Mildred Pierced: A Toby Peters Mystery

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Mildred Pierced: A Toby Peters Mystery Page 15

by Stuart M. Kaminsky


  It was the man in the raincoat I had to find. I had to find him before he arranged an accident for Shelly, if he hadn’t done so already. I was pretty sure the name of the man I was looking for was James Fenimore Sax.

  “I’ll drive you home,” I said.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To a nest of Survivors.”

  “I’m going, too,” she said.

  “These people are crazy,” I said.

  “And this person is angry,” she said. “I’ve dealt with crazy people before. I don’t like to be threatened, and I don’t like hiding and, most of all, I don’t like the possibility of losing this role. I was informed this morning that William Faulkner is working on the script.”

  I shrugged.

  “I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Peters,” she said sweetly. “I don’t care what you think about my going with you. You are being paid to keep my involvement in this ridiculous business from being made public. You are not being paid to protect me from harm. I’ve done a fair job of doing just that for myself for some time. Shall we go?”

  “We shall,” I said.

  The drive to the Survivors camp was quiet, except for the news. We learned that the Soviets had killed 2,000 Nazi soldiers in their drive into the Ukraine. Fritzie Zivic had lost his fight to Jake La Motta by breaking his hand in the first round, which meant I owed Violet another five dollars. Senator Arthur Vandenberg announced that he was supporting General Douglas MacArthur for president, and the State of New York wanted to electrocute Louis “Lepke” Buchalter, who was in federal custody on a dope-peddling sentence.

  When we pulled up at the Survivor camp, Lewis, the kid with the blowgun in his pocket, was standing behind the fence with Anthony. Under Anthony’s jacket was the outline of a gun tucked into his belt.

  I parked and got out. Crawford was out ahead of me walking toward the fence. I caught up with her as she addressed them.

  “We would very much like to see Mr. Timerjack,” she said with a smile. “It’s really very important.”

  “He’s not here,” said the kid.

  The man with the gun whispered in the boy’s ear. The boy nodded and said to Crawford, “You’re the one who saw Pigeon Minck kill his wife.”

  “I am,” she said sadly. “A tragedy.”

  “You’re going to testify that you saw him do it?” the kid said.

  “I’m afraid so,” she said with wide, moist eyes.

  “Maybe you didn’t see it,” the kid said.

  The older man put his hand on the boy’s shoulder, but Lewis shrugged him off.

  “Unfortunately,” she said, “I did.”

  “Pigeon Minck can’t go to prison,” the boy said.

  The cabin door opened behind the scratched green Ford parked in front of it, about forty yards away, and Helter, the woman with the knife, came out with the Mohicans Phil had pummeled the day before.

  “Maybe this wasn’t such a great idea,” I whispered to Crawford.

  She wasn’t having any. She gave me a look that said it’s-too-late-now and turned to face Helter who was almost at the fence.

  “You’re not welcome,” Helter said to me.

  “I’m sorry,” said Crawford. “I don’t know your name. Mine is—”

  “Joan Crawford,” Helter finished. “And you’re the one who says she saw Pigeon Minck kill his wife. I hear someone told you you made a mistake.”

  “Mistakes are possible,” Crawford said. She smiled again. “We would like to see Mr. Timerjack.”

  I didn’t know what role she was playing, but I was clearly only a supporting player waiting for my cues.

  “Why?” asked Helter.

  “To discuss the situation,” Crawford said.

  “He’s not here,” Helter said.

  “Then, perhaps Mr. Sax is around.”

  Crawford put her hand to her forehead to shield out the sun and scanned the house and nearby woods.

  “Who?”

  “James Fenimore Sax,” Crawford said.

  “We don’t have a Survivor with that name,” Helter said. “I’ll tell Deerslayer Timerjack you were here. If he wants to call you, he knows where you are. We all know where you are.”

  Two things were clear. They didn’t know Timerjack was dead. They had all been told that it would be better for the Survivors if Shelly were on the street. I stepped in.

  “You really back each other up,” I said.

  “Loyalty,” said the kid. “Rule One.”

  “And you think Timerjack wants Pigeon Minck out of jail because he wants to protect him?”

  I looked at the goons, whose bruises from the day before were turning a combination of purple and yellow.

  “Yes,” said Helter. “Out here he can survive. Inside prison …”

  “He escaped,” I said.

  This came as no surprise to any of them.

  “And those two used that car to try to kill him,” I said, pointing at the Mohicans. “You say you want him to survive and you try to kill him.”

  Helter looked at the Mohicans. One of them whispered in her ear. What she was hearing didn’t make her comfortable.

  “You’re mistaken,” she said to me.

  “Timerjack is dead,” I threw out.

  The kid winced. The woman blinked. Anthony, the guy with the gun under his jacket, started to reach for it. The two bodyguards looked at each other.

  “You killed him?” asked Helter taking her very big knife from the sheath on her hip.

  “No,” I said. “He was shot in the head with the bolt from a crossbow.”

  “Minck,” she said.

  “No, he was hiding. My vote goes to James Fenimore Sax,” I said.

  “No,” she said.

  “I think your founder may not feel the same loyalty toward you and Mr. Timerjack that you feel for each other,” said Crawford.

  “I’ve got to think,” Helter said. “I’ve got to keep alert to every word and footstep.”

  “Rule Two,” said Lewis, whose cheeks were now pinker than ever.

  “Well?” I asked.

  Helter stood there, knife in hand. Lewis had his blowgun out now, and the craggy man had drawn his pistol.

  “I think you both better come in here,” Helter said, her eyes moving from side to side as she tried to think. She wasn’t a leader.

  “You don’t want to do anything that will get you in trouble,” Crawford said. “Miss—?”

  “Martha Helter,” the woman said, her thoughts racing, pain in her eyes.

  “Martha,” Crawford repeated. “That’s a beautiful name. It was my mother’s name, you know.”

  “No,” said Helter, trying to think. “I need some time to … Both of you come in. Anthony, open the fence.”

  The craggy-faced man tucked his gun away and opened the fence. This wasn’t the way I wanted it to go. Once we were inside, it wouldn’t take Helter long to realize that she could be facing a kidnapping charge. Then she would have to decide what to do with us. Since survival—hers, not ours—was her creed, I didn’t like our odds.

  My .38 was in the glove compartment of my Crosley down at No-Neck Arnie’s. Even if I had it, I was such a terrible shot that both Crawford and I would probably be dead before I got to pull the trigger, and even if I did get off a shot, the chances of my hitting anyone were long.

  Then again, killing Joan Crawford might be a bit more than Helter would be willing to take on on her own. My guess was that she was considering calling James Fenimore Sax, if she had any real idea how to reach him.

  The gate was open now. Crawford looked at me.

  “I’m telling you Sax killed Timerjack,” I said.

  “Why?”

  “Sax owns the Survivors. Shelly has a will leaving everything to the Survivors. Shelly is about to come into a lot of money, his wife’s and a lot from an invention. My guess is Timerjack knew about it, but Sax had decided to kill Pigeon Minck and pocket everything.”


  Helter shook her head. “You’re making it up.”

  “Damn right,” I said. “You have a better story? I’m listening. We’re all listening.”

  “Let’s just kill them and bury them in the woods the way the Deerslayer taught us,” said Lewis.

  “Martha,” Crawford said, “do you think I’m a fool? I know you aren’t.”

  “So?”

  “We told someone we were coming here,” Crawford said. “If we don’t call him in half an hour with a code word, he’ll be up here fully armed with lots of help and very angry.”

  “Right,” I jumped in. “Ask your boys how angry the man they ran into yesterday can get.”

  “I need to think this out,” Helter said.

  “Let’s kill them,” Lewis repeated.

  “Anthony?” Helter asked the craggy man.

  “Maybe she’s telling the truth,” he said with a definite British accent.

  “About—?” asked Helter.

  “Everything,” said Anthony.

  “Martha,” Crawford said earnestly. “Oh, Martha. If Sax killed Timerjack, who must have been a fine man, his next step might be to kill you and the boy and, well, all of you.”

  “We’re talking about a lot of money,” I said.

  “How much?” asked Lewis.

  “About half a million dollars,” I said.

  “He’s lying.” Lewis lifted his blowgun.

  Martha Helter reached out and pushed the boy’s hand down.

  “We’ll see for ourselves,” she said.

  She was still trying to decide what to do with us when a car came speeding up the road and stopped behind us. John Cawelti and Sloane stepped out with two uniformed officers, each carrying a shotgun.

  “What the hell is going on?” Cawelti shouted.

  “Trespassers,” Helter said. “These two demanded that we let them in. We were resisting.”

  Cawelti looked at the kid with the blowgun, the woman with the knife, Anthony with the gun and the two bruised goons. He wasn’t impressed.

  “Lawrence Timerjack,” Cawelti said, looking at the group of Survivors. “He’s been murdered.”

  “They just told us,” said Martha Helter.

  Cawelti gave me one of his hardest looks. He was deprived of his moment of surprise.

  “We have questions,” said Cawelti. “Lots of them—and we’ve got a search warrant.”

  He pulled a folded sheet of paper from his pocket and waved it as he walked past Crawford and me through the open gate.

  “We’ve got nothing to hide,” said Helter.

  “Everyone’s got something to hide,” said Cawelti. “Right, Peters?”

  “Right,” I agreed.

  “Like what you and my witness are doing here?” Cawelti said.

  “Condolence call,” I said. “You want us to come in with you?”

  “No,” said Cawelti. “I want you to get the hell out of here. I want you to tell me where Minck is. I want you to lose your license and do some hard time.”

  “For what?”

  “I don’t much care.” Cawelti marched toward the cabin with his armed escort behind the group of Survivors.

  Back in the car and heading toward the city, I asked, “Your mother’s name was Martha?”

  “No.” Crawford lit a cigarette, her hands shaking.

  “That business about having to call someone in half an hour was good,” I said. “I almost believed you.”

  “Thank you,” she said nervously. “It’s what I do for a living. It’s what all actors do, some of us better than others. We lie on film about who we are. And we lie offscreen about who we are.”

  I drove her home.

  A man was standing at the open front door. He was in his thirties, about six-one and one hundred seventy-five pounds. He was wearing slacks, a white T-shirt and thick glasses. He looked like he was in good shape.

  We got out of the car, and Crawford introduced me to her husband. “Darling, this is Mr. Peters, the detective I told you about.”

  We shook hands. He had a handsome face and a firm grip.

  “I know you.” He studied my face.

  “I don’t—”

  “Pevsner,” he said. “Your father had the grocery store in our neighborhood in Glendale.”

  “Right,” I said, still not placing him from anything but some episodes of the Crime Does Not Pay short subject films.

  “Fred Kormann,” he said. “I used to hang around when you played baseball in the park.”

  I looked at him again. Joan Crawford stood, hands clasped smiling.

  “Right, I remember you. Little kid who could run like hell.”

  “That was me.” He turned to Crawford taking her hands in his. “I got the part.”

  “Wonderful,” she said.

  “It’s called Ladies Courageous. Walter Wanger’s producing. I play Loretta Young’s husband. And I’ve got a good shot at a part coming up in something called The Lost Weekend. I’d get to play Ray Milland’s brother.”

  “We must celebrate,” she said, kissing him.

  He turned to me and I said, “Congratulations.”

  “My luck may be changing,” he said. “Now let’s talk about my wife’s.”

  “I think it might not be a bad idea for you and your kids to take a few days off somewhere where I can reach you.”

  Crawford stepped between us and looked into my eyes with Crawford determination.

  “We are not going to hide,” she said. “Phillip can take a few days off and provide all the protection we need. My husband played football at Stanford. The professionals wanted him. He spent most of his youth working in the oil fields in Texas and Oklahoma. He can take care of us.”

  Terry adjusted his glasses.

  “Not against a gun,” I said.

  “Yes, even against a gun,” he said.

  “You might lose your job,” I said to him.

  “I don’t think so,” he said. “And I’ve started to make a few dollars with some real estate. We’ll be fine.”

  Crawford clutched her husband’s arm with a smile of pride.

  “We’re in good hands, Mr. Peters,” she said. “Don’t worry about me. Just find Sax.”

  “Sax?” asked Terry.

  “I’ll explain it,” she said, leading him through the open door.

  I waited till they closed the door before driving to No-Neck Arnie’s to give him back his car and get mine. The Crosley’s rear window had been replaced, and something had been used to fill in the hole in my dashboard and paint it approximately the same color as the rest of the dashboard.

  “Gave it a tune-up,” Arnie said, looking into the window of the Ford I’d been driving. “Needed it. Bill, with the gas you used, comes to ten dollars and twelve cents.”

  “A nice round number,” I said.

  “Trade secret,” said Arnie, cleaning his hands at the sink in the corner with something thick and yellow-green. “Customers don’t trust even numbers. They think you’ve rounded them out to your advantage. You want to give me ten even, I can live with it.”

  I gave him the cash. Joan Crawford’s money was going fast.

  “Where’s Arnie, Jr.?” I asked.

  “Got a sort of date,” No-Neck said. “Seeing the widow of a buddy in his outfit. Second time. They have a lot to talk about. He says she’s a nice girl. Got a two-year-old little boy. What the hell.”

  He gave me my car keys.

  “See you, Arnie,” I said.

  “They say the war’s gonna be over soon,” he said as I opened the door to my car. “But Arnie, Jr. says the Japs won’t give up. They think it’s dishonorable. They think we’ll kill all the men and rape all the women. A lot of men are going to die, Toby. I’m just glad my boy’s out of it.”

  I waved as I drove out the open door. The car didn’t quite hum, but it didn’t rattle like a defrosting refrigerator, which was a great improvement over what it had sounded like when I had dropped it off. With luck, no one would try to kill me
or one of my passengers for at least a day or two.

  CHAPTER 15

  VIOLET WAS IN the office when I got there. She was behind her desk in the reception room.

  “Zivic lost,” she announced.

  “I know.” I pulled out a five-dollar bill and handed it to her. “Freak accident.”

  “Freak, smeak, he lost.” She put the bill in her purse on the desk. “What’s happening?”

  “The story is long,” I said.

  I gave her the short version.

  “Joan Crawford,” she said. “Could you get me an autographed picture?”

  “I’ll try. Any calls?”

  “Not for you. Appointments for Dr. Minck. Some lawyer who wanted to get a message to him about a contract, something to do with one of those gadgets he’s always working on.”

  “The no-snore,” I said.

  “That’s the one.”

  “Go on home, Violet.”

  “Yeah. Is Dr. Minck going to be all right?”

  “Sure. Toby Peters is on the job.”

  She smiled.

  “I think he’s a little wacky, and I wouldn’t ever let him touch my teeth or Rocky’s, but I like him,” she said.

  “So do I.”

  She grabbed her purse and got up.

  “You’ll get all the lights and everything.”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Beau Jack’s fighting Lulu Costantino—” she began.

  “I don’t want to hear it. Before you came to work here, one of the few delusions I had was that I knew boxing. You’ve brightened the office but taken away that delusion. Most of it, anyway. I want to hold on to what little I’ve got.”

  “I’ll give you good odds,” she said. “Very good odds.”

  “I’ll think about it,” I said as she walked out of the door clutching her purse.

  In my office, I sat in the chair where I had found the body of Lawrence Timerjack. It didn’t feel any different.

  I needed an idea, a lead, a list. I pulled out my notebook to write down things I could do. Ten minutes later, there was nothing on the list, so I called Mrs. Plaut’s. Gunther answered after six or seven rings.

  “Hi, Gunther,” I said.

  “Have you found him?”

  “No. Any luck with Sax?”

  “There are thirty-seven people named Sax listed in the greater Los Angeles telephone directory. None of them is named James F. There is a Jerome Sax. I took the liberty of calling him. A woman, presumably his wife, said Sergeant Sax was somewhere in Italy with the First Army. I am calling all the people named Sax and asking them if they know a James Sax. One person has a distant cousin in Canada whose name is James Monroe Sax. I shall keep trying. I shall also go to City Hall in the morning and see if, perhaps, there is a birth record for Mr. Sax in Los Angeles County.”

 

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