The Howard Hughes Affair: A Toby Peters Mystery (Book Four) (22 page)

“I get the hell out of here, go back to my family and drive to Mexico tonight. Then tomorrow we get a flight back to Tokyo. In a few hours all hell is going to break loose in this country, and I don’t want to be here. I’ve got the word that places have already been designated for interning Japanese Americans and Japanese nationals as soon as the war starts.”

“You’re letting your imagination go too far,” I said.

He took a small camera out of his pocket and handed it to me.

“You going to try to stop me?” he said.

“I owe you my life,” I said. “I’ve got a soft head and a long memory. Have a good trip.”

I looked up and Toshiro was gone.

In five minutes, after soaking my leg in cold water in an NBC sink and being interrupted only once by the engineer, who had seen me through the studio window, I found Paddy Whannel and we waited for the police.

It was somewhere about two when my brother and Steve Seidman arrived. My watch said two-twenty. Even a stopped watch has to be right twice a day, someone once told me. Or maybe I read it on the wall of the YMCA toilet.

“They called me at home when they heard your name,” Phil explained, leading me into an office Paddy Whannel provided. Seidman stayed outside. Phil needed a shave. The grey stubble on his chin made him look old and mean.

He closed the door behind us and said, “Explain.”

I explained fast, weaving a tale mostly of truth. I told about Trudi, Martin Schell and Barton. I told him they had tried to steal Hughes’ plans and failed. I didn’t tell him about Toshiro. I suggested he check Trudi’s gun and talk to her. I was sure she’d be willing to talk. He said Seidman was talking to her.

“So she killed the butler and Barton,” Phil said perceptively. “Who killed the guy in Minck’s dental chair?”

“A Nazi who can’t speak English,” I said. “A short guy with a lot of neck. Seidman and the FBI were with him at County Hospital yesterday.”

Phil’s angry look came on fast.

“How the hell did you know that?”

“I have a vast network of spies,” I said, and he moved at me with clenched fists. “For God’s sake,” I yelled, “I’m handing you murderers and spies all wrapped up to give to the FBI, and you want to further cripple a crippled man. Where’s your gratitude?”

He took my face in his big right hand, brought it close to his and then pushed me away. Then he held his hands together to keep them from doing something we would both regret.

“The guy in the hospital was named Kirst,” said Phil. “He’s dead. Got hit by a car. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”

“No,” I said.

“Now, why did he strangle the Nazi in your office?”

“Double-cross,” I said. “Wolfgang Schell wasn’t supposed to kill me. He was supposed to find out how I fit in, but he got carried away and tried to kill me. Kirst tried to stop him, and they had a fight. He pummeled the hell out of Kirst. Some of the wounds on his body didn’t come from that automobile accident.”

“We know,” Phil said suspiciously. “Go on.”

“So, Kirst bled all over the place, got mad and strangled Schell in the dental chair.”

Now if Phil didn’t check blood types, or if the blood types of Kirst and the blood in Shelly’s office matched, everything was fine.

“That is one hell of a story,” Phil sighed.

“You think the FBI will buy it?” I said.

He shrugged.

“How much of it is true?” he asked in an almost friendly way.

“Most of it. Enough.”

“In a way, I don’t give a damn,” he said. “Three Nazis and a drunken Air Force major. Is she a Nazi too?” He pointed to the door, clearly meaning Trudi.

“If you mean a German, yes. If you mean a Nazi, no.”

“They’re all Nazis,” Phil said, simplifying the world like a good cop.

Seidman knocked and came in.

“Well?” said Phil.

“She’s a talker,” said Seidman. “Confessed to two murders, cried, pleaded. Said something about someone hitting her.”

“I did,” I said. “She was going to shoot me. I kicked the gun out of her hand.”

“Night guard out there said something about a Japanese guy,” said Seidman, looking at me. Phil looked at me.

“Chinese,” I said. “Here visiting a friend or something. Saw the mess and stuck his head in to see if he could help. I didn’t get his name. He gave it. Loo or Chan or something like that.”

“Get out,” said Phil. “Fast before your ass falls off from all the lies. Get out, you shit.” He raged and threw something in my general direction. It was an NBC ashtray. It almost hit Seidman.

I went out and hobbled down the hall as fast as my legs would carry me. I retrieved my shoes from the studio but couldn’t get them on, so I hopped across the parking lot, afraid to step on the pebbles, and got into my car.

Driving to Mirador with a cracked windshield wasn’t the easiest thing I’ve done, but with the help of three more of Dr. Parry’s pills-for-all-ills, I made it by four in the morning.

The front door was answered by one of the two neatly dressed guards. He let me in and followed me up to Hughes’ study. Hughes looked up from his drawings at me as if he had almost forgotten who he was. For some reason, he was wearing his fedora tilted back on his head.

“I’m alive,” I said.

“That’s good, really,” said Hughes with something vaguely near enthusiasm. “Did you find out if they stole any of my plans?”

“Don’t you want to know who murdered three people?” I asked.

“No,” he said. “The less I know, the less people can ask me.”

I pulled the small Leica out of my pocket and threw it to him. He caught it almost as well as Joe Dimaggio.

“What they had is in there,” I said. “They never got to develop it. If you want to develop it, you can just to be sure I’m telling the truth.”

“I will,” he said emotionlessly.

I laughed. “You don’t even know when you’re insulting someone.”

“I thought I was just being practical,” he said. “I wasn’t trying to insult you. You’ve done a good job, and you can be sure your bill will be paid in full.”

“And that’s it?”

Hughes had turned back to whatever he was working on.

“You were hired for a job. You were paid for a job. You did the job. I told you I appreciate professionalism.”

I was tempted to tell him the plans in front of him were of no interest to Japan or probably anyone else, but it wasn’t worth the effort, and I had more work to do, and miles to go.

The bruiser in the flannel suit let me out of the door, and I drove through the first rays of dawn over the ratty main street of Mirador, taking my last look at Hijo’s, the bait shop, the police station and the car door in the middle of the street. I purposely cracked into the edge of the car door, sending it spinning toward the curb. It came to a screeching stop at the door of the police station. I had done my part to clean up Mirador in more ways than one.

I didn’t admire the dawn through my cracked windshield as I squinted my way back to Los Angeles slowly.

It was a strange early morning Los Angeles I seldom saw, with no people on the street.

I stopped for breakfast at a we-never-close place. I still couldn’t get my shoes on.

“What can I get you, Spirit of 76?” said the counter man, looking at my bandaged head and shoeless feet, which brought laughs to some early morning mailmen and a truck driver or two.

“You can get me a cannon for Christmas I can shove in your mouth,” I said and sat at the counter. I didn’t like what I was going to have to do, and I wasn’t in the mood for jokes.

“Hey, I was just kidding,” said the counterman, who looked like a recently converted alcoholic. “The boys can tell you I’m a kidder. Ain’t I, boys?”

The boys agreed he was a kidder, but one of the boys scooted to a stool further from me.

“O.K., Red Skelton, get me a double bowl of Shredded Wheat with what you have passing for cream, and I’ll dump my own sugar on it. And get me a coffee in something like a clean cup.”

“You don’t have to get sore, Mac,” said the counterman, wiping his hands on his apron.

“You’re forgiven,” I said, making a sign like I saw a priest do once in a movie. One of the mailmen thought about laughing, but my mashed face, broken head and ridiculous foot changed his mind. I was really hell on a stool, I was.

I ate the Shredded Wheat and left the counterman a big tip. I’d make a good tale for him to tell the rest of the shift. It was nothing compared to what I could have told him.

I drove the Buick to Al’s garage, but it was Sunday and Al wasn’t there. I left it in the gas station for him with the keys under the front seat. He’d see the windshield and know what to do.

Then I limped to my office. The place was empty. It was Sunday. Even crooked lawyers and pornographers get a day off. I was feeling good and sorry for Toby Peters as I went slowly up the stairs carrying my shoes.

The new sign on the doorway was in gold letters.

Doctor Sheldon Minck, Dentist, D.D.S., S.D.

Painless Dentistry Practice Since 1916

Toby Peters

Investigator

I wasn’t even “private” any more. The alcove had been cleaned up somewhat, and a new chart, this one showing the inside of a tooth, covered the bullet holes. Someone had cleaned the ashtrays.

Shelly’s office even showed signs that there had been a halfhearted attempt to clean it up. I went to my office, found an envelope from Hughes with two days pay and called the phone company to find out it was almost eight in the morning. Then I called Basil Rathbone.

A woman answered and got him.

“Yes?” he said.

“It’s me, Toby Peters,” I said with a great yawn. Then I told him what had happened.

“I see,” he said, when I had finished. “And now you have one more bit of business to take care of. Would you like my advice?”

“Go ahead,” I said.

“Holmes often took justice into his own hands. It was rather a hubristic act, but he was a man of tremendous ego. While you may not fancy yourself such a man, this case may require other than simplistic action.”

“I understand,” I said, looking up at the baleful eyes of both my father, who had wanted me to be a lawyer, and my brother Phil, who wanted me to leave him alone, and Kaiser Wilhelm, who simply wanted me.

“Thanks for the help, Basil,” I said.

“Glad of whatever assistance I could provide. I’d like to keep in touch.”

“I’ll do that,” I said and we hung up after the goodbyes.

My plan was to make some coffee and wait, but I couldn’t get my feet and body out from behind the desk, so I pulled out my notebook and began to transfer my expenses for the case.

Bumpers, bribes, tremendous quantities of gas, parking, phone calls, dinners, windshields, doctor bills, brought the whole thing to $198.60. I had put in six full days. I decided not to count that morning. That made $288 in per diem rate, minus the $192 advance. That made another $96, which meant Howard Hughes owed me an additional $284.00. Considering what I had gone through, it didn’t look like a hell of a lot, especially after paying for the office and car damage. Without another good job or two soon, I’d be hocking the coat I bought in Chicago.

I typed the bill neatly on some Nevers Trucking Company stationery, which had been given to me as a present by Nevers when his company went out of business after he went behind bars for five years for hijacking. I had done some work for his lawyer, leg work, but everything I found had made Nevers look worse. He had held no grudge and given me a stack of stationery.

Stumbling back into Shelly’s office, I found a scalpel and brought it back to my office to sharpen a pencil, with which I crossed off the letterhead for Nevers, using the side of an envelope to keep the lines straight. Then, I neatly penciled in my name. So much for the professionalism Howard Hughes expected from me. I put the bill in an envelope, licked it and put a two-cent stamp in the corner.

The case was officially closed, but there was that one nagging unofficial thing to do.

I turned on the radio and listened to a Sunday morning preacher warn me about the wicked paths, the evil in the world and my own responsibility. I must have been really in shock. He actually seemed to make sense to me.

Listening got difficult. He yelled louder to keep me awake, and I vowed to remember his words, but my head went down, and some time between heaven and hell I was sleeping with my head on my arms.

I dreamed of yesterdays, baseball games, a dog running and a man who told me why I dreamed about Cincinnati. I wanted to remember what he said, so I could think about it when I woke up, but I was interrupted by an airplane that dove into a hangar and came out the other end.

Then I was standing in a dark hall, and someone was walking through the darkness toward me. It was a little kid, a boy. He stamped on my sore foot and tried to reach my head. He was very matter of fact and unemotional about it, and he was wearing a fedora like Howard Hughes. I covered my head with my hands and called for help from Koko the Clown.