Smart Moves (13 page)

“Telegram,” I said, raising my voice and trying to sound like Fred Allen.

No answer.

“He’s not there,” Shelly sighed.

A door opened down the hall. I tucked my pistol in my holster quickly and knocked at 909 loudly.

“Gurko,” I shouted. “We’re going to be late for the girls.”

A couple moved past us, turning their heads away, either not wanting to recognize us or not wanting to be recognized. I knocked again as they turned the corner and repeated “Gurko.”

When they were safely gone, I turned the door handle. It was locked. I took out my wallet and found my small metal nail file. Shelly lumbered over to me, just catching the glasses that were about to slip from his nose. A thumbprint blurred his vision. “What are you doing?” he asked.

I showed him by inserting the file in the crack along the doorjamb.

“We could go to jail for this!”

I kept working on the door.

“What is it? A couple of beers and you lose control? Is that it?” he asked. When I didn’t answer, he turned his eyes upward and, squinting through the thick lenses and the thumbprint, told God, “He doesn’t answer. What can you do with a man who doesn’t answer? I ask you.”

But God didn’t answer either. The door popped open. I grabbed Shelly and pulled him into the room. Before he could cry or scream, I kicked the door closed and hit the light switch. My .38 was in my hand and aimed toward the bed, though I knew that if Povey were there we had made enough noise to give him time to set us up. He wasn’t there. Nothing was there. The bed was made, though the cover was slightly wrinkled and there was an indentation in the pillow. Povey probably slept with his clothes on and a gun in his hand. I couldn’t picture him in silk pajamas. I tried and smiled.

“This isn’t funny,” Shelly said, looking at the door. “You think this is funny, Toby? You’re a sick man if you think this is funny.”

“It’s not funny, Shell,” I agree as I searched the room. The bathroom was clean, empty, though one towel and the soap had been used. The towel was folded neatly on the toilet. Shelly stood, his left hand holding his hairy right wrist while I checked the closet. No suitcase, no clothes. I tried the drawers. They were all empty, except for the bottom one, which held a Gideon Bible with a piece of paper sticking out of it in Isaiah, chapter 30, with underlining on the words:

Behold, the name of the Lord cometh from far, With his anger burning in His thick uplifting of smoke; His lips are full of indignation, And His tongue is as a devouring fire; And His breath is as an overflowing stream, That divideth even unto the neck, To sift the nations with the sieve of destruction.

Then, further on the page, there was more underlining: “Both he that helpeth shall stumble, and he that is helped shall fall, And they all shall perish together.”

Shelly, who had been reading over my shoulder, muttered, “Somehow I don’t find that comforting.”

The piece of paper had writing on it, too, neat, black writing worthy of a penmanship teacher: “Peters, I cannot resist irony. Obviously, I have departed, but I do not forget and do not forgive.”

“I don’t like that note,” said Shelly. “I don’t like threats. I don’t like irony. I don’t like people with guns who try to kill me.”

“You’re hard to please,” I said, tucking the note into my pocket and returning my gun to the holster. “Quick Minck, the game’s afoot.” I clicked off the light and went out the door, Shelly shuffling behind me, gurgling, “Wait.”

We caught a cab in front of the hotel and I asked the cabbie if he knew the Pink Gardenia on Second Avenue. He knew it but he didn’t recommend it. We headed there anyway. Shelly sulked for half a mile and then said, “I wasn’t afraid back there, you know.”

“I know.”

More silence for a few blocks, then Shelly tried, “What I said in the hall back there was true. I’ve been reading
Men, Molars and Mysticism
by Lichty. You know anything, any part of the body can … even your fingernail … or … a hair from your nostril …”

“Hey, buddy, you mind, I just ate,” the cabbie called over his shoulder. “I can do without nose-hair talk, you know what I mean?”

But Shelly was too deeply into mysticism, teeth, and a vain attempt to rescue his self-respect. He plunged on, now glaring at me through thick lenses. “The meaning of life is all tied up like …”

“A ball of yarn,” I suggested.

“Tin foil,” tried the cabbie.

“No,” countered Shelly. “Like layers of teeth, gums. The mouth is an entry to the meaning. To understand a tooth is to understand life. Or a fingernail.”

“To understand a tooth is to understand a fingernail?” asked the cabbie. “Who the hell wants to understand a fingernail?”

“Just drive,” shouted Shelly. “Just turn around and drive.” He went on, “A poet understands a poem, a cartographer understands a map, a priest understands the Bible, a bartender understands his beer, and a dentist understands teeth. Each can be a profound key to the meaning of life. Don’t you see there’s no single right way? Beer, maps, teeth can be the key that unlocks the mystery of the universe.”

“You ask me,” the cabbie said, pulling to a stop, “you and the guy who wrote the book are off your nuts.”

“No one asked you,” shouted Shelly. “You know what you get for that? You get no tip. That’s what you get.”

The cabbie shrugged. “The key to my universe is a hack and a figure on the meter. I can make it without the tip. That’ll be a buck ten.”

I gave him a buck and a half and got out onto Second Avenue. Shelly followed me and slammed the cab door shut. The cabbie pulled away.

“What happened to sensitivity?” Shelly moaned.

“Drowned in Pearl Harbor,” I said, looking around for the Pink Gardenia. Cars, trucks, and cabs clunked down the street. It wasn’t crowded, but for ten at night it wasn’t empty either. People were walking down both sides of the street and stores were open.

A kid on the corner was hawking a pile of newspapers. The rain had stopped, and a cool wet wind blew down the street. The skinny kid was wearing a light jacket. His hair was long and blowing in the breeze. “What’s going on?” I asked him, buying a paper.

“Good news or bad news?” he asked.

“Good news,” I said.

Shelly tried to talk, but I help up my hand to keep him quiet. “Army Day Parade tomorrow on Fifth Avenue. Sunday’s Easter,” the kid said.

“That’s it?” I asked, looking at the front page.

“Lots of bad news. The
Langley
, the
Pecos
, and a tanker were sunk by the Japs. Maybe seven hundred sailors got killed. My brother’s in the navy.”

“In the Pacific?” I asked.

The kid shrugged and wiped a patch of blowing hair from his face.

“Who knows? They don’t let him tell us. But we didn’t get no telegram or a call or nothing. His name’s Artie.”

“I want some papers,” said Shelly, handing the kid a dollar. “A bunch of papers. We’re having a party. How many you got?”

“You can have them all for two bucks,” the kid said.

Shelly handed over another dollar. “Go home,” he said. “It’s late.”

“The Pink Gardenia,” I said, as the kid stuck the two bills in his pocket.

“Around the corner, over there,” he said, pointing behind us. “But it’s closed, boarded up. Thanks.”

And he was gone.

“You’ve got about forty copies of the
Times
there, Shell. What are you going to do with them?”

“Leave ’em there,” he said. “They’ll all be stolen in ten minutes.”

“You think the key to the mystery of life can be found in a newspaper?” I asked, walking in the direction the kid had pointed.

“Kid should be home with his family,” Shelly said, plunging his hands into his pockets and following me.

“Underneath that dirty white smock there beats a heart,” I said, turning the corner.

The Pink Gardenia was across the street, boarded up just like the kid had told us. The sign for the place was still there, painted in a nice scroll, a pink gardenia dividing the words
PINK
and
GARDENIA.
Posters covered the wooden planks on the windows. Three identical war posters were pasted on next to each other, reading,
FOR YEARS THE JAPS WANTED OUR SCRAP
…
SAVE NOW AND LET
’
EM HAVE IT.

“I can see the headlines,” Shelly, said, nodding at the posters, “Japs hit by flying junk. Let’s go back to the hotel. It’s getting cold and the place is closed.”

“Look for an entrance leading up there,” I said, pointing above the Pink Gardenia sign. There were windows above the storefront, a loft or offices.

“What’s up there?” Shelly asked, squinting.

“Columbia Pictures,” I said, moving down the sidewalk.

The doorway wasn’t hiding, but it wasn’t advertising itself with neon either. There was a nightlight inside, but I couldn’t see through the pebble-glass door. There was a bell. I rang it and put my hand to my jacket, just in case Povey opened the door. We could hear the bell ring upstairs, far inside the building, echoing and empty. I rang again. Nothing.

“There’s no one there,” Shelly said.

“Right,” I agreed.

“We’re not leaving, are we?” he asked, knowing the answer

“We’re not leaving. You want to go back on the corner and sell your papers?”

“I’ll stay with you.”

We looked around for cops, pedestrians, or stray bums. There weren’t any. We could see Second Avenue half a block down, where lights were on and people walked looking for sounds and other people, but we were on a side street in the East Thirties. There were no stray crowds here at night. The rest of the street looked like small businesses, warehouses. I tried my file. It was fine on the bottom lock, but there was a bolt lock on the bottom. “Laugh, Shelly,” I said, taking out my pistol.

“You’re going to shoot me if I don’t laugh?” he said, shaking his head. “You need serious psychiatric help, Toby. You’re beyond tooth therapy, I can tell you.”

I reached over and tickled him. He danced back with a wild, high laugh, and I turned and hit the panel of glass as Shelly tried to control a second round of gargling laughter. The panel cracked and broke, but the thick pane didn’t crumble. Glass fell inside the hallway. I pulled out a few stray shards, reached in and opened the bolt lock.”

“Come on,” I whispered. “And shut up.”

“You make me laugh and then you tell me to shut up,” Shelly cried. “We’ve got to have a serious … You’re going in there?”

“We’re going in.” And in we went.

“Toby, someone will see the broken window, for God’s sake,” he cried, his voice echoing up the dark stairway. “I’ll be caught and disbarred.”

“Lawyers get disbarred,” I said, starting up the stairs. “Dentists get disbanded or defrocked or something.”

We were not being silent. I gave up hope of being silent. If Povey were at the top of the stairs in the dark, all he would have to do was step out and shoot the two of us. He probably wouldn’t even get a two-dollar disturbing-the-peace ticket for killing us. We were breaking and entering. But nobody shot us. We just galumphed up the stairs, me trying to see into the darkness, Shelly panting and puffing behind me.

“What’s up there? What do you see?” Shelly croaked.

“It’s dark,” I said, stumbling onto a landing. “Look around for a light switch.”

I could make out a door in the darkness, but it wasn’t until Shelly found the switch that I could see both it and the two doors beyond. One door was marked
TOP NOTCH BROADWAY TALENT
, with the name
AL SINGER
in smaller letters under it. The lettering was in black on the same pebbly glass as the entrance to the building. Next to
TOP NOTCH
was
SIG DIAMOND, MUSIC BROKER.

“What’s a music broker?” Shelly asked reasonably, but I was looking at the remaining door, which had a piece of white cardboard on it with the words
COLUMBIA FILMS
stenciled in black paint.

“Somehow I don’t think this is Harry Cohn’s office,” I said, turning the door handle. It was open. The place was big, stretching the length of the building. To our right were the windows we had looked up at from the street. There was enough light to bounce a grey fog across the floor from the low ceiling, but not enough to penetrate the corners. Shelly came in behind me. I stood a few seconds and put my hand on Shelly’s shoulder to stop him.

“All right,” Shelly said. “Let’s look around and get out of here.”

The center of the floor was clear, except for a desk and some chairs and cabinets. It looked like a crude attempt to create an office in the middle of a musty attic. It was probably the “set” on which Alex had written his notes to Einstein. To our left were a few doors and furniture. I listened to Shelly breathe heavily. Something moved in the darkness. “What’s that?” Shelly squealed.

“A cat,” I said, leveling my .38 at darkness.

“Yes,” came Povey’s voice. “A cat. Perfect. A cat who has lured two mice into a trap.”

“I’ve got a gun, Povey,” I said.

“I see it,” he replied, while I tried to get a fix on him. “And I see you, but you obviously do not see me or you would not be looking over there.”

“There,” shrieked Shelly, pointing into another corner.

I turned in the direction he was pointing. There was someone there but it wasn’t Povey. I couldn’t see Povey as I spun around, but in another distant corner I could make out a patch of white, the bandage on his hand where Paul Robeson had slashed him with the blunt sword.

It was time to do something and get the hell out of there.

“I’m going to shoot two trespassers,” Povey said.

“They’ll check your identification,” I said. “The FBI knows about you. You won’t get away with it.”

“But what difference will that make to you? You’ll be dead,” he said, quite happily. “Besides, it is not I, but the renter of this loft, who will report the act of criminal trespass. And then I will get your Jew scientist. I’ve enjoyed this game, but my employers are growing impatient.”

“Toby,” Shelly whispered at my side. “Damn it, do something.”

“I took a shot toward Povey’s dark corner and shoved Shelly to the left, toward one of the offices in the loft. Shelly staggered into a shadow and I rolled after him, bullets coming at me from two directions.