The Howard Hughes Affair: A Toby Peters Mystery (Book Four)

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

  The door to our offices was open and so was the door to the alcove. From my sitting position, I could see Shelly’s dental chair, the same chair where Trudi Gurstwald and I had tussled minutes or hours ago. Someone was in the chair, and that made me wonder. If Shelly had a patient in there, he must have seen me in the hall. He was insensitive, but not enough to leave me out there. He’d at least wake me to complain about the broken window.

  My eyes focused slowly and I recognized the man in the chair, though there was something strange about him and the way he stared at me. The something was that he was dead and covered with blood. I started to crawl toward him, remembered the glass on the floor and pulled myself up, using the open door. Then I touched the back of my head and discovered that there was no blood, just a massive lump that would end my hat wearing for a few weeks.

  I made it to the guy in the chair, the guy who I had thought looked like Ward Bond. He didn’t look like Ward Bond anymore. He looked like a frightened corpse. His eyes were open and his tongue was sticking out. Blood was on his sleeve and he held a gun tightly in his left hand. His right hand rested on top of Shelly’s porcelain work space next to the chair. The junk on it had been swept to the floor, and the marble-colored porcelain was covered with drying blood.

  I started to make my way toward the phone when I noticed that his right hand was pointing at the blood on the table. I shook my head clear, let some water trickle onto my hands from Shelly’s sink and splashed it on my face. Then I looked where the dead man’s finger was pointing. In blood he had written something that looked like “unkind.”

  It seemed a conservative description of what had happened to him.

  CHAPTER SIX

  I called my brother and told him I had another corpse for him. He didn’t rant. He didn’t rave. He just said he would be right over. I looked at the phone, wondering if I had reached the right Lieutenant Philip Pevsner, the one who turned purple, lived in rage and took crime and me as a personal affront.

  The pain in my head and the knowledge of the character in the dental chair behind me kept me from dwelling on Phil. I flipped on the radio and found it was eight in the morning. Shelly had part of a one-pound can of Ben-Hur coffee he had picked up at Ralph’s for twenty-eight cents. I made some, trying to avoid the guy in the chair. Then, to keep my mind from the pain and funny white spots I kept seeing, I went through the corpse’s pockets, careful not to disturb the position of the body. He had a wallet. The wallet said he was Louis Frye, that he lived in Covina and that he was thirty-eight years old. He had thirty bucks and some change. He also had a telephone number written on a torn off corner of newspaper stuck among the dollar bills. It was a familiar number. I checked it against the list Hughes had given me. The number belonged to Major Barton. I left the number and dollar bills in Frye’s wallet and put it back in his pocket.

  I was just starting my coffee when Phil and Steve Seidman came through the door, followed by a big bald uniformed young cop named Rashkow. Sergeant Seidman, a thin cadaverous-looking character with a notebook, didn’t say much at any time. This time he said nothing, just went to the body and began examining it. Rashkow took a quick look, gave me a grin but wiped it off when Phil caught it.

  “Suppose you step out in the hall and keep people out of here,” Phil said evenly. Rashkow nodded, and Phil gave the messed up room a disgusted look and pointed toward my office. I went. In a few minutes, Shelly’s office would be full of people with cameras, bad professional jokes about death, and medical bags.

  Phil closed the door to my office behind us and looked at me, pursing his lips. He was a little taller than I was, a little broader and a little older. His cop’s gut was developing gradually, and his close-cut steely hair grew greyer every time I saw him. Normally, he had the look of a lunatic who required superhuman effort to keep in his rage. Today he wasn’t the old Phil.

  “How are Ruth and the boys?” I tried. For some reason, that had always driven him over the top into a rage. I normally saved it for telephone conversations. It was safer. I supposed the rage was caused by the fact that I never came to visit him, my sister-in-law and the kids in North Hollywood.

  Phil didn’t get angry. He put his hands behind his back after loosening his tie and looked at the picture of him, me, our father and Kaiser Wilhelm.

  “How long’s it been since you saw Ruth, Toby?”

  Considering the corpse in the chair outside, it seemed an odd direction for the conversation.

  “A few months,” I tried.

  “Make it almost a year,” he said, his back still to me. “It’s two boys and a girl now. Ruth had a baby while you were in Chicago. Her name’s Lucy.”

  “That’s great,” I said, wondering why a forty one-year-old woman and a forty seven-year-old cop with less salary than a cab driver would have three kids. Then I thought of Anne and decided to say nothing. Phil turned around and took in a greath breath. If he let it out in one burst he could have huffed and puffed down the Farraday Building.

  “Who’s the guy in the chair?”

  “Name is Frye,” I said, sipping my coffee. “Want some coffee?” He shook his head no so I went on. “He came up here last night and took a couple of shots at me. That’s what happened to the windows.”

  “I hadn’t noticed,” Phil said sarcastically.“The place looks the same as when I was here last.”

  I finished the coffee, winced a little from the pain in my head and went behind my desk to sit.

  “He took a couple of shots at me, and I went out in the hall after him with a chair, but he put me away with a crack on the head, and I didn’t get up till I called you a little while ago.”

  “How’d he get in the chair?” Phil asked reasonably.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Who killed him?” Phil tried.

  “Don’t know.”

  “Why did he try to kill you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You are a fountain of information,” Phil sighed his rage starting to return. “How did you know his name?”

  “I went through his pockets just before you got here. Nothing there.” I didn’t mention that the phone number in the corpse’s wallet was Major Barton’s.

  “This is a silly question,” he said, “but has anyone got a reason to want to kill you? I mean, I know a lot of people would like to stamp on your face a little, the line forms behind me, but anybody particular? You working a case?”

  “I’m working a case,” I acknowledged.

  “Think you might tell me a little bit about it?” Phil said, moving over to sit on the wooden chair across from my desk. The potential rage was in check and I was having trouble dealing with the new Phil.

  “Can’t tell you much without an O.K. from my client,” I said.

  He nodded knowingly. Outside we could hear the bustle of cops and a “Hi Doc” greeting for the guy from the Coroner’s Office. Phil just looked at me while I pretended to drink some more Ben-Hur coffee, though the cup was empty.

  The phone rang. I let it ring. Phil pointed to it and then to his ear. I picked up the phone. It was Howard Hughes.

  “You have something?” he said, coming directly to the point.

  “I think so,” I said, looking at Phil, who waited patiently. “But I can’t talk now. A man named Frye came looking for me with a gun and got himself killed. The police are here now, and they’d like some information about what I’m working on.”

  The pause on the other end of the line made me think I had lost him, but his voice came back steadily.

  “I do not want to be involved in any publicity,” he said. “My name is not to be mentioned. If you mention me, I’ll have to deny it. If you keep me out of it, you get a bonus.”

  “How much would that be?” I said, looking at Phil.

  “Two thousand and fifty,” he said.

  “Dollars?” I said.

  “I don’t deal in any other currency.”

  “I’ll do what you want, but no dollars. I’d do
it for any client.”

  “I prefer to pay,” he said.

  “There are one or two things you can’t pay for,” I said, looking at Phil, who was starting to show signs of impatience such as adjusting his tie constantly.

  “I’d like a report tonight at midnight sharp,” Hughes said, and then he gave me an address. I said right. Then I hung up and looked at Phil.

  “The client?” Phil said evenly.

  “Right.”

  “And he doesn’t want to cooperate with us.”

  “Right again,” I said, shaking my head sadly.

  “I see,” said Phil.

  Seidman knocked at the door and walked in without waiting to be welcomed.

  “Lieutenant,” he said. “It’s a weird one. The guy out there is covered with blood, but it’s not his. Doc says there’s not a wound on his body, not a cut. He was strangled. And it looks like he wrote something in blood on the table next to him before he went.”

  “Unkind,” I said.

  “Something like that,” Seidman agreed.

  “Terrific,” Phil sighed, looking at me. “And you can’t explain any of it?”

  “No,” I said sadly.

  Seidman tilted his hat back to reveal more pale dome and added, “Guy’s gun’s been fired four times.”

  “Must have hit whoever strangled him,” I said.

  “Brilliant,” Phil nodded.

  As Seidman made a discreet exit, Shelly burst in, his face red and his mouth open.

  “How was the show?” I said.

  “Show?” he answered, pushing his glasses back in confusion.

  “VooDooed,” I reminded him.

  “Fine,” he said. “What happened out there, Toby?”

  “Cleaning lady came early,” I said.

  “Cops, blood, a dead guy in the chair, the doors are broken again. I’ve got patients coming in half an hour. How’s it going to look with a dead guy in the chair?”

  “Terrible,” I said. “The police will clean him out as soon as they can.”

  Shelly was not appeased and he mumbled, “I’ve got a pregnant woman coming in at nine-thirty. How’s this going to look? Who’s going to pay?”

  I pulled out my wallet, counted fifty from the money Hughes’ man had given me, and handed it to Shelly. He took it and walked out, still mumbling.

  “Maybe this’ll do some good after all,” I said to Phil. “We might get the place cleaned up.”

  Phil was looking sad. He got up, walked to the photograph of the family, touched my framed license and turned to me.

  “I don’t like mysteries, Toby,” he said. “Why do you call me every time you kick up a corpse? The city is full of cops.”

  “You’re my brother. I like to give you the business.”

  For a man who spent most his time behind a desk, Phil could move pretty fast. He proved it by crossing the small room in two steps, lifting me from behind the desk with his right hand and punching me firmly in the stomach with his left in less time than it takes to cross your eyes.

  “I’ve had it, goddamit,” he shouted, standing over me, “I’ve goddam had it with you.”

  I liked him better this way, but I had the feeling I had turned on something I couldn’t stop. Seduced, shot at, clubbed, corpsed and beaten by one’s brother in a few hours was enough for any man. So I just stood there against the wall, waiting for his next move.

  “It’s simple,” he said, breathing hard. “You tell me about your client and everything else you know, or I stamp on you. You know I mean it.” His finger was inches from my face, and I knew he meant it.

  Seidman came in, saw me on the floor and spoke softly to Phil, who kept his eyes on me.

  “Problem, Lieutenant?”

  “No, Sam Spade here is going to cooperate, aren’t you Sam?”

  “No client’s name,” I said, covering my head with my hands and expecting a kick. When Phil lost control, he lost control; a kick was as good as a punch. I wondered how his kids and wife survived, though Ruth had once assured me my brother was a model father and husband and never hit his kids. Maybe he saved it all for the job.

  “Lieutenant,” Seidman said.

  “All right. All right.” Phil stood up and turned his back to me. “Book him. Suspicion of murder.”

  I pulled myself straight and wondered how long my body could take all this attention.

  “Phil,” I said with exaggerated calm. “You know I didn’t strangle that guy. He shot whoever strangled him and I’m in one piece, it’s a battered piece, but it isn’t bleeding. And how can strangling be murder when the victim has a gun in his hand?”

  “Sergeant,” said Phil, “get him out of my sight and put him in the lockup for a few hours.”

  Seidman motioned for me to come, and I considered prodding Phil a little more. I had him back in form and I didn’t want to lose him now, but something in Seidman’s look changed my mind and I followed him.

  In the outer office, a police photographer was snapping pictures of broken glass on the floor. The body had been removed, and Shelly was trying to put his tools together.

  “That corpse had good teeth,” Shelly said. “Real gold fillings. You don’t see many of them in this neighborhood.”

  “I’ve just been arrested,” I said. “For murder.”

  “You killed that guy?” asked Shelly, without looking up from his search for something on the floor.

  “No, I didn’t. I’ll get back as soon as I can.”

  “Right,” said Shelly, holding his glasses on with the finger of his right hand. Seidman led me out of the office.

  “What do you get out of driving him up the wall?” Seidman asked as we walked down the stairs, absorbing Lysol and the looks of a few curious tenants and bums.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I’m just used to him that way. What does he get out of putting lumps on me?”

  “Forget I asked,” said Seidman, leading me out of the Farraday Building to a parked black and white police car. “I’ll lock you up for a few hours. Then do us all a big favor and try to stay out of his way.”

  “I’ll try,” I said, “but he’s irresistible.”

  They threw me in a cell with another dangerous criminal, a little guy in his sixties who was stewed silly at ten in the morning. I sat on the almost clean bunk, holding my head and counting backwards from 100 to keep from noticing the pain in my head.

  “You can call me Calvin,” the drunk said, sitting next to me. “Calvin means ‘the bald’ in some language. I looked it up when I was a kid, but I fooled them. I’ve got more hair than my father ever had. Take a look.”

  He shook me and I opened my eyes. I had been at 85. Calvin was smiling and tugging at his ample white hair to prove he had it.

  “That’s great, Calvin,” I said, “but I’ve got one hell of a headache and …”

  “They picked me up on Wilshire this morning,” Calvin continued, ignoring me. “You know why I was drunk?”

  “You consumed too much alcohol,” I tried.

  “I mean the deeper cause,” he said. “It’s the news. I got up to go to work and turned on the radio and this guy started telling me about someone trying to kill Mussolini, and about Roosevelt asking Japan to explain why they were concentrating troops in Indochina. And Roosevelt says peace depends on an answer. And more kids were being drafted into the army.”

  I didn’t see how an attempt to kill Mussolini necessarily came under the heading of bad news, but I didn’t want to carry on a conversation with a drunk. I had some numbers to get through and some thinking to do. I had a pile of clues to a murder, but I couldn’t figure them out, and besides I wasn’t being paid to find a murderer. I had suspicious characters all over the place and too damn much information. I wasn’t used to all this information. It probably would have given me a headache even without the lump.

  “Was there any good news?” I said.

  “Yeah, Mel Ott is going to manage the Giants. Ever see him play? One foot up in the air when he bas
hes the ball.” Calvin got up to demonstrate Mel Ott’s unique batting style. He hit a triple which further cheered him and he sat again to keep me company. “What you in for?” he said groggily.

  “Murder,” I said, closing my eyes. “I gutted three drunks on the Strip last night with my bare hands.” I could feel Calvin rise slowly and move quietly to the far side of the small cell. I slept. This time no dreams, no Cincinnati, no Koko.

  I got up because someone was shaking me, a cop. Calvin was snoring away in a second bunk.

  “You’re out,” said the cop wearily. “Lieutenant Pevsner wants to see you in his office.”

  I got up and told him I’d find my way there. He told me I was getting an escort. Ten minutes later I was going up the steps of Phil’s station in the Wilshire District, past the desk sergeant, up the stairs and through the big sour squad room. I had been accompanied by Officer Rashkow, who said nothing because I said nothing. He left me at my brother’s door and I went in.

  Phil was behind his desk, and Basil Rathbone was seated across from him. Rathbone rose.

  “Mr. Peters,” he said. “So sorry to hear what happened. I hope you’re all right.” He took my hand and held my shoulder.

  “Mr. Rathbone has persuaded Captain Rein to let you go,” said Phil, playing with an Eversharp automatic pencil, which he turned over and over and over. “Mr. Rathbone has also refused to tell us what he knows about this and why he is interested in getting you out. Mr. Rathbone knows we are investigating a murder.”

  “I also have no information, Lieutenant,” he said sincerely. “I met Mr. Peters a few days ago when he visited a taping of my radio show. I promised to look him up and discovered when I called his office that he had been arrested. Then I simply made a few calls and …”

  Phil kept spinning the pencil and nodding his head to show he understood but he didn’t believe.

  “Have it your way,” Phil said. “Toby draws bodies like flies to orange pop. I’d suggest you stay away from him.”