A Fatal Glass of Beer

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

  “Little toe?” she said.

  “Right foot,” I said, taking my first step up. “Like to see it?”

  “My great-uncle Ryman,” she said. “He lost a limb in the Indian wars. Can’t recall whether it was an arm or leg or which one. He screamed, demanded it back, said he wanted it preserved so he could be buried whole when he died.”

  “Did they?” I asked, pausing to catch my breath.

  “Did they what?” she asked.

  “Preserve his limb,” I said.

  “As best they could though they charged him for the procedure,” she said. “As I recall, they farmed it out to a taxidermist in Carson City. Uncle Ryman retained the limb, kept it in the basement, though he would drag it out at the slightest show of interest by a visitor. Eventually, he was indeed buried with it. I have never seen a digit not connected to a body other than that of Uncle Ryman when I was a little girl.”

  I leaned against the railing, opened the box, removed the vial, and held it up. Mrs. Plaut came closer and looked carefully at the floating toe.

  “Looks considerably smaller disconnected,” she said. “Far less impressive than a limb.”

  “I’ll try to lose an arm next time,” I said. “Maybe that taxidermist or his descendants are still in the business.”

  “You are given to far too much sarcasm,” she said as I put my toe back in the white box.

  “I know,” I said. “I’m cursed. Now I think I’ll go to my room and collapse into a useless pile.”

  “I’ll bring you lunch later,” she said. “Rabbit pie.”

  “I’ll count the minutes,” I said, deciding to hop up the stairs on my left foot while holding the railing.

  Holding on to the box was the real problem, but I managed. Behind me, Mrs. Plaut said, “Calls are posted. I’m going shopping with Mr. Caton, and then he is returning here for lunch and conversation. We may even go to a movie. Crystal Ball with Goddard and Ray Milland.”

  I had introduced Lou Caton, the pianist at the Mozambique Bar, to Mrs. Plaut. He was even older than she was and more sarcastic than I was. They hit it off immediately.

  “I’ll be driving the Mister’s automobile,” she said as I hit the upstairs landing.

  “That’s nice,” I said.

  The Mister’s car dated back to the early 1920s, maybe even earlier. Mrs. Plaut had kept it alive with her own hands and a determination far beyond my own. The door closed and Mrs. Plaut was gone. There were three messages on the board next to the wall. They were all from Anita. I called her at the diner and told her what had happened.

  “Want me to close up and come over?” she asked.

  “No,” I said. “I think I’ll sleep. Still up for a wedding reception?”

  “Wouldn’t miss it. Preston Stewart close up. I’ll look great. Anne will be properly jealous.”

  “Not Anne,” I said. “But it’s worth a try.”

  “I’ll come over when I close up,” she said. “I’ll sleep on the couch.”

  “Closer would be fine,” I said. “I told Mrs. Plaut you were my cousin or sister. Tell her you’ve come to nurse me. She’ll know it’s a lie, but she likes you.”

  “Around ten,” she said.

  “I’ll be here,” I said and went to my room.

  There was a note pinned to my door, written in clear perfect script. Gunther’s. It read: “I will be in San Francisco for a few days. I hope you are well. I had a call from Gwen, inviting me. Please wish me good fortune.” It was signed, “Your friend, Gunther Wherthman.”

  Gwen was about to get her graduate degree and move to Vermont. We had met her on a case in San Francisco. She had no lips, and eyes twice the size of normal. She also had no breasts and no sense of humor, but Gunther was smitten and I was glad she had invited him.

  I staggered into the room, pushed the door closed, made it to the couch, where Dash was sleeping, and dropped the white box about a foot away from him. He opened his eyes, looked at me, and went back to sleep. I undressed to my undershorts, hopped to the dresser, got two of Doc Hodgdon’s pills, hobbled to the refrigerator and got out an almost-empty bottle of milk. I drank from the bottle to wash down the pills and used what was left of the milk to make myself a bowl of Wheaties. When I was finished, I did a one-foot stand and got down on the mattress by falling forward and rolling over in pain.

  I took my shoes off but not my socks. There was no blood on the white sock on my right foot and it hadn’t been too excruciating to get off my padded right slipper.

  With whatever they had given me at the hospital, the strain of getting home, and what may have been the quick work of Doc Hodgdon’s pain pills, I was asleep in seconds.

  All I can remember of my dreams of that morning was Koko and Betty Boop arm-in-arm, sitting on Dash’s back.

  “Good job,” said Betty.

  “Don’t lose any more toes,” said Koko with a laugh. “Or your dancing days will be over.”

  I slept until Mrs. Plaut came with a tray of rabbit pie and a glass of milk with a cookie on the side. I finished it all while she watched me eat and then she took the tray.

  “Good,” I said.

  “Mr. Caton says hello,” she said. “The stairs are a bit more than he wants to tackle. You know he is not a young man.”

  “I know,” I said. I think I was back asleep before she was out the door. The next thing I knew I felt something soft against me. It had no fur so it couldn’t be Dash. I opened my eyes. It was dark outside and I hadn’t left any lights on in the room.

  “Awake?” Anita said.

  “I think so,” I said.

  “Hungry? I brought you a sandwich. In the refrigerator.”

  “Later,” I said, turning carefully toward her, feeling her breasts against my chest.

  She laughed. “What are you thinking?” she said.

  “You know.”

  “But your toe?”

  “I don’t think I’ll need it for this,” I said.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Putting one’s feet up on the dinner table is not to be countenanced, unless spats are worn.

  In the morning, Anita was up early. She was dressed for work and I was barely awake. She kissed me and said she’d close the diner early and come back. I grunted and tried to get back to sleep. A turn to the left showed me that Anita had put out a can of tuna and a bowl of water for Dash, who was sitting near the window, cleaning himself.

  The pain pills and the hospital medication were still at work, but they were fading fast. My foot was throbbing, but the pain wasn’t quite as bad as the day before. I managed to get up and, helped by the couch’s arm, was standing when Mrs. Plaut burst in.

  “Breakfast,” she said. “Last meal I serve in your room. You look healthy enough.”

  I was, I realized, completely naked, my shorts somewhere under the blanket. I looked for the clothes I had left on the couch. Gone. Anita had put them away. The white box still lay on the couch. I put it in front of me to cover as much as I could.

  “I’ve seen naked men before,” she said, placing the tray on my table near the window.

  “Bound to happen when you walk into their rooms without knocking,” I said. “How was your date with Lou Caton?”

  She was back at the door now. “He’ll have the Nazis on the run inside a year,” she said.

  “Lou?” I asked, and then I realized she wasn’t wearing her hearing aid.

  “Me?” she said. “Mr. Peelers, I’d say the loss of blood and toe have given rise to delirium. I’ve made you tea with calming berubi leaves my Mister brought over from the Orient in ’02.”

  “I can’t wait,” I said, still holding the box in front of me.

  “Well, your date will just have to wait,” she said. “You’re in no condition.”

  And she was gone. I rumbled around my mattress, hopping on my left leg, till I found clean shorts. Then I ate. All I was sure of was that the bowl contained a warm, sweet, pulverized grain that didn’t taste half bad with a touch of sugar on i
t. The berubi tea could not be saved by the entire sugar industry of Cuba working full time for a week. I gulped it down, expecting nausea, but it didn’t come. My head became light and my mood was suddenly good. Before I stood I was wondering what berubi was.

  It took me fifteen minutes to finish dressing. Getting the socks on would have been the big problem, but with the help of berubi tea, I had not taken them off. I tried not to think of what it would feel like when I did. I took the vial containing my toe out of the white box, put it in my pocket, and put the box with my .38 on the shelf, after taking out the bullets that were left. I tried to pull the mattress back on the bed, couldn’t do it, and gave up, panting.

  I waved to Dash and made my way out the door, walking on my left foot and my right heel. I may have looked like an idiot, but I could walk, and at the bottom of the steps I tried to take a real step with my right foot. I could do it, but the pain was still there. So was Mrs. Plaut, a huge metal toolbox in her hand.

  “Something’s wrong with the pistons on the Mister’s car,” she explained. “I’m gong to work on it. Louis didn’t notice.”

  I assumed Louis was Lou Caton. I almost made the mistake of answering, but nodded my head and smiled instead.

  “I admire a man who has the spunk to get up and out the day after losing a foot,” she said, looking at me.

  “It was a toe,” I said before I could stop myself.

  “Well, I don’t see how you could move fast under the circumstances. ‘Jehosaphat,’ as the Mister would say. ‘Jehosaphat.’”

  I nodded and limped for the door. I pointed upstairs and said, “I couldn’t move the mattress back. Sorry. And thanks for breakfast.”

  “I’m up in years,” she answered, shifting the heavy toolbox, “but I see what I see. That woman is not kin.”

  “Woman?”

  “One who came last night,” she said. “Had to let her in.”

  I didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing.

  “I like her,” she said decisively and walked past me toward the back of the house, toolbox jangling.

  Driving the Crosley wasn’t the hard part. Getting in was the problem. There was no way I could do it without my foot touching something. Once I was in, I could press on the gas with the heel of my right foot and I was off.

  I parked in the no-parking zone in front of the Faraday and scribbled a note on a piece of paper I tore out of my pocket notebook: “Driver is recovering from a foot wound. Office 613 if you wish to check.” I signed it, hoping that the police, if they showed any interest at all, would think I had a war wound and show leniency. I didn’t think I could park in the back and make it all the way around the building.

  I had almost as much trouble getting out of the Crosley as I had getting in, but I made it and went through the doors of the Faraday. The lobby, as always, had the strong smell of Lysol. I liked it. I was feeling reasonably good.

  I made it to the elevator just as Juanita, colorful Carmen Miranda costume flowing, long dangling earrings, dyed hair in natural ringlets, and face overly made-up, stepped off.

  “Don’t say anything,” I said. “Don’t tell me what I’m thinking or what’s going to happen. You were right about everything.”

  She shrugged. “You’re limping,” she said.

  “Yes,” I answered, moving past her into the elevator.

  “You lost your little toe,” she said, “but you still have it. I don’t get it. How can you lose it and have it?”

  I pulled the vial out of my pocket and showed it to her, closing the steel door of the elevator. She smiled triumphantly.

  “Knew I was right,” she said, heading for the front door. “By the way, he’s crying.”

  “Who?” I asked as the elevator started up. Her voice echoed through the eight-story lobby.

  “Shelly,” she said. “Not psychic stuff. Heard him when I came down.”

  When I got to my new office, the door was open and the place smelled like fresh paint. Violet was polishing a desk in a reception room the size of a reception room, with a file cabinet in the corner and a typewriter on a small table. She had put up a poster over her head on the white wall. It was the fight card for the Olympic on a night three years ago. Topping the bill was Angelo Gonsenelli against Red Roy Remington. Violet was brightly dressed and in a good mood when she turned to face me. Violet was indeed a lovely young woman.

  “Looks pretty good, huh?” she asked.

  “Looks pretty good,” I said.

  “Your foot hurt,” she said. “Mr. Butler told me.”

  “Hurts,” I said. “Getting better every minute.”

  “Mr. Butler must have been up at four in the morning,” she went on. “The whole place was painted when I came in.”

  She pointed to the poster.

  “Okay? I mean, can I leave it up? There’s no window.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “Angelo won with a K.O. in the third,” she said, looking at the poster. “Remington wasn’t half bad but he had a slow left jab. Angelo slipped it every time. I think the judges thought Remington was connecting, but Angelo showed them.”

  She looked at the poster proudly. My office was separated from the reception room by a wooden wall with a pebble-glass window you couldn’t see anything but shadows through, but some light was making it from my office window into the reception room. My office door was solid wood. I opened it and stepped in. About three times the size of my old office. Desk with a telephone, at the window. Neat small pile of letters in my in box. Wooden swivel chair, and two chairs for clients. Jeremy had moved all my things. On one wall was the big Dali painting of the woman and two babies. On the opposite wall was my license and the fading thirty-year-old photograph of me, Phil, our father, and Phil’s dog.

  I went behind the desk and carefully sat in the swivel chair. I was going to like this. There was a knock on the door and I said, “Come in.”

  Violet said, “Phone with a new number will take a few days. They’re working, though. Old tenant didn’t turn off the service. But it’s still his number, and I’ve already gotten a few oddball calls. We’ll have our own number in a week maybe. Meanwhile, Dr. Minck doesn’t mind taking messages, and I’ll talk to the mailman.”

  I took the vial out of my pocket and placed it in front of me.

  “That your toe?” she asked.

  “Yep.”

  “Can I see?” she said, moving forward.

  “Sure,” I said.

  She moved across the room and picked it up. “Kind of cute in a weird way,” she said.

  Like you, I thought, but I didn’t say anything. I liked Violet and I didn’t want her filling up a corner of her mind with insults from me to turn over to her husband when the war was over.

  She put the vial down. “Man just came to put your name on the door,” she said.

  “Just tell him to make it ‘Toby Peters, Private Investigator’ in black. Letters don’t have to be very big. We don’t get my trade from people passing by on the sixth floor of the Faraday.”

  Violet nodded.

  “And send this,” I said, handing her the vial, “to W. C. Fields with a note saying, ‘The trophy is yours.’

  Violet nodded again and took the vial. I gave her Fields’s address.

  “I get paid by the week?” she asked.

  “When times are good,” I said. “Might be some lean months, but you’ll always get paid. Two dollar a week raise. You can read on the job, do your nails, write poetry and letters to your husband, and handle whatever business comes our way.”

  Violet smiled and left. I called Anita and told her I was in my office. She said she couldn’t talk, early lunch customers, a crew working on the sewer down the street.

  I checked the window. Same view as from the cubbyhole in Shelly’s office: the alley, some wrecks. No people.

  I was tired before I even did anything, but I went through the mail and messages. Messages from No-Neck Arnie, a man named Walter Simmons with a scrawled “insurance
salesman” under his phone number. There were two that might have been clients. The letters, six of them, contained no checks or cash. A few former clients still owed me money. I didn’t really expect to ever see it. Three of the letters were bills. One was an invitation to visit an exciting new subdivision in the valley, deep in the valley. The letter said the value of the houses would triple when the war was over. Servicemen would be coming back, moving their wives out of small apartments, or getting married, wanting to have a real home. It was, the letter assured me, a great investment. The war will be over soon. Don’t wait till it’s too late. I junked the letter, put the bills in a pile, and put the other two letters in another pile, the possible clients. One wanted to know if I could come to San Diego and find out if her husband was cheating on her with a Wac. She had heard of me through a mutual friend she didn’t name. It was a possible, a two-day job at the most. The wife’s number was in the letter. The other letter was more interesting. It had been hand delivered. No postmark. It simply had a telephone number. Below the number was a signature—Gary Grant.

  I was already tired, in no condition to talk to an important potential client on the phone, if the letter wasn’t a joke. I’d call in the morning. I limped into Violet’s reception room, which now contained four wooden chairs and a very small table against the wall opposite her desk.

  “For clients,” she said. “We thought we’d surprise you.”

  Four people waiting to see me at one time merited inclusion in Believe It or Not.

  I told her it looked great and that I’d be back the next day. I moved past the man in white, paint-stained overalls who was putting my name on the door and headed past Shelly’s office. I couldn’t stop myself. My name had already been removed from the door. I walked in. The waiting room was empty. I walked into Shelly’s chamber of horrors and there he sat in his dental chair. His glasses were on the end of his nose. The cigar in his fingers was down to a stub, and his white lab coat had a few fresh coffee stains. He wiped his eyes and looked up at me.