Think Fast, Mr. Peters

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

  Bobby didn’t need any help. The big, older Marine was standing between him and the attacker.

  “It’s over,” said the big guy.

  “Not yet,” said the guy who had attacked me as he lurched forward, blood trickling from a cut on his chin.

  “Albert,” the big Marine said deeply, “I said it’s over. You read that?”

  Albert stopped, looked at the big guy, touched his bloody chin, gave me a look to melt iron, and nodded.

  “You OK?” the big guy asked, looking over his shoulder at me.

  “I’m OK,” I said.

  “You OK, kid?” he asked Bobby.

  “OK,” Bobby said, glaring at the Marine who had pushed him.

  “You got guts, buddy,” the big guy said. “You and your kid.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  The big guy pointed in the general direction of the lion house and the other two started to walk in that direction.

  “Win the war,” I said.

  “Will do,” answered the big Marine, pulling a handkerchief out of his pocket and handing it to his pal with the bloody chin.

  The disappointed baboons chattered or jeered at the departing trio as I moved over to Bobby.

  “You all right?” I asked.

  “He thought you were my father?” Bobby said, straightening his jacket.

  “Sorry,” I said, putting my keys away.

  “My father would have got a gun and shot them,” Bobby said, looking at me with a challenge in his voice. He may have been running the Steistel brothers’ operation but he was a seventeen-year-old kid and thought like one.

  “We all do it our own way,” I said. “I don’t know which way is best. You could have gotten us both in a hospital.”

  “Rather be in a hospital than run,” he said, looking after the Marines, who were about to turn a corner.

  I agreed with him.

  “You want a hot dog?” I asked.

  “You paying?” asked Bobby.

  “On me and my client,” I said.

  And off we went for hot dogs and Coke and some more talk. He told me what he knew about the Steistels, the dead actor, Mildred, and Elisa, and I told him I’d have a Lowry replacement by Friday. He told me I’d better check with the Steistels to be sure it was OK. I bought him a second hot dog and he told me that he was thinking of joining the navy in August when he was eighteen. I wanted to tell him to wait till they came for him, but I wasn’t his father. I grunted and tried to figure out what animal I was smelling. When we were done, I offered Bobby a ride home but he said he was going to stay.

  “Birds,” he said. “I haven’t seen the birds.”

  I left him and headed back for my car, opened the door, and got in after getting an old jacket from the trunk and placing it on the driver’s seat to cover the blood or red paint someone had poured on it while I was in the zoo. I spat on my handkerchief and wiped away the message in red that had been written on the windshield. It was only one word in small letters, Stop, but it turned my handkerchief a deep red.

  9

  It was nearly two when I drove into No-neck Arnie’s garage not far from the Farraday.

  Arnie was in his overalls working on an Oldsmobile coupe in the corner of the big concrete and brick building. He was covered with grease and cursing to himself as I walked up to him and he pulled his head out of the hood.

  “Automatic transmissions,” he spat. “Whoever thought the damn things up should be pickled and fried.”

  “Doesn’t sound too appetizing,” I told him.

  “It’s not meant to be. What’s your problem?”

  “Bad back. Not much money. Sore jaw. Ex-wife who doesn’t want to see me. Brother who—”

  “With the car,” Arnie sighed. Arnie never liked jokes unless he made them.

  “Blood or paint all over the front seat,” I said.

  He wiped his hands on a greasy towel, strode past me to my Crosley, and opened the door.

  “It’s blood,” he said.

  “What kind?” I asked.

  “How the hell should I know? I’m a mechanic, not a pathologist,” he grunted. “Five bucks I’ll have my man Buttrick scrub it out. Have it ready in … I don’t know. An hour, maybe less, if you don’t mind it a little damp.”

  “Three bucks,” I said.

  “Tell you what, Toby. Buy yourself some Super Suds in the blue and white box, mix it in a pail with hot water, pull out the car seat, and scrub it yourself. Then let it sit in the sun and dry for three, four hours.”

  “Five bucks,” I said.

  “You got it,” Arnie answered.

  “You don’t bargain very well, Arnie,” I said.

  “I get by,” he answered with a shrug. “You want me to fill it with gas?”

  “Why not? I’ll be back in an hour, maybe two. Maybe longer,” I said heading for the door.

  “I’ll be here,” called Arnie.

  I walked the three blocks to the Farraday. The rain threat had passed and the sky was bright. It was June in Los Angeles. A billboard on Main called out for me to buy an extra war bond in June to help build the Cruiser Los Angeles. A drawing of the proposed Los Angeles streaked through the water toward Main Street. It was near this corner on December 17, 1870, that a Frenchman named Lachenais had been caught after committing murder. I knew, because my brother Phil had written a paper on unknown crimes in Los Angeles history when he was a student in Glendale High. Before he had written the paper, Phil had taken me with him on a research trip to downtown Los Angeles, which was, at the time, a foreign country to me. I liked the smells, the hustle, the crowds, the big, dark buildings with strange-looking people coming out of them. It was nothing like Glendale. I wanted to live right there on Main Street.

  I remembered Phil’s paper on Lachenais as I headed for Hoover. Lachenais, angry that a man named Bell had stolen water from him, shot Bell dead. Bell’s body was found with no hint of who might have killed him. A few days later Lachenais, seriously drunk, suggested to a neighborhood vigilante that it was a mistake to go riding toward Sonoma in search of the killer.

  “The vigilante and his pals put things together and marched a now sober Lachenais to the corral of Tomlinson and Griffith at the corner of Temple and New High and hanged him. Phil had written a full page on three-ring lined paper supporting the idea of public hanging for murderers, using Lachenais as his principal example. Phil’s high school history teacher hadn’t thought much of his choice of subject, his research, or his argument, but it remained a favorite of mine not because of the subject but the fact that Phil had actually taken me with him somewhere and displayed genuine enthusiasm about something, even if it was a hanging.

  When I hit Hoover, I imagined a posse including me, Phil, Jeremy, Gunther, and Shelly finding the guy who had sent me the dead pigeon, taken the shot at me, and bloodied my Crosley, and hanging him from a palm tree in Pershing Square.

  When I hit the Farraday, I imagined catching the guy myself and tying him down in Shelly’s dental chair so Dr. Minck could work on his molars.

  I climbed the stairs and went into the office. The lights were out. They should have been on. I turned them on. I can’t say the place was any more of a mess than it usually was. The mess was just arranged differently. Shelly should have been in his chair reading old dental journals, dreaming of land deals and rainbow dyes for teeth, chomping on his cigar, but he wasn’t there.

  What was there was an envelope on the dental chair, a big brown envelope with the single word “Peters” printed on it in black ink. I walked over, to the dental chair, picked up the envelope, and sat down. The chair reeked of Shelly’s cheap cigars. I turned the envelope over a few dozen times and looked at my printed name. I recognized the printing. I’d seen it in the capsule tied to the leg of the dead pigeon. I’d seen it on the windshield of my car. I opened the envelope and pulled out Shelly’s glasses and a sheet of paper on which was neatly written. “We have the dentist. You want him alive, you stop looking. You stop lookin
g, we let him go.” It wasn’t signed. I slipped the note back in the envelope and moved to my office and the phone.

  “Captain Pevsner,” Phil answered wearily.

  “Private Peters,” I said. “Anything new on the Lorre killings?”

  “Toby,” Phil said slowly with false patience. “We don’t have Lorre killings. We’ve got some unrelated acts of violence which coincidentally happen to involve people who, among other things, do imitations of Peter Lorre. It’s not all that coincidental either. I’ve seen you do Peter Lorre imitations. Anyone trying to kill you?”

  “Yeah,” I said, “but not because I do a lousy Peter Lorre. I do a lousy John Wayne and a miserable Victor McLaglen. You’ve heard my Victor McLaglen? ‘Sorry for your troubles, Mrs. McPhillip,’” I said with an Irish brogue that sounded pretty weak to me.

  Phil was silent on the other end.

  “That the official line from city hall?” I asked. “The Lorre business is a series of coincidences?”

  “Something like that,” Phil agreed.

  “And you’re …”

  “Holding onto a job,” Phil said.

  “Not like you, Phil,” I said. “You’ve never done what the boys in the hall have told you to do.”

  “Shit,” hissed Phil. “I’ve got a wife, three kids, house payments, old hospital bills. I’m fifty-three years old and my kids are going to want to go to college.”

  “How do you know?” I asked, looking around my office and then turning in my chair to look out of my window to the alley below.

  “Because I’m going to tell them to go, that’s why,” he shouted. “Get off the damned phone. I’ve got work to do, some unrelated cases to solve.”

  “Like …”

  “Like a woman named Gumbatz, Lucille Gumbatz who was shot at last night in the Morocco Bar while she was doing an imitation of Peter Lorre.”

  Two bums in the alley were tugging at a discarded chair. One bum had the legs, the other had the back. They tugged and probably yelled. I couldn’t tell. The window was closed and they were too far away. All I could hear was the traffic on Hoover and Ninth.

  “Thanks, Phil,” I said.

  “I’ve got work,” he croaked.

  “I’ve got information,” I said and told him about the pigeon, the shot fired at me, the blood in my car, and the note about Shelly.

  “Bring in the note, the pigeon, and your car,” he said. “We’ll have the police lab go over them.”

  “Threw the pigeon in a trash can on Fourteenth Street and the car’s being washed. You can have the kidnapping note. I’ll drop it off.”

  “I’ll put Seidman on the Minck kidnapping if it is a kidnapping. Minck’s probably pulling something to make his old lady sorry for him. Anything else?”

  “My gun,” I said.

  “Forget it,” he answered.

  “Lachenais,” I said. “You remember him?”

  “I remember him,” said Phil. “He never died. He had a hundred kids and they had a hundred kids and they’re all nuts and loose in the city and I’ve got to get off the phone and round them up. Good-bye.”

  He hung up and I played with Shelly’s glasses while I watched the two bums in the alley pull the old chair apart. Each bum held his useless half of a chair ready to use it as a weapon. They stood threatening. I bet on the shorter bum who had the back of the chair and looked more determined, but I never found out. The other bum threw his half of the chair in the air and walked away in disgust. The little bum retrieved the piece and tried to put it together with his own.

  I pocketed the glasses, got up and went into Shelly’s office, looked around for something, anything, found nothing, turned out the lights and left. I locked the door and went down the stairs, knowing that Shelly’s best chance of being found was through me. The threat didn’t make sense. How long could the killer hold Shelly? When he let Shelly go, I’d come after him. His threats hadn’t stopped me. Eventually, he’d either have to let Shelly go, which wasn’t likely, take care of him forever, which wasn’t likely, or kill him, which seemed the most likely.

  I left the Farraday and wandered down to Hill and Arnie’s garage.

  The Crosley was parked in front of the building. The windshield was clean and the seats were clean but wet. The keys weren’t in the car. I found Arnie inside eating a sandwich on the hood of the Oldsmobile whose transmission he was working on. The white bread sandwich had greasy fingerprints on it but Arnie didn’t seem to notice. I paid him and he tossed me my key.

  “Someone kidnapped Shelly,” I said.

  “Tough,” replied No-neck Arnie. “You need a tune-up.”

  “They may kill him,” I said.

  “These are hard times,” answered Arnie around a mouthful of salami, wilted lettuce, and bread. “You could use a tire rotation too.”

  “You’d make a great general, Arnie,” I said, heading for the door.

  “I’ve been miscast by life,” he said, reaching for a thermos in which any possible liquid might be sloshing. “But I try to make the best of a small role.”

  “You’re a philosopher, Arnie,” I said, opening the street door and letting in daylight.

  “We’ve all got hidden depths,” he answered. “You want to bring the car in for the tune-up and tire change?”

  “When I find Shelly,” I called out.

  “Hey, life goes on,” he shouted back. “You want some extra gas coupons? Price is down. Five bucks a book.”

  “I’ll think about it,” I shouted again and closed the door.

  My best chance of getting Shelly back alive wasn’t to give up on the Lorre case. My best chance was to solve the Lorre case and find the killer who had Shelly—if Shelly were still alive when I found him.

  It wasn’t that late. When I got in the car, my watch said it was nine, which could have meant it was any time. The watch hadn’t worked since my father left it to me. I’d never thought about fixing it, never thought about putting it in a drawer. The handles turned. The watch ticked. I wound it and wore it.

  The radio told me it was almost five. Normally, I’d start thinking about food, but this wasn’t normally. I put Shelly’s glasses on the narrow dashboard, dragged out my notebook, found out where the Steistels lived, and pulled into traffic.

  I dropped the envelope off for my brother at the Wilshire police station. I didn’t hang around to see him. He was getting too mellow and I didn’t have the time to prod him into a rage. My appetite did come back when I passed Ahrens on Wilshire. I found a parking space too near the corner and put a card on the dashboard indicating that I was a California State Health Inspector—On Duty.

  Ahrens was crowded but there were a few spaces for singles. I found one and got the Special Complete Dinner—chicken soup, roast beef, two vegetables, ice cream, buttermilk, and a boiled potato—for sixty-five cents. I ate fast, left a dime tip, and fifteen minutes later I was parked in front of Miracle Films.

  Miracle Films was on Alvarado near Echo Park. Miracle Films was not easy to find. Miracle Films did not have a studio or an office building. Miracle Films had a narrow entrance wedged between a small grocery and an exterminator’s. The name Miracle Pictures was neatly written on a card taped above a brass bell. The card was dirty.

  I pushed the bell. Nothing. I pushed again and heard a latch click in the wooden door. I pushed the door open and stepped in. The stairway was narrow and went almost straight up into near darkness. I walked up holding the wooden railing and moving toward a faint light. The wooden stairs creaked and yawned and I moved ever upward till I found myself in front of a door. There was no landing, just a door with a pebbled glass square window on which was printed Miracle Pictures in peeling gold ink outlined in peeling black. The door opened before I could reach for the knob and Gregor Steistel stood looking down at me. He was chewing on something and had a napkin tied around his neck. He wore the same shabby suit he’d worn on the roof of Eskian’s hardware store.

  “Yes?” he said suspiciously.

&n
bsp; “Peters,” I said.

  He squinted at me and stopped chewing. Nothing came to him so he started chewing again.

  “I was on the roof when Kindem got shot,” I explained.

  “Kindem?”

  “Lowry,” I said.

  “The police have talked already to Eric and me about this,” he said, swallowing whatever he’d been chomping on.

  “I’ve got other questions,” I said. “Can I come in?”

  “In?” He asked and looked back into “in.”

  “I can help you,” I said. “I think I can get you a replacement for Lowry.”

  Something like hope came over his lined face, and passed.

  “That is Bobby’s responsibility,” he said.

  “I’ve talked to Bobby. You want my cooperation on this, you give me a few answers.”

  “I’ll have to ask my brother,” Gregor said, closing the door.

  I leaned against the glass pane with my ear to it but all I could make out was two voices arguing in what was probably German. Then came a pause followed by a machine-gun burst of German and then silence again. Footsteps in my direction. I pulled my ear from the glass and stepped down with my hands plunged into my jacket pocket.

  The door opened again and Gregor motioned me in and stood back holding the door so I could pass. Miracle Pictures’ reception area was not impressive. The high-ceilinged “room” was wide and not really a room at all but the front part of an attic which had been curtained off from the rest of the space by a canvas curtain. The unfinished wood floor was bare except for a badly worn oriental rug of doubtful nationality. A wooden table stood in front of the door with a chair behind it. Two other unmatched chairs were in the space but they didn’t face the desk. On the table were piles of papers and newspapers and something that looked like a gutted movie camera.