Now You See It: A Toby Peters Mystery

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

  “Great,” I said, going through the door.

  The Farraday was dark and quiet, except for my footsteps. I went to our office and found Phil looking at the photograph of me, our dad, Phil, and Phil’s German Shepherd, Kaiser Wilhelm. His back was to me.

  “Anything?” I asked.

  “Kids are getting better,” he said, not turning to look at me. “Becky told me not to worry. I’m going to worry.”

  I went to my desk and sat. Phil was a few feet from me now.

  “Becky’s a lot like Ruth,” he said, still not looking at me, really talking to himself.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “But she’s not Ruth,” he went on with a sigh.

  Now he turned, went to his desk, and said, “Let’s find the baby.”

  Phil looked at me now. I had the feeling he wanted me to say something, but I didn’t know what to say. He looked older than usual, maybe because the first hint of nighttime stubble was starting to show on his chin and cheeks. The stubble was definitely gray like his hair.

  “Gunther’s going …”

  The phone rang. I started to reach for the one on my desk, but Phil picked up the one on his first.

  “Yeah,” he said, nodding at me to pick up my phone.

  “Just got off the phone with the police chief in Decatur,” said Cawelti. “Jimmy Clark is William Tracy Carson. The chief recognized the description. The limp was the tip-off. Carson’s got a history. Went into the army when he was seventeen. Action in the Pacific, got hit by shrapnel when he took out a Jap machine gun nest on Tarawa. Got all kinds of awards and medals. Came home a hero. Parade down Main Street, parties.”

  “Family?” asked Phil.

  “Mother and father are here and well,” said Cawelti. “I talked to them. William is their only son. Father’s a welder. Mother’s a ticket clerk at a movie house. William left home about four months ago. Said he had something to do and would stay in touch.”

  “Did he?” I said.

  “Stay in touch? Yeah. He writes, calls. Doesn’t say much.”

  “You ask them if he knows anyone in Los Angeles?” asked Phil.

  “So far as they know, he doesn’t,” Cawelti said. “Maybe some old army buddies, but they don’t have names.”

  “That it?” I asked.

  Cawelti hesitated.

  “No,” he said. “William Tracy Carson spent four months in an army mental hospital before he came home from the war. Battle fatigue.”

  I looked at Phil. Phil had spent about a week in an army hospital after the last war. They had called it shell shock. When he came home, he had put a little distance between himself and the world. He had never been easy, but he was even touchier after the things he’d seen. Marrying Ruth and having the kids had given him a reason to live. What was William Tracy Carson’s reason to live?

  “Anything else?” asked Phil.

  “No,” said Cawelti. “We’re getting copies of the photographs of Carson and the baby made up. It’ll take another hour, maybe, and then we’ll get them out to all cars.”

  “Make it a twelve-twelve,” said Phil.

  I wasn’t sure what a twelve-twelve was, but it had to be some kind of special priority.

  “Already have,” said Cawelti. “I’ll call you if we get any leads or find them.”

  One of us had to say it, and I could see Phil wasn’t the one.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “For what?” said Cawelti. “It’s my job. I’m not doing this for you. The only thing I’d do for you is throw the switch if you were sitting in the hot seat on your brother’s lap.”

  “Ah,” I said. “The John Cawelti we know and love.”

  He slammed the phone down.

  “Love that guy,” I said.

  Phil grunted.

  “Well?” I asked. “Got any ideas?”

  He didn’t. We sat staring at the phone for half an hour before it rang. I beat Phil to it, picked up the phone and said, “Yeah.”

  “I’m at the Pantages,” said Blackstone. “I think it might be a good idea for you to come over here. There’s someone you should talk to.”

  “We’ll be right there,” I said.

  I hung up. So did Phil.

  “Your car or mine?” I asked.

  “I’m not getting in that tin box,” he said, getting up. “We take mine.”

  It was after eleven. There wasn’t much traffic. The blackout didn’t make it much fun to be on the streets. When we got into Phil’s car, he said, “A guy on foot with a limp and a little girl. They should be able to find him unless he’s holed up somewhere.”

  I didn’t say anything. When Phil made a U-turn, I reached for the radio. He slapped my hand away. I knew why. He was in no mood for music, the news, or drama. He had enough drama in his life, no room for music, and the thought of more bad news was more than he wanted.

  Parking at the Pantages at this hour was no problem. We found Blackstone and his brother talking to Raymond Ramutka, the stage door man who sat behind his little desk drinking coffee. I wondered if he lived here. Harry and Pete stood in from of him.

  There wasn’t much light. A shaded lamp on the desk. An enclosed bulb over the door. A few bulbs glowing from behind the curtains of the stage and a single light at the top of the stairway where the dressing rooms were.

  Ramutka, the stage door man from central casting, looked over the top of his glasses at us, put down his mug, and picked up his pipe.

  “Raymond says he got to know Jimmy reasonably well in the last few days,” Blackstone told us.

  “Nice boy,” said Ramutka. “Nice boy. Gave him some of my pain pills that first night. His leg, you know.”

  We knew.

  “Raymond says Jimmy liked to be alone,” said Blackstone.

  “Yes,” said Ramutka, looking at the stem of his pipe. “Liked to go up on the roof and look at the stars all by himself. Helped him to think. I got the feeling that boy did a lot more feeling than thinking.”

  “The roof,” I said.

  Ramutka pointed his pipe up at the ceiling high above us.

  “You see him tonight?” Phil asked.

  “No,” Ramutka, said shaking his head.

  “Could he get to the roof without your seeing him?” asked Blackstone.

  “Sure,” the old man said. “Lots of ways, if you know them. Through a window on the other side of the stage if there was one open or up the fire escape if he climbed up on something and … lots of ways, if you know them,” he repeated.

  “How can we get up there?” Phil said.

  Ramutka pointed with his pipe again.

  “Up the stairs, round the corner, past the storage room, and up the rungs.”

  He started to say something else, but we had all turned and were headed to the metal staircase in single file. Phil was first. I was second. Harry and Pete behind. We rattled past the dressing rooms into the shadows.

  We turned the corner and saw the rungs to the roof jutting out of the brick wall.

  “Hold it,” said Phil, turning to us. “We’re making too damn much noise. I’ll go up. You wait here.”

  “I could talk to him,” Blackstone whispered.

  “Harry can be very persuasive,” whispered Pete.

  “So can I,” said Phil.

  Even with his face in shadow, I recognized the look on my brother’s face. I didn’t argue. Neither did Blackstone or his brother.

  Phil went slowly and quietly up the ladder and was quickly lost in the darkness above us. We could hear his feet touch each rung and then a square opened above us and we could see stars and then, half a beat later, the bulk of my brother’s body blocked the stars and went onto the roof.

  We waited listening, looking at each other. A radio came on below us and out of sight. We waited. Nothing. And then Phil’s body filled the square of stars and started down to us. He was making no effort to be quiet.

  “Not there,” he said when he got back to the landing, wiped his hands on his pants, and
turned to us.

  “The wrong roof.”

  We turned to Harry Blackstone who said, “I think I know what roof he’s on.”

  Then I remembered what Juanita had said. It was simple. We had made it complicated.

  “He’s on the roof of the Farraday,” I said.

  Harry Blackstone nodded.

  Chapter 19

  Place a glass of water almost full on a table. Drop an ice cube into the water. Rest a piece of string over the ice cube with the ends of the string dangling over two sides of the glass. Challenge audience member to remove ice cube with string without touching the ice cube. When they give up, perform the trick. Solution: Pour salt on the ice cube and string. The salt melts the ice. The string sinks in and the ice hardens again when the effect of the salt wears off. The string is now frozen into the ice cube that can simply be removed by holding both ends of the string and lifting.

  From the Blackstone, The Magic Detective radio show

  WE CLATTERED DOWN THE STEPS and past Raymond Ramutka, who was listening to classical music on the radio on his little table.

  “Not there?” he asked.

  “Not there,” Blackstone said.

  Ramutka was going to ask another question, but he was too slow. We piled into Phil’s car and he did a wild U-turn, heading back toward our office. I was in the front passenger seat. Phil ran two red lights and, amazingly, avoided a collision with a truck. His jaw was set as if it was he who now had a toothache. I considered talking about what we were going to do when we got to the Farraday, but Phil was in a don’t-mess-with-me mood so I shut up.

  “If he’s there …” Pete said from the backseat.

  “He’s there,” I said, or, rather, hoped.

  I didn’t pray. I don’t pray, not for show, not to feel better. I don’t know if there’s a God or gods out there. I don’t think about it much or often. It wasn’t that I didn’t believe. I just thought if there was a God and he wanted to get involved, he was watching. He could do what he wanted. What could I promise him that would make a difference? Why should he do something for me just because I asked him?

  That’s about the extent of what I think about religion. What I did think about now was a pretty, smiling little girl and a young man who had killed people—Japanese soldiers—about a year or two ago, and maybe three more men in the last few days.

  “If he’s there,” said Blackstone behind us, “I want to talk to him.”

  If Phil had driven like a lunatic on the way to the Pantages, he drove like a man possessed on the way back to the Farraday. When we got there, he didn’t bother to find a legal parking space. He just pulled up on the sidewalk in front of Manny’s Taco Shop.

  We decided not to stop at Jeremy and Alice’s apartment for two reasons. First, we might be wrong and didn’t want to give them hope and then find out Jimmy and Natasha weren’t on the roof. Second, there was no way Jeremy and Alice would agree to stay behind, and, if they came with us, there was no way of knowing what they might do.

  We walked up the stairs to the top floor, turned right, away from the Butler apartment, and made our way to the door to the narrow stairwell that led to the roof. I’d been up there a few times. I couldn’t remember why.

  “He’s there,” Phil said, pausing at a door on our left.

  The sign on the door said it was the office of The Puccini Locksmith Company. Albert Puccini, a quiet little old man, would be his own client in the morning. His door was slightly open and shorn at the level of the lock.

  “He made that call to the Butler apartment from here,” said Phil. “He never left the building.”

  My gun was safely in the glove compartment of my Crosley. Phil had his tucked under his jacket in a leather holster he kept oiled and clean.

  The door to the stairwell was closed but no longer locked. That meant more work for Albert Puccini in the morning. Phil led the way up the narrow, dark stairs to the door at the top. His gun was in his right hand. He opened the door with his left and stepped onto the roof. We followed.

  The sky was bright with stars and almost a whole moon. Maybe it was the blackout or the fact that we were on a roof, but it was lighter up there than it was inside the Farraday.

  We couldn’t see Jimmy. There were four vents dotting the roof and a little wooden storage shack to our right. Then we saw him.

  Jimmy was sitting on the two-foot wide concrete edge of the building. Natasha was in his arms sleeping, her chest moving slowly in and out, her mouth a peaceful pout. In his right hand, Jimmy held a gun. It was aimed at us.

  “Jimmy,” Blackstone said softly. “What are you doing?”

  “Right now?” Jimmy said, glancing up at the stars. “I’m remembering.”

  We inched forward. Jimmy didn’t pay any special attention to Phil’s gun.

  “Remembering what?” asked Blackstone calmly.

  “An island,” said Jimmy. “Don’t remember which one. You think the sky is bright tonight? There wasn’t any light out there. You’d lay on your back and look up and see, I don’t know, millions of stars. Some nights it looked as if the sky was all stars and no dark. You know?”

  “Yes,” said Blackstone, moving ahead of us closer to Jimmy, motioning for us to stay where we were.

  “Then in the morning the sky went flashing bright with the sun and we started to get incoming mail,” said Jimmy. “Mortar fire mostly. They died around me. Mosberg, Tighe, Huang, Donald-berg. Donaldberg was from Detroit.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Blackstone.

  Jimmy bit his lower lip and looked down at the face of the sleeping child. He shook his head.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “My friends got killed. I killed. You know?”

  “I think so,” Blackstone said. “Is it alright if I take the girl?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I just want to get away. It’s all over.”

  “It’s all over,” said Blackstone.

  Phil moved slowly, very slowly to his right, his eyes on Jimmy, his gun waist level.

  “May I sit here?” asked Blackstone.

  “You don’t need my okay,” said Jimmy.

  Blackstone sat on the concrete edge of the roof about six feet from Jimmy. “What happened?” he asked him.

  “Tonight? I could see that Wilde recognized me,” he said. “I’d stayed back when Cunningham and me went to the studio to see him, but I could see he recognized me. I don’t know how. I was supposed to come here and sit with Natasha, so I came here and got her.”

  “Lovely child,” said Blackstone with a smile.

  Jimmy looked at her.

  “Smart, too,” he said.

  “Why did you kill Calvin Ott?” Blackstone asked.

  “Same reason I killed Mr. Cunningham and Mr. Rand,” he said. “To protect you.”

  “Me? I don’t understand.”

  “Mr. Cunningham was going out with Gwen,” Jimmy said. “He talked to me a few times. Then just last week he asked me if I wanted to make a lot of money. I don’t need a lot of money, but he said it funny. Kinda like it was a secret. So, I said ‘yes’ to find out what he was going to say.”

  Natasha made a soft sound and moved a little. Jimmy rocked her gently, the gun in his hand aimed in my general direction.

  “Go on,” coaxed Blackstone.

  “He said he and some friends had good reasons for wanting to hurt you. He wanted me to help him do things, make the illusions mess up, help him come up with things they could blackmail you with. Said one of his friends was rich and would give me two thousand dollars.”

  “Ott?” asked Blackstone.

  “Ott,” Jimmy confirmed. “The other night, when the buzz saw had a problem, I went up to the dressing room and shot Cunningham. I waited till the buzz saw was making lots of noise. Then I came back down and sort of waited for someone to find the body. Mr. Rand was backstage in a turban and stuff. He went up to the dressing room and found the body. I was watching. Gwen saw him coming out of her dressing room with the gun. He
ran down the stairs. She found the body and screamed. Then she ran down the stairs and out the stage door. Or maybe it was the other way around. Yes, it was. Gwen ran down first, and Rand followed her.”

  “Why?” asked Blackstone.

  “I think because she saw him coming out of the dressing room, and he figured she would tell the police,” said Jimmy. “But he didn’t have a real gun, just the pellet gun we use in the bursting red balloon illusion.”

  “And then?” Blackstone prompted.

  “Mr. Ott was there, in the theater. He came to watch the show come apart.”

  “And you killed Ott,” Blackstone said.

  Phil had edged a good six feet over now. He might, if he had to, have a shot at Jimmy. I knew he wouldn’t take it unless he had to, because of Natasha.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “And Rand knew?”

  “Yes, he was there when I did it,” said Jimmy. “I just walked past him to where Mr. Ott was sitting and laughing. I think he thought I was going to help him hide the fake knife. I had my own knife in my belt. I stabbed him while he was laughing about the look that was going to be on your face when you came back and found him alive and holding up a glass of wine to toast his making you look bad.”

  “But he didn’t get the chance,” said Blackstone.

  “Didn’t get the chance,” Jimmy agreed. “Mr. Rand looked at me, looked real scared. He was right. I would have killed him there, too, but he ran.”

  “Jimmy, you could have told me and …”

  “No,” said Jimmy with a sigh. “Nothing you can do with people like that but kill them. War is going on. American soldiers are getting killed and twisted all up every day and they do stuff like this. They needed killing, Mr. Blackstone. You needed protecting.”

  Natasha definitely stirred and squirmed and looked like she was about to wake up. Jimmy looked over his shoulder and down at the street six floors below him. Phil raised his gun a few inches.

  “Why should you kill three people to protect me?” asked Blackstone.

  “Why? Because you saved my life and my mom’s life,” he said.

  “I did? When?”

  “Decatur two years ago, just a week before I went into the army,” said Jimmy. “The theater fire. I was at the show. My mom was in the ticket booth when you brought us all out on the street. You got her to come out of the booth. The fire came flying out the door and cracked right through the booth. I don’t forget. People shouldn’t forget, you know?”