“Really?” asked Astaire. “He really think we killed Forbes?”
“Strangled Luna, shot Talbott, and stabbed Forbes,” I answered. “Multitalented.”
“Versatile,” said Astaire. “Ever try to plant avocados?”
“Can’t say I have. But I’ve got an aspidistra flying in a window box.”
The door burst open. Cawelti stood there.
“I’ve been decent to you,” he said.
“John, we’ve just been saying nice things about you,” I said.
“Make your call to Leib,” Cawelti said. “I’m holding you both on suspicion of murder.”
And he was gone again.
“I’ve got a very good lawyer,” Astaire said as I reached for the phone.
“We don’t want a good lawyer,” I said. “We want Marty Leib.”
Marty wasn’t in his office. His secretary, Charlene, gave me a number where he could be reached when I told her it was an emergency. I looked at the door, expecting Cawelti to return. He didn’t. I found Martin Raymond Leib at the offices of the Clarkborough Advertising Agency.
“How important?” Marty asked.
I told him. And I told him fast. Marty has been known to charge by the minute.
“Not bad,” he said. “Cash up front.”
“Cash up front,” I repeated.
Astaire nodded.
“You say nothing more to the police without me present,” Marty said. “Nothing. Not a word. Don’t even cough and above all don’t fart.”
“Not a fart. Not a word. Not a sneeze.”
“You’ve got the idea,” Marty said and hung up.
One hour and twenty minutes later Astaire and I were in Martin Leib’s Cadillac, heading back to the Monticello for Astaire’s car and my Crosley.
Marty had taken a check from Astaire and pocketed it. He was breathing fast and heavy. “Desk clerk at the Monticello confirms that Forbes called you, Toby,” Marty said, adjusting his tie in a useless attempt to get comfortable. “Even by chance heard a few words of the conversation.”
“Lucky for us,” I said.
“Well,” said Marty, “I doubt if they’ve got nearly enough to get a bill on any of the murders on either of you. I’ll call the commissioner and get him to keep sitting on this.”
“You know the commissioner?” Astaire asked.
Astaire and I were in the back seat. Marty’s neck was too thick and his body too heavy to face us when he answered, “Well indeed, but Rusty and I don’t roll in the same circles. We occasionally deal, though. I’m known as one of the best if not the best shyster in the business. Call to the commissioner is free if I get a personally autographed photo.”
“Consider it done, Mr. Leib,” said Astaire.
“You’re a fan, Marty?” I asked.
“I was bitten or at least kicked in the can by Terpsicore when I was a child. Wife and I are good enough to compete in the ballroom regionals and we’ve got a couple of ribbons.”
I couldn’t imagine all three hundred and fifty pounds of Marty Leib waltzing around a dance floor.
“Weren’t for you,” Marty said, looking at Astaire in his rearview mirror, “Toby would be back in the Wilshire lockup playing ‘Camptown Races’ on a toilet-paper kazoo. I had to walk out on a cash-paying client facing a major fraud charge.”
“Why don’t I give your client an autographed photo too?” asked Astaire.
“Harley is not a dance fan,” said Marty, pulling into the parking lot at the Monticello. “I’m sure he would be close to ecstasy and agreeing to any terms I might have for conducting his defense were he to be given an autographed photo of Rita Hayworth.”
“Man has good taste,” said Astaire. “I’m sure I can manage that.”
Astaire and I got out of the car and Marty rolled down the window to say, “Mr. Peters has my office address. It’s Leib. L-e-i-b not L-i-e-b. And ‘Marty’ not ‘Martin.’ ”
“Got it,” said Astaire.
Marty drove off with a wave.
“I’ve got to get to a rehearsal,” Astaire said, looking at his watch. “Then I’ve got to explain all this to my wife. What are you going to do?”
“Locate my car, grab a sinker and coffee at a diner, and find a killer,” I said. “I’m a veteran,” I told Cotton Wright as he slouched toward us. “So is my friend.”
Cotton saluted, took our stubs, and went in search of our autos.
“Careful, Toby,” Astaire said, touching my arm.
“Do my best,” I answered.
He got in his car and drove away. Cotton brought the Crosley.
“Someone shrunk your car,” he said, easing his way out from behind the steering wheel.
“Rain, maybe,” I said, giving him a half dollar and climbing in.
“Rain doesn’t shrink metal,” he said. “If it did, I’d be one of those pinheads in the circus.”
It made sense to me.
Ten minutes later I was at Mack’s Diner at the crowded counter exchanging smiles with Anita, who brought me a tuna on toast and a coffee.
“Trust me with this,” she whispered, placing the sandwich in front of me.
“I’ll trust you with a lot more,” I said. She patted my hand and went off to a calling customer.
The Negro guy sitting next to me drinking a bowl of vegetable soup piled high with Saltines examined my sandwich without turning his head. Twenty minutes and two coffees later the lunch crowd was thinning out, the Negro had gone, and Anita came over to sit. She wore little makeup and her uniform was a size loose. She caught me looking and said, “Keeps the big hands away.”
“I remember,” I said.
“Came to say the fantasy’s over?” she asked.
“Came to say we should try making it real.”
“Sounds good to me,” Anita said, pushing a stray curl back behind her ear. She cast a glance around the diner to check that no one was looking at us and gave me a quick kiss on the lips. She tasted like coffee. “You’ve got my number?” she asked.
“On a napkin near my heart,” I answered.
“You know, this might be fun.”
“Already is,” I said.
I dropped a dollar on the counter and stopped at the pay phone just outside. I had a stack of nickels and used most of them to reach the number I wanted. When she answered and said hello, I hung up.
I had a long day of driving ahead of me.
Chapter Twelve: I’m Gonna Dance Out Both My Shoes
The Mozambique looked like it was designed by an alcoholic art director who had worked one too many B pictures with Jon Hall. The green walls were covered with bad paintings of jungle animals and trees but it was hard to see them. The lights were always down and dim at the Mozambique, to give it atmosphere and to cut down on the cleanup. The bar was long and dark wood. There were half-a-dozen tables and four red-leatherette booths. Beyond the tables was a platform on which Lou Canton sat at a piano, playing “After You’ve Gone” for a weeping woman who was nursing a drink at one of the tables.
“Wow,” screamed Sidney, the ancient cockatoo, when I moved to the bar.
“Wow to you, Sid,” I said, sitting on a stool.
Lester Gannett, owner and bartender, rushed over to me. “Pevsner-”
“Peters,” I corrected.
“I don’t care what your name is now. Just get the hell out, okay? Last time you were in here my tenor was murdered and I had five hundred dollars’ damage from a riot you started. Time before that, when you were still a cop, your partner jumps on the stomach of a customer.”
Lester’s complexion was bad. He needed some sunlight and decent food.
“I think you’re getting scurvy, Lester,” I said.
“I’m not gettin’ scurvy. I’m gettin’ scared. Pev. . Peters. Come on.”
“Gotta talk to Lou,” I said. “I owe him money.”
“Give it to me. I’ll give it to him. I gotta tell you the truth here. You make me nervous.”
“How’s Jeannie?�
� I asked. Jeannie was Lester’s teenage daughter. Last time I had been in the Mozambique, Jeannie had been picking up sailors and getting them to buy drinks from dad.
“Fine,” Lester said with a sigh. “She’s startin’ college up in San Francisco. Okay. One drink. One drink. On me. You take care of your business with Lou and you get out. Pepsi, right?”
“You got it, Lester. How’s Lillian?” Lillian was Lester’s wife. Before the war Lillian had played the customers at the bar. But time had caught up with her and the iced tea in the highball glass had been turned over to Jeannie.
“Lillian,” Lester sighed, pouring me a Pepsi. He nodded at the woman at the table listening to Lou.
“Lillian?” I asked, turning to get a better look at the woman.
Lester nodded again. Time had passed Lillian Gannett and left her standing in its tire tracks.
I picked up my drink and started toward the little bandstand.
“Peters, come on. Do me a favor. The before-dinner trade starts coming in in a few minutes.”
I ignored him and moved to the table where Lillian Gannett was looking deep into her drink. It was dark and had a cube in it but I was sure it wasn’t iced tea.
Lou looked at me and launched into a downbeat version of “We’re in the Money.”
Lillian looked even worse up close. Her hair was going white at the roots and needed brushing. The pores on her cheeks were uncovered by powder and were large, probably from too much barroom darkness and too many packs of Camels. She looked up at me.
“Got the wrong girl, soldier,” she said. Her eyes were the greenest I had ever seen. She still had that.
“Got the right woman, Lil,” I said.
She did her best to focus on my face. “The nose,” she said. “You were a cop.”
“Pevsner. Tobias Pevsner,” I reminded her.
She looked toward her husband at the bar. Lester was setting up a pair for a couple of old guys in overalls who had just come in.
“Lester would rather not see you,” she said.
“I finish my Pepsi, give Lou some money I owe him and I’m out of here.”
Lou was humming along with the piano now. He was playing something I didn’t recognize.
“Don’t correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t I pick you up one night, back in. . maybe ’30? You were gonna get married. Lester was busy. We went to. .”
“It was my partner who was getting married. I didn’t get married till a few years later.”
“But you and I did. .”
“Yeah,” I said. “We did, Lil.”
“You could be Jeannie’s father,” she said, looking at me as well as she could.
“No,” I said. “Jeannie was already nine or ten.”
Lillian pursed her lips, shrugged, and took another drink.
“To fading memories,” she said.
“To fading memories,” I said, finishing my Pepsi and nodding to Lou.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Lou said, standing at the piano and touching his thin, dyed mustache to be sure it was still there, “there’ll be a short break. When I return, I’ll be taking requests. And remember, at eight tonight, the world-renown chanteuse Miss Evelyn will be on this very stage to sing her greatest hits.”
Lou wandered back through the curtains and disappeared. No one applauded. Lillian did not even look up.
“I’ll see you around, Lillian,” I said, touching her shoulder.
“Any afternoon, same place,” she said. “Jeannie’s going to college.”
“I know,” I said.
“Lester’s trying to get my niece Holly to work the bar. Her husband’s on the night shift at Lockheed.”
“Good luck,” I said.
I took the short step up to the stage and followed Lou through the curtains. There was a door beyond. I opened it and made my way to Lou’s dressing room and home. He was sitting in front of the mirror adjusting his hair. He looked up at me.
“It’s a living,” he said, his eyes looking in the general direction of the stage he had just left.
I took out my wallet and handed him two twenties and four singles.
“Generous,” he said.
“Fred Astaire’s paying. That cover taxis and fixing the piano at the Monticello?”
“Covers it and more,” Lou said, pocketing the money.
“Then I’ll ask more,” I said, sitting on the edge of Lou’s bed.
He had to turn to face me. “Ask,” he said.
“When Luna Martin was killed, you were out in the hallway in front of the ballroom. Did you see her?”
“In the hall?”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t think so,” Lou said, biting his lower lip and trying to remember. “Ask me who played second cornet for Sam-Sam Anderson and the Hoochie Koochies in ’08 and I’ll tell you. But yesterday. .”
“Give it a try, Lou.”
“Someone went past me. A woman in white. I was thinking piano. I think there was someone with her. I think they were talking.”
“Arguing?”
“Arguing,” he said. “Maybe. I had other things on my mind.”
“You didn’t look at the guy?”
“Who remembers?”
“Thanks, Lou,” I said, getting up. “If you remember anything. .”
“It’ll be a miracle. But I do remember you said something about wanting me to meet a certain lady of age and means.”
“Mrs. Plaut,” I said.
“That, I remember,” Lou said.
There was a knock at Lou’s door and then it opened before he could say, “Come in.”
A woman, her dark hair pulled back, her lips full and very dark, stuck her head in. “No sink in my dressing room,” she said, ignoring me.
“Take it up with the management, Evelyn.”
“Management says to take it up with you.”
“All right,” Lou said. “I’ll build you a sink. I’ll build you a bath with marble. Just give me a couple of years to work on it.”
“Funny,” Evelyn said, glancing at me and retreating from the room.
“When this case I’m working on is over, I’ll introduce you to the Widow Plaut,” I said.
“A deal,” Lou said, standing and shaking my hand. For an old man, he had a strong piano-player’s grip.
Lillian was no longer at the table or even in the bar when I went back into the Mozambique Lounge. There were a few more customers, all sailors. Lester was talking to the two old guys in overalls. I waved to him and he called, “Don’t come back soon.”
It was nice to be wanted. My next stop was Huntington Beach, where my welcome might be even less enthusiastic than this one.
I stopped for gas and two grilled-cheese sandwiches at a truck stop outside of Long Beach. The notebook in my pocket was full of charges for Fred Astaire, some of which I was having trouble reading. Less than half an hour later I was at the front door of Arthur Forbes’s house, the derricks on the beach beating out like drums behind me down at the shore. There were two cars in the driveway, a black Buick and an even bigger and blacker Lincoln.
I rang. No answer. I knocked. No answer. I kept at it. I knew Carlotta Forbes was home. That is, unless she knew that her husband was dead and she was already in Los Angeles looking at the corpse and chatting with Cawelti.
The door opened. Kudlap Singh stood before and above me.
“Why aren’t you with Forbes?” I asked.
“Mr. Forbes is dead,” he said. “As you probably very well know.”
“I thought you were his bodyguard,” I said, shouting over the derricks.
“The past tense is correct. I was his bodyguard.”
“And?”
“And,” Singh went on. “This morning he told me he had an important meeting with you and Mr. Astaire. He sent me to find Mrs. Forbes. When I found her, we returned. The police were there with Mr. Forbes’s body. They informed us that you and Mr. Astaire had been taken away by their captain. Mrs. Forbes asked me to bring her
home immediately. I did so.”
“Sort of ends a good job,” I said.
“Mrs. Forbes has indicated that she wishes to retain my services.”
“Congratulations,” I said. “Can I talk to the grieving widow?”
“I very much doubt it,” he said.
“Tell her I’m going to go talk to her father if she won’t talk to me.”
“I doubt if Mr. Cortona would welcome a call from you at this time,” said Singh.
I stood with my hands folded in front of me.
“I’ll see if Mrs. Forbes will talk to you,” Singh said, closing the door.
I listened to the derricks and thought I even heard the surf. I waited. Singh opened the door and stepped out of the way. I went in. He led me to the same room I had been in with Jeremy the night before. The first thing I saw was myself in the mirrored wall. Then I saw the grieving widow properly dressed in black with a veil. I also saw three men in dark suits. Two of the men were standing. The oldest man sat in a chair. He had an ebony cane in his hand and his white hair was worn in a wave. I recognized him. He was Guiseppi Cortona. His picture had been in the papers and the Police Gazette. Guiseppi Cortona was the crime boss of Minneapolis. He was supposedly meaner than his former son-in-law, Fingers Intaglia. Guiseppi was reputed to cut off appendages even more valuable and vulnerable than one’s fingers.
“You wanted to see me?” Cortona said.
“I was bluffing,” I said.
The widow pulled back her veil and took out a cigarette. One of the men in suits moved quickly to light it for her.
“Bluffing,” Cortona repeated as if the word were particularly interesting. “Bluffing about what?”
“I had some questions for Mrs. Forbes. I was afraid she wouldn’t answer them.”
“We were on our way back to Los Angeles to arrange for my son-in-law’s funeral and talk to the authorities,” Cortona said. “We were also going to look you up. A friend in the police department says you killed Arthur, you and the dancer.”
“I didn’t kill him,” I said.
“And the two-bit, what was his name?”
“Talbott, Willie Talbott,” Carlotta supplied.
“Willie Talbott. You didn’t kill him either. Or the blonde. .”
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