Smart Moves

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

  “Thanks,” I said and went back out on the street.

  A blond guy with a little blond mustache and an English accent sat next to me on the bus, complaining about synthetic rubber. “The military,” he whispered confidentially, “is using synthetic rubber tires now. In a matter of weeks—weeks, mind you, not months—we’ll all be riding on synthetic rubber tires. The government may tell me they are as good as rubber. B. F. Goodrich may tell me they are as good as rubber …”

  “They’re as good as rubber,” I said, my battered face a fist away from his.

  “Right,” he said. “There you have it then. They are as good as rubber.”

  We didn’t converse any more on the rest of the ride to Manhattan.

  3

  In the bus station, I put on my tan windbreaker and got rid of a long-coated guy with a stringy beard who told me the end of the world was coming. I told him that any harebrain who could read the newspaper or listen to the radio knew that. I asked him what to do about the situation and he suggested that I repent. I told him the things I was sorry for were too small to make a difference. Was God up there worrying because I had overcharged a woman in Pasadena three bucks for finding her lost Muffin? The stringy guy was now confused. I explained that Muffin was a black poodle that looked a bit like stringy beard.

  “Why did you overcharge the lady from Pasadena?” the stringy guy asked, now getting into the tale.

  “Muffin bit me,” I explained. “This was back in ’thirty-eight or ’thirty-nine. Muffin bit me and I hadn’t had a case in almost a month and I didn’t much like the woman.”

  “So you overcharged her?”

  “Five bucks over. She was happy to pay. I felt guilty later and tried to repay three bucks …”

  “Why just three?” asked Stringy, plunging his gnarled hands deeply into his pockets.

  “It cost two bucks to get the hospital to sew up my leg from where Muffin bit me.”

  “I see,” he said. “What were we talking about?”

  “Repentance,” I said, handing him a quarter.

  “God bless you,” he said, taking the quarter.

  “Not till I repent.”

  “Perhaps he’ll grant you special dispensation for your kindness,” said the confused saint, looking around for someplace to spend his quarter.

  “Dispensation comes cheaper here than in Los Angeles,” I said, grabbing my suitcase before an anemic character in a zoot suit, who had been listening to us, could get his hand on it. Zoot Suit pulled his hand back as if the handle of the case were hot, flashing me an ivory grin not of apology but of embarrassment. He had almost been caught.

  “I’ll bet you’ve got a lot to repent,” I said to Zoot Suit.

  “Not me, mister,” he said pointing to himself. “I’m from Philadelphia.”

  I left them and went out into the street. I knew vaguely where Seventh Avenue and Fiftieth was. I had been in New York a few times. The last time I had been there I had left two teenagers who had run away. I had gone back to Los Angeles and told their parents I couldn’t find the pair. The two kids had seemed a hell of a lot more adult than their parents, and I’d decided that they had a better chance together than back home with their battling clan. I had turned back part of the fee for that one. One less to repent in the few days before the world went under.

  I walked up past Forty-fourth Street, where Todd Duncan and Anne Brown were playing in Porgy and Bess at the Majestic. I started to hum, “Bess, You Is My Woman Now” again. A trio of well-dressed women ignored me as I went humming past. Down Forty-sixth I could see that Arsenic and Old Lace was playing at the Fulton. Boris Karloff’s name was on the marquee. I had done a job for Karloff a few years earlier but I doubted if he would remember it or me and I didn’t have time to look up L.A. people. I had science to save.

  A sign in a Marine recruiting station on Broadway and Forty-eighth said I could come in and get a Japanese Hunting License. “Free Ammunition and Equipment—With Pay!” It was almost lunchtime. I stopped at a stand-up corner hot dog stand, put my suitcase on the ground between my legs, and had a root beer and two dogs for a quarter. The root beer was just like home. The hot dogs were great. I had a third with extra onions and went the last block through the crowds of boys in uniform, women shoppers with sharp New York accents, and people I’d rather not touch along the highway of life.

  A sign outside the Taft told me I could get COCKTAILS FOR 25 CENTS while I listened to amusing songs by Charlie Drew in the Tap Room. The doorman looked at me and my alligator suitcase and then went on talking to a hack waiting for a fare. I went up the stairs and into the Taft and headed across the busy lobby to the main desk on the right. Somewhere behind me in the Tap Room or some other interior saloon a piano played “Let’s Face the Music and Dance.” I didn’t want Berlin, I wanted Gershwin, and it made me uneasy.

  A couple from the Midwest beat me to registration. Their accents said Iowa. The desk clerk said, “Reservations?”

  The clerk wore a blue suit and blue tie. He didn’t need a shave. He didn’t need a haircut. His fingernails were trim and clean and he owned the world, at least this carpeted corner of it.

  “Darrel Davidson and wife, Davenport,” the man said. He was short, missing a neck, and sweating. She was short with a vestigial neck, and very dry. The clerk found their reservation, signed them in on the register, and accepted a check from Darrel. Then the clerk rang the bell and an ancient bellhop arrived to take their bags, but not before Mrs. Davidson could ask, “What room is Hildegarde singing in?”

  “I believe,” said the desk clerk, “that Hildegarde is at the Savoy-Plaza. That is on 58th and 5th.”

  “I thought she was here,” said Mrs. Davidson, disappointed, as the old bellboy started for the elevator.

  “We can go down to the Savoy-Plaza,” said Mr. Davidson. “Don’t let’s embarrass Ellie.”

  Darrel looked to me for sympathy and understanding. I gave him all I could muster as he waddled after the Mrs.

  The guy behind the desk looked at me, then at my mottled alligator bag from Hy’s, and asked the most sympathetic question he could come up with. “Are you in the Armed Services? There is a twenty-five percent discount to our men in uniform.”

  At my age I would normally be flattered to be mistaken for a soldier, but I have seen some pretty old privates in the last two years. I had a feeling that if I wanted to go out and get a license to kill Japanese, the Marines might overlook my greying hairs, and wink when I lied about my age. My bad back might give me away somewhere down the line but male bodies were in short supply for this war. “No uniform, no reservation,” I said. “I’m here on business.”

  “I’m afraid if you have no reservation …” he began.

  “Maybe you should be,” I said with a grin, leaning forward. Two women were now lined up behind me, paying no attention to our conversation. Theirs was going strong.

  “A client of mine wants me to stay in this hotel,” I said. “He and I are going to be working here. He’ll be very disappointed if I don’t get a room.”

  I pulled Einstein’s check out of my pocket and handed it to the clerk, who was, I’m sure, considering a call for help in getting rid of me.

  “I don’t …” he began, without looking at the check in front of him.

  “I do and it hasn’t stunted my growth,” I said. “Just look at the signature on that check.”

  He looked. Then he looked again. “I’ll have to have this authenticated,” he said, looking up with new respect.

  “Authenticate, validate, send someone over to the bank. I’ll wait right here while you do,” I said as pleasantly as I could, turning to smile politely at the three women. They were all well-dressed, hair piled neatly up off their ears, dangling earrings, white billowy blouses with frilly collars. One of the women was a little pudgy. A second was tall, stylish, and formless. The third was about forty and just right. I fell in love with her and would have been content to spend the next hour or so watching her
and listening to the three women discuss where they were going to have lunch.

  “Are you going to be long?” asked the tall one, the obvious leader. Something about me fixed a polite, masked smile of distaste on her regal face, maybe the air of lunchtime onions on my breath.

  “I don’t know,” I said, looking at the cute one, who looked away. She reminded me of my ex-wife, Anne. “Are we going to be long?” I asked the clerk.

  He looked at Einstein’s check, made a decision, and said, “No. I’ll just check you in.”

  “Peters, Toby Peters,” I supplied and then added, to hear how it sounded to me and the waiting ladies, “Professor Peters.”

  “Professor Peters,” he said. “I’ll check on this … check while you make yourself comfortable.”

  “I’m sure Professor Einstein will appreciate it,” I said, loud enough for the three women to hear. “Please cash the check for me after you make your calls, and have a bellboy bring the money up to my room.”

  New respect was in the eyes of the three women when I turned to hand my suitcase to another ancient bellhop.

  “You know Albert Einstein?” asked the tall one.

  “Albert? Yes, we’re working together on supportive energy dysfunctions,” I said, waving at the bellboy to lead the way.

  The pretty one who reminded me of Anne touched her right ear. I’d remember that forever.

  “Is it secret?” she asked, her shrill voice breaking the spell.

  “Science stuff,” I whispered, putting my face close to hers. She was wearing perfume that smelled like a flower I couldn’t place but knew I had smelled as a child.

  I followed the bellhop and behind me heard,

  “… always a bit eccentric …”

  “… but he didn’t look like …”

  “… you can’t tell by how they …”

  And then the old guy and I were in the elevator. We were alone with the elevator operator, a woman with a uniform like the old guy’s. He told her to take us to five and up we went.

  “You really a scientist?” the old guy asked, shifting my suitcase from his left to his right hand and then resting it on the floor.

  “What do you think?”

  “I don’t think,” he said. “I make my living on tips. You think too much and you say something that can get you in trouble. I just want the day to go by fast and the tips to be respectable.”

  “I’ve got one for you,” I said, looking at the elevator operator, who appeared to be deaf as we shot by two and three. “War will be over in a year.”

  “That kind of tip won’t buy me Bull Durham,” he said with a sigh. “World is full of comedians. Everyone thinks he’s Jack Benny. I live in the Bronx. We’ve got blackout drills now. Blackout drills. So war jokes don’t tickle me. I’m not complaining. You want to tell jokes, I’m a good listener, but not for the war jokes. Aside from that, the guest is always right.”

  “Except when he’s wrong,” mumbled the elevator operator as the elevator snapped to a stop. “Five.”

  The doors slid open but we were about a foot shy of level. She inched the elevator up and missed by almost six inches. That was good enough for me but not for her. She motioned me back when I tried to step off. About two minutes later we were reasonably within target for her to let the bellhop and me debark. Lights were flashing on the elevator board next to her.

  “Good help is hard to find,” the bellhop commented, nodding at the closing doors of the elevator as he headed down the corridor. “They’re lucky guys like me are willing to go back to work.”

  “You and the FBI,” I said.

  He walked ahead, shaking his head. He wasn’t about to try to figure out an insane guest, especially one who made war jokes and nutty comments about the FBI. The corridor was quiet and dark, the carpet a deep brown with grey vases, wearing away from a generation of shod feet. In front of 514 the bellhop put down the suitcase and opened the door.

  The room was small, clean, with a view of another hotel from the window. The bellhop put the suitcase down and said, “Have a good stay in New York.”

  I handed him two quarters, which he pocketed without looking, handing me the room key.

  A hot bath and a toothbrushing later and I was in my shorts, lying on the bed and considering my next move when a knock came. The guy at the door tried not to look at my scarred body as he handed me an envelope with TAFT HOTEL printed in the corner. Behind him a maid stepped forward to hand me a bowl of fruit covered by green cellophane. “The management would like to apologize for any inconvenience,” the man said with a fixed smile, touching his Wildrooted hair to be sure it wasn’t inconvenient.

  “No trouble,” I said, resisting the urge to scratch my stomach.

  “If there is anything you need to make your stay more comfortable, Professor Peters, just call the desk and ask for Calvin or Alexander.”

  “I’ll do that,” I said, taking note and fruit. “I’ll really do that, Calvin.”

  “Alexander,” he corrected.

  “Alexander, yes,” I said, pushing the door closed.

  The envelope contained cash from my Einstein check and a note welcoming me to the Taft. I put the cash in my wallet after picking my pants up off the floor and spent the next few hours coming up with no good plan while I ate Florida oranges.

  Just before three I took my suit into the bathroom, turned on the hot water, and went back into the room, closing the bathroom door behind me. By four, when I checked, the bathroom was at the level of a zero-visibility fog, but my suit was wrinkle-free. It was also damp, but I was the only one who would know that. After checking to see that I didn’t need a shave, I dressed in the soppy suit and went down to the lobby. There was a new clerk at the desk and the woman who reminded me of Anne was nowhere in sight. I hadn’t really expected her. I went up to the new clerk, who was as neatly dressed as the morning clerk and a decade older, his hair nearly white. I hung around the lobby, watching him and the passing parade until the desk was patron-free, then strode up, looking as respectable as my body allowed.

  “My name is Peters,” I said. “Professor Peters. I’m in five-fourteen.”

  “Yes, Professor Peters,” the man said with a false-toothed smile. “I was informed that you were here.”

  “I was wondering,” I said confidentially, “if you could do me a small favor.”

  “Anything at all,” he beamed.

  “I’d like to examine the registration books for the past three weeks,” I said.

  “No,” he said.

  “Mr.…”

  “Sudsburry,” he replied.

  “Sudsburry,” I said, as if savoring the name. “This is a delicate matter which I’d rather not explain. You understand, I hope.”

  “No,” grinned Sudsburry. “I can’t say that I do, Professor Peters, but it really doesn’t matter if I understand or not. I simply can’t let you examine the hotel register. I hope you understand.”

  I understood. I’ve filled in for enough house dicks to know that you didn’t let jealous husbands or process servers kick up cow pies in your corridors, at least not in reasonably respectable hotels.

  “If you’ll just tell me who you are looking for,” he said amiably, “perhaps I can tell you if they are registered and what room they might be in.”

  Applause broke out behind us. I assumed it wasn’t because of his performance but the end of a piano roll in the Tap Room across the lobby.

  “It’s a signature,” I explained.

  “And this has some scientific importance?”

  “Yes,” I said emphatically.

  “What?” he asked reasonably.

  “Professor Einstein’s son is missing,” I explained. “Break-down. We think he might be hiding in the hotel under an assumed name. The pressure on him has been enormous what with the war and … you know. Professor Einstein and I have been very concerned about him.”

  Sudsburry’s smile was fixed and tolerant.

  “Hans Albert Einstein is in Zurich
,” Sudsburry said.

  “Zurich?”

  “Zurich, Switzerland,” said Sudsburry. “Pardon me, Professor, but are you sure it’s Einstein’s son who is under pressure?”

  “We’re all under great pressure,” I said. “How do you know that …”

  “… Hans Albert is in Zurich? The radio.”

  “Thank you. Professor Einstein will be very relieved, very relieved. Zurich, you say?”

  “Zurich, I say,” said Sudsburry. “Now if you will excuse me, I’ve got to get back to work.”

  He went back to work and I went into the Tap Room to see what all the applause was about and to plot a new strategy.

  I considered stealing Sudsburry’s false teeth for simple revenge and trying my luck with the night clerk for possible results, but I had the feeling that a Taft rule was a Taft rule. I ordered a Rheinhold beer in a big glass at the bar and looked around for Charlie Drew to amuse me, but it was too early for professional entertainment. Some sailors were at the piano. One was playing, the other two singing. They were all young, all awful. The handful of people in the Tap Room loved them. The gallant gobs messed up a medley of show tunes and forgot the words to “After You’ve Gone,” but the afternoon drinkers went wild and asked for more. If there weren’t a war on, they would have been ordered to leave by the management, but they were having fun. I tried not to feel like Baby Snooks’ Daddy, but I had gone through some rough nights in a few hotels with kids like this who wanted trouble, and something to remember before they sailed out to be shot at and maybe killed.

  “Not bad,” said a woman, sitting next to me. With a quick glance, she looked all right. A second glance, even in the dark, put her near my age and carrying a lot of memories.

  “Not bad,” I agreed, finishing off the beer and wiping my mouth.

  “Alone?” she asked.

  “But not lonely,” I said. “How about I buy what you’re drinking, I have another beer, and we listen to the aquatic Mills Brothers before I take off for work?”