He hung up. There was a cigar store near the phone booth. I went in, bought a package of Kleenex, and asked if I could use the restroom.

  The lumpy man behind the counter nodded toward the back of the shop, where I found the tiny bathroom. The mirror could have used a cleaning, but I could see enough to tell me that my jacket was torn, my face had two bleeding scratches, and my hair stuck up like Stan Laurel’s.

  I did my best to clean up. It couldn’t have been more than three or four minutes later that I walked out of the cigar store. A dark car was parked at the curb, and two very serious-looking men in dark suits were standing on the sidewalk looking at me.

  “Identification,” I said, my hand in my pocket on the Walther.

  Both FBI agents pulled out their wallets and showed cards. A few people walking by looked at us but no one stopped. I stepped forward and looked at their cards. They might be fake, but they looked real to me and I didn’t have much choice. One of them patted me down and took the Walther. Then he opened the back door of the car and got in beside me. The other drove.

  Ten minutes later we were in the interrogation room of the Wilshire Police Department. With me were Cantwell and his partner, D’Argentero and my brother, Phil. They stood. I sat.

  “Now,” said Cantwell. “Tell us what happened.”

  CHAPTER

  14

  I told them the story, displayed my wounds, and told them how to get to the house I had escaped from. The agent named D’Argentero took notes quietly. My brother stood back against the wall, arms folded, looking angry. I didn’t try to guess who Phil was angry with. It could be me, the FBI, the Nazis, some criminal, or himself. Phil had perfected the art of anger and he could become very creative with it when he let it out.

  “Okay,” said Cantwell when I finished. “We …”

  There was a knock at the door to the small room, and then the man who had been at the drugstore lunch counter and followed me and my kidnappers into the alley stepped in. He didn’t bother to look at me.

  “All the record albums are missing from Cookinham’s house,” he said.

  “They work fast,” said Cantwell. “Thanks.”

  The man from the drugstore left.

  “You’ve got the Nazis from the college,” Phil burst out. “Bring them in. Pick out the toughest and give me fifteen minutes with him. You’ll have all your questions answered.”

  “We don’t work like that, Lieutenant,” Cantwell said calmly.

  “Like hell you don’t,” Phil said.

  “We need this person who called himself ‘Joe,’” said Cantwell. We need to find him and take him before he gets away. He’s the fish. The others are minnows.”

  “With sharp teeth,” Phil said. He stormed out of the room.

  “Your brother has a temper,” Cantwell said.

  “I’ve noticed.”

  “How about you? You don’t seem to have a temper.”

  “Haven’t spent much time thinking about it, but you may be right,” I said.

  The agent from the drugstore came in again. He handed a sheet of paper to Cantwell, who took the seat across from me at the table.

  “We just got a call,” he said. “Found the house. Broken showerhead, bullet holes, a cooler with melted ice with some glasses we might be able to get prints off of, and blood in the bathroom.”

  This was support for my story, but Cantwell had a look on his face that said there was a marble or two more to drop.

  “You say you took that Walther from this man dressed like a soldier?”

  “That’s right,” I said.

  “Right,” said Cantwell. “It’s not your gun.”

  “I’ve got a thirty-eight, registered, in the glove compartment of my car.”

  “Not the best place to keep a gun,” he said.

  “I don’t have a lot of choices.”

  “So the first time you saw the Walther was an hour or so ago when you took it from a man dressed like a soldier.”

  “A PFC,” I said.

  “And there was a man named Joe and two women named Smith and Jones?”

  “I don’t think those were their real names,” I said helpfully.

  “We considered that,” he said somberly. “Peters, we just did a quick ballistics check. We’ll need to examine the gun and the bullets more carefully, but we’re reasonably sure the Walther was used to kill Volkman.”

  “I told you …”

  Cantwell held up his hand to stop me.

  “It gets worse,” he said. “We called your office a few minutes ago, talked to a Dr. Minck.”

  I had a feeling I was about to hear something I did not want to hear.

  “He had a message for you,” Cantwell said. “Someone had called and asked him to write it down. Have you any idea what it said, this message?”

  “None,” I said, shifting on the hard chair.

  “It was from someone who called himself Joe,” said Cantwell. “Joe wanted you to know that he had found what he was looking for exactly where you said it would be and that he was pleased he had not disposed of you.”

  Cantwell folded his hands on the table and looked at me, waiting for a reaction. D’Argentero stood next to him, his eyes on my face.

  “The transcriptions really were in those albums?” I said.

  “That would seem a logical conclusion,” said Cantwell. “So, what do we make of all this? You have a gun that killed one of two blackmailers who were making transcriptions of Nazi meetings. You knew where the transcriptions were. You gave this information to Nazis.”

  “Now wait …”

  “Look at it from where I sit, Peters. It wouldn’t take a great leap of imagination to come to the conclusion that you learned about the transcriptions, killed Volkman and Cookinham, and then sold the transcriptions to the Nazis.”

  “Why would I keep the murder weapon?”

  Cantwell leaned forward and spoke as if he were sharing a secret, “Because you are not the brightest bulb in the chandelier and you’re burning out fast.”

  “I want to call my lawyer,” I said.

  “No need,” said Cantwell. “We’re not going to hold you. We’ve checked your history. You’re dumb but reasonably honest, and there’s nothing in your jacket that suggests you’d do something like this. We could be wrong, but we see you as the poor sap who got caught in the middle and tripped us when we tried to get by and put our hands on the bad guys.”

  “So what now?” I asked.

  “Go,” said Cantwell.

  “Just ‘go’?” I asked.

  “Unless you want to stick around and discuss the war. Seen the papers today? We shot down seventeen Japanese planes, sunk two freighters and a cruiser, and the marines are moving forward fast in New Britain.”

  “That’s great,” I said.

  “And Pappy Boyington got his twenty-sixth kill,” D’Argentero added.

  “Agent D’Argentero’s brother’s in the Black Sheep Squadron,” Cantwell explained.

  I moved to the door.

  “One last thing, Peters,” Cantwell said as I started out. “Stay out of our way and tell your client to sit this one out.”

  I nodded and moved into the squad room. It was reasonably full of perps, suspects, witnesses, pleading, moaning, whining, coughing, and cops getting angry, talking on phones, or filling in reports. Phil stood at his office door with a cup of coffee in his hands. He was looking at me. It struck me that his gut had gotten a little bigger and his suspenders a little wider.

  He opened his door, left it open, and went in. I went in after him. He was behind his desk in his chair. I sat across from him.

  “They let me go,” I said.

  “Figures,” he said and went silent, looking into his mug. Then he lifted his head and went on. “They, this Joe Nazi, he threatened Ruth, the boys, the baby?”

  “He threatened everyone I know,” I said.

  “I don’t care about everyone you know,” Phil said tightly. “I care about my family. Did he mean it, the threat?”

  “He’s a Nazi,” I said. “Probably.”

  “You know that even if you got that one hundred thousand, it wouldn’t have saved Ruth. There’s nothing that can save her,” he said, starting to turn his mug slowly on the desk. It would definitely leave a new ring to join the dozens of others.

  “I know,” I said.

  “I want to find your friend Joe,” Phil said.

  I nodded and waited for him to say something else.

  He didn’t, just kept turning his coffee mug. I got up.

  “You find him, you call me first,” he said, looking up at me. “Your word.”

  “My word,” I said.

  “Freddy’ll drive you to your car,” he said.

  I said thanks and walked into the squad room. Freddy was patrolman Freddy Sanbucco. Freddy had a bad right leg and a left shoulder that kept him from moving his arm higher than his chest. Both the leg and shoulder were five-year-old hits from the gun of a woman who had been holding her husband at bay in the couple’s small apartment. The husband had no shirt on and a hairy chest. He was also holding a meat cleaver. Freddy remembered both the cleaver and the hairy chest vividly.

  Freddy had stepped in and told the wife that the situation was under control now.

  “You’re going to take him away?” the woman had asked.

  “I am,” Freddy had said.

  “But he’ll come back,” she had said hysterically.

  “That’s up to a judge,” Freddy said, holding out his left hand for the cleaver and gun. His own weapon was in his right hand.

  “He’ll come back and kill me,” she had said.

  Looking at the husband, Freddy concluded that she might very well be right, but the possibility never came to a test. The woman started firing. Hit her husband in the neck and Freddy in the leg and shoulder. The husband died. Freddy never really recovered. The department kept him on, covered for him at the annual checkups, put him in charge of the records room and running errands.

  I was Freddy’s errand this morning.

  “Nazis, huh?” he asked as he drove me in a marked Los Angeles Police car.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  Freddy looked rugged and fit, but if you met his eyes you could see something soft and retreating where there had once been something hard and confident.

  “I’d be in the war if it weren’t for …”

  “I know,” I said.

  “Everybody knows,” said Freddy with a shrug as he drove. “Still got almost fourteen years to go till my pension. Fourteen years is a lot.”

  “Two minutes can be a lot,” I said.

  “You telling me?” he said with a chuckle. “Ever consider having a partner?”

  “Not enough business,” I said. “I can’t keep myself in pants and pay the car repairs. But if business starts booming, I’ll get back to you.”

  “Maybe I’ll go out on my own,” he said, more to himself than to me. “I’ve got good connections.”

  “Do the math first,” I advised.

  “Trying to keep away competition?” he asked as we pulled up in front of the drugstore and next to my Crosley.

  “I don’t think our client lists would overlap,” I said, opening the door. “Tell you what. If you do decide to try it, give me a call. We’ll have a couple of tacos and I’ll tell you some things you should know.”

  “I’ll do that,” Freddy said. He drove away.

  Anita was on the customer side of the counter, drinking a cup of coffee and looking at a movie magazine. She didn’t notice me at first as I moved toward her and began to sit. Then she looked up.

  “You owe me thirty cents for two cups of coffee and a bowl of chili,” she said.

  “Let’s make it fifty cents,” I said. “I feel like a big spender.”

  She looked at my face and clothes.

  “What happened?” she asked.

  “Met up with Nazis and rose bushes,” I said.

  She reached over and touched my cheek.

  “I’ll give you some peroxide for that. Don’t think you can do much to save the jacket and pants.”

  “I’ll charge it to my client,” I said.

  She moved behind the counter and went for the coffee.

  “What kind of pie do you have left?”

  “Apple, peach, cherry,” she said. “Peach is freshest.”

  “I’ll take a slice.”

  “I should charge you for all of them,” she said. “Boss says I should.”

  “All of them?”

  “The soldier and his wife didn’t pay.”

  “They were busy kidnapping me,” I said.

  “And the guy in the suit who ran out of here with a gun in his hand?”

  “FBI,” I explained.

  “You lead an exciting life, Toby,” she said, bringing me the pie and coffee.

  “Some days,” I said, washing down four aspirin from the bottle in my pocket with the coffee.

  “I’m not sure I like it that exciting,” Anita said, playing with a loose strand of her dark blonde hair.

  “Sure you do,” I said. “Otherwise you would have walked out after that night at the airport.”

  She shrugged her shoulders and said, “I suppose you’re right. Are we still on for the movie tomorrow night?”

  “Still on,” I said, digging into the pie. It was just right. “If something comes up …”

  “You’ll let me know,” she said. “Now you owe me two movies.”

  “Name one,” I said.

  “Footlight Glamour with Blondie and the Bumsteads,” she said.

  “You’re on,” I said.

  While I finished, Anita told me that after February 2, point-rationing tokens were going to be used instead of paper coupons.

  “Company in Cincinnati is turning out twenty million fiber tokens a day,” she said. “Can you imagine?”

  “Cincinnati? Yes. Fiber tokens? No,” I said.

  “And listen,” Anita went on, leaning forward. “To show you what a crazy world we’re living in, an eight-year-old Negro girl gave birth to an eight-pound baby girl. Can you believe that?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Maybe.”

  “Both girls are fine,” Anita said with a sigh. “And just last night a Santa Claus dummy was stolen from downtown Los Angeles.”

  “Is there a reward for finding him?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. Wait a second.”

  A fire truck went by outside, its bell clanging. The bell started my head throbbing. I touched the back of my head to be sure my stitches were still neatly in place. They were.

  Anita came back with a small bottle of peroxide and a roll of cotton. She leaned over the counter to dab at my cuts, the ones she could reach.

  “Ever consider another line of work?” she asked as she found a scratch behind my ear.

  “Pest control,” I said.

  “Exterminator?”

  “I’ve got a head start. Mrs. Plaut already thinks I’m in pest control.”

  “And an editor,” she reminded me.

  “A man of many talents,” I said.

  “And bruises,” Anita said. “I’d say ‘take care of yourself,’ but I don’t think it would do any good.”

  It was my turn to touch her cheek.

  I finished my pie and coffee, placed two quarters for the and a dime neatly on the counter, and headed for door.

  I had one stop to make before I headed home. My latest wounds and torn clothes earned me some odd looks while I shopped at a nearby Ralph’s, but no one said anything except the young girl at the checkout counter.

  “What happened?” she asked.

  She was skinny, freckled, straight blonde hair, no makeup, kind of innocent-cute.

  “Nazis,” I said. “They tried to kill me.”

  She nodded her head and put on the bland mask she stored for kooks.

  “That’s too bad,” she said, totaling my purchases and bagging them.

  “Things like that happen to me,” I said.

  Behind me a woman waiting to have her groceries added up, kept her distance and pretended to read the contents on a can of soup.

  About fifteen minutes later I was in Mrs. Plaut’s dining room.

  “You look a mess, Mr. Peelers,” she said.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “What happened?”

  “Pest control,” I said. “Had to go into some treacherous bushes. Those Hun beetles.”

  She nodded in understanding and unpacked the groceries.

  “Steak, oleo, peanut butter, potatoes, and apple jelly,” she said. “Total: one dollar and ninety-four cents which means …”

  I handed her a dollar and six cents change.

  “You are a very odd but honest man, Mr. Peelers,” she said.

  “Thank you.”

  “Wait.”

  She disappeared into her living room, and Stillwell started squawking. When she came back, Mrs. Plaut had a large, almost full bottle of brown liquid. She handed it to me.

  “Olivia’s oleander-and-thick-oil liniment,” she said. “Olivia Gracefounder was my aunt. Use it sparingly. Rub it hard.”

  “Thanks,” I said and got up.

  “You are welcome. Remember, as the Mister used to say, ‘whatever happens the tides will come and go unless the good Lord decides he’s had enough.’”

  “I’ll remember that,” I said, heading for the door.

  The bird went nuts when I walked through the living room. He said something. I don’t know what.

  Going up the stairs was getting harder each time I came back to Mrs. Plaut’s. I made it to my room, took off my clothes, and examined them to see if there was anything I could salvage. There wasn’t, except for my shirt, which had a blotch of something green on it that could probably be cleaned.

  In my boxer shorts, I put on my robe and with Olivia’s liniment in hand headed for the bathroom, where I showered and washed without too much pain. My shoulder was feeling a lot better, and the scratches looked worse than they felt until I applied Olivia’s liniment. I think I howled in pain. Maybe I screamed. There was a knock at the bathroom door and Gunther called out, “Toby, is that you? Are you all right?”

  “It’s me. I’m all right.”

  I put the cursed bottle on the back of the toilet and washed off what I could of the liniment from my body, but it still tingled in shock.

 

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