Leo backed against the couch and sat. Phil and I stood over him.
“I didn’t do it,” he said.
“Do what?” I asked.
“Turn off the lights, kill Keller,” Leo bleated, looking at his mother for a mercy she had no intention of granting.
“Who did?” Phil asked.
“I don’t know,” Leo almost wept.
“You killed somebody?” Leo’s mother asked.
“Mrs.…” I said.
“Call me Cornelia,” she said.
“Cornelia,” I said. “Let us ask our questions. You’ll get your crack at junior when we leave.”
“That you don’t have to tell me,” she said, fixing her glare at Leo who looked away.
“I’m besieged,” he said. “All sides. This isn’t fair.”
“Do a trick,” said Phil. “Make us disappear.”
“What do you want?”
“One of you Dranabadurians got up before the lights went out,” I said. “Which one?”
I expected him to repeat the party line, say that everyone had been nailed to his seat when Ott was killed. Juanita’s warning came back to me. The man in the penguin suit. The lights on and off.
“He wasn’t sitting down,” Leo said.
“Who?” asked Phil.
“Melvin Rand.”
There was no Melvin Rand on Phil’s list.
“Who is Melvin Rand?” Phil asked.
Leo bit his lip. Cornelia shouted the same question loud enough to make me nearly jump. I think Leo did jump.
“He’s not really a Dranabadurian,” said Leo. “Believe me. Not yet. He’s new. Keller introduced him at the last meeting.”
“And he was at the Blackstone party last night?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Where was he sitting?” asked Phil
“He wasn’t,” said Leo.
“What was he doing, crawling around on the floor like you’re going to be doing?” Cornelia screamed.
Leo quivered and looked up to Phil and me for protection, which probably gives you an idea of who really scared him in this room.
“He was a waiter,” Leo said. “It was part of Keller’s plan I guess. He didn’t tell us. I just looked up when he brought the bread to the table and he winked at me. Like this. He was wearing a black wig and a fake mustache, but I recognized him.”
“Did the others at your table recognize him?” I asked.
“I don’t know.”
Leo slumped back.
“Where was Rand when the lights went out?” I asked.
“Don’t know,” Leo whispered.
“Was he wearing red socks?” asked Phil.
“No. I looked,” Leo whispered even more quietly.
“Speak up,” Cornelia shouted.
“No,” Leo shouted back.
“Without the wig and the mustache is he blonde, thin?” I asked.
“That’s him,” said Leo.
“He was the waiter standing near the door who got us running after the kid,” Phil said.
Which meant he was nowhere near the table where Ott lay dead with a knife in his neck.
“Any idea of where we might find Melvin Rand?” I asked.
Leo shook his head “no.”
“Pathetic,” snorted Cornelia, getting up from her chair, arms still folded. She walked over to the couch as Leo slid away from her. She unfolded her arms and gently put his head against her ample chest. “Leo Benz, you are a pathetic creature.”
Phil and I left.
“Hotel Roosevelt?” I asked as we headed for the car.
“Stop at my house first,” Phil said.
We were only fifteen minutes from Phil’s. I parked on the street and started to get out.
“You’ve never had whooping cough,” he said, putting his hand on my arm. “Stay here.”
I stayed, tried to figure out what had happened when the lights went out last night, failed miserably and turned on the radio.
After I learned that Dewey had accepted the Republican nomination for President, Bing Crosby and I sang Don’t Fence Me In. Jo Stafford followed with Close As Pages In A Book, but I couldn’t keep up with her. Portia was about to face life when Phil came back and got in the car.
“Dave and Nate both have it,” he said.
“Lucy?”
“She seems alright. Becky’s trying to keep her out of their bedroom. I told her to stay away from her brothers, but she’s five, takes after me more than Ruth.”
“What’s the doctor say?”
“Doc Hodgdon’ll be here in about an hour.”
Doc Hodgdon was eighty, retired, and working on a book. Phil had met him through me. We played handball regularly at the Downtown Y. The doc was slow, steady, straight-backed, and sure of hand. I rarely beat him.
I put the Crosley in gear and Phil said, “Stop.”
I stopped. He opened the door.
“Call me later,” he said getting out. “I’ll meet you. I’ll make some calls.”
He closed the door and started back toward the house without looking back at me. I shifted into first and made a U-turn.
Chapter 15
Show your victim three cards: a 6 of clubs, 8 of diamonds, and a 10 of spades. Ask them to pick one and not tell you which one they have chosen. Put the cards in your pocket, close your eyes and concentrate, and then pull out two cards and place them facedown on the table. Ask your victim to tell which card he or she had chosen. Reach into your pocket and pull out that card. Announce that you’ll gladly do the trick again. Solution: Arrange the three cards in order 6, 8, 10. You can use any three cards as long as they are numerical and increase in number. Put the three cards in your pocket where you already have two other cards. Pull out those two other cards and place them on the table facedown. When the victim tells you what card was chosen, simply reach into your pocket and pull it out knowing that the 10 is on top, the 8 in the middle, and the six on the bottom. You can do the trick again because you still have two extra cards in your pocket.
—From the Blackstone, The Magic Detective radio show
“RAND, RAND, RAND, RAND,” said the young woman in the serious suit and large glasses.
Her name was Miss Sanford. It said so on the pin over her right jacket pocket. Her hair was dark and pinned back. She was, young, pretty, and all business. She pointed her sharpened pencil at a name on the sheet of paper on the clipboard in her hand.
We were standing in the lobby of the Roosevelt. The only reason she was talking to me was that I had worked from time to time filling in for the regular night house detective when he was on vacation or got sick.
“Here he is,” she said. “I remember him. Mr. Ott insisted that we use him, told us we wouldn’t have to pay him. Carlos, the head-waiter, didn’t much like the idea but Mr. Ott was paying the bill for the evening and …”
“Did Ott say why he wanted Rand working last night?”
“Said it was part of a surprise for Blackstone’s party,” she said.
“The surprise was Ott skewered on a platter,” I said.
“That’s not really funny,” she said.
“Guess not,” I agreed. “Got an address for Rand?”
“Of course,” she said. “We wouldn’t let him work, even for one meal, if we didn’t have his address and full identification. Board of Health.”
She gave me the address. I wrote it in my notebook.
“Thanks,” I said. “You related to Tony Sanford?”
“My father,” she said.
Tony was the regular night house detective I filled in for. Tony and I were about the same age. No, I was a few years older. I looked at his daughter and felt old, very old.
“Anything else I can help you with?” she asked.
“No,” I said.
“You’re working for Mr. Blackstone, right?” she asked.
“Right,” I said.
“He and his brother are in the ballroom now,” she said, looking toward the ballroom door
.
I tapped my notebook on the back of my hand, pocketed it, said “thanks” and headed for the ballroom, almost bumping into a laughing young couple.
“Sorry, sir,” the girl said.
They moved on. So did I.
Inside the ballroom, Blackstone stood on the platform. The table and podium were just where they had been the night before. Blackstone had his right hand on his chin and was saying “Once more” as I stepped in.
The lights went out.
Blackstone counted “One, two, three, and then said”, “Now.”
The lights came back on. Peter Bouton came out from behind the drapes to my left, nodded at me, and looked across the room at his brother.
“Door,” called Blackstone.
Peter moved past me, opened the door I had come through. On the platform, Blackstone began counting again as he strode toward me, nodded, and went out the door closing it behind him. A beat later the door opened and the brothers Bouton came back in.
“I was the last one out of here,” Harry said, looking at me with his arms crossed. “I saw no one behind me but Ott facedown. It took no more than twenty seconds to clear the room. We’ve timed the whole thing eight times.”
“Which means?” I asked.
“We think we’re close,” said Pete.
“There’s no event in here tonight,” said Blackstone. “I’ve reserved the room for a reenactment that we’ll conduct after our show at the Panfages. We’ve got the guest list, and everyone on it is being called now and urged to return for the event.”
I told them about what Jimmy Clark had seen, about Rand the waiter.
He told me that Gwen was out of the hospital and ready to do the show that night.
“We told her ‘no,’” said Blackstone, “but I did ask her to come here tonight.”
“If we’re ready,” said Pete.
“If we’re ready,” Harry agreed.
“We have to reenact it?” I asked.
“An impossible murder,” Harry said. “The police are baffled. An audience of magicians expecting a solution from Blackstone. I’ll never have another moment like this. I’ve invited that policeman with the red face and hair.”
“Cawelti,” I said. “You think you’ll be able to tell us who killed Ott?”
“We’ll be able to show you how it was done,” Harry said. “As for who did it, I think we can guarantee the revelation of at least one guilty party.”
The Bouton brothers looked at each other with satisfaction.
“No formal wear required tonight,” said Blackstone.
“Good,” I said.
“Back to work,” said Harry, heading back to the platform.
“Back to work,” I agreed and went through the door and back across the lobby.
I made what I thought was going to be a quick stop at our office, which was only a few blocks from the hotel.
Mistake.
Alice Pallas Butler was sitting at the conference table with her arms folded across her more than ample chest. Jeremy was a very big man. Alice was a match for him. Before they were married, Alice had run a very soft-core pornographic printing operation out of her office in the Farraday. In moments of trouble—meaning a possible visit from the police—Alice had been known to pick up the small printing press, which weighed something in the vicinity of two hundred plus pounds and take it out the window and up the fire escape to the roof.
Jeremy had won her over to the beauty of poetry instead of pornography and she had taken to it, printing Jeremy’s poems for about a year before taking to Jeremy, as well, and marrying him.
They had a daughter, Natasha, who was just starting to walk and was definitely talking. Natasha looked nothing like either parent. She had a beautiful round face with big brown eyes, a great smile, and no sign that she was going to grow into someone with the size and strength of either of her parents.
“Where’s Natasha?” I asked.
“Upstairs with her father,” Alice said. “She’s taking a nap. I think she’s going to start reading soon.”
I didn’t sit.
“She’s not even two,” I said.
“Her father is a genius,” Alice said seriously.
I could have contested that having been subject to Jeremy’s poetry for a lot longer than Alice, but I just nodded in agreement.
“I have something to say,” she said.
“I know,” I said.
“No, you don’t.”
“I don’t?”
I thought she was going to say I had my last warning about involving her husband in one of my cases, that she knew someone had been murdered, that she wanted me to tell him to stay home. We were past the “or else” stage. She had given that to me two cases ago.
“My husband is almost sixty-three,” she said. “I think he should be taking care of this building, his family, and himself.”
So far, it sounded like what I expected to hear.
“You want me to tell him that I don’t need his help,” I said. “And if I don’t you will do me bodily harm.”
“No,” she said. “If he wants to work with you on these things, I’ve decided I don’t have the right to try to stop him. I can only let him know how I feel. Jeremy needs to be needed. He would never admit it. He values your friendship. God knows why.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“He’s a poet.”
“I know.”
“And he’s also the strongest man I’ve ever known.”
“Me, too.”
“So, I won’t ask him to stop anymore,” she said, still sitting. “But if any harm comes to him when he is working with you, you’ll deal with Alice Pallas Butler. Is that clear?”
“Perfectly,” I said.
“You don’t want to deal with Alice Pallas Butler.”
“I do not,” I said.
“He told me about what you’re doing tonight, the Blackstone business. I want to be there with Jeremy.”
“My ballroom is your ballroom,” I said.
She got up now and walked to the door.
“I left some photographs of Natasha on your desk,” she said.
“Thanks.”
“Her father is in some of them.”
“And you?”
“I’m behind the camera watching,” she said. “I’m a watcher.”
“I’ll remember that.”
And she was gone. I went to my desk. The four photographs, all black and white, were lined up so I could sit at my desk and look at them. The kid was cute, bright, smiling. Jeremy holding her. He wasn’t so cute. I piled the photographs and put them in my top drawer. Alice had a point.
Melvin Rand’s address was off of San Vicente, a street of three-story apartment buildings with courtyards and signs in front saying that you were looking at the Reseda Palms Apartments, or the Mexicali Arms, or, in Rand’s case, Caliente Fountain Court.
The fountain was small, in the center of the courtyard, and needed a good cleaning. Green algae turning black lined the stone sides of the round pool into which the fountain trickled. There were pennies on the bottom of the pool, not many. Most of them were green, too. I threw one in and made a wish as I headed for the entrance to the right at the rear.
The names of the tenants were on little cards slid into slots. The cards were different colors, some typed, some scrawled. Rand’s was typed.
I didn’t ring the bell. There wasn’t any, just an apartment number and a stairway I didn’t have to walk up, because Rand’s number was six which was at ground level.
The blinds were down on Apartment Six. I knocked. It was definitely past my lunchtime. Mrs. Plaut’s Spam casserole and the two donuts I had with Phil at the drugstore were holding me together, but I decided that if Rand didn’t answer, I’d find someplace to get a fried egg sandwich and come back. I knocked again. Nothing. I looked around. No one was in sight, and all I could hear was the trickling of the fountain behind me.
I tried the door. It wasn’t locked. I considered not
going in. People locked their doors in Los Angeles. There was a war going on. Wars made people a little crazy. Some of them, particularly gangs of young guys facing the draft and willing to take some chances, would consider an unlocked door an invitation and a locked one a challenge.
I went in, found the light switch on the wall to my right, hit it, and closed the door behind him.
Melvin Rand did not make me look for him. He lay on the floor in the middle of the small living room into which I had stepped. He was definitely the same guy Wilde had sent running at Columbia. He was wearing nothing except for a pair of shorts and a bright yellow short-sleeved shirt opened to reveal a not very neat hole in his chest right about where one might expect to find his heart. In his right hand was a gun. In his left hand, a sheet of paper. His arms were sprawled at his sides.
I pulled out my handkerchief, wiped the light switch where I had touched it, and moved to the body. There wasn’t much blood, but what there was was enough.
I touched the body. The room was warm. So was the former Melvin Rand. He hadn’t been dead long. I angled my head to see if I could read what was on the sheet of paper in his hand without touching it. I could. It was written in block letters in ink and unsigned.
I KILLED CUNNINGHAM. I KILLED OTT. I AM SORRY.
BLACKSTONE IS INNOCENT.
That was it. It was probably the most unconvincing murder made to look like a suicide I’d ever seen. Now, for most people, a statement like that wouldn’t mean much, but I had, in my nearly half century of existence, witnessed four fake suicides.
Using my handkerchief, which I carried less for my allergies and more for occasions like this, I searched the apartment as quickly as I could. There wasn’t much to it, just two rooms and a kitchenette. The bedroom was small. The room where Rand lay looking at the ceiling wasn’t much larger.
I found one Waterman pen. I unscrewed the top and touched the point. It was dry. It hadn’t been used to write the note in Rand’s hand. I looked for paper and found some sheets on a table near the bed. They didn’t come close to matching the one in Rand’s hand.
I looked at the note again. If someone was trying to clear Black-stone of two murders, he, she, or they had made him look more guilty. Plus, now they had added a third murder to the list.
Now You See It: A Toby Peters Mystery Page 16