To Catch a Spy (10 page)

“Is Mr. Hall home?” I asked.

“Of course,” the squeaky voice answered.

“Well, can I see him?”

“If you have a strong heart and stomach,” the voice answered. “He’ll open the door.”

And the door did open.

In front of me stood a thin man in a droopy gray robe. His dark hair was disheveled and his eyes were wide and bewildered. He pulled the door all the way open and fiddled with the sash of his robe. He had a small, dark bottle in his hand. I looked down at his feet. They were bare. He held up the small bottle.

“Vicks Va-tro-nol,” he said. “I think I’m coming down with a cold.”

“George Hall?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said. “Are you going to beat me up?”

“Why would I beat you up?”

He shrugged and gulped and stepped back. I followed him into a large room filled with bookcases, old overstuffed furniture with faded purple and blue patterns, and cardboard boxes piled neatly, about chest high in the middle of the room.

“Going somewhere?” I asked.

He looked puzzled.

“The boxes?”

“Oh, yes. I mean no. I just haven’t unpacked yet.”

“You just moved in?”

“I think it will be a year next month,” he said, looking at the boxes and adjusting his sash again. “But I might have to move. Hard to get steady work in our line.”

“Your line?”

“Bobby and me,” he said.

And then his voice changed, his lips came together and he said in the voice I had heard through the door, “The world doesn’t appreciate a talent like ours.”

If George Hall was a ventriloquist, he was a terrible one. The voice was fine, but he moved his lips. Then again, so did Edgar Bergen.

“You’re a ventriloquist,” I said.

“I do voices,” said Hall in his own voice. “I play parties for kids, do bars and nightclubs as a ventriloquist, but that’s not my talent. I’m more like Mel Blanc. I do voices.”

And he proceeded to do voices.

“Hey gringo, what you want from me, eh?” was delivered deep and raspy.

“You wouldn’t want to scare a little girl now, would ya, huh?” came a little girl’s voice.

“Zo, vas is it zat you vant from me?” he demanded in a deep Germanic growl.

“No want trouble from white man,” he said in a slow tenor that reminded me of Tonto on the radio.

“Enough,” I said. “You’re very talented.”

“Radio,” he said. “That’s what I’m born for. You want something to drink? I’ve got Green River in the refrigerator.”

“No thanks.”

“I’ll have one,” he said. “Have a seat.”

I sat on the sofa. It smelled stale and was lumpy with wild springs. Hall came back almost immediately. He had poured the soda into a tall glass. We both watched it fizzle for a few seconds, and then he sat across from me and leaned forward, glass held tightly in two hands.

“I can pay,” he said.

“Pay?”

“Pay whatever it is I owe you,” he said. “You said you were here about a bill. I just got a lot of money.”

“A lot of money?”

“Two hundred dollars,” he said. “One night’s work.”

“Doing what?”

“Murder,” he said. He took a swallow from his glass.

“Bruno Volkman,” I said.

He looked at me for an instant, and in a variation on his German accent of a few minutes earlier, he said, “I know nothing of what it is you seek. Nothing. There is no point in torturing me. My life belongs to mine Fuhrer.”

“That was …?”

“Bruno Volkman,” he said.

“You know Bruno Volkman?”

“No, you gave me a name. It sounded German. I …”

“Murder. You said you murdered someone.”

His eyes opened wide.

“No, I said I got two hundred dollars for
Murder,
a one-hour radio show.
Lux Presents Hollywood.
The entire cast got locked in the wrong studio. I was there to do one voice, a barmaid. Then they handed me the script and told me to do the whole thing, all the parts but Herbert Marshall’s. He was there. Kept looking at me and smiling. You know he only has one leg?”

“I know.”

“Nice guy. Marshall. You listen to
A Man Called X
on the radio? That’s Marshall, and Leon Belasco plays Pagon Zelshmidt. I can do that accent.”

“You said ‘murder.’ Whose?”

“Not who, what.
Murder,
an Alfred Hitchcock movie. Maybe they’ll give me more work now.”

“I think I have the wrong George Hall,” I said.

Hall nodded and looked at his bottle of Va-tro-nol for a second.

“Colds, sore throats,” he said. “Piano players worry about their hands. My voice is my income.”

“Take care of yourself,” I said and went out the door.

“I’ve got 666 Cold Tablets too,” he added.

As soon as the door closed, I heard the Bobby voice, high and squeaky, say, “You never found out what he wanted. He’s gonna come back and rob us. Why don’t you listen to me once in a while?”

I had exhausted my George Halls. Maybe Gunther had turned up more. It was getting close to four in the afternoon. I got in my car and headed for the Farraday Building.

On the radio, I learned that anti-Jewish vandals were at work in New York City and had attacked more than one synagogue. I also learned that Japanese prisoners were saying that the Japanese were sick of war and were no longer confident of victory. And I heard about the newly formed Women’s Auxiliary of the Brush-Off Club. The Brush-Off Club had been started by soldiers who had been jilted by their girlfriends back home. Now a group of women in Santa Monica had started their auxiliary of women who had been jilted by servicemen. I wondered what they did at their meetings.

There were no parking spaces within a block of the Farraday. It was a busy Monday, the day after a holiday weekend. I was heading back to park at No-Neck Arnie’s when a Cadillac pulled out in front of Manny’s Tacos. I parked and went into Manny’s.

Manny stood behind the counter, reading the paper, his round belly threatening to pop through his shirt-front. He was smoking a Camel and squinting at the sports section.

There were a few customers, and the radio was playing a Christmas song.

“Christmas is over,” I said.

Manny grunted but didn’t look up from his paper.

“Christmas was over when they hit Pearl Harbor,” he said. “It’ll stay over until the Nazis and Japs give up. What can I do you for?”

“Six tacos, the works,” I said.

He put down the paper and moved toward the grill at the rear of the shop.

“Juanita was looking for you,” he said. “Says she has something to tell you. You weren’t in your office. She thought you might be here.”

I sat on one of the round swivel stools at the counter while I waited.

I didn’t plan to go running to Juanita the Seer for confusing predictions I could do nothing about. Once she had told me to beware of mashed potatoes. So I stopped eating mashed potatoes. Two weeks later, a waiter at Delio’s on Fairmont tripped and dropped a bowl of mashed potatoes on my lap. I never saw him coming. There was nothing I could have done about it. Someone else had ordered them. I wasn’t going to give up mashed potatoes again.

“We’ve got a secret weapon,” Manny said. “You hear about it?”

“Heard something,” I said.

“Yeah,” said Manny. “I hear it’s a cannon that can shoot big bombs a hundred miles from a destroyer off of Japan and hit any city we want. That’s what I heard.”

He placed the tacos in a brown paper bag. They smelled of heat and chili peppers. I paid him.

“Big bombs,” I said.

“Can shoot ’em from a hundred miles away.”

“We should check it out with Juanita,” I said, turning toward the door.

“I did,” said Manny. “She said it isn’t a big bomb. It’s a little boy. Our secret weapon is a little boy.”

Manny shook his head, and I left and walked from the corner to the Farraday. A man wearing sunglasses and a woman wearing a black hat with a wide brim that hid her face in shadows were coming out, talking about a song.

“Who can sing that?” she said.

“Ginny, you can sing that,” the man said.

I think it was Ginny Simms, maybe.

The vast cavern of the Farraday hummed and rattled with voices, music, clacking typewriters, and sounds I didn’t recognize. Late on a Monday afternoon. Everything was normal except for the office of Sheldon Minck.

Violet wasn’t at her desk in the little waiting-reception room. No one was in the room, but inside, on Shelly’s chair sat an enormous man with a dark beard. Dr. Sheldon Minck had one knee on the man’s chest and a tight grip on the pliers or whatever it was he held in his hand.

“Biggest I’ve ever seen, Toby,” he said, glancing at me, his glasses perched at the end of his nose and slipping fast. “I’m going to mount it.”

“Like a fish,” I said.

“Sure.”

The giant in the chair sat with his hands at his sides He seemed to be snoring gently.

“He’s out,” Shelly said. “Friend of Jeremy’s. Wrestler. The Mountain. Famous.”

“Never heard of him,” I said, skeptical about Jeremy sending any friend of his to the sixth-floor-forceps-wielding escapee from dental hell.

“I feel like … like Captain Abe on top of Moby Dick,” Shelly said, wiping his brow with his soiled sleeve.

“Ahab,” I corrected. “And Ahab never caught Moby Dick. Moby Dick killed him.”

“He did?” asked Shelly, pausing for an instant. “Just goes to show you.”

“Show me what?”

“Don’t look for happy endings,” he said with a great grunt and a two-handed pull.

Something went “pop” and Shelly flew back, two hands still clinging to the pliers.

“Got it,” he said.

It was a damn big tooth.

“I’m going to clean it and mount it,” he said, adjusting his glasses as he got up. “Or maybe I should hang it inside of a glass box.”

“First you might want to stop your patient from bleeding to death.”

“Right, right,” he said, moving to the sleeping, snoring Mountain, putting the tooth carefully on the nearby tray and picking up a white gauze pad that looked more or less clean.

I moved to my cubbyhole office door.

“You’ve got people waiting,” he said, stuffing the scrunched piece of gauze into the hole from which the massive tooth had been plucked. “Gunther and that other guy from yesterday, the one who looks like George Kaplan. Man’s got good teeth, but even almost perfect teeth can be made absolutely perfect. You tell him.”

I nodded and went into my office. Cary Grant and Gunther were deep in conversation, but they stopped and Grant said, “What is that man doing out there?”

“He had an ancestor who participated in the Spanish Inquisition,” I said. “Shelly’s been trying to live up to the family tradition since he got his dental degree.”

“I’d say his ancestor would be proud of him,” said Grant.

I moved around my desk, pushed the bag of tacos toward them, and sat.

“He thinks he can make your teeth perfect,” I said.

“I’ve learned to live with imperfection,” Grant said, pointing to a familiar mole on his cheek. “That way you don’t tempt the gods.”

“Avoiding hubris,” said Gunther.

“Indeed,” said Grant. “What’s that smell?”

“Greasy tacos,” I said. “Have a couple.”

Grant reached for the bag and pulled out a taco. I did the same, dripping sauce across assorted notes and letters. Gunther declined the treat.

“Any more George Halls?” I asked Gunther. “Neither of the two you gave me is the one we’re looking for.”

Gunther, his feet nowhere near touching the floor, took his notebook from his jacket pocket, opened it, and said, “Pasadena, a Georges Halle.” He spelled it. “I called him. He is, like me, Swiss. I am certain he is not the one you seek.”

“I had my secretary check casting agents,” said Grant. “She’s still working on it. No George Hall so far.”

“Our George may not be from around here,” I said.

“No,” said Grant, carefully approaching the taco so that no grease dripped on his jacket or trousers, “I think he is. I was looking for local people and that’s what our Mr. Volkman promised to deliver.”

“So,” I said, “we have nothing but the three cards in Volkman’s pocket. We can each take one or go together,” I said. “But …”

“I’d be recognized,” Grant said, finishing his first taco. “Funny, I’ve worked all my adult life and most of my childhood working on being recognized. Standing out in a crowd has its disadvantages.”

“I know,” said Gunther. “I have learned that one must stand the stares with dignity.”

“No one ever gives me a second look,” I said. “Part of my charm. I’ll follow up on the cards. Meanwhile …”

“Hold on,” Grant said, holding up a hand and opening his mouth to speak.

He was interrupted by a loud roar from beyond the door. He looked at the door and back at me.

“I think our sleeping giant just woke up,” Grant said.

The door to my office flew open and the giant stood there, looking at each one of us, his eyes stopping at Cary Grant as if he recognized but couldn’t quite place him.

“Where is he?” asked the Mountain.

“He?” I asked.

“Dr. Minck,” he said. “He pulled the wrong tooth. Now he’s gone.”

“Have a taco,” I said, holding out the bag. Mountain took one and then slammed the door. If he intended, as I thought he did, to take on the Los Angeles Mangier, it wouldn’t be much of a match.

“He stands out in a crowd,” Grant said.

“So,” I said. “Here’s what I suggest we do.”

Gunther and Grant looked at me.

“Volkman,” I said, writing his name on an envelope on my desk. It was the back of a telephone bill I hadn’t yet opened. “Gunther, can you?…”

“Just a minute,” Grant said. “Have you got a photograph of this Volkman?”

I didn’t, but I knew where to get one.

“It occurs to me,” Grant continued, “that he might have been using a different name. If we can get a photograph we can show around.…”

“I’ll get a photograph,” I said.

I told them Volkman’s address and said I’d take care of it.

“Almost four-thirty,” Grant said, looking at his watch. “Gentlemen, it has been an interesting afternoon, but we’ve got to keep moving. You don’t know how important it is to find George Hall and, if it still exists, the list of names Bruno Volkman was going to give me.”