Bullet for a Star tp-1

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

  What looked like a window to Beaumont’s apartment was about four feet from the fire escape. The window looked as if it were open a crack.

  I couldn’t quite reach the window, but it was only a short jump. I was less worried about the fall than the possibility that Beaumont might be inside, hear me and greet me as I pulled myself in.

  There was no one in sight and it was growing dark. I climbed over the rail, held my breath and made the leap. The window went up easily and no one cracked me in the head, but it wasn’t doing my new suit any good.

  I pulled myself into a small bathroom and got to my feet as soon as I could. No one came rushing into the room, and I could see beyond the open door that the lights were out.

  Beaumont might be waiting for me. I looked for a weapon and settled on a jar of Molle shaving cream. The apartment was empty. Beaumont wasn’t under the bed or in a closet. I had either missed him in the hall or he had grabbed something and ran down the fire escape.

  It was a nice apartment, three rooms with maid service. It didn’t even look lived in. I turned the lights on and searched. It was an easy place to search, but it took time. I was checking everything. Beaumont may have made it down the fire escape with my gun, Adelman’s money and the negative, but he might have left one or all of them here. On the other hand, he might never have had any of them.

  Fifteen minutes later I had found nothing. I was looking under the rolled up carpet when I heard footsteps in the hall. I started to get up when the door opened and a gun came through.

  I was on my knees. It seemed a bad way to go, and Beaumont had every legal right to put a few bullets in my face. I was breaking and entering. There was nothing within reach to throw.

  The gun that came through the door was attached to an arm which was attached to a familiar body and face.

  Three men walked in.

  “You gonna sing Mammy?” asked the man with the gun.

  I got off my knees. The man with the gun was my brother. Seidman was behind him followed by the clerk from downstairs.

  “That’s him,” said the clerk with a pleased grin. He looked as if he wanted to jump up and down with excitement. “Said he was a homicide detective and showed me that fake badge.” He sneered at me with his pimpled face. “Didn’t fool me for a second. I called Mr. Simmons right away and warned him. Probably saved his life.”

  “You did a fine job, Mr. Plautt,” said Seidman. “Now don’t you think you should get back to your desk?”

  “He tried to talk to me about Baby Snooks,…” Plautt continued, but Phil interrupted him through his teeth.

  “Go downstairs, Mr. Plautt.”

  Plautt gave me another look and went down the hall. We could hear him pause and shout back:

  “If there’s a reward, I get it.”

  Phil slammed the door.

  “You couldn’t even fool that half wit,” my brother said, flopping into a chair. Seidman leaned against the wall and folded his hands.

  “Get off your knees, you asshole,” shouted Phil.

  I got up putting my tale together.

  “Listen, Phil, I …”

  “No story, Toby, none, just answers. This guy Simmons has you on breaking and entering as soon as we find him. I’ve got you on impersonating a policeman.”

  “I didn’t impersonate a policeman,” I said. “I simply told the guy two words: ‘homicide’ and ‘Pevsner.’ I am investigating a homicide and my name is Pevsner. I showed him a private investigator’s badge.”

  Phil rubbed a big hand over his tired face and put his gun away.

  “That is the dumbest defense I’ve ever heard.”

  “You gave the impression that you were a police officer,” said Seidman. “That’s the same thing as identifying yourself as one.”

  “Who’s Simmons?” asked Phil softly, his head coming up from his hand. Phil was most dangerous when he talked softly.

  “He may be the guy who killed Cunningham,” I said. “I got a tip and followed him here.”

  “Why didn’t you call us?” said Phil.

  I walked over to where he was sitting and kept talking.

  “No time. I don’t think Simmons is his real name, and I don’t think he’ll be back here. When that jerk desk clerk called him, I think Simmons took off with the gun he used to kill Cunningham.” I left out the possibility of the negative and the $5,000. I wasn’t too sure about the gun either.

  My eyes were fixed on Phil’s to see how much of this he was taking in, and how much he believed. He tooked tired and let out a massive sigh before the back of his hand came up and caught me on the side of the head. I was moving away from it when it hit me. I had been half expecting it. I staggered a few feet, bounced off a wall and tasted blood. Seidman looked on emotionlessly.

  “Let’s go,” said Phil, pulling himself up from the chair. I followed him out the door, and Seidman went behind me. There was no blood on my new suit. Phil handed me a handkerchief over his shoulder, and I put it against my mouth.

  “You mind if we just leave my car in the lot around the corner,” I said. “I’ve already picked up two tickets in front of police headquarters.”

  As we went through the lobby, Plautt, the desk clerk, grinned happily.

  “So you see, Sergeant,” I said back to Seidman, loud enough for the clerk to hear, “I couldn’t reveal myself as an F.B.I, agent, not where Nazi spies were involved.”

  I thought I caught a slight smile on Seidman’s face. Plautt’s jaw dropped.

  Seidman drove through neon streets, and I sat in back of the unmarked car with Phil. Phil said only one thing and then looked out the window.

  “We picked up one of the guys who broke into your place, Fagin. We want you to make a positive identification and file charges.”

  “Then you’re not arresting me for breaking into Simmons’ place and impersonating an officer?”

  “Drop it, Peters,” Seidman said, from the front seat.

  I shut up. It was nice to be driven somewhere for a change.

  The man who looked like a mailbox was sitting in Phil’s office, guarded by a uniformed cop. Fagin and the cop were in a hot discussion about whether L.A. could support a pro football team. Fagin said yes, the cop, no.

  “Is that the man who broke into your apartment last night and tried to kill you?” said Phil, pointing at the mailbox.

  Fagin, his bald head gleaming and his neck invisible, tried to look innocent, but the blank look only made him appear more stupid. Without much work, he could find a good defense in mental incompetence.

  “I think so,” I said.

  Both Seidman and Phil looked at me.

  “Could I talk to him alone?” I said.

  “Hello no,” shouted Phil. “What the hell do you want to talk to him alone about?”

  “In that case,” I said, “I’d have to say that’s not one of the men.”

  Fagin was confused and looking more stupid by the second. He knew he was the man, and so did everyone else in the room with the possible exception of the uniformed cop.

  “O.K., Toby,” said Phil, “you have five minutes.” He jerked his head toward the door. Seidman and the uniformed cop followed him out of the door and closed it.

  I looked at Fagin.

  “I’m not the guy you’re looking for, buddy,” he said. “I was home sleeping when those guys took you. Honest.”

  I sat on the edge of my brother’s desk and grinned down at Fagin.

  “It was you, and I’m going to see that you get nailed for it,” I said, sounding tough and cynical.

  Fagin’s attempt at honesty turned quickly to animal attack.

  “I’ve got two terms against me in Folsom,” said Fagin; “if I go up to Quentin or the Rock for this, I’ll see to it that someone makes you sorry you were born.”

  He may have meant it, and he may have been bluffing. The odds were even that if I sent him up, I’d get a knife or bullet in the back some night. I was willing to risk it, but I had some other ideas.
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  “I’ve been threatened by bigger tuna than you, sport,” I said, “but we might be able to work something out.”

  He sat forward in his chair eagerly, a solid Humpty Dumpty.

  “Who hired you to get me and why?”

  “Delamater hired me,” he said. “That’s all I know. I don’t even know what he wanted from you. I was just hired muscle. It sounded like an easy job. He didn’t think we’d have to kill you. I didn’t want to kill you.”

  “You’re all heart,” I said. “What did Delamater tell you about me, the job, anything?”

  “Nothing.” He was sweating.

  “You give me nothing. I give you nothing,” I said, forcing my eyes to keep from blinking.

  “Yeah,” he growled.

  “Yeah,” I growled back. He would barely qualify for cretin of the year, but he was all I had to work with. “Tell me what he told you.”

  Fagin wiped his sweating forehead with his sleeve and tried to think. It was a major effort.

  “He said we were going to a guy’s place and throw a scare into him. That we might have to hurt him bad if he didn’t give us something we were looking for.”

  “What?”

  “Some kind of picture,” said Fagin. “But,” he went on, excited, “he said we didn’t want killing, for sure. He said she doesn’t want the guy killed, that’s you, unless we have to. That …”

  “Hold it.” I put my hand on his arm, and he jumped. Concentrating on the story had taken all of his attention. “You said ‘she’?”

  “Right,” said Fagin. “She, Delamater said ‘she’. We were doing the job for some woman, but he didn’t give her name or anything. Told us the pay was good.”

  I walked to the door and called Phil in.

  He and Seidman were drinking coffee.

  Fagin looked up in fear.

  “That’s not the man,” I said.

  Fagin’s shit-eating grin filled the room.

  “You son-of-a-bitch,” said Phil, shaking his head. Then to Fagin, “Get out before I get some Flit and use it on you.”

  Fagin simply sat grinning.

  “He means get out of here,” I said.

  “Right, sure, thanks,” he beamed, plunked on a hat that came down to his ears, and went out the door.

  “I don’t know what you’re playing, Toby,” Phil grunted wearily, “but I don’t like being used. That creep was the right one, and we all know it. What did you get out of him?”

  “I’m not under arrest?”

  “Not unless we find Simmons, and he brings charges,” said Phil, his hands folded. He was giving me a look of resignation.

  “That wasn’t the right guy, Phil. I swear …”

  “Get out.” His voice was so low I could hardly hear it.

  “Look, Phil …” I started.

  “You better go,” said Seidman, opening the door. I went.

  At the corner drug store where I had been earlier that morning, I had a Pepsi and a Pecan Roll. Then I called Brenda Beaumont. The maid said she was busy. I said to tell her I had just talked to a friend of Mr. Delamater.

  Brenda Beaumont was on the phone about a minute later.

  “What do you want, Mr. Peters?” she said, as if I were interrupting her with a request for an autograph.

  “Not what you were selling the other day,” I said. “I’ve got questions. Either you answer them for me or I give the whole mess to the Los Angeles police, and they can ask you. Like what was your husband talking to you about when he visited you this afternoon? Why did you try to have me messed up? And the best one, who killed Charlie Cunningham? Are you listening, Brenda?”

  “I’m listening. I can’t talk now, tonight. Can you come over tomorrow night, about nine. I’ll tell you everything I know; but please don’t go to the police, for Lynn, if not for me.”

  “Tomorrow night at nine, sharp,” I said. “You going to offer me your body or a fat bankroll again?” I was angry.

  “Would it do any good?”

  “None,” I said. I hung up.

  By the time I got a yellow cab and picked up my car near Beaumont’s apartment, it was getting late. I should have called Adelman, but I was tired. I decided not to go to what was left of my apartment. My reasons weren’t aesthetic. Brenda Beaumont might have other friends, and my apartment was turning into a casting room for a gangster movie.

  I knew where I wanted to go and headed there. It took me about half an hour to get to the apartment building in Culver City. I had the address memorized and found the place without any trouble. The name over the doorbell gave me a burst of youthful anticipation. At least that’s what I told myself. The feeling was more like vague hope.

  Looking firmly at the name “Ann Peters” in white letters against a black background, I pressed the button and heard a soft chime bong somewhere inside the building. It was a freshly-built, elongated two-story white antiseptic building with cheap, but pleasant smelling carpets. I thought about pulling myself together, straightening my tie and forcing a smile.

  No one answered the bell. I tried again and a buzzer sounded. I pulled the lobby door open just as the buzzing stopped and I stood for a second, my knees feeling weak. As I went up to the second floor, my tactics changed. Helplessness seemed a more likely key to success. I could see a door open at the end of the short corridor on the second floor and was sure about my tactics:

  Ann stepped out in the hall and watched me as I approached. She had done something truly unfair since our divorce. She looked better. During some of our fights, I had warned her that she would go to fat when she hit 40, just like her mother, who could hardly walk because of the hereditary load she carried. Ann had always been full and dark and she had been hurt by the suggestion, because it was probably true. She had always fought back at me with a series of good ones about money, ambition, family.

  I stood in front of her in the hallway. She was thinner than she had been when I saw her three years earlier. She didn’t just look better with her hair long and down and a clinging blue robe; she looked great.

  “Hi,” I said with a smile.

  Her hands were folded and she held her arms close to her body, unsure for a second of how to deal with me. Her frown softened.

  “Toby, you look awful.” She stepped back and made it clear that I could enter her apartment.

  “Thanks,” I said stepping in, “I was hoping for that. I had considered a ‘Hell, I’m going great,’ run down the hall, but I took the pathetic cat ploy instead.”

  She shook her head and sighed. It made her breasts rise and my hopes with them.

  “Toby,” she said looking at my face, “You didn’t have a choice. You’d look pathetic with a new suit, a shave and a smile. What happened to you?”

  I looked around the room, deciding on my next move, knowing that she was at least a step ahead. The room was furnished in modern brown chairs and sofas, really one of each. The carpet was a light brown and the wallpaper was a tasteful brown and white. A painting of two factory workers shaking hands was on one wall. I walked over to it, pretending to admire it, waiting for Ann to carry the load.

  “Toby, I’ll ask once more. What happened to you? Make it reasonably short, because the next question is, what are you doing here?”

  I examined her sadly and sat, uninvited, on the sofa. It was firm. I expected it to be, everything about Ann was firm, from her ideas to her thighs. In the beginning we thought the combination of day-dreamer and realist was a good one. We both gave each other something the other one needed. But as time went on, I gave her fewer dreams and her realism depressed me.

  “Ann, I have been beaten, shot at, beaten again, threatened and ridiculed,” I said looking at the floor. “Someone may be planning to kill me and there’s a good chance I’ll be arrested for murder.”

  My eyes moved up to her face which was filled with amusement but not sympathy.

  “Great,” she said, “then you must be having a fine time. It sounds like what you always wanted. I’ll get
you a cup of coffee. I’m sorry, but I don’t have any cereal.” She left the room through a white door leading, I guessed, to the kitchen.

  When she was gone, I smiled to myself. She was right. I was really enjoying the whole thing and I’d probably come to let her know just that. Well, I’d come with other things in mind too.

  “You seem to be doing all right,” I said raising my voice. “I’m glad you didn’t need the alimony.”

  Her laugh bounced off of the walls and hit between my eyes.

  “Toby, you haven’t put together enough money in your whole life to make the alimony payment for an impoverished cleaning lady.” Her voice sounded neither bitter nor angry as she spoke. “Trying to get alimony out of you would have taken more effort than going to work.”

  “You’re still at the airline?”

  “Yes,” she said returning to the room with two cups of coffee. As she handed me one and sat down with the other, her robe opened a little at the top. She saw me looking and sat back with her cup shaking her head.

  “You’re the same, Toby. You’ll be the same when you’re 70 if you live that long.”

  I took some coffee. It was hot. She must have had the coffee brewing when I came.

  “You still use the name Ann Peters,” I said, my eyes fixed on her face.

  “I have the legal right to it,” she said quietly and confidently.

  “Oh,” I said holding up a hand, “you’re welcome to it. It’s a link between us.”

  “No, it’s not. Peters isn’t even your real name. Now if I were to go back to my maiden name, it would be a liability in my work.”

  “What’s wrong with Ann Mitzenmacher?” I said enjoying the old back-and-forth with her.

  Her face went serious as she drained her cup and rose.

  “There’s nothing wrong with Ann Mitzenmacher,” she whispered, “which is why I’m going to have to ask you to finish your coffee, accept my sympathy and leave.”

  I finished the coffee and got up.

  “Annie …” I stopped because a frown from the past came to her face. “I’m sorry,” I continued, “Ann, I need a place to stay tonight.”

  Her head was making a slight ‘no’ motion and her lower lip came out in an ironic pout.