To Catch a Spy (7 page)

“Thanks, Doc,” I said.

“Remain alive and I’ll immortalize you in the annals of medicine,” he said.

“I’ll try.”

He left shaking his head. I walked slowly to my car on legs that were willing to carry me but not too far. I got to Mrs. Plaut’s on Heliotrope Street a little after three-fifteen in the morning. Parking was tough, but my car doesn’t need much of an opening.

I climbed the porch steps and opened the door, turning my key as quietly as possible. Inside, I closed the door slowly and headed for the stairs.

Mrs. Plaut is nearly deaf but has a seventh or eighth sense. Even deep in sleep she knows when someone enters or leaves her boardinghouse. I had been lucky enough to escape her only five or six times when I’d come in very late at night or very early in the morning.

This time I wasn’t lucky. She emerged from her apartment on my left, adjusting her white robe and her glasses at the same time.

“Mr. Peelers,” she said. “Are you cognizant of the time?”

“Cognizant?”

“It’s a ‘Build Your Vocabulary’ word from the
Reader’s Digest,
” she explained. “It means ‘aware.’”

“I’m cognizant,” I said. “I’m tired, sore, confused, and cognizant.”

“You were fired?” she asked. “From which company?”

As I said, Mrs. Plaut thought I was a book editor who moonlighted as an exterminator. I had tried for over a year without success to straighten this out, or at least figure out how she had come to this conclusion, but I never got anywhere.

“I wasn’t fired,” I said.

“Good. You look terrible. Too much punch last night. Not enough sleep. It’s on your table. In your room.”

“The new chapter?” I guessed.

Mrs. Plaut was writing, in neat script on lined paper, the history of her family, and since I was an editor, it was my responsibility to read, approve, and respond to each chapter as she wrote it. Since criticism wasn’t what she was after, I never pointed out that her book was disjointed and rambling. No actual editing was expected, either. But I had to read the chapters because every once in a while she’d ask me a question about what she had written.

“The new chapter,” she said, folding her hands across her thin chest. “About the Sorenson twins and the incident at the gumbo restaurant in New Orleans.”

“I can’t wait to read it,” I said, inching toward the stairs.

“The Sorensons were on my mother’s side.”

I was moving slowly upward, holding the railing so I wouldn’t fall.

“They lived in Louisiana just after the War between the States,” she said.

“Gumbo,” I said.

“I’m not mumbling,” she insisted.

I turned and repeated loudly, “Gumbo.”

“Tomorrow is Sunday,” she said.

I could have said that today was already Sunday, but I like to think I’m not a fool.

“Sunday brunch at ten,” she said. “As always. Peanut butter-and-jelly omelettes and breadcrumb-and-pecan biscuits. I’ll awaken you at seven-thirty so you’ll have plenty of time to wash up and shave and bathe.”

I didn’t want to get up at seven-thirty. I didn’t want to get up all day. I wanted to lie on my mattress and feel sorry for myself. I had botched the job for Cary Grant. I was in pain. I didn’t want a peanut butter-and-jelly omelette.

I smiled at Mrs. Plaut.

She smiled, went back into her rooms, and closed the door. I made it to my room on the second floor. The door wasn’t locked. Locked doors weren’t permitted in Mrs. Plaut’s boardinghouse.

I didn’t turn on the lights. I took off my clothes carefully and dropped them in the general direction of the closet. I groped my way to the mattress behind the sofa to my left, agonized it out, and flopped it on the floor. I found a pillow on the sofa and took it with me as I lay down in my undershorts. It took me about five minutes to find a position I could lie in so I wasn’t in pain. Lying facedown would have worked. I had no bumps or bruises in front. The problem was I had a bad back I’d gotten a long time ago when I was protecting Mickey Rooney from a crowd at a premiere. A very large Negro gentleman had wanted to get close to Rooney. I’d tried to stop him. He’d picked me up in a bear hug and squeezed. My back has been a problem ever since. I had to sleep on it or risk waking up unable to do anything but crawl.

I was in a sort of curled-up baby position on my left side, facing the only window in my room. The window was open just enough so that Dash could get in if he felt like it.

I closed my eyes and opened them again quickly. The name. The dead guy. What was … Bruno Volkman. And the other name … George Hall. I knew I should get up, turn on the light, and write both names on something, but I told myself I’d remember. George Hall. Had Volkman told me the name of one of the people who had killed him, taken the envelope and Cary Grant’s money?

The morning. I’d worry about it in the morning.

I dreamed of dead soldiers in World War I helmets coming out of a trench in Memorial Grove, bayonets at the ready, heading right for me across a no-man’s land of trees, bomb shells, bodies, and rubble. I recognized the first one in the wave headed in my direction. It was the little guy who had been shot in the back. Then I recognized my brother, Phil, who’d been in that war. They looked grim. So did Koko the Clown, in full battle uniform.

Just before they got to me, I woke up with the explosion of a grenade a few yards away from where I stood in my underwear. Then they were gone and another grenade exploded nearby, but this time my eyes were open and I was staring at Mrs. Plaut, who was about to knock a third time.

“I’m awake,” I said loudly, to stop her from sending another shock wave through my head.

The sun was shining through the window. I looked at the Beech-Nut Gum clock on my wall. Unlike my father’s watch, it had always been within a minute or five of the right time. It said the time was seven.

“I have half an hour more,” I shouted.

“You have a telephone call,” she said. “Put on your britches and answer it.”

“Who is it?” I asked, starting to test my head and neck with very slow movement.

“Archie something,” she said. “Funny accent. Breakfast is at….”

“Ten,” I supplied, starting to sit up.

She nodded in approval and departed, leaving the door open. Getting up wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. It wasn’t good either, but I knew who Archie was, Archie Leach, aka my client. Grant was proud of his actual name and tried to sneak it into his movies. Hitchcock did walk-ons in his own films, so why not Leach?

I got to my feet and felt each step as I moved toward the closet and my only robe, a gift from my sister-in-law, Ruth. It was thin, solid brown, and a little large, which was just the way I liked it.

The phone in Mrs. Plaut’s boardinghouse is right near the stairway. The receiver was dangling, looking at me. I picked it up and said, “Peters.”

“It’s me,” Grant said in his familiar voice.

“I know.”

“What happened?” he asked.

I told him the story—the whole thing—and he said, “I’m sorry. I should have come with you. You said you got his name and that he mentioned another name before he died?”

I was afraid he would ask me that. I paused, hoping the names would come back to me.

“Give me a second,” I said. “My brains are rattling around like a box of Wheaties.”

Maybe a bowl of Wheaties would restore my memory. Maybe I’d have one before I went down to face Mrs. Plaut’s breakfast.

“Peters, are you there?”

“I’m here. His name was George Volkman. No, not George. The other guy was George.”

“Other guy?”

“The other guy whose name he gave me before he died. George Hall. The dead guy was Bruno Volkman.”

I let out a puff of air in relief. I’d write the names in my notebook before I got dressed.

“Bruno Volkman,” Grant repeated. “Bruno Volkman. Sounds familiar. You say he was short, thin?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll work on it. The name he gave you, George Hall.”

“Right.”

“I know Jon Hall and Huntz Hall,” Grant tried. “There was a woman named Estelle Hall who worked with me in a music hall act when I was a kid. We’ve got to find him.”

We?

“Are you up to staying on the job?” he asked. “I’ll pay your regular rates and expenses. This is important.”

I wasn’t sure if my body was ready, but my wallet was. So was my curiosity.

“I’m up to it.”

“Good,” he said. “You know where this Volkman lived?”

Then I remembered.

“I did get his name and address down in my notebook. I just remembered.”

“You start there. I’ll try to track down this George Hall. I’ll call you later. Be careful. Did I tell you this is important?”

“You did.”

“It is.”

He hung up. So did I.

I went back to my room, picked up my pants, shirt, and jacket, and hung them in the closet. But first I took out my wallet, .38, car keys, and notebook and placed them on top of my dresser. My clothes needed cleaning.

I went to the lone bathroom the tenants shared, hoping they weren’t up yet. I was in luck. I showered, shaved with my trustworthy old Gillette, brushed my teeth with the last of the powder in a little blue Dr. Lyons can, took the pills Doc Parry had given me, and opened the bathroom door.

Gunther, neat and waist-high to me, stood there patiently in his purple silk robe, his toiletries in a leather pouch in one hand and his white towel draped over his arm.

“Toby,” he said, looking at me. “You have been hurt.”

“I have been hurt,” I confessed, “but it was only the first round. I’ll tell you all about it after breakfast. The names Bruno Volkman or George Hall mean anything to you?”

He thought for a moment and said, “I do not think so. Would you like me to make inquiries?”

“If you don’t mind.”

“It is Sunday. I don’t know what I can find, if anything, on Sunday, but I shall try.”

I thanked him and made my way back to my room, where I checked my closet. I had choices. Not many, but choices. My new gray seersucker from Hy’s was too good for what I had to do. I took the belt out of my crumpled pants and strung it through a pair of blue work pants. I picked a buttoned white shirt that had a stain in front. When I tucked it in, the stain wouldn’t show. Once I was dressed, I opened my notebook to the page where I had written Volkman’s address.

It looked like 778 Hauser. Hauser was just off of Pico. It could have been 990 Hauser though. I had written it in the dark, where sevens can become nines and an eight might be a zero with two strands of hair.

I went into the hall and picked up the phone book from the small rickety table. There was no phone listing for Bruno Volkman. I tried the operator. There still was no listing for a Bruno Volkman in Los Angeles.

I hung up and went down to breakfast. I was moving slowly. The pills from Parry seemed to be kicking into low gear. The descent wasn’t painless, but it was possible. I had trouble moving my neck in spite of a hot shower, but I could live and work with that. No-Neck Arnie did.

The door to Mrs. Plaut’s rooms was open. I knocked four times and went in. That was the custom at meals. I moved past Pistolero’s cage. He screeched at me and bobbed his head up and down.

I ignored him and went into the dining room. I was the first to arrive. There was a pile of biscuits on a plate in the middle of the table and a coffee pot sitting on a thin block of polished wood. I sat at my usual place, poured some coffee, and tried to think.

Ben Bidwell and Emma Simcox came in together and nodded at me. He was wearing a sports jacket and tie. She was wearing a Sunday print dress.

“Some New Year’s party,” said the one-armed car salesman.

Most people don’t work on Sunday, but Bidwell did. Sunday was a car-buying day, the busiest day of the week at Mad Jack’s in Venice.

“Yeah,” I said. “Why are so many car dealers insane?”

“Insane?” Bidwell said, sitting.

“Madman Sam, Crazy Bill, Mad Jack,” I said as Emma Simcox sat.

“So you’ll remember them,” said Bidwell, pouring a cup of coffee for Miss Simcox and himself. “And so you’ll believe they’re so crazy they’d give cars away.”

“I can’t tell one madman from another,” I said.

“That’s the truth,” Bidwell said, reaching for a bread-crumb-and-pecan biscuit. “Something wrong with your neck?”

“I got hit by a guy who had just shot another guy I was talking to in Elysian Park.”

Bidwell smiled and shook his head. I always told him the truth. He thought I was an imaginative meal-table comedian.

Gunther arrived, fully dressed, in a three-piece suit, with a Windsor-knotted tie. He climbed up on his chair next to me.

“Good morning,” he said, placing his napkin on his lap.

I had already seen Gunther this morning. Ben and Emma said, “Good morning.”

“Toby, I paused on the way to look at the telephone book,” Gunther said. “I found two George Halls in the Los Angeles directory and one in Burbank. I shall endeavor to find out more about them.”

“I knew a George Hall,” Bidwell said, eating a muffin, cup of coffee in hand. “Mechanic.”

“Where does he live?” asked Gunther.

“Doesn’t. He’s dead. War. This war, not mine.”

Mrs. Plaut came in from the kitchen with the first two neatly folded omelettes. I could smell peanut butter. She pushed the first one onto Emma Simcox’s plate with a spatula and then served the second one to Bidwell.

“Be right back,” she said, hurrying out again.

Bidwell took a small tentative piece of the omelette on his fork and ushered it into his mouth. We all waited, trying to gauge the look on his face.

“Good,” he said. “A little weird, but good.”

Emma Simcox began to eat. She nodded in agreement.

Mrs. Plaut came back with omelettes for Gunther and me. And then she was off to the kitchen again.

The omelette wasn’t bad. Mrs. Plaut returned and took her seat. There was no omelette on her plate.

“Where’s yours?” Bidwell asked.

“Peanut butter and jelly in an omelette?” Mrs. Plaut answered, as she often did, with a question. “Doesn’t sound appetizing.”

All of us knew better than to pursue this. We ate our breakfast silently. I was starting to get up when Mrs. Plaut said, “A prayer.”