Think Fast, Mr. Peters

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

  “Hah,” laughed Sal. “The last person who should trust Millman. I’ll give him a call.” He picked up the phone, called the operator “honey,” and gave her a number.

  Sal tapped his fingers on the desk while he waited, picked up a photograph, turned it for me to look at. It was a woman in a turban. She was overly made up. I shrugged. Sal, holding the phone in one hand, looked at the photograph, nodded yes in agreement, and put the photo back on the desk, face down.

  “Millman? Lurtzma … I can’t complain. Just placed a client at Columbia. Looks like multipicture contract … this very minute. As God is my witness. I’ve got another witness right here, a detective. He’ll confirm. Peters. Come here. Tell this petzle about Edgar.”

  I got up, still tight from my workout, and walked to the desk to take the phone.

  “Sal just placed a guy named Edgar with Columbia for a short,” I said. Sal pulled the phone out of my hand and cackled into it.

  “See? What do you mean? Of course he’s a detective. Am I doomed today to have no one believe me on the phone? Millman, listen. You had a Peter Lorre mimic who was supposed to be perfect. No, I’ve got no job for him. I don’t want to steal your client. If I had a job I’d want five percent, but I’ve got no job.” Sal fumbled around for a pencil and paper, found them and began to write as he spoke. “I’m pleased … I’m delighted … just curious …. You’ll be the first to know. Sal Lurtzma doesn’t lie.”

  He hung up and turned to me.

  “What is it with lying in this business?”

  “People sometimes exaggerate, Sal,” I said. “You are the greatest guy in the world, a rock, but you know it happens.”

  “Whatever,” he said, getting out of his chair and looking out the window again. “I’ve got some information for you. You want a Squirt? I got no ice.”

  “No thanks, Sal,” I said as he pulled a green bottle from under his desk, pulled an opener out of the drawer, popped the cap, and took a deep drink.

  “Hate the stuff but it’s good for the belly,” he said with a belch. “Guy you might be looking for is named Sidney Kindem. Almost a ringer for Lorre, even used the professional name Pete R. Lowry. Lots of that going around, but it’s usually hootchy-kootchy dancers. Millman says the guy is pretty good. Wouldn’t hold up in a face-to-face with the real thing but damn good, know what I mean? There was a guy a few years back, Billy … Billy something, looked more like Chaplin than Chaplin, even made some movies. He …”

  “… got kicked by an ostrich and died,” I finished. “I heard the story. What about this Sidney Kindem?”

  Sal thought about getting out of his chair, changed his mind, drank some Squirt, changed his mind, got up, and looked out the window.

  “He’s working a movie. Small role. Millman didn’t handle it. Millman just knows what’s what. Small role. Small studio—Miracle. Heard of them?”

  “No,” I said.

  “According to Millman they’re shooting on a roof somewhere near Burlington and Beverly. He didn’t know which roof.”

  “I’ll find them,” I said.

  “Could be the wrong Lorre fake,” Sal said. “There’s a ton of them, but he’s the best according to Millman and on that you can trust Millman.”

  “I’ll start there, Sal. Thanks.”

  I pulled a five out of my cracked wallet and reached over the desk to hand it to him. He tucked it into the sweat-stained pocket of his shirt.

  “Got some free news for you, Peters,” he added as I stepped toward the door. “There’s a guy out there on Grand looking up at the window. I don’t think he’s getting up his courage to come in and sing a few songs for me. More like he’s waiting for you.”

  “Big guy, straight blond hair, gray zipper jacket, looks a little like Gene Tunney?”

  “That’s the make and model,” Sal agreed.

  “We had a little disagreement over at the Y and he followed me here,” I said.

  “Because you had a disagreement at the Y? That it? People follow you around because of disagreements?”

  “Doesn’t seem likely, does it?” I said.

  “Not to me,” Sal said with a shrug and then finished off the last of his Squirt. “But what do I know? I think parrots sound like FDR. Take care of yourself.”

  “I try, Sal. I try. If this is the wrong Lorre fake …” I began.

  “My door is always open,” Sal said with a grin that revealed teeth so even and nearly white that they certainly weren’t his.

  On the way out of the building I passed a man and woman bickering. They didn’t seem to notice me. I made my way for them by pressing against the wall of the narrow stairway.

  “Tenor,” said the man with great exasperation. “Tenor, always a tenor.” He was thin, wearing a natty sport jacket and a bow tie.

  She, just as thin, wore a black dress with a flowered print, and sang, “Baritone. I know a baritone when I hear one. My father was a baritone. My grandfather was a baritone.”

  “And you’re a baritone,” said the skinny man as they disappeared above me heading, I assumed, for Sal’s office.

  The guy from the Y wasn’t in sight as I stepped out. If he had been after me to regain his honor, he would have been in front of me, possibly throwing a sucker punch. If he just wanted revenge, he might be waiting back at the car or in the black Ford I had spotted tailing me. Maybe he’d stay with me till he could safely plow into me. But I had the feeling that the guy was after something else, that maybe he hadn’t simply picked that day and hour to work out at the Y, that maybe he had followed me there and hurried up to the gym before me to set up the scene. The only problem with that was that I couldn’t think of a reason why anyone might want me followed. It would be another two hours before I found out.

  Parking was no problem. I found a space just off Beverly on Bonnie Brae. The big guy in the black Ford pulled past me and turned his head away as if he were looking for a street number. One thing was sure. He was new at this. I sat watching till he parked his car half a block down and then I got out and walked back to Beverly.

  On Beverly, not far from Burlington, I went into a narrow diner called Connie’s Place. No one was in the place but Connie, a droopy, dark little woman, who stood behind the counter in her white apron smoking and reading the L.A. Times. I sat at the counter on one of the eight empty red leatherette-topped stools. Without looking up from her paper, Connie asked, “What can I do you for?”

  “Java, two sinkers, and information, Connie,” I said.

  “Information,” said Connie, thinking over the word. “We got the Nips on the run.”

  “Information about a movie company that’s shooting somewhere near here,” I said.

  Connie put her paper on the counter without folding it and moved to fill a cup with coffee.

  “Easy. Half block up Burlington. Eskian’s Hardware. They’re up on Paul Eskian’s roof.” She poured the coffee, wiped her palms on her apron, and bare-handed a pair of doughnuts from the glass-covered container behind her.

  “Thanks,” I said, reaching for the sugar.

  “None of my business,” Connie said, going back to her paper while I had my coffee and doughnuts, “but there’s a guy looking at you through the window. Looks something like that boxer, Tunney—or if he turns his head Bluto in the Popeye cartoons or my husband Lyle if he’s looking straight at you. I think he doesn’t want to be noticed.”

  “Which one, Lyle or the guy at the window?”

  “Both,” she said.

  “Thanks,” I said dunking one almost stale donut. “I’ll watch out for him.”

  “And I’ll keep looking out for Lyle,” Connie said, and then added as if it had suddenly dawned on her. “Say, how did you know my name?”

  “Lucky guess,” I said with a mouthful. “I’m a detective.”

  “Eighteen cents for the Java and Jive,” she said. “Just leave it on the counter when you go. You know what I don’t like about ‘Terry and the Pirates’?”

  “No, Connie,�
�� I said, looking at the reflection of the guy following me in the big soup bowl behind the counter. He did look more like Bluto than Tunney.

  “Too many words. The pictures are good but they got so goddamn many words in the balloons you gotta go to college to read the damn thing. Take a look.”

  She held up the newspaper for me to see.

  “See, ‘Napoleon,’ ‘Tarzan,’ ‘Ella Cinders,’ even ‘Mary Worth’s Family,’ which believe me I don’t read, don’t have words like ‘Terry and the Pirates.’ It’s dumb. He draws these great-looking dames and scrunches them in the corner under the words and makes it all dark.”

  I grunted in agreement, took the final doughnut in two bites, and finished the coffee. I dropped a quarter on the counter and got up slowly so the clown from the Y could get out of sight.

  “See you, Connie,” I said.

  “Right, next time don’t come during rush hour so we can get a chance to chat,” she said with a cough.

  I walked back to my car with Bluto right behind. In my rearview mirror I watched him run for his Ford. I gave him time, pulled out onto Beverly, and turned on Burlington. There were people on the street heading in and out of stores but it didn’t look particularly busy and I didn’t see anything that looked like a movie crew. But I had no trouble spotting Eskian’s Hardware. I parked in front of it and looked through the window at a balding bear of a man who smiled at me as he pulled a can of paint out of the window.

  When I stepped inside, there were a few customers looking at hammers, nails, and pieces of wood. All the customers looked like janitors.

  “Can I, I, I help you?” shouted the bear of a man behind the counter. He was wearing a flannel shirt and a big customer-is-always-right smile. His stammer wasn’t bad enough to be annoying but you couldn’t miss it.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Connie tells me they’re shooting a movie on your roof.”

  “On my roof,” said the man with a smile looking up at the ceiling. “Stars and everything. Peter Lorre’s up there right now. On Paul Eskian’s roof. Can you, you, you top that? I haven’t had a, a, a look at him. Too busy down here. But, I mean, can you top that?”

  “Wouldn’t try,” I said. “How do I get up there?”

  The smile left the face of the man I assured was Paul Eskian.

  “Don’t know I can let, let, let you do that,” he said. “I don’t think they want people watching. Don’t even think they’ll take, take, take, take it kindly if I go up there and it’s my roof. But what the hell. They’re giving me free, free, free passes to see the picture when it’s finished.”

  “You’re getting paid in passes?” I asked, looking over my shoulder toward a stack of paint cans in the corner and seeing Bluto turn away outside the window.

  “Passes and eight bucks for the day,” said Eskian, his smile returning. “Mr. and Mrs. Eskian didn’t raise fools for children. My son set the whole thing up. Bright, bright, bright kid. But I don’t think I can let, let …”

  I pulled out my wallet and flashed the Dick Tracy badge my nephews Nate and Dave had given me. If you looked closely, you could see Dick’s distinct profile embossed in the tin along with the decoder nob. Nothing but the best for Uncle Toby. Eskian didn’t look close.

  “Sorry,” he said. “No trouble is there? I can, can, can use that eight bucks.”

  “No trouble,” I said with a smile, leisurely returning wallet and decoder badge to my pocket. “I’m just on a job that involves Mr. Lorre. In fact I had lunch with him a little earlier.”

  “Well, that’s different, that’s swell,” said Eskian. “Right up those stairs, then to the right to the end of the hall and through the door with, with, with the photo of Betty Grable on it. Then up to the roof.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “Oh, there’s a guy out there on the street, looks a little like the big guy in Popeye cartoons.”

  “Bronko,” said Eskian.

  “Bluto,” I corrected.

  “Yeah,” said Eskian squinting toward the street. “Right. I see, see, see him. what’s he skulking around for?”

  “He’s with me. If he come in, tell him I said he should wait, that I’d be down in a few minutes.”

  “Sure,” said Eskian. “Always, always, always glad to help the police.”

  As I headed for the stairs in the corner, Eskian began to sing “The Night We Met in Honolulu.”

  His directions were fine, right down to the Betty Grable picture tacked to the door. The picture had been torn from a magazine cover. Betty was wearing a bathing suit and stood in profile looking back at the camera with a pouting smile. Someone had torn the picture in half and someone else had lovingly and not too expertly taped it back together.

  I moved up the dark, narrow stairway, hearing voices above. I didn’t count the steps but I figured it at about twenty. There was a thin open strip between the door and the floor of the roof at the top of the stairs. I groped for the door knob, found it, and stepped into the light.

  A fat movie camera was set up in the center of the roof. It was an old camera on an old tripod and the camera operator was older than the camera, probably older than still photography. He wore a blue shirt and a frayed tweed jacket about twenty degrees too warm for the weather and his job. A kid who looked about twelve stood next to him holding a roll of tape. The kid looked over at me and picked his nose. Next to the kid sat a man in a metal folding chair. The man in the chair wore dark glasses and was an easy eighty years old. He wore a battered fedora and a pair of striped pants that didn’t match his gray, patterned shirt. Beyond them, at the edge of the roof leaning against a waist-high brick wall, stood a man and a woman. The woman, at this distance, was pale, beautiful, with amazing red lips and hair as black as the Dragon Lady’s. The man, a good four inches shorter than the woman, wore a suit and tie. His hair was combed straight back and glistened with pomade. He was a respectable double for Peter Lorre. I’ll give him more credit than that. If I hadn’t seen Lorre within the last two hours, there’s a good chance I would have been fooled.

  A portable radio sat on the pebbled rooftop next to the old man in the dark glasses. A female trio was singing, “Super Suds, Super Suds. Floods of suds for dishes and duds.”

  The old man in the dark glasses, who was facing me, suddenly shouted, “Radio off.”

  The kid stopped fooling with his nose and reached down to turn off the radio. Then he moved to a battered, black sound box on the ground and put on some old earphones.

  “Better,” said the old man in the glasses. “Now let’s have a take here. Are you ready, Gregor?”

  “I’m ready, Eric,” replied the cameraman.

  “Peter? Elisa?” shouted the man in glasses, who was still facing me with his back to the actors.

  “Ready, Eric,” the man and woman near the roof edge replied.

  “Just say the right words, the ones in the script, and say them loud enough for me to hear even if we’re not recording,” the man in the chair shouted. “It will be easier to match it up later. No sticks, no anything. Gregor, roll the camera. Bobby, roll the sound.”

  “Rolling, Eric,” said Gregor.

  “Sound rolling, Mr. Steistel,” shouted the kid with the earphones.

  “Peter, Elisa. Act.”

  I leaned against the closed door and watched Peter and Elisa act. They argued. She turned her back on him. He cajoled in a fair imitation of Peter Lorre. She folded her arms. He spun her around angrily. She struggled. He strangled her and was about to throw her off the roof when the camera operator shouted, “Eric. That’s the end of the scene.”

  “Then cut, cut, cut, cut,” demanded Eric, slapping his thighs as he sat. “How did it look?”

  “It’ll do,” Gregor said without enthusiasm.

  “Fine,” said Eric. “Let’s set up for Peter’s reaction shot. We’ve got to be back at the loft by four.”

  I stepped forward and began to head toward Sidney Kindem or Pete R. Lowry, who had lit a cigarette and offered one to Elisa, who accepted. I
was even with the camera when the kid, who had taken off his earphones and picked up a roll of tape, stopped me.

  “Hey, where you goin’? We’re shooting a movie.”

  “Mr. Eskian sent me up,” I said. “I’ve got to talk to Mr. Lorre.”

  “Who’s there?” shouted the ancient man in the folding chair.

  It was at that moment I realized that Eric, the director of this film, was blind.

  “I don’t know, Mr. Steistel,” the kid said. “Some guy.”

  “Well, get him out of here, Robert,” Steistel said, turning his head as if by some effort of sense or smell he’d pick up my location.

  “I don’t think I can, Mr. Steistel,” the kid said, looking at me. “I’m an apprentice director.”

  “You are an apprentice everything,” the cameraman named Gregor reminded him. “Help me move this camera.”

  “Intruder, who is the intruder?” shouted the blind director.

  “Name’s Peters,” I said. “Toby Peters. I’m a detective.” I started to reach for my Dick Tracy badge and realized I didn’t need it.

  “What are you detecting here?” he asked. “We’ve got a movie to make. A schedule to keep. Back in Germany we had a crew of people just to keep intruders like you away. And now …” he shrugged.

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “We all miss the good old days.”

  I bypassed the kid with the tape, moved past the camera, which Gregor was in the process of moving with great difficulty, and headed toward Kindem. He and the woman watched me advance with some curiosity. When I was a few feet from them, their curiosity had turned to mild concern. I don’t seem to inspire warm feelings in people.

  Elisa was not so young, not so beautiful up close. Her makeup covered a few lines she had probably earned. She didn’t look bad but close-ups wouldn’t be kind to her. Kindem looked even less like Lorre up close. He was heavier, taller. His eyes weren’t as large and a layer of makeup helped cover pockmarks from a childhood bout with some pox. Some of the Lorre illusion came from the haircut, the way he held himself, and the makeup.

  “Sid,” I said. “I’ve got a question or two for you.”

  “For me?” Kindem said, opening his eyes wide, still in his act. The accent wasn’t bad.