“Ten to ten. Next question.”
“What do you think of pink gardenias?”
“They look terrific with burgundy roses. Who’re you kidding here, Jack? There ain’t any such a thing as pink gardenias. I ought to know, I’m from Brooklyn.”
Since the matter was now settled, I sat back and watched as another New York cabbie made a valiant attempt to kill himself and me and failed. When we got to the Taft, I gave him a fifty-cent tip for his noble effort. This time Carmichael was in the lobby, but he didn’t see me before I spotted him. Using a convoy of businessmen, a flotilla of retired couples out on the town, and a squad of assorted drunks arguing about who would treat whom to drinks, I made it to the elevator and plastered myself against the rear wall, willing the doors to close. “I’m in a hurry,” I told the operator. She turned and looked at me as if I were a modern painting. “Nausea,” I said.
She closed the elevator doors just as Carmichael, the house dick, decided to scan the neighborhood. His eyes fell on me as the doors closed. My last glimpse was of him striding toward me with a smile I didn’t like.
“Floor?” she asked, looking back at me over her glasses.
“Fourteen,” I said.
She sped up to fourteen and I got out. She was closing the doors even before I cleared them. I went for the exit and down the stairs fast to the twelfth floor. If Carmichael checked with the elevator operator, she’d tell him I got off at fourteen. Carmichael might believe I was stupid and somewhere on fourteen. Or he might be stupid and think I was on fourteen. More likely he would think I got off on fourteen and went up and down within three floors. He’d peg me between eleven and sixteen, which would be right but wouldn’t help him much in finding me. This was the fun part. I knocked at the door to 1234 and got no answer. I used my key and went in. The room was dark. I closed the door behind me and went for the table lamp. Before I turned it on I knew someone was in the bed. This time it wasn’t Shelly.
“Pauline.”
“In the flesh,” she said. And she was.
Half an hour later we were lying in bed and she started to tell me her life story. It was the price I was expected to pay.
“I was born in Queens,” she began, propped up on one elbow and watching my face to be sure I didn’t doze off. “My father worked for the dairy.” Twenty minutes later she was at the point in her tale when Mary Louise was nineteen and got her first job at a plier factory. I was denied the dramatic conclusion of her tale by the turning of a key in the door and the sudden appearance of Sheldon Minck, Doctor of Dental Surgery, carrying a huge and apparently heavy paper bag.
“Don’t explain,” he said, putting the bag down on the dresser and adjusting his glasses. “You couldn’t get back for dinner. It happens. You could have picked up the phone, but what the hell, you were busy, right? Spies, murders. I’ve got a generous heart, Toby. You know that. I can prove it.”
He reached into the bag and pulled out a bottle. “Trommer’s White Label Malt beer,” he said triumphantly. “No deposit bottles. Can you imagine that? Just throw them away. You’d think shortages of everything, they’d want bottles back.”
Shelly glanced at me, adjusted his glasses, and waddled into the bathroom in search of glasses. Out of sight he let out a gurgle and rushed back into the room.
“Toby,” he said, pointing at Pauline. “There’s a woman in the bed.”
“A woman?” I said, looking around and pulling the blanket up to cover my hairy chest. “Where?”
“Cut it out,” he said. “What’s going on here? What are you two doing?”
“Shell,” I said, “I know life is not always intimate between you and Mildred, but you must have some idea of what we’re doing.”
Pauline let out a nervous giggle next to me and said, “I’m so embarrassed.”
“Bare-assed is right,” Shelly fumed, adjusting and readjusting his glasses. He put the beer bottle down, picked it up again. “You might have told me.”
“I’m sorry, Shell,” I said. “This is Pauline, a hotel switchboard operator.”
Shelly’s mouth fell open. “You mean all you have to do is pick up the phone and you get the operator …”
“No,” Pauline shrieked, and giggled again. “This is embarrassing.”
“I’ll tell you what,” I said. “We’ll all get dressed and have a beer or two and talk, get to be real friends.”
“I’m already dressed,” Shelly said, looking at himself to be sure, then checking the mirror to be doubly sure. “I’m dressed.”
“Good,” I said. “Then why don’t you take the newspaper into the bathroom till we get dressed?”
He grabbed the newspaper and a beer and went into the bathroom, slamming the door behind him. Pauline and I dressed to the accompaniment of Shelly’s grumbling. Her dress was a dark thing with flowers on it.
“Pink gardenias,” I said, remembering Alex’s words. “You ever heard of pink gardenias?”
“No,” Pauline said, checking her hair and makeup in the mirror. “Just one Pink Gardenia.”
I had one button done on my shirt when she said it. I stopped. “What Pink Gardenia?”
“Somewhere on Second Avenue,” she said. “A nightclub. My mother and I went there when Angela Falzano, one of the operators, got engaged last year.”
I tool the three steps to her, turned her around, and gave her a big, moist kiss. The bathroom door opened and Shelly emerged, holding the Times open to the crossword puzzle. “What’s the liquid part of fat? Five letters.”
I moved away from Pauline with a grin.
“Let’s all have a beer,” I said. “No deposit. We can break the bottles in the fireplace when we’re done.”
“There isn’t any fireplace,” Shelly said, looking around.
“Then we’ll break them in the bathtub,” I said.
“Like hell you will,” screamed Shelly. “Like hell he will,” he told Pauline. “I’m not picking glass slivers out of my … Like hell.”
We each had a couple of beers and Pauline kept threatening to tell her life story to both of us, but she had not reckoned with Dentist Sheldon Minck, who, when fortified with three beers, waxed eloquent on the joys of reconstructing a ravaged mouth and the possibilities of money to be made in artificial teeth. Fascinated as she was, Pauline glanced at her watch and said she had to get back to work. “Almost forgot,” she said, snapping her fingers. “That man you were looking for, the one with the short white hair, foreign accent. He’s in nine-oh-nine. I asked around.”
I almost said, “I love you,” when she threw me a kiss and went through the door, but I didn’t love her and she didn’t love me. We were good for maybe one or two more times together before we started to know each other, and things turned personal and started going sour. It was me, I knew. It happened every time, though there hadn’t been that many times. The worst and longest was with my ex-wife Anne. Then, once, there had been a 21 roller named Merle in Chicago. That had ended before we could get into trouble.
“We’ve got business, Shell,” I said. “Get your coat on.”
“Great,” he yelped. “Albanese?”
“No, he’s in the hospital, shot. Almost killed. We’re going after the guy who did it.”
“I’ve had a big day,” Shelly said suddenly. “I think I’ll just …”
“Sheldon, adventure awaits,” I said, lifting him from the bed on which he had plopped.
Three minutes later we were going down the service elevator to the ninth floor, in search of Gurko Povey.
9
Sheldon Minck was dancing backward down the ninth-floor corridor, adjusting his glasses, starting to sweat, and whispering louder than most humans shout. He slid in front of me but I kept walking. Shelly groaned and whispered, “Let’s call the police, the FBI, the house detective. Toby, this is not reasonable. Its not … not safe. We … you said this guy’s a killer.”
“Gun and all,” I agreed, looking for 909.
“Do you know what a bu
llet can do to teeth? I’ve seen it.”
“Maybe he won’t shoot you in the face,” I pointed out, turning a corner as Shelly almost plopped.
“Teeth are the symbol of life,” Shelly hissed urgently, gamboling in reverse like an overripe casaba melon. “Teeth are the symbol of each of our beings, a microcosm, rough and white on the outside, sensitive on the inside. Vulnerable, Toby. If you don’t take care of them, they wear away. If you shoot them, they die. I have a fear of someone shooting me in the teeth, you know that?”
“If I didn’t know it before, I’ve got it now,” I said. “Don’t let Povey know. He might aim for your dentures, just to have a little fun.”
A door opened behind Shelly and a couple of women stepped out. Shelly, walking backward, collided with one of them, shrieked, and fell. The woman hopped out of the way. The women looked like ancient twins from Iowa. They were both small, thin, and wore identical black hats. “What are you doing?” scolded the one who hadn’t encountered Shelly’s rear. “Are you drunk?”
“He’s a dentist,” I explained softly, looking down the hall toward where I imagined 909 must be.
“That explains nothing,” said the woman.
Shelly picked himself up, using the wall for support, and smiled limply. “I’m sorry,” he said. “We were discussing survival and I didn’t …”
The women wanted no more of New York revelers. They strode with dignity down the hall, arm in arm, back to Dubuque or Muscatine or over to the Alvin Theater to see Gertrude Lawrence in Lady in the Dark. I pointed over Shelly’s shoulder and he turned with a gasp, expecting to see a white-haired Hungarian aiming at his teeth.
“What? What?” he cried.
“Nine-oh-nine,” I whispered.
“You’re crazy,” he bleated.
“No, that’s nine-oh-nine,” I said.
“I mean you’re crazy to do this. I’m leaving. I’ve got my practice, Mildred …”
“Mildred ran away with the milkman,” I said.
“Stop that!” Shelly nearly wept. “I …”
Before he could say anything more, I had my .38 out and my finger to my lips to signal the trembling dentist to be quiet. He wasn’t quite quiet, but the weak whimper was close enough. I knocked at the door to 909. No answer.
“Telegram,” I said, raising my voice and trying to sound like Fred Allen.
No answer.
“He’s not there,” Shelly sighed.
A door opened down the hall. I tucked my pistol in my holster quickly and knocked at 909 loudly.
“Gurko,” I shouted. “We’re going to be late for the girls.”
A couple moved past us, turning their heads away, either not wanting to recognize us or not wanting to be recognized. I knocked again as they turned the corner and repeated “Gurko.”
When they were safely gone, I turned the door handle. It was locked. I took out my wallet and found my small metal nail file. Shelly lumbered over to me, just catching the glasses that were about to slip from his nose. A thumbprint blurred his vision. “What are you doing?” he asked.
I showed him by inserting the file in the crack along the doorjamb.
“We could go to jail for this!”
I kept working on the door.
“What is it? A couple of beers and you lose control? Is that it?” he asked. When I didn’t answer, he turned his eyes upward and, squinting through the thick lenses and the thumbprint, told God, “He doesn’t answer. What can you do with a man who doesn’t answer? I ask you.”
But God didn’t answer either. The door popped open. I grabbed Shelly and pulled him into the room. Before he could cry or scream, I kicked the door closed and hit the light switch. My .38 was in my hand and aimed toward the bed, though I knew that if Povey were there we had made enough noise to give him time to set us up. He wasn’t there. Nothing was there. The bed was made, though the cover was slightly wrinkled and there was an indentation in the pillow. Povey probably slept with his clothes on and a gun in his hand. I couldn’t picture him in silk pajamas. I tried and smiled.
“This isn’t funny,” Shelly said, looking at the door. “You think this is funny, Toby? You’re a sick man if you think this is funny.”
“It’s not funny, Shell,” I agree as I searched the room. The bathroom was clean, empty, though one towel and the soap had been used. The towel was folded neatly on the toilet. Shelly stood, his left hand holding his hairy right wrist while I checked the closet. No suitcase, no clothes. I tried the drawers. They were all empty, except for the bottom one, which held a Gideon Bible with a piece of paper sticking out of it in Isaiah, chapter 30, with underlining on the words:
Behold, the name of the Lord cometh from far, With his anger burning in His thick uplifting of smoke; His lips are full of indignation, And His tongue is as a devouring fire; And His breath is as an overflowing stream, That divideth even unto the neck, To sift the nations with the sieve of destruction.
Then, further on the page, there was more underlining: “Both he that helpeth shall stumble, and he that is helped shall fall, And they all shall perish together.”
Shelly, who had been reading over my shoulder, muttered, “Somehow I don’t find that comforting.”
The piece of paper had writing on it, too, neat, black writing worthy of a penmanship teacher: “Peters, I cannot resist irony. Obviously, I have departed, but I do not forget and do not forgive.”
“I don’t like that note,” said Shelly. “I don’t like threats. I don’t like irony. I don’t like people with guns who try to kill me.”
“You’re hard to please,” I said, tucking the note into my pocket and returning my gun to the holster. “Quick Minck, the game’s afoot.” I clicked off the light and went out the door, Shelly shuffling behind me, gurgling, “Wait.”
We caught a cab in front of the hotel and I asked the cabbie if he knew the Pink Gardenia on Second Avenue. He knew it but he didn’t recommend it. We headed there anyway. Shelly sulked for half a mile and then said, “I wasn’t afraid back there, you know.”
“I know.”
More silence for a few blocks, then Shelly tried, “What I said in the hall back there was true. I’ve been reading Men, Molars and Mysticism by Lichty. You know anything, any part of the body can … even your fingernail … or … a hair from your nostril …”
“Hey, buddy, you mind, I just ate,” the cabbie called over his shoulder. “I can do without nose-hair talk, you know what I mean?”
But Shelly was too deeply into mysticism, teeth, and a vain attempt to rescue his self-respect. He plunged on, now glaring at me through thick lenses. “The meaning of life is all tied up like …”
“A ball of yarn,” I suggested.
“Tin foil,” tried the cabbie.
“No,” countered Shelly. “Like layers of teeth, gums. The mouth is an entry to the meaning. To understand a tooth is to understand life. Or a fingernail.”
“To understand a tooth is to understand a fingernail?” asked the cabbie. “Who the hell wants to understand a fingernail?”
“Just drive,” shouted Shelly. “Just turn around and drive.” He went on, “A poet understands a poem, a cartographer understands a map, a priest understands the Bible, a bartender understands his beer, and a dentist understands teeth. Each can be a profound key to the meaning of life. Don’t you see there’s no single right way? Beer, maps, teeth can be the key that unlocks the mystery of the universe.”
“You ask me,” the cabbie said, pulling to a stop, “you and the guy who wrote the book are off your nuts.”
“No one asked you,” shouted Shelly. “You know what you get for that? You get no tip. That’s what you get.”
The cabbie shrugged. “The key to my universe is a hack and a figure on the meter. I can make it without the tip. That’ll be a buck ten.”
I gave him a buck and a half and got out onto Second Avenue. Shelly followed me and slammed the cab door shut. The cabbie pulled away.
“What happened to sensitivit
y?” Shelly moaned.
“Drowned in Pearl Harbor,” I said, looking around for the Pink Gardenia. Cars, trucks, and cabs clunked down the street. It wasn’t crowded, but for ten at night it wasn’t empty either. People were walking down both sides of the street and stores were open.
A kid on the corner was hawking a pile of newspapers. The rain had stopped, and a cool wet wind blew down the street. The skinny kid was wearing a light jacket. His hair was long and blowing in the breeze. “What’s going on?” I asked him, buying a paper.
“Good news or bad news?” he asked.
“Good news,” I said.
Shelly tried to talk, but I help up my hand to keep him quiet. “Army Day Parade tomorrow on Fifth Avenue. Sunday’s Easter,” the kid said.
“That’s it?” I asked, looking at the front page.
“Lots of bad news. The Langley, the Pecos, and a tanker were sunk by the Japs. Maybe seven hundred sailors got killed. My brother’s in the navy.”
“In the Pacific?” I asked.
The kid shrugged and wiped a patch of blowing hair from his face.
“Who knows? They don’t let him tell us. But we didn’t get no telegram or a call or nothing. His name’s Artie.”
“I want some papers,” said Shelly, handing the kid a dollar. “A bunch of papers. We’re having a party. How many you got?”
“You can have them all for two bucks,” the kid said.
Shelly handed over another dollar. “Go home,” he said. “It’s late.”
“The Pink Gardenia,” I said, as the kid stuck the two bills in his pocket.
“Around the corner, over there,” he said, pointing behind us. “But it’s closed, boarded up. Thanks.”
And he was gone.
“You’ve got about forty copies of the Times there, Shell. What are you going to do with them?”
“Leave ’em there,” he said. “They’ll all be stolen in ten minutes.”
“You think the key to the mystery of life can be found in a newspaper?” I asked, walking in the direction the kid had pointed.
“Kid should be home with his family,” Shelly said, plunging his hands into his pockets and following me.
Smart Moves Page 10