The Man Who Shot Lewis Vance (22 page)

“Amazing new Aurex,” she read. “Brings hearing to ninety-five percent of even the most difficult cases. Mr. Peelers and Mr. Wortman, are you suggesting that I am unable to hear?”

“Maybe a little,” I said. “You, yourself said—”

“I’m not lying,” she said indignantly. “The Plauts, the Wainwrights, every branch of the family has had the hearing of a hawk.”

“Sorry,” I said, reaching out to take the Aurex back. She didn’t give it to me. “I’ll consider this,” she said instead. Then she turned and went back into the house.

“Worth a try,” I said to Gunther.

“We have done what can be done, as Goethe said,” Gunther added. We went inside. Gunther hurried up ahead of me to get ready for the wedding. I went up more slowly, nursing an aching body and a tender nose. When I got to the top of the stairs and took a step toward my room, Mrs. Plaut called up, “Oh, Mr. Peelers. You have some visitors in your room. Your sister and brothers have come for the wedding.”

It was too late to run. Besides I wouldn’t have made it. Lyle opened the door and aimed a pistol at me. I moved forward and went into my room to find Sydney at my table with Adrienne standing behind him. Sutker, a fresh dressing on his broken nose, was ripping up furniture. My clothes were on the floor, my refrigerator open.

“Papers?” said Sydney, as Lyle closed the door behind us. Lyle and Sutker were wearing bright purple. They looked at me with less than brotherly love.

“Papers?” repeated the greatly irritated Adrienne. “You expect a reasonable response from that? Threaten him, Sydney.”

“Adrienne,” he said, smoothing his hair. “Of course I was going to threaten him. If you deprive me of style, how am I to earn respect?”

“I’ve got the files,” I said.

They all stopped and looked at me.

“They’re not here,” Sutker said.

“They’re not here,” I agreed. “And you’re not getting them. I’ve got a deal for you. You’re out of the extortion business and I don’t turn those files over to the police.”

Lyle prodded me urgently in the right kidney.

“Don’t irk me, people,” I said. “I have a friend who has orders to send the file to the police if I get seriously hurt. And I don’t respond well to torture. It makes me very angry.”

Lyle stepped in front of me and said, “I’d like to make you angry.”

“No,” Adrienne Larchmont said behind him.

“No,” agreed Sydney belatedly.

“Do I keep looking or what?” asked Sutker.

“You can stop looking,” said Adrienne Larchmont.

Lyle stepped out of the way and she approached me.

“The money?” she said.

“Goes back to a victim,” I said.

“Can we trust this man?” asked Sydney, who got up and joined her. They were looking into my eyes for answers. My eyes didn’t have any answers.

“If he betrays us, we simply return and deal with him,” she said, her dark eyes fixed on mine. “It was time for us to move on anyway. We’ve exhausted our welcome in California. It’s time for us to move south.”

“But Adrienne,” Sydney pleaded.

She walked past me and out the door. Sydney followed without looking at me. Lyle and Sutker went next, and then I was standing alone looking at my mess. They had even rearranged Mrs. Plaut’s packet of family photographs.

The hell with it. I left things the way they were, closed the refrigerator, and got ready for the wedding.

15
      

I
still had $147 of John Wayne’s fee for services but I didn’t have time to buy a new suit. The old gray seersucker, a little the worse for wear and the only one I had left, would have to do, along with the brown-and-white shoes from Macy’s, which polished up reasonably well in spite of the beating they had taken in Coldwater Canyon.

“We are ready, Mr. Peelers,” Mrs. Plaut shouted from below while I was trying to tie my blue-striped tie to hide the spot left by my bloody nose. It worked reasonably well if you didn’t notice that the tie was a little short in front and long on the downside.

“Coming right up,” I shouted as I came through the door. “Got a phone call to make first.”

I looked over the railing at Mrs. Plaut, with her neatly wrapped wedding present, and Gunther, who stood patiently at her side carrying a large gift box, and then I called John Wayne. It took three calls to find him at Republic.

“It’s over,” I said when he came on. “You were a decoy. There was no Alex. Remember Merit Beason?”

“Fella with you at the hotel and the dock and Coldwater with his neck all messed up?”

“He did it. It’s a long story with a couple of bodies,” I said. “Beason’s dead. Case is closed and you’re safe. I’ll send you a full report in writing and a refund.”

“Keep the difference,” Wayne said. “You did a good job.”

“I was hoping you’d say that.”

“Mr. Peelers,” Mrs. Plaut shouted. “I do not wish to miss the canapes.”

“Listen,” the Duke said languidly. “We’re having a preview showing of my new picture,
Shepherd of the Hills
, at the Los Feliz Monday night at nine. If you can make it, I think you might get a kick out of it. Remember my dad?”

“Doc Morrison?”

“The druggist, right. Back in Glendale. I play a frontier druggist named Doc Morrison in the picture. Means something a little special to me. I’d like you to be there.”

“Can I bring—”

“Anyone you like,” he pitched in with a laugh. “See you.”

“Time is money,” Mrs. Plaut shouted as I hung up the phone. I didn’t see how the homily applied in this case. I dropped another nickel and called Chaplin’s house. The slow butler answered and I told him I’d like to come over later to give Mr. Chaplin something. The phone went silent and I waited, listening to Mrs. Plaut begin a story to Gunther about one of her relatives named Trumpeter who dug up Indians.

“Mr. Chaplin says you are welcome to drop by anytime after four and before seven.”

“Suits me,” I said, and hung up.

We took the Crosley instead of Gunther’s Oldsmobile with the built-up gas pedals because the Crosley used less gas. Mrs. Plaut was not wearing the Aurex, but I could see as she sat next to me, clutching the box in her lap, chattering about tardiness, photographs, and the rationing of tea, that she was playing with it in her open purse. Gunther fit neatly into the small rear seat below eye level. Since he said not a word all the way to the Farraday, I had to fight the urge to lean back and be sure he was still there. The wedding gift sat in the front seat by my side.

It was an odd time for a wedding, a Friday afternoon, but Jeremy and Alice wanted a weekend honeymoon. It made parking a little tough. I couldn’t park at Arnie’s and make Mrs. Plaut walk. She had never demonstrated the slightest inclination toward frailty, but the afternoon was hot and she was wearing her best dress and I knew that Gunther didn’t enjoy two-block hikes with people staring at him.

I think I made it into a legal space on Ninth. It was close. A heartless cop could have given the city the benefit of the doubt. I took the chance. I had the money for the ticket and the prospect of getting more.

Nothing was different in the Farraday lobby. Our footsteps echoed and distant sounds of voices and doors echoed in the darkness. We took the elevator, and Mrs. Plaut, when we hit the second floor, asked me if I knew how the hearing aid worked. I told her I thought so, but Gunther indicated that he had done the translation for the directions to a hearing aid and was sure he could explain. He explained quickly and Mrs. Plaut listened intently with a squint as the elevator came to a stop on three.

I opened the door and let Mrs. Plaut out. Gunther, carrying the gift, paused and motioned for me to bend down to catch a secret.

“Did you see the vehicle following us?” he said.

“I saw it Gunther, Pontiac. One man. Car needed some body work. He was looking for a parking space behind us.”

“Why?” Gunther asked.

“Who?” I asked. Since we had no answers for each other we followed Mrs. Plaut down the hall, got ahead of her, and led her to Jeremy Butler’s office-apartment. We were late. Not very late, but late. Music was playing when we opened the door. The music was provided by a man with a thatch of white hair wearing a frayed shirt and dark tie. He was playing the flute.

“The second movement of Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 2,” Gunther informed me as we eased into the room.

The ceremony was about to start and the room wasn’t all that crowded. Jeremy, suited and tied, nodded at me and I nodded back across the room. Alice the broad-beamed beamed in a new pink blouse and blue skirt that covered her muscles. It would be nice to say she looked beautiful. She didn’t but she did look a little softer. Her brown hair was loose in the back and turned out to be almost down to her waist. The minister was a guy named Jacomo Huston from the Church of Shiva on 16th. Jeremy and Jacomo carried on long arguments on philosophy and religion in Pershing Park. They drew great crowds. I’d heard their act a couple of times and thought someone should grab them for an educational radio show.

I avoided the eyes of Madame Carpentier and those of Mildred Minck, who tried to make contact, maybe to hypnotize me into paying Shelly more rent. I wondered if Shelly had told her I wouldn’t pay. From her look I guessed he hadn’t. From Shelly’s pale smile I could tell he hadn’t. The two cakes were laid neatly out along with bottles of Roma white wine and Pepsi plus a big pot of coffee. Gunther placed our gift on the table in the corner with the other gifts.

“If we are—” the Reverend Jacomo Huston began, but the door burst open and Phil entered. I thought at first he was looking for me, the $10,000, and the papers from the Alhambra safe. I had visions of the two of us punching it out and rolling over cake and guests. But right behind Phil came his pale, thin wife, Ruth, carrying year-old Lucy and behind them my nephews, Nate and Dave. Dave spotted me downing a Pepsi and shouted over flute and reverend, “Uncle Toby, Uncle Toby, did you shoot anybody yet today?”

Nate put his hand over his brother’s mouth but Dave struggled free and made his way over to me.

“I don’t see any new cuts or holes,” Dave said, looking up.

“I’m a mess under the suit,” I confided.

Dave smiled. “Great,” he said.

“If we can now begin,” the reverend tried again, and he began.

The ceremony was brief and didn’t make a hell of a lot of sense to me, stuff about merging with the all, being tranquil, being what one is meant to be. The kids fidgeted, Lucy made demands, and the guy with the flute used his instrument to scratch his head. Madame Carpentier kept glancing at me and I did a good job of pretending to concentrate on the ceremony. I couldn’t see Gunther. He was below and behind someone or something.

         “
Bombs and bodies fall,

         
Spirits in turmoil call

         
and claim our vision,

         
our hearing or senses

         
demanding that we place

         
one foot in the past and

         
one in the future straddling

         
the present; But we are in the hall

         
of now and the shadows standing tall

         
should not move us from the one

         
at our side; The present is our obligation.

         
Forsake not history or tomorrow’s dreams

         
but honor the now and abandon schemes

         
that promise whispers instead of sweat

         
and love.”

“Amen,” said Mrs. Plaut and everyone added their “amens,” though I wasn’t sure we had heard a prayer.

“Is it over?” Nate whispered hoarsely to me so everyone could hear.

“I now pronounce you man and wife,” answered Jacomo Huston. Jeremy and Alice embraced and exchanged a small kiss before turning to the small gathering with gentle smiles. The flutist started something else and Gunther appeared at my side, slightly smaller than ten-year-old Nate, to tell me that the piece was Vivaldi’s Recorder Concerto in D.

A good time was had by all, at least by most. I kept Nate and Dave nearby for protection, but it didn’t stop Phil from coming over to me after he had picked up a piece of chocolate cake.

“Nice,” he said. He was sweating with about twenty extra pounds.

“Nice,” I agreed, looking over the group.

I glanced at Phil, who appeared ready to say something more, changed his mind, and moved away. I waved at Ruth and Lucy across the room. Lucy had spilled Pepsi over herself and her mother.

The presents were opened. Shelly and Mildred gave a card promising six months of free dental care to the newlyweds. Madame Carpentier’s gift was a pair of matching Egyptian health necklaces. Mrs. Plaut’s gift was a pair of hand-knit sweaters, both of which looked too small for the happy couple. Phil and Ruth gave an orange juice squeezer, and Gunther and I gave a vacuum cleaner, a rebuilt Royal Eureka, bought for $12.95 from the L.A. Furniture Company on South Broadway.

When I finally made my way to Jeremy to wish him and Alice good luck, he asked me, “Is everything settled, with those two in your office?”

“The pineapples? All settled. My life’s in order, Jeremy. Enjoy your honeymoon.”

“Darkness and light, Toby,” he said, clutching my hand. “Remember there can be no light without darkness. No joy without sorrow. Life is not life without contrast.”

“I’ll remember that, Jeremy,” I said, which proved to be the right answer. He released my hand, and I turned around to find myself facing Madame Carpentier.

“Nice dress,” I said.

She finished off the glass of white wine and shook her head at me. “You can call me Charmaine,” she said.

“Nice dress, Charmaine,” I said, trying to ease past her to the strains of Vivaldi and conversation. I pretended to wave to someone I desperately had to get to in the corner. There wasn’t room to get by unless Madame Carpentier backed off.

“The three are dead,” she said.

“Yes, but—” I started.