Smart Moves

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

  My eyes opened. Pauline was looking down at me. “Hold what?” she whispered. “Are you having some kind of dream or something?”

  I sat up and looked around, hoping to hold onto something from the dream, some piece of truth. My eyes hit the mirror, the empty beer bottles, our clothes in a pile on the chair, Shelly on his back, blanket drawn up to his chin, still snoring. He looked strange without his glasses.

  “I’m okay,” I said. “What time is it?”

  “I don’t know, morning. I want to get out of here before he wakes up.”

  The morning light didn’t do good things for her. I was sure it didn’t for me either. I knew it did hell for Shelly. Pauline wanted to escape and I wanted to let her. We both felt guilty.

  “I’ll get up and we’ll get some breakfast,” I said, starting to follow her as she crouched over to the chair for her clothes. She was not light but there was a nice softness about her across the room. Shelly stirred, opened his eyes, looked around, fixed on Pauline, blinked and fell back, lids dropping to snore again.

  Pauline shook her head no to my breakfast offer and put her finger to her lips to indicate that I should be quiet. I was quiet, trying to hold onto the truth of the dream. Something I had seen in the room touched, worked, connected to the dream, almost woke up a truth. I watched Pauline dress quickly. She pulled on the black sweater, messing her hair even more. “See you later maybe,” she said.

  “Later,” I said.

  Then the door clicked and she was gone. The click of the door shot through Shelly, who sat up suddenly, yelled “What, What” and scrambled for his glasses. He found them next to his cigars on the night table and hurried them onto his eyes to see what was going on.

  “A naked woman,” he said, looking around. “I saw …”

  “What, Shelly?” I said with a yawn.

  “I saw a … Forget it.”

  I forgot it and tried to think, to imagine, but it was gone. Shelly was out of bed, staggering in his two-piece blue flannel pajamas and making unholy sounds in his throat. He made it to the bathroom door, turned on the lights, saw himself in the mirror, groaned, and staggered back to the door to look at me.

  “And you,” he said, pointing a pudgy finger in my direction. “I’m not talking to you. I’m not forgiving you. Last night was …”

  “Like a bad dream?”

  “A nightmare,” he returned.

  “Like a naked woman running by your bed.”

  “Naked wo … I didn’t dream about … I’ve got to get in the bathroom.”

  He closed the door behind him and turned on the water in the tub. Shelly would soak for an hour, maybe two, depending on what he had in there with him to read. I remembered the pile of dental pamphlets and looked around for them. They were gone, probably neatly stacked next to the tub. I got out of bed, examined black and grey hairs on my chest and the scars of half a century. The stomach looked reasonably flat, the legs reasonably strong. I got up, ready to meet the day and put on my underwear.

  A church bell rang outside. I hadn’t heard one before. It seemed strange to hear a church bell in Manhattan, and then I realized it was Easter Sunday.

  14

  Pants, clean shirt with all the buttons, socks and shoes. I was looking at my unshaven face and wild hair in the mirror when a knock came at the door. I kept looking in the mirror, finding new strands of stiff, wild grey in the jungle of brown, and called, “Who is it?”

  “Carmichael,” came the voice of the house detective, brogue back for Easter services.

  “Who is it?” shouted Shelly.

  “House detective,” I shouted. “Something about a naked woman.”

  Shelly splashed wildly behind the bathroom door and I let Carmichael in. His suit was pressed, neat, dark. He wore a matching vest complete with watch fob, his tie silky with grey and brown stripes and his hair plastered back. He was also carrying a large white cardboard box.

  “Natty,” I said.

  “It’s a holiday,” he answered, stepping past me and looking around the room for bodies or contraband. “You should shave, brush your furry teeth and hair. It’s Easter Sunday.” He put the white box on the bed.

  “Carmichael, you don’t need that Cheshire Cat of a brogue in here,” I said. “You’re among enemies.”

  “Can’t help it. Gets in the blood. Package was delivered for you two this morning from Leone’s Costume Rentals. You boys planning to dress up as bunnies, are you?”

  The bathroom door burst open and Shelly staggered out, soaked, a towel around his too-much waist. One hand held the towel in place. The other kept his glasses from sliding to the floor. He almost fell in a puddle of his own making. “There’s no naked woman in here,” he cried at Carmichael.

  “No one said there was, you madman, you,” sighed Carmichael.

  “I’m a dentist,” Shelly shot back.

  “I hope not in this state or Kansas where my brother lives,” said Carmichael.

  “I resent that,” cried Shelly.

  “A healthy response,” said Carmichael approvingly. “Now if you’ll just slide back in the bathroom, I’ve got some business with your chum out here.”

  Shelly gurgled, retreated, and closed the door behind him.

  “Not the most festive of sights on a holy day,” whispered Carmichael.

  “He fits in just fine on April Fools’ Day,” I said, finding a comb in my rotting suitcase and applying it to my reluctant hair. “Were you going to pass the morning insulting helpless dentists or is there something on your mind? If you’re going to try to …”

  “Two gentlemen want to see you in room nine-oh-nine,” said Carmichael, watching my face for a reaction. “Room’s registered to a Mr. Orville Potts. Mr. Potts seems to be among the missing and, according to the maid on the floor, our Mr. Potts looks a lot like the gentleman you say tried to put a bullet hole through you. You wouldn’t know anything about where Mr. Orville Potts might be?”

  “Have I got time to shave?” I said in answer.

  “Make it fast. The gentlemen might get impatient.”

  I went through the bathroom door without knocking and Shelly, deep in the water, pamphlet in hand, looked up in fear and then sullen anger. I wiped off the bathroom mirror with a clean towel and lathered up.

  “God,” sighed Shelly. “A dentist right here in New York has a plan for replacing teeth. Pull out the bad ones, make a hole right in the bone under the gum, and stick in a permanent artificial one.”

  “That’s sick,” I said.

  “No,” Shelly said, splashing, “it works. It’s a great idea.”

  “Might put you out of business,” I said, finishing off my face. “If everyone has permanent artificial teeth, they won’t need cavities filled. Chew on that one for a while, Shell.”

  I could see Shelly in the mirror, worrying about the future of his dental practice. “I’ll be back in about an hour,” I said and left him to ponder his fate. “Why don’t you hang up the tuxedos?”

  Carmichael was in a good mood as he led me into the elevator.

  “Nice suit,” I told him again.

  “Wife says it’s spiffy. Not as spiffy as a tux, though. You boys planning to crash a party?”

  I didn’t answer.

  The female elevator operator, a ringer for Una Merkel, examined Carmichael and didn’t seem to find him particularly spiffy. It didn’t bother him at all. On the ninth floor, Carmichael led the way to Povey’s room, knocked at the door, and waited till a familiar voice called, “Come in.”

  We went in, with me first. Spade, whose name was really Parker, stood at the window, looking as if he had a piece of stringy meat caught in his dentures. He turned to be sure it was us, started to reach up to adjust his hairpiece, decided we weren’t worth it and turned back to his view of the street. Archer, whose real name was Craig, paid more attention to us. He sat on the edge of the single bed, as if he had just been awakened from a nap, which he may have been. “Thanks, Mr. Carmichael,” Craig said. “Yo
ur country appreciates your cooperation and your commitment to keep this business within your confidence.”

  “That I’ll do,” Carmichael said. Then the house detective stood watching, hands behind his back, as if he expected a tip.

  “We’ll give you a call if we need you,” Parker said from the window.

  “Oh, right,” said Carmichael, losing his accent again. “I’ll be in the lobby till eleven, then I’m going to church.”

  “A very good idea,” said Craig, standing up and grimacing as he massaged his lower back. “My partner will show you to the door.”

  “I showed him to the door the first time,” Parker grumbled.

  “You can show yourself to the door then,” the stork-shaped Craig said. Carmichael turned, walked to the door, looked back, hoping they had changed their minds but they hadn’t. He adjusted his vest, checked his pocket watch, and left.

  “We’ve got no Pepsi or tuna to offer,” said Parker, turning to me slowly. “Just some information and advice.”

  “We’ve lost track of Povey,” Craig said, still rubbing his back.

  “That’s why I called you,” I said, leaning back against the desk at the foot of the bed, “He’s dead. Someone, probably your archenemy Zeltz, or one of his crew.”

  “That’s why you called us?” said Parker, looking up at Craig.

  “Right. It happened at the theater last night. Dress rehearsal for Othello backers. Povey showed up with a gun. Before I could get to him, someone put a knife through him. I went after the guy who did it and lost him. When I got back to the theater, Povey’s body was gone. No one even noticed he’d bought a one-way ticket to spy hell.”

  “That’s when you called us at the Bureau,” Craig said.

  The conversation was getting boring but I said, “Right. You said you had some information.”

  “And advice,” Craig reminded me. “Povey’s being dead …”

  “… if he is dead,” Parker picked up.

  “He’s dead,” I said.

  “Povey’s being dead complicates things a little,” said Craig, letting go of his back slowly, ready to grasp it again if it called for help. “Now we don’t know what the guy looks like who’ll try to kill Einstein and Robeson tonight.”

  “Tonight?” I said, to keep the conversation flowing.

  “Tonight, just at the break in the charity concert,” explained Parker. “He’ll …”

  “Maybe she’ll …” Craig cut in.

  “He, she, it, the Frankenstein monster, will blow them up or shoot them down when they’re together in public. New game plan seems to be to show how vulnerable the U.S. is, to show we can’t protect anyone they want to get rid of,” said Parker.

  “How did you …”

  “Wire tap,” explained Parker. “Walker. They were talking in code, simple code. D’Amato in the Washington Bureau listened to the wire recording and broke it in about five minutes, seemed upset that we bothered to bring such an easy one to him. The break in the concert should be about nine tonight, give or take fifteen minutes.”

  “You stick with Einstein,” said Craig. “We’ll have men in the ballroom, outside the ballroom, serving drinks, drinking drinks, maybe even playing the piano.”

  “Why not just cancel the concert?” I asked.

  Craig and Parker looked at each other in mutual sympathy. “Because,” said Parker, “we’re not sure when or where the next time might be. We got a little lucky …”

  “There was some skill and a lot of money involved here, too,” entered Craig.

  “A lot of money, skill, people, machines, whatever,” agreed Parker. “It’s better to flush them out like …”

  “Decayed pulp in a rotten tooth,” I tried.

  They both looked at me as if I were not to be trusted or treated as a sane human being.

  “That’s not the same way I’d put it,” said the birdlike Craig, cocking his head to one side. “But my partner’s not a manic dentist.”

  “Just a manic-depressive,” said Parker. For some reason the joke got them both. They smiled at each other and at me. I smiled back.

  “You guys make a mistake and my client and Robeson get killed,” I said, pushing away from the desk and removing the last of their smiles.

  “We’ve got a pretty good record, remember,” Craig said.

  “These guys aren’t Dillinger and Alvin Karpis,” I reminded them.

  “You just stay with Einstein and leave the rest to us. Maybe we’ll send a couple of dozen cartons of Camels in your name to our boys overseas,” said Parker.

  This was even better than “manic-depressive.” They both laughed and shook their heads, small laughs but definitely laughs.

  “And …” I began.

  “We’ve got one of our best men on Albanese,” Craig said, correctly anticipating what I was going to say. “But after the try on Einstein and Robeson tonight, the Chief …”

  “J. Edgar …” Parker began.

  “I figured,” I said, as Craig went on.

  “… believes that Albanese won’t be of any interest to Zeltz. Zeltz won’t care who or what he identifies if he lives. The assassins will be on their way home through Canada or Mexico or on a submarine, or they’ll dig in so deep in a little town somewhere that his description won’t help. Any more questions?”

  “No.”

  “Then,” said Parker, pointing to the door, “goodbye.”

  “And good luck. You’ve got time to take in the Easter Parade. We’ll see you at the concert, but you probably won’t see us.”

  I left and made my way back to Shelly, who was out of the bathtub and sitting in a purple robe on his bed, a stack of pamphlets in his lap. He started to say something when I came through the door, remembered that he wasn’t talking to me, and held the pamphlet in his hands in front of his face. A belch of smoke from his cigar came over the top of the pamphlet. The empty tuxedo box was on the floor and I could see both tuxes on hangers in the open closet.

  “I thought you wanted to meet Albert Einstein?” I asked Shelly.

  The pamphlet came down slowly, suspiciously. “I met Paul Robeson last night,” he said cautiously. “I didn’t get a chance to talk to him. I didn’t even get a good look at his teeth. What are Einstein’s teeth like?”

  “Not bad,” I said, trying to remember the scientist’s teeth.

  “I’ve got some things I’d like to ask him,” Shelly said to his cigar.

  “One man of science to another,” Shelly said, beginning to enjoy the idea. “I’d like that.”

  “But …” I said. “There is something I’d like you to do.”

  “Something you’d like me to do,” laughed Shelly. “But … aha. I knew it. Who do I have to let shoot at me? Or throw me off a roof? Or saw off my legs? Or …”

  “Shell, forget it. I have to stick with Einstein this afternoon and tonight, and I thought you’d like to be with me. You could help. Don’t worry. I just met with the FBI and they know what time the Nazis are going to try to get to Einstein. You’ll be long gone by then, back in the room or taking in a play on Broadway.”

  “Paul Muni’s in something that just opened,” Shelly said, getting out of bed. “Remember, in Scarface, he looked like a monkey? Tony, that was his name. I took Mildred to see that on our second date. I told her Muni looked like a monkey and she said he looked handsome. It was our first fight.”

  “Young love.”

  Now that Shelly and I were pals again, I called Einstein in Princeton. I wasn’t worried about Pauline being on the other end. She was home in Queens with mom. A woman answered on the fourth ring, and when I asked for Einstein after identifying myself, he came on about a minute later. I told him about Povey’s death and asked him how he planned to get to New York.

  “A colleague will bring me in his car,” Einstein said. “I don’t drive. I plan to get to the Waldorf Hotel about six.”

  “I’ll be waiting at the front entrance,” I said. “One more thing. The FBI says that a group of
Nazis is planning to kill you and Paul Robeson tonight at the break in your concert. If you want to call it off …” I didn’t tell him that the FBI had got this information by tapping Walker’s phone.

  “So they can try again when the FBI is not ready for them?” he asked.

  “They made the same point,” I told him.

  “It’s nice to know that Mr. Hoover can be so logical,” he said with amusement.

  “Tell him about me,” whispered Shelly behind me. I didn’t look back, but I could smell his cigar breath over my shoulder. “I have a friend with me, a Dr. Minck, who’d like to meet you when you get here,” I said.

  “Fine,” replied Einstein and hung up.

  I hung up and turned to Shelly.

  “What’d he say?” Shelly asked. “About me?”

  “That he had heard of you and was looking forward to hearing your ideas about space, time, infinity, and gum surgery.”

  Even Shelly wouldn’t buy that, but I had him hooked so he didn’t push or pull. I told him we had someplace to go before lunch, that it was safe. He wasn’t sure whether to believe me but he had gone in for the ride now. He put on his clothes, selected some dental brochures to show Einstein, and plunged them into his jacket pocket in case we didn’t get back to the room to change into our tuxedos.

  “Ready,” he said.

  Shelly wanted to take a cab, but I was already thinking of what my expense account for this case would look like. I asked the doorman how to get to Bellevue Hospital by subway. It sounded easy.

  We were in the hospital lobby about a half hour later, at four o’clock according to my Dad’s watch, eleven according to the clock over the reception desk.

  “My name’s Alfredo Albanese,” I said with a fake Italian accent. “This is my brother Franco. We come to see his son Alex.”

  The woman behind the desk looked at us suspiciously. Her white hair was stylishly piled up to show nice white ears and pearl earrings. Her white blouse had a nice billow at the neck and a gold cross dangled from a thin chain around her neck. She looked from me to Shelly, who squirmed, fixed his glasses, and said, “That’s right.” If my attempt at Italian dialect was bad, his was early Chico Marx.