“Something like that,” I said. “He owes a dentist for some work.”
“You have a son?” she asked, standing in the doorway.
“No,” I said sitting. “Why?”
“Don’t know,” she said with a shrug. “You’re kinda cute for an older guy. I wondered if there was one at home like you, only younger.”
“Home is a single room in a boardinghouse on Heliotrope,” I said, closing my eyes. “There’s a cat there named Dash, a Swiss translator three feet tall, and a deaf landlady.”
“You want to meet my mother? She’s a widow.”
“I know,” I said. “I’ll let you know.”
“She’s a fine-looking lady,” Connie said. “Younger than you, I think. She has spunk like me.”
“I don’t know how much spunk I can take, Connie,” I said.
“Am I too much?” she said with a grin full of white teeth.
“Not in small doses.”
“He usually gets home about three or four,” she said. “Then he goes out again, maybe at six-thirty, in the soup and fish till late, long after I’ve gone home. My mother’s a great cook. Greek.”
“Thanks, Connie,” I said.
“Think about my mother,” she said on her way out.
“How do you know I’m not a bluebeard who’ll love your mother, take her money, and chop her head off?”
“You’re a pussycat,” she said, closing the door.
I sat for about two minutes in depression, an old guy with no sense of humor, no son, no wife, and too weary to meet a woman with spunk. Depression. Then I started to think about Tools Nathanson. How had he found Victor Spelling before I did? Tools didn’t strike me as graduate-school material. Yet he had tracked down his boss’s or partner’s killer without the help of Mame Stoltz at M-G-M or Sheldon Minck’s patient file.
I took my .38 from my shoulder holster, opened it, and checked to be sure the bullets weren’t rusty. I almost never use it and I never remove the bullets. I could lie and say I kept them in at all times because I never knew when I might need some protection. The truth was I was too lazy to remove the bullets when I wasn’t using the gun.
I searched Victor Spelling’s room. It didn’t take long. He kept little there—clothes in the closet, toothbrush and green Teel, a razor, some magazines. No notes, no diary, no letters.
There was a crumpled L.A. Times on the night table next to the bed. I picked it up as I sat again. If Spelling kept the schedule Connie reported, I had a few hours.
In the next twenty minutes, I learned from Hedda Hopper that Cole Porter’s Let’s Face It! might be coming to Los Angeles with Jose Ferrer and Vivian Vance, that there was a one-dollar dinner special with charcoal broil at the Pixie on LaBrea, that Mohandas K. Gandhi was in the eighteenth day of a planned twenty-one-day fast to obtain his unconditional release from internment at Poona, that Nazi puppet authorities in the protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia were threatening the Czechs with ever-harsher punishments if they didn’t cooperate more fully with the anti-Allied war effort, that Congressman Will Rogers, Jr., would match wits tonight on “Information Please” with Clifton Fadiman, Oscar Levant, John Kiernan, and Franklin P. Adams.
Footsteps were coming down the corridor outside of room 342. I dropped the newspaper when the steps stopped in front of the door across from me. I took out my .38 and held it in my lap. Someone fiddled with the door and it popped open.
“I was just thinking about you,” I said, holding up the .38 where Tools Nathanson could see it.
He stood surprised in the open doorway, his jacket open, a thin screwdriver in his hand. He looked at me for an instant and thought. I figured he was wondering about simply closing the door and getting the hell out of there, but there was something else on his mind. He stepped in, closed the door, and put his little screwdriver back in his tool belt.
“You set Karl up,” Tools said, taking a step toward me. He was wearing a pair of brown trousers, a black sweater, and a sport jacket that almost matched the sweater but was no match for the trousers.
“Have a seat. We’ll talk about it while we wait for Spelling.”
Tools clanked two steps toward me and pointed his pudgy finger toward my face.
“You set Karl up. Came in with that bull-shit story while your pal Spelling waited for Karl to step out.”
“That’s stupid, Tools,” I said with an intolerant sigh.
“Stupid? I follow you and find you in his room a couple of hours after Karl was blown to pieces, sitting there, waiting for him.”
He took another step toward me. I leveled the pistol at his face. He waved it off.
“You’re not shooting me,” he said. “Not if you’re tellin’ the truth about this Spelling. And if you ain’t, you’ll shoot anyway.”
He was right. I put the pistol back in my holster and folded my arms.
Tools sat next to me.
“I want him to come through the door. I want to nail the son of a bitch to the wall, file his fingers to the bone, screw his kneecaps together, and staple his eyes shut,” Tools said, taking a large pliers from his tool belt. “Start, now. Tell me what’s going on.”
I started. I went over everything, told him about my contact at M-G-M, how I got where I was standing. Then I sat back and watched his face as he tried to understand what he had just been told.
“Because of Karl’s initials?” he finally said. “You think Spelling killed him because his initials fit? His life didn’t mean anything but the name his old man gave him?”
“Maybe,” I said. “Or maybe Karl just happened to be in the wrong movie at the wrong time.”
Tools shifted on the sofa, looked at me as if he might see something that would make more sense than he was hearing.
“What’re you, nuts?” he said, leaning over to poke me with a stubby finger. “I’ll tell you how I found Spelling.”
The door came open. I hadn’t heard footsteps, a key in the lock. Spelling was standing there, black trousers, a white shirt with short sleeves, a look on his face like a startled animal.
I went for my gun. Tools got to his feet. Spelling fumbled in his pocket. Before Spelling could get his hand out of his pocket, Tools was lumbering toward him. Spelling took a step back into the hall. I was out of my chair by now, but it didn’t do me much good. Spelling kicked the attacking Tools right in the face with his dark oxfords. Tools staggered back into my arms. Tools had something in his hand, a screwdriver. I tried to hold him. I couldn’t. Spelling’s eyes met mine and he grinned as Tools charged again. Now Spelling had a gun in his hand. The hell with it. I aimed my .38 in Spelling’s general direction. Spelling fired once. The bullet cracked the ceiling. I took a shot at Spelling’s head as Tools tackled him. I missed. Spelling fired again as Tools, sitting on his chest, brought the screwdriver up. The shot hit Tools’s chest and came out on the other side, moving toward me. I was diving behind the sofa.
Two more shots ripped through the sofa near my face. I went down flat. Two more bullets, lower. Both were close. He could have climbed over the sofa, firing. He might have landed on my head.
“The grove,” Spelling cried out.
The hell with it again. I stood up, gun leveled as Spelling ran through the open apartment door. I shot, but he was out of sight. I hurried past Tools’s body and stepped into the corridor. Spelling was almost at the stairwell. He turned toward me, weapon aimed at my face.
“Too much left to do,” he said. “I liked you when we started, but you’re beginning to irritate me, Peters.”
I took another shot at Spelling. It crashed into plaster right next to the elevator and he darted down the stairs. I went after him. He was almost to lobby level. I moved as fast as I could and missed him when I got there.
I looked at Mixon behind the hotel desk.
“Which way?” I asked.
“Who? Spelling? No way. He just went up to his room three, four minutes ago.”
The sleeping old man who wrote movies for the likes o
f Bronco Billy shouted, “Goddamn it all. A man pays his rent. A man deserves to rest.” He looked at me, saw the gun in my hand, and said, “That does it.”
I turned around and next to the elevator found the stairs to the basement.
“Call the cops,” I yelled over my shoulder. “And an ambulance. Guy’s hurt in Spelling’s room.”
“Oh, shit,” Mixon moaned behind me.
The stairway down to the basement was dark, narrow, and bore no connection to gracious living. Something banged ahead of me. I plunged down by the light of the low-watt bulbs and found myself in the basement, the dark basement.
“Spelling?” I said.
No answer.
“Spelling,” I repeated, stepping forward, gun held high. “Come on out. We’ll talk.”
“Nothing to say,” Spelling’s voice came from who knows where.
I stepped forward on my toes, moving toward where I thought the voice might have come from.
“Clark Gable,” I reminded him.
No answer. The sound of a breaking window. I hurried forward or at least deeper into the darkness.
“Got a father, Peters?” his voice and the shot of a gun rang out.
I stopped, got on my knees, and groped for the wall.
“I had a father,” I said,
“Everybody had a father,” Spelling’s voice echoed. “What about now?”
“Father’s dead,” I said, inching my way toward his voice along the wall.
“Gable killed my father,” he whispered. “And I intend to make him pay. Make you all pay.”
“How did he kill your father?” I asked.
“Look at the pictures,” he said, even more quietly than before.
“If you …” I began but I stopped when I heard the sound of broken glass crushed underfoot. By the time I found the window, Spelling was gone.
I put my .38 away and made my way back up to the third floor, not letting my eyes meet Mixon’s when I went through the lobby.
“Police are on the way,” he called as I ran up the stairs.
Connie the bellhop was leaning over the fallen Tools Nathanson. She looked up at me, a hopeful smile on her face.
“I think he’s alive,” she said.
“Good,” I said, breathing hard.
“Did you shoot him?” she asked.
“No,” I said.
“He’s a carpenter or something,” Connie said.
“Something,” I said, looking down at Tools, whose eyelids were fluttering.
“You’ll be fine,” Connie said cheerfully to Tools, who coughed, sputtered, opened his eyes, and looked around. He saw me and held out his hand. I took it. He tried to speak. Tools wheezed so softly that I had to get down on one knee to be sure he had said what I thought he said. He grabbed my shirt and pulled me down with more strength than a dying man should have. My head almost hit Connie’s.
“I want you should get that bastard,” Tools gasped. “Karl was the goods. Do it for Karl or I’ll pull your kidneys out with a hacksaw and a number-five mechanic’s pliers.”
“Number five,” I repeated.
“Mechanic’s pliers,” Tools whispered, letting go of my shirt as his eyes began to close again.
“I think …” Connie began and Tools came to life again, saying: “Nail him, Peters.”
“I’ll nail him, Tools,” I said. “I’m a sucker for sentimental appeals.”
“I’ve got a brother,” Tools went on. “His name is … is … can’t remember. Oh, Ronald. Accountant in Cleveland. Ronald Nathanson.”
Two pair of feet crashing down the corridor. I looked up. Uniformed cops in the doorway. Both my age or older. Both with guns in their hands.
“Show your hands,” the first cop said.
I showed my hands.
“You too,” said Cop Two.
Connie showed her hands.
“Is he dead?” said the first cop, leaning toward Tools, ready to shoot him again if he suddenly leapt into the air in spite of the hole in his chest.
“Not yet,” I said, standing up and helping Connie to her feet.
The first cop was thin with yellow drinker’s eyes. The second cop looked like a milk carton with a sad face mounted on top.
“Will one of you call the Wilshire District and tell Captain Pevsner I’ve got some answers?”
“You a police officer?” Cop One asked.
“Something like that,” Connie answered, looking down at Tools with deep concern. “Collection agency.”
“You shoot this guy?” Cop Two asked, looking down at Tools’s very pale face.
“No,” I said as he patted me down, found my gun, removed it, smelled the barrel.
“Gun’s just been fired,” Cop Two said.
“At the guy who did this,” I explained. “His name’s Spelling. He killed three people in the last week. If the ambulance doesn’t get here soon, it’s going to be four people.”
“I think he’ll be fine,” Connie said hopefully.
The cops didn’t answer.
“You both married?” she asked.
The cops looked at each other and then at me.
“Her mother’s a widow,” I explained.
Tools gave out a sound like air escaping from a balloon. We all looked at him.
“Got a picture of your mother?” Cop Two asked.
“No, but there’s one in my purse,” Connie said brightly. “Down in the hotel locker room. I can run down and get it.”
“You do that, miss,” Cop Two said.
Connie looked at me, at Tools, and at the two cops before she went through the door.
“Spunky,” Cop Two said.
“Just the word I’d use,” I said.
“Let’s sit down and wait,” said Cop One.
And we did.
Chapter 9
The Melody Lounge on Main was almost empty when Phil and I got there. It was early afternoon. The drunks had mostly slid away for a few hours to try to give the impression that they had something to do besides drink in a dark bar where the ceiling fan whined like an engine trying to rev up. The soldiers, sailors, and marines hadn’t started their evening yet and the businessmen and women from the neighborhood were still sitting in their offices, watching the clock and listening to Duke Ellington’s version of “C Jam Blues.”
I had been escorted to Phil’s office by two silent cops, and Phil had listened quietly to my story.
“So,” I had concluded, talking fast. “The way I see it, Spelling is out for revenge for something that happened to his father.”
“And,” Phil had said, touching his forehead to be sure it was still sweating, “you think his father may have been shish-kebabed with a sword while Atlanta burned?”
“Something like that,” I said.
Phil had nodded.
“Security records were destroyed at Selznick,” I said, “but the security guy on duty that night was Wally Hospodar.”
“Jolly Jowly Hospodar?” asked Phil. “Used to work prostitution on the beaches?”
“Same,” I had said. “I’m planning to hit the bar where he hangs out and see what he remembers. You checked with Culver City Police about the guy who caught the sword in his stomach in ’38?”
“John Doe,” said Phil. “Suspicious accident. No witnesses. Short report. Busy season. Case closed.”
“Let’s go see Wally Hospodar and open it again,” I said.
Phil had folded his hands and put his thick white knuckles to his lips. I sat quietly waiting, fighting the almost irresistible urge to prod him with the right word.
“Let’s go,” he finally said, standing up.
And we went.
Now we were in the Melody Lounge in search of what had once been Wally Hospodar. We found him on the last bar stool in the corner, biting his lower lip and looking off into mirrors inside of mirrors, trying to remember something or someone. Phil and I sat on either side of him. He looked at us in the mirror and we looked at him. He was ruddy-faced and long pa
st jowly.
“That clarinet,” Wally said. “Barney Bigard. Ellington’s a goddamn genius. G-C, sol-do, variations. That trombone, right there? Tricky Sam Nanton. You missed Ray Nance’s opening violin solo.”
“You know a lot about music,” I said.
“I know a lot about sitting here,” Wally said, looking up at us in the mirror behind the bar.
“The brothers Pevsner,” he went on, finishing a whiskey and reaching for a bottle of beer. “You each take a round if I perform magic and tell you why you’re here?”
“I’ll take two rounds, Wally,” I said, waving to the bartender, who was rinsing out some mugs for me and Phil. We looked like the beer type.
“Fine,” said Wally. “You want to know about the guy who died that night in ’38 at Selznick.”
“You got it,” Phil said impatiently.
Wally smiled at his empty and sucked his teeth.
“Knew it. Angelina said some guy called, fishing around about me, the night the guy got killed.”
“He say anything else to Angelina?” Phil asked, waving away the barkeep and refusing a drink after Wally had his refill.
“Not so’s she’d tell me. I met Angelina in Fort Worth.”
“That a fact?” Phil said.
“I’ll have a beer, draft, whatever you’ve got,” I said to the waiting bartender, who clopped away.
Wally was looking into an eternity of mirrors, moving away from the Melody Lounge, from here and now. He was well on his way to being lost in dreams of Fort Worth.
The song on the jukebox ended.
“Angelina says she loves you and doesn’t want you to come home.”
“I’ll drink to that,” he said, draining his glass and pointing to his empty as the bartender, a lanky cowboy in boots, clopped back in our direction. “And plenty more where that came from.”
“Maybe not,” the barkeep said, glumly picking up Wally’s glass. “You know the War Production Board just made eighty alcohol plants switch from the drinking stuff to industrial?”
“I knew that,” I said, turning to Wally, but the bartender, who needed some Sen-Sen, a shave, and a better sense of timing, went on.
“And the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union met a month or so back in Birmingham, more than a thousand of them. And you know what they want?”
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