The Devil Met a Lady

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

  Mrs. Plaut shook her head again, turned, and hurried across the landing and down the stairs.

  “Peters,” I said, when I finally got to the phone.

  “Where is she?”

  It wasn’t Arthur Godfrey. It was Arthur Farnsworth.

  “I don’t know,” I answered, looking for something besides the wall to lean on. The only thing within reach was the railing, which I didn’t trust.

  “They called me,” he said. “A few hours ago. Bette wasn’t home. They said they would let her go if I gave them the plans to the bombsight I’m working on. Peters, they know what I’m working on. That’s top secret.”

  “And?” I prompted when he hesitated.

  “And,” he went on, after a deep sigh, “they want the record. They say you’ve got it. I give them the plans and the record and they let Bette go. Why the hell do they want the record if I give them the bombsight plans?”

  “So you won’t tell anyone,” I said, leaning against the wall and discovering that deep breaths were not a good idea. “Makes perfect sense. They don’t want you telling your boss, the FBI, anyone, that you made the trade. The record keeps you in line. It must mean their buyer raised the price he’d pay.”

  “I can’t give them the plans,” he said.

  Mrs. Plaut’s bird, Dexter, went wild below. There was a rattling of cage, a fluttering of feather, the voice of Mrs. Plaut shouting, “Naughty, naughty.” This was followed by the bird, a yellow canary, zipping into view over the railing with a mad flutter of wings. Mrs. Plaut shouted, “Dexter, you are imperiling yourself.”

  “I’ll get her back,” I called downstairs.

  “How are they getting in touch with you and when?” I asked into the receiver, as Dexter kamikazied in my general direction and then veered off toward the bathroom. Mrs. Plaut ambled back upstairs.

  “They’ll call at noon. That’s when they’ll tell me where to bring the record and the plans.”

  As she passed me in pursuit of Dexter, Mrs. Plaut gave me a grim look and muttered, “He is sometimes a trial and a tribulation.” Then she padded down the hall in the direction of the frantic clapping of tiny wings in the bathroom.

  “Agree to anything they ask,” I said. “I’ll call you at twelve-thirty.”

  “I think it’s time for the FBI,” Farnsworth said. “My wife’s life …”

  “Fine with me,” I said.

  “The man on the phone told me what happened, what’s been going on,” Farnsworth said. “And if he’s even …”

  “I messed up, Arthur,” I said. “I let your wife get kidnapped, not once, not twice, but three times. And it gets worse, Art. I got beaten so badly I can hardly move, and the police are looking for me.”

  “I’m sorry, but under the circumstances …”

  “Got you,” squealed Mrs. Plaut triumphantly, amidst bird screeches.

  “I’m calling you at half past noon,” I said. “I’ll have the record. You do what you have to do.”

  I hung up and watched Mrs. Plaut exit the upstairs bath, beaming, clasping Dexter gently in her hands. “When I was a child,” she said, moving past me and down the stairs, “we had goldfish in a bowl. Brother and father were allergic to feathers and fur.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” I said.

  “I’ll have the poultice up to you in six minutes,” she called.

  “That won’t be—” I started, but Mrs. Plaut kicked her door and the sentence shut.

  I made two more calls and then began the long treacherous journey back to my room. Half an hour later, neatly lathered in Mrs. Plaut’s pungent family poultice, I stepped into the morning sun and headed for my Crosley.

  “Mind if I make an observation here?” asked the turnkey with the sagging gut and ham arms, as we walked through the windowless echo of the L.A. County lockup.

  “Poultice,” I said.

  “Poultice,” he repeated.

  “The smell,” I explained. “Banged-up ribs. My landlady covered me with a poultice and bandaged me up.”

  “How’s it feel?” he asked.

  “Not great,” I said. “But it works.”

  “No offense, but I wouldn’t go to the dump smelling like that.”

  “How could anybody be offended by that observation?” I said.

  Their names were Matthew Stevens and Robert Gray. Hans was Stevens. Fritz was Gray.

  I found this out when the turnkey called each of them as we stood in front of their cell. There was another guy in the cell with them, a thin guy who needed a shave and coughed every fifteen or twenty seconds. The thin guy sat on the edge of a bunk and looked out at me and the turnkey with no interest in his eyes.

  Lockups and prisons have their own odors. Lockups are worse. They smell like sweet old food or leftover griddle grease. I don’t know why, but they all have the one smell or the other. Even Mrs. Plaut’s poultice didn’t completely cover that aroma.

  “Which one?” asked the turnkey.

  Stevens and Gray looked at each other, reasonably puzzled.

  “That one,” I said. “Stevens.”

  It was a toss-up, but I took the blond. There was something that might have been mistaken for emotion on his face.

  “Right,” said the turnkey, opening the cell door.

  The coughing man on the cot said something no one could understand.

  “What is this?” asked Stevens.

  “Pal here with the perfume put up bail,” said the turnkey.

  “What about me?” asked Gray.

  “Answer a question,” I said, “and you walk with us to the plane waiting to fly your partner to Singapore. Where did Jeffers take her?”

  “Take who?” asked the turnkey.

  Gray shook his head slowly. “Not worth it,” he said.

  Stevens watched Gray and added, “I’m staying in.”

  “No one’s asking you, Trigger,” said the turnkey. “Man here wants to pay, you walk. County’s not giving out vacations. Now come on out or I call for help that’s not nice like yours truly.”

  Stevens reluctantly stepped out and looked back at Gray.

  “Why’re you looking at me like that?” asked Stevens. “This isn’t my damned idea.”

  Gray turned away.

  “Hey,” shouted Stevens, grabbing the bars. “I’m not asking for this.”

  Gray snorted, his back turned. The coughing man coughed.

  The turnkey pushed the door shut and nudged Stevens down the corridor.

  “You’ll get nothing from me,” Stevens said.

  “Can’t hurt to try,” I said.

  “Yes, it can. You’re walking slow,” he said. “We can make you walk a lot slower.”

  “No,” I said. “This’ll do just fine, Matt. Let’s go get a cup of coffee and talk about the good old days. I’ve got an offer that could make you rich.”

  We drove to Levy’s on Spring. He could have jumped out at any stop. There was no way I could catch him, no way I could hold him if I did, but the suggestion of sudden wealth kept Stevens in his seat and quiet.

  “How about here?” I said, parking in front of Levy’s.

  Stevens said nothing.

  “They’ve got a sixty-five-cent lunch till four in the afternoon,” I said.

  Stevens grunted.

  We got out and went into Levy’s. It was a little after nine, late for the breakfast crowd, early for the lunch trade. Carmen the cashier wouldn’t be on duty for another hour and a half. I sat at a table with my back to the door, and Stevens sat across from me.

  “What’ll it be?” said Rusty the dyspeptic waiter, his check pad at the ready. He twitched his nose as if he smelled something disagreeable, but kept it to himself. This man was a pro.

  “Coffee,” I said. “You got Wheaties?”

  “We got Wheaties,” he said.

  “Wheaties,” I said. “Matt?”

  “Coffee,” he said.

  “That all?” Rusty asked, as if Stevens owed him at least the blue-plate special.
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  “That’s all,” Stevens said.

  He walked toward the kitchen and I surveyed the empty tables. Someone had left a Times on the table next to us. I reached for it. It hurt.

  “Not hungry?” I asked, looking at the headline. The U.S. had opened two drives on the Nazis in Tunisia, and Churchill was in Turkey, and the Japanese were tasting minor victory in their drive on the Solomon Islands. It was a light news day.

  “You smell like puke,” Stevens said.

  “Flattery won’t make the offer better,” I said, putting the paper down.

  “What offer?”

  “Tell me where Jeffers and Wiklund have Bette Davis,” I said. “And you walk with two hundred bucks.”

  Up close across the table in morning sunlight, Stevens didn’t look quite as young or as stupid as he did at night.

  “Two hundred dollars,” he said, rubbing his chin as if he were considering the offer.

  “And you walk,” I said.

  “I’ll take it,” he said.

  “Good. You talk. I pay.”

  “I need a toilet first,” said Stevens, standing as Rusty the waiter clanked down two cups of coffee.

  “By the door where you come in,” said Rusty the waiter.

  “I saw,” said Stevens, moving behind me.

  I drank my coffee. It wasn’t bad. Rusty hovered over the table, waiting for my reaction.

  “Good, Rusty,” I said. “How’s it look?”

  “He’s going for the door now,” he said.

  I drank more coffee without looking back over my shoulder. I heard the door close gently, but I didn’t look up or back.

  “Now?”

  “Cab coming down Spring. He’s waving him down.”

  “Driver?”

  “Little fat guy, bald, thick glasses, cigar,” he said. “He’s gettin’ in.”

  “Got any bananas to go with the Wheaties, Rusty?”

  “We got bananas, Toby.”

  “They gone?”

  “Cab’s gone,” Rusty said, moving back toward the kitchen.

  I finished the Times slowly, ate my Wheaties, left Rusty a ten-buck tip, as we had negotiated over the phone two hours earlier, and headed for my office.

  I parked in an illegal space, hanging over into the crosswalk on Hoover. I had a fifty-fifty chance of making it through an hour or two without a ticket. It was worth the risk, considering my condition.

  I took the elevator and listened to the sounds of the Farraday—the wails, cries, laughs, even something that sounded like a snore. Since Shelly was out driving a hack he borrowed from one of his patients who owed him for bridge-work, I had to use my key to get into the office.

  Something didn’t feel right. The lights were off and the sun was coming through the windows. The sink was full and old dental journals were piled on the white painted-metal dental chair in the center of the room. It should have felt normal.

  My office door was open. Dash came running out and stopped in front of me to meow in complaint, which I read as either: (a) I’m hungry as hell, (b) what the hell happened to you last night? or (c) something funny’s going on here and you are about to find out.

  All three were right.

  Sergeant John Cawelti of the Los Angeles Police Department stepped into the doorway of my office. His thin red hair was parted down the middle. His pockmarked face was beaming with approaching victory. He adjusted his blue tie and said, “I can’t make up my mind if you smell worse than you look.”

  “Take your pick,” I said, not moving.

  He took a step toward me. “I go for fragrant,” he said. “Come on into your office and we’ll have a talk.”

  He backed out of the way and motioned toward the open door. Dash let out a warning meow, but it was too late. I moved past Cawelti into my office and went around the desk. Dash just made it in as Cawelti closed the door. I sat slowly, carefully.

  “Nice picture,” he said, nodding at the Dali on the wall.

  “Me and Phil,” I said.

  “Nice.” Cawelti sat back and folded his hands.

  “You booking me, John?”

  He shook his head no as Dash jumped onto the desk, sending a pile of bills floating to the floor. “County attorney’s office says there’s enough to pull you in on suspicion of withholding information on a murder, but not enough to hold you for the deed,” he said. “Could haul you for littering, taking the name of the Lord in vain, abetting a suspect to jump bail.”

  I reached over to rub Dash’s head. He did me a favor and allowed me to scratch. I didn’t say a word. I didn’t look at the phone that was now ringing.

  “Matthew Stevens,” Cawelti said. “Lockup a few hours ago. You posted for him. You wanna answer that?”

  I picked up the phone.

  “Toby?” asked Shelly Minck.

  “Yes,” I said, watching Cawelti’s green eyes.

  “It was great,” Shelly said. “He had no idea. My Brooklyn accent took him in.”

  “Terrific,” I said, smiling.

  “You know where this guy wanted to go?” asked Shelly.

  “Panama,” I said.

  “Panama?”

  “How should I know where? You were driving.”

  “I’m doing you a favor here, Toby,” Shelly said, turning sullen.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  Cawelti sat forward, eyes narrowing.

  “Well …”

  “Can you just give me the information?” I said. “I’m having a conversation here in my office with an old friend, John Cawelti.”

  “The cop who …”

  “Yes,” I said. “Now if you’ll just …”

  “Who’s on the other end, Peters?” asked Cawelti, getting up out of his chair and leaning toward me.

  “Nice place,” said Shelly. “Coldwater Canyon. Up on a hill.”

  He gave me the address just before Cawelti ripped the phone from my hand.

  “Who is this?” he demanded.

  I don’t know what Shelly answered, but it didn’t please Cawelti, who slammed the receiver down and leaned toward me, both palms flat on the desk. His face was turning red but he was smiling through.

  “I owe you, Peters,” he said, thumping a forefinger into my sore chest. “I owe you. You made an ass of me more times than you’ve got hair up your ass. Your brother kept me from ripping you before, but your brother has other things on his mind now and it’s just you and me.”

  “John,” I said, rising. “I’m really enjoying this conversation. We should take more time to get together, air our feelings, exchange recipes, but I’ve got places to go.”

  Cawelti just shook his head.

  “I don’t have places to go?” I asked.

  “Not places you want to get to. You’re hurting, Peters. You could hurt a lot more. I’m a fair man. Ask anyone on the street. Hard, maybe, but fair. You tell me what the hell is going on, who you’re working for, and what you know about the Niles killing. Tell me and tell me straight, and you walk without me putting a hand on you.”

  Cawelti stood away from the desk and showed me his palms. “My word on it,” he said.

  “Bygones are bygones,” I said, moving around the desk and giving Dash a final head scratch.

  “Let’s not go that far,” he said. “I’ll let you walk without more pain and I’ll live and let live unless you cross me. Something big’s going on. I know it. I feel it. I need it, Peters.”

  I was face to face with Cawelti now, and there was something Irish, wild and dancing, in his green eyes.

  “I’ve got nothing to tell you, John,” I said.

  He put his hand on my shoulder and found another sore spot. It didn’t take much of a search. It could have been worse but it was bad enough.

  “Reconsider, Toby.”

  He let go of my shoulder and tapped a finger against my chest. It took him almost no time to find the broken rib. My face gave me away.

  “You understand where we are here?” he asked softly.


  It is not a good idea to hit a cop, even if the cop is Cawelti. It can get you some bad jail time. Worse, it can get you a beating or a bullet in the stomach, but I still gave the idea some fast, serious thought. A knee to the groin, a good right to the belly, and I had a better than even chance of getting as far as the hallway, but there was no way short of breaking his legs that I’d get out of the Farraday.

  Something creaked beyond my office door. Cawelti didn’t hear it, but I hoped it was the cavalry.

  “John,” I said, raising my voice. “Since we’re alone here and I don’t see how anything I could say would make it worse, let me tell you that you and I have very little chance of being buddies. I know that hurts, but all you have to do is look at your face in the mirror to figure out that you do not light up a room when you enter. Now, I’m doing my best here to kiss and make up. If I’m not getting through, just give me a few pointers.”

  I did not like Cawelti’s smile or his hand grabbing my belt.

  I did like the knock at the door.

  “Come in,” I said.

  “Get out of here,” shouted Cawelti.

  The door opened and my brother’s partner, Steve Seidman, stepped in. That about did it for my office. Three people were definitely a crowd.

  “Get out, Seidman,” said Cawelti. “This is my case.”

  Seidman paid no attention. “Phil wants you at the hospital, Toby,” he said. “Ruth’s not doing so good.” Then he turned to Cawelti, who still held my belt. “That is,” said Seidman, “if it’s all right with you, John.”

  Cawelti’s hand was shaking as he let go. I staggered half a step back to keep from falling. Dash purred behind me and leapt onto my desk to get a better view of the action.

  “Take him,” he said. “We’ll talk later.”

  I went out in front of Seidman. “You coming, John?” I asked, not wanting to leave him alone with Dash. “I’d like to lock up the office.”

  “I’ll be along,” said Cawelti, leaning against my desk.

  “Citizen wants to lock his office, Sergeant,” said Seidman.

  “Well, then, Lieutenant,” Cawelti said, following us into Shelly’s office, “I think I better come back again soon.”

  “You do that,” I said. “We’ll always have a pot brewing for you.”