Think Fast, Mr. Peters

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

  “Talk,” said Eskian.

  “OK,” I said. “Bobby works for a company called Miracle Pictures. He thought he could make a few bucks for his dad by getting the guys who run the company to shoot a scene on the roof. But a coincidence happened. The star of this cheap little movie was Mildred’s friend, Klausfueler or Kindem or Lowry.”

  “Too damn many names,” Shelly said.

  Not enough names, I thought, and went on with my tale.

  “Klausfueler recognized our friend Eskian as Steinholtz. He had known him back in Vienna. The real Peter Lorre knew him, too. Lorre’s real name, by the way, is Ladislav Lowenstein. Was it blackmail?”

  “Blackmail,” agreed Eskian. “He was going to, to blackmail me.”

  “So,” I went on, “I pulled up in front of the hardware store the other morning and Eskian here saw me. I asked too many questions and he thought I might be in it with Klausfueler. How am I doing?”

  “Very, very, very well,” said Eskian. I didn’t know if he was stammering or complimenting me.

  “He went through my car. Not hard with his collection of keys. Found my gun, came up the stairs, shot Klausfueler, and threw the gun down. Later, when I came around asking questions, he made up a man with a black coat.”

  “I don’t care about all this, Toby,” Sheldon moaned.

  “You’ll love it, Sheldon,” I snapped. “Our friend Steinholtz here went to Klausfueler’s room at the Ravenswood Hotel. and found a photograph of himself, Klausfueler, and the real Peter Lorre. So, he decided to go after the real Lorre too, but he did something he thought was really clever. After he shot Klausfueler he picked a random Peter Lorre imitator and killed him. Then he took a shot at another one and tried to run another one down. You want to know why?”

  “No,” wept Shelly. “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

  “I’ll tell you why. To draw the investigation away from the murder on the roof, to make it look like some lunatic was going after Peter Lorres, and that it might be someone other than the people on the roof. Paul Eskian and his son Bobby were just innocent, confused bystanders. But I kept concentrating on the murder up on the roof. The cops were running all over the city but not me. So …”

  “I had to stop, stop, stop you,” Eskian said.

  “Another mistake,” I said. “When I didn’t get scared away by bullets, dead pigeons, and bloody messages you decided to kidnap Shelly and threaten me on the phone, but you couldn’t call me on the phone, even with a disguised voice. Your stammer would give you away. That’s why you had Bobby make the calls, but Bobby didn’t do so well.”

  “Are you done?” Eskian said.

  “Not even close,” I said, trying not to look at the door at the top of the stairs, which was slowly opening.

  “That’s all I have time, time for,” said Eskian, stepping toward me and leveling the rifle at my head.

  “No,” said Bobby.

  “No,” said Shelly.

  “Steinholtz,” came Peter Lorre’s voice from the dark at the top of the stairs, It was a command. Steinholtz paused, rifle still aimed at my face, and looked toward the stairs.

  “Oh God,” cried Bobby as Peter Lorre calmly walked down the stairs, pausing near the bottom to light a cigarette.

  “I never expected to see you again,” Lorre said, stepping forward into the circle of yellow light from the dangling bulb over our heads. “I thought you would be a brownshirt colonel by now.”

  Steinholtz said something in German. In German he didn’t stammer.

  Lorre answered in German but his answer was clipped, angry.

  “So you just make, make, make it easier for me,” Steinholtz said his finger closing on the trigger. “I shoot all, all, all three of you and I’m safe.”

  “You are a fool,” spat Lorre in his best Peter Lorre imitation. “Do you think I would come here alone after you tried to shoot me? Do you think I would tell no one? Look.”

  He pointed up the stairs where the hulking form of Jeremy Butler filled the doorway.

  “You are pathetic,” Lorre said with a sneer and a disgusted shake of his head.

  “They were after me,” Steinholtz said, sweat forming on his brow and upper lip. “The Nazis were after me. I had, had, had, had to leave, had to hide from them. I lied about my background when I came here but I lied to hide from the Nazis who might come after me. Then Klausfueler threatened to tell the FBI that I was a Nazi. It was ironic.”

  Steinholtz’s hand quivered slightly as he let out a laugh, but the barrel of the rifle was still aimed somewhat in the general direction of my face.

  “I don’t see anything funny about this,” moaned Shelly.

  “This excuse for a man is not laughing,” Lorre said with disdain, stepping within a few feet of Steinholtz. “That is panic, hysterical panic. This is not worthy of you.”,

  “Dad,” wept Bobby in the corner.

  “No,” shouted Steinholtz. “I’ll kill you all. I’ll, I’ll, I’ll find a …”

  But before he cold tell us what he would find a way to do, Peter Lorre stepped forward and slapped the big man, slapped him with a loud thwack.

  “We’re dead,” Shelly said under his breath. “Dead.”

  But we weren’t dead. Steinholtz stepped back and let the rifle sag at his side.

  “You kill people,” Lorre shouted, his voice a mad threat. “You killed my cousin. You killed innocent people. You’d try to kill me? You’d try to kill my friends? You’re still a Nazi.”

  Even though Steinholtz had the rifle he backed away looking for help, but not even his son was prepared to stand up to the angry, shouting little man with the huge eyes and the hair falling over his forehead. Lorre stepped forward and slapped Steinholtz again. The bigger man yelped once and raced toward the stairs. Jeremy stepped down and Steinholtz thought better of that exit. He shoved his way past Lorre, who grabbed for him, and knocked down his son Bobby as he went out the door I had come through.

  “Jeremy,” I yelled. “Get him. There’s a window through there and a way out.”

  Jeremy leapt down the stairs and raced toward the door Steinholtz had dashed through. I’m sure he would have caught him if Bobby hadn’t roused himself with tears in his eyes, picked up the shovel, and swung with both hands at Jeremy who was running full steam toward the open door. The blow probably would have killed him if it had gotten him in the head, but the ex-wrestler threw his hand up and caught the steel blade across his palm. The metal cut into his palm and Jeremy rolled toward Bobby and into him, sending the kid flying across the basement. The shovel shot into the air and Jeremy caught it in his bleeding hand.

  I’ve never seen Jeremy angry, but as he stood holding that shovel in his bloody hand, standing over the cowering Bobby who crawled backwards, whimpering into a corner, something dark crossed that broad face.

  “The paternal knot,” Lorre said softly to Jeremy, who held the shovel in one hand over his head. “The mythological archetype. The son flees the father, hates the father, but cannot escape the tie, the loyalty. Isn’t it Keats who …”

  “Byron,” said Jeremy evenly. “It was Byron who got to the heart of the conflict. Keats only lyricized.”

  “Of course,” said Lorre, shaking his head. “Byron.”

  Jeremy looked at the shovel, bent his knee, and calmly broke the thick shaft in two over his knee. Bobby shrank back into the corner as Jeremy moved forward and lifted him by the arm with his undamaged hand.

  “No one is going to hurt you,” he said gently. “I’ll heal much faster than you will.”

  While Jeremy held the weeping Bobby, Peter Lorre untied me and Shelly. When he finished, I got up on unsteady legs, touched my swollen head, and looked at him. Lorre was even shakier than I was. He pulled out a cigarette but his hands were too shaky to light it. I took the match and did it for him.

  “Hell of a performance,” I said.

  “You think so?” he answered softly. “I’ve never been terribly good at improvis
ation. I relied a bit too heavily on my memory of Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment. I mean the later scenes when he is being—”

  “I don’t care,” Shelly interrupted, slouching toward the stairs. “I really don’t care about your performance, about any of this, not any of this. I’m a dentist. I shouldn’t have to worry about people.”

  “Let’s get Bobby to the police,” I said to Jeremy, “and let’s get your hand taken care of.”

  “Pity there was no camera,” Lorre sighed.

  14

  That should have been the end of it. At the hospital after we turned Bobby over to the police and told Steve Seidman our story, Lorre gave me a check for $150 to cover three days’ work and a bonus. He refused to wait for an itemized bill. I pointed out to him that Steinholtz was still out there somewhere, but he reasonably argued that Steinholtz no longer had a reason to kill him. Steinholtz’s identity was no longer secret. Lorre thanked me for the adventure and insisted on taking a cab home.

  Jeremy’s hand took twenty stitches—twelve less, he pointed out, than it took to sew him back together after Mad Dog Morey bit him in the leg in their match at the L.A. Olympics in ’34. A doctor I didn’t know looked at my dented skull and recommended hospitalization and tests. Then an orderly brought my hospital medical record and the M.D. decided that I was a hopeless case whose record clearly demonstrated that I should have had enough head injuries from previous attacks to earn me full-time membership in a home for the permanently brain-damaged.

  “Have you ever considered another line of work?” the doc asked. He was still young enough to hope that words might make a difference.

  “Professional hockey,” I said, “but I’d have to learn to skate and move to Canada.”

  Shelly had nothing to say. He wanted to go home to his wife. From the hospital lobby he called Mildred, who said she was pleased that he wasn’t dead, but that he could not come home and that her brother Michael would be dropping off all of his clothes at the office.

  I drove Shelly back to the Farraday. Jeremy took a cab. We both knew from experience that he wouldn’t fit into my Crosley. When I pulled up in front of the Farraday, I told Shelly he could bunk with me for a few days if he wanted to, but that I had filched his Buddha from the house when Mildred wasn’t looking and had put it in the car trunk. He’d probably have enough for a hotel if he wanted to be alone.

  “I’m going to a hotel,” Shelly said. “I’ve got plenty in the Buddha.”

  “Lorre just paid me a hundred and fifty, Shel,” I said to the forlorn dentist, who stood on Hoover Street in his dirty white smock looking lost and betrayed.

  “That’s all right,” he said, “I’ve got about nineteen thousand dollars in the Buddha?”

  “Nineteen thousand?” I said.

  “Gold filings, a few investments,” said Shelly, looking at the Farraday entrance.

  “Mildred will be after it,” I warned.

  “She doesn’t know about it,” he said. I got the Buddha out of the trunk, handed it to him, and watched him go through the Farraday entrance.

  I stopped at a small grocery on the way home and picked up a few things. It was around six when I got back to Mrs. Plaut’s and ran up the stairs, determined to hit my mattress clothes and all and not wake up for a week until my head stopped hurting. I made it to the top of the stairs, setting a new record, when Mrs. Plaut’s voice shrilled up at me.

  “Mr. Peelers,” she cried.

  “I’m in pain,” I said, continuing toward my door.

  “You had a call,” she shouted.

  “Tell me about it later,” I said, reaching my door.

  “The stuttering man said it was important,” she said, “but it is no skin off my knuckles.”

  I stopped and went tn the railing to look down at her.

  “The stuttering man?” I said. “What was his message?”

  She paused, looked up at me with exasperation, and fished a crumpled sheet from her apron pocket.

  “Come to I. Magnin’s on Wilshire alone as soon as is possible, mens’ furnishings, and I will turn myself in.”

  “That’s all?” I asked.

  “Verbatim,” she said.

  “Thanks,” I said and moved to my room where I turned on the light and walked slowly to my refrigerator. I prepared myself a glass of milk and a bowl of shredded wheat topped with a banana.

  “I’m too old for this,” I said, gritting my teeth against the pain in my head and shoveling in banana slices and soggy wheat.

  I could have called my brother, or Steve Seidman, or the fire department, or the FBI, and gone to bed, but I knew I wouldn’t. I finished my dinner, piled the dishes in the sink, changed my shirt, turned off the light, closed the door, and moved on unwilling legs down the stairs, stopping to knock at Mrs. Plaut’s door.

  “Yes, Mr. Peelers?” she said primly.

  “Your husband had a gun,” I said. “You showed it to me once.”

  “The hog leg,” she said. “Six-shooter, gift from Wyatt Earp when Earp bought some land from the mister in Fresno.”

  “You told me it’s still in working order,” I said.

  “Oiled and ready to ward off lecherous attacks at night,” she confirmed.

  “Could I borrow it for a few hours?” I said.

  She adjusted her hearing aid and looked at me as if I were mentally retarded.

  “It is,” she said very slowly, “an heirloom.”

  “I want to show it to a friend, a friend who appreciates fine firearms,” I lied. He’s the one who called. He’s only in for a few hours from Sante Fe. I mentioned your husband’s weapon and he begged me to let him see it. It would mean a lot to him. His mother is not well.”

  “I fail to see how the illness of his mother relates to this,” she said, “but seeing as how you will be helping with the rubber drive and the grease collection, I’ll allow you several hours, but it must be back in my hands by bedtime or I shall be filled with fury.”

  She fetched the oversized weapon and placed it in my hands. I took it carefully, thanked her, tried to find a way to hide it under my coat and gave up. Night had fallen when I stepped out on the street and headed for my car. I opened the small trunk and pulled out a crumpled shopping bag. I dropped the mister’s hog leg in, got in the driver’s seat, and headed for Wilshire.

  I didn’t turn on the radio. I knew what the sound would do to my head. I just drove until I pulled past Magnin’s in time to see Rudy Vallee give a last wave and a “Hi-ho everybody, from the Victory Window.”

  By the time I had parked the car a few blocks away and walked back, Rudy Vallee was no longer in the window and people were streaming out of the store. I tucked my shopping bag under my arm and elbowed my way past a pair of heavyweight sisters.

  “Sorry,” the watchman at the door said, “closing time.”

  “I’ve got an exchange to make, urgent,” I said.

  “Tomorrow,” he said.

  He was big, dark and not looking forward to a long night. The plate on his uniformed chest said his name was Arlen Murchison. The look on his face said Arlen Murchison was in no mood for charity.

  “It’ll just take a minute,” I said.

  “Tomorrow,” Murchison repeated, pushing me out of the way to let a straggler out.

  “Tomorrow will be too late,” I said.

  Murchison shrugged and looked into the store, which seemed to be clear. Lights were going out inside. There was no one on the sidewalk now except me and a few people scurrying for the bus and their cars.

  “There’s a killer in there,” I said.

  Murchison looked at me with some interest and decided I was a loony.

  “Wrong,” he said. “There are two killers in there, both German shepherds and they don’t like people prowling I. Magnin’s after closing. Now you just back off, sober up or see your doctor, and come back tomorrow. Or, better yet, don’t come back tomorrow.”

  He started to close the door on me and I reached into my shopping bag a
nd pulled out the six-shooter.

  “I’m coming in,” I said.

  “I had to get a goddamn loony,” he sighed, backing up. “Come back from vacation and the first night, the first minute I get a loony. OK. Come in. You’ll get your neck ripped open but come in.”

  I stepped in, keeping the big gun low and blocking it from the street with my body.

  “Keep your hands down,” I said, “and let’s walk to menswear.”

  “You gonna steal a pair of socks?” Murchison asked. He had seen it all.

  “I’m going to catch a killer. You and I are going to catch a killer,” I said. “You’re going to be a hero.”

  He led me through the darkened store past staring dummies and glass counters that caught our passing images.

  “My bet is that he’s hiding someplace, waiting,” I said. “He may have given up, but my bet is that he wants me. And he thinks it’s ironic that he should get me in the same department where Lowry or Kindem or Klausfueler worked. He likes irony.”

  “Mac,” Murchison said, “you are out of your mind.”

  “He wants me, Murchison,” I said, glancing around into the darkness as we walked.

  “He wants you?” Murchison repeated, walking ahead and shaking his head, unwilling to humor the lunatic behind him. “There are two German shepherds that are going to want you if you don’t put that thing away. I’m willing to let you out and give you five minutes before I call the police.”

  “Keep walking,” I said, “And get down. He could be any—”

  The shot came straight down the aisle toward us. We both saw the flash of the gun, heard the crack. Murchison went down as if someone had kicked his right leg out from behind.

  “Son of a bitch,” he yelled.

  “I told you,” I said, gripping the hog leg in two hands and pulling the trigger. The gun jolted me backward and the bullet screamed down the aisle in the direction the shot had come from. There wasn’t much change that I had hit him or come even close, but at least I had let Steinholtz know that I had a gun.