dashed to keep his next appointment in a busy day of Peter Lorre mayhem. Routine, Toby. Get out.”

  I didn’t get out. Phil hadn’t called me back to his office for this. He could have done everything but strangle me over the phone.

  “That’s it?” I said.

  “It,” he agreed sitting behind his desk and opening a file. “Oh, yeah, the chief of police just called. He’s overruled my retirement. I’m staying on as captain right here at the Wilshire, at least through the war.”