Buried Caesars (19 page)

“Not yet,” I said, reaching over to take the newspaper. There was an article on the front page with a bulletin from General MacArthur’s headquarters in Australia, saying that the Japanese drive in New Guinea had been halted, but the General himself had been too busy to make himself available for comment.

“Are you crying?” Shelly asked brightly. “Crying from the pathos of the world?”

“Not yet,” I said, hanging the paper back to him.

“Then what the hell,” he said, with a yellow-toothed grin ill-becoming a doctor of dental surgery. “I read the chapter you gave me, Mrs. Plaut’s book.” He hurried over to the file cabinet, fished around and came back with a thick envelope. “That woman can write. Got to give her credit. I always thought she was just a batty old fart.”

“I’m sure she’ll be happy to hear that,” I said, taking the envelope.

“I’ve made some comments, suggestions,” he said. “The business about her great-aunt’s marrying three Indians from different Sioux tribes is hot stuff.”

I tucked the envelope under my arm.

“Shel, those guys I told you about might be here any minute to kill me. I’ve got to get going.”

“Okay, okay,” he said, throwing up his hands. “I try to cheer you up, share a little good news and hope, and all you can think about is your problems. I’ve got work to do here anyway.”

I hurried into my office, closed the door. I didn’t have to turn on the light. The morning sun was bright and dancing off the building next door. I opened the envelope and placed Mrs. Plaut’s pages on the desk, threw open the window and heard the echoing voice of Zanzibar Al arguing with someone out of sight below me. I made a few phone calls and decided to pull out twenty bucks of MacArthur’s money I had hidden in a copy of
The Collected Tales of Ambrose Bierce
in my bottom drawer.

The twenty was there, but Major Oren Castle wasn’t at the number he had given me. Someone answered and said they’d give him the message as soon as they could find him. The message was simple—
help
. I was willing to sit in my office and draw the bears but I needed someone standing behind them when they stepped into it. Castle, I knew from firsthand experience, was handy with a gun.

In the other room, Shelly turned on the radio and listened to “The Romance of Helen Trent.” Helen was leaving desperate phone messages for someone named Hanson. I had my own problems. I made another call, a just-in-case call, to a twenty-four-hour-a-day number I had written along with half a dozen others on the center drawer of my desk—just under my inadvertent collection of lint, paper clips and shoelaces.

“Is Wolfy there?” I asked.

“Talk,” barked Wolfy.

“It’s Toby Peters. I need a weapon.”

“Handgun?”

“Right.”

“Legal?”

“Right.”

“When?”

“Now.”

“Twenty-five for a nice little Luger, very German,” said Wolfy.

“Twenty,” I countered.

“Join the German army. They’ll give you one free and lots of live targets.”

“Twenty is all I’ve got with me,” I said.

“People think I’m Santy Claus.”

“You’re a saint. Saint Wolfy the first,” I said.

“I got no religion, Peters. Where are you?”

“My office in the Farraday.”

“My man will have it there, loaded, in ten minutes. You give him the twenty and he hands it to you.”

“Thanks,” I said.

“Hey, it’s business,” replied Wolfy and hung up.

I could have used a bowl of Wheaties or a Danish and coffee. I couldn’t go for them so I settled on a shave. I kept an extra Gillette razor in the drawer, along with a packet of Blue Blades. I fished it out, had a fleeting thought of the cat, and went back into Shelly’s office. He was plugging away at the sink, filling the garbage can rather than cleaning the cups and instruments. The garbage can was overflowing on the floor—bloody cotton, coffee grounds, a broken rusty probe.

“I’ll get new stuff,” he said, holding up a white bowl which neither of us recognized despite its flower pattern and the residue of brown something at the bottom. Shelly tossed it on top of the garbage pile, where it teetered and then came to rest.

I grunted and reached over his shoulder for our bar of soap, which was down to a nub the size of my thumb.

Behind us Helen Trent reached Hanson and gushed that she was so relieved to find him. I turned on the hot water and shaved without a mirror, marveling at the unfamiliar sight of the bottom of the sink which winked at me from between the last dozen or so items congealed there.

“He’s late,” Shelly said, looking at his watch as he picked up the paper and sat in the dental chair, keeping an eye on the door. “Hell, so he’s late. He’ll be here, right?”

“Any good news in the paper?” I asked, continuing to shave, nicking my cheek on a rough patch where the cat had scratched me on our first meeting.

“British have a new drive on Madagascar,” he muttered. “I don’t even know what Madagascar is.”

I left Shelly to his radio soaps and went back into my office, figuring about five minutes had passed. Should be plenty of time, I thought. I thought it, but I was wrong for the first time in my life. Well, maybe not the first time.

My first thought when I heard Shelly’s outer door open was that Hammett had ignored my advice and prepared to lay himself once again on the altar of the Hatchet Man of Hoover Street, but it wasn’t Hammett. I heard a familiar man’s voice through the door. I sat back in my chair, put my feet up on the desk and my hands behind my head, and put on a smile that claimed to know something very special and secret. And then the door flew open.

Conrad and Wylie stepped into the already crowded office. Now that I was close to it, I could see that the gun in Wylie’s left hand was my .38. I didn’t know who owned the gun in Conrad’s hand. Wylie’s right arm was in a sling. Conrad’s head bore a bandage, a neat cross of a bandage that appeared to be covering a wound in his head. Mrs. Plaut had done her duty but it hadn’t slowed down these troops. Between Conrad and Wylie stood Shelly, Conrad’s thick fingers around his neck holding him out like a ventriloquist’s dummy; only this dummy was turning red in the face and about to lose his glasses.

“Cops are outside,” I said.

“Like so much shit,” spat Wylie.

“Shit,” echoed Conrad.

“How about an old lady with a radio,” I tried. “She’s on the way up.”

“You think you’re funny? We’ll show you funny. Mr. Pintacki said do what we have to do, and then we can do what we want to do. You know what I want to do?” Conrad asked.

“Become a hairdresser,” I guessed.

Shelly gasped.

“I want to throw you out that window, shoot your face, kick your stomach in, tear out your heart,” he hissed through clenched teeth.

“I think you should rearrange the order or you’ll miss out on some of the fun,” I said, stalling.

“Give it over, now,” said Wylie.

Some of the desperation left me. Shelly was sputtering but we had some hope. They hadn’t just come to get rid of me. They wanted something they thought I had, and I was pretty sure of what it was. It changed things around, but I could deal with it.

“I give it to you and you throw us out the window,” I said. “Not much in it for us.”

Shelly struggled to get free but Conrad pinched the dentist’s cheek.

“We’ll throw you out second,” Wylie offered. “Mr. Pintacki wants the papers.”

“I’ll bring them to him,” I said, starting to get up. “Where is he?”

Wylie poked the gun at my chest in warning.

“No,” said Wylie. “He said for us to bring it, not you. He’s not happy with you.”

“Sorry to hear that,” I said, “but …”

“No buts,” shouted Wylie, leaning over the desk and putting the barrel of my pistol against my forehead. Even he wouldn’t miss at that distance.

It was at that moment the door to Shelly’s office opened again. There was a pause, some footsteps, and the door to my office swung slowly inward. Wylie put his gun into the sling on his right arm and Conrad let go of Shelly’s neck. Shelly collapsed into my guest chair, his face looking like a cinnamon heart.

A Negro man about my age, with a paunch and wearing a green sports jacket that didn’t come near matching his blue slacks, stepped in carrying a small package under his arm. He was a pro. He didn’t look left or right at Conrad or Wylie, who watched in confusion. The man simply ignored the panting Shelly.

“Cash,” he said, looking across the desk at me with determined dark eyes.

I handed him the twenty. He passed over the package and left, closing the door quietly behind him.

“Book of the month,” I said. “Office delivery.”

“The MacArthur papers,” said Wylie, retrieving his gun from the sling. “Hell with books.”

I tore open the package carefully and pushed my right hand into it, looking over at the frightened, panting Sheldon Minck. I found the barrel of the Luger and decided to take the risk. I lifted the package in my left hand and let the pistol drop out into my right. I aimed it directly at Wylie’s left eye.

Shelly finally found his voice and groaned, “I’m too old for this.”

Wylie, however, didn’t waver. “I’m not scared,” he said. “Conrad’s not scared.”

I wasn’t sure about Conrad. I couldn’t turn to see him but hysteria was the closest I could come to describing what I saw on Wylie’s face.

“So what do we do?” I asked. “Shoot each other?”

“I guess,” said Wylie, resigned.

“I thought Pintacki wanted the MacArthur papers,” I said.

“That’s right, Wylie,” Conrad agreed.

“That’s right,” croaked Shelly, without knowing what we were talking about.

The Luger in my right hand was aimed directly at Wylie. I grasped Mrs. Plaut’s chapters, and held them up.

“Let’s deal,” I said.

Wylie’s eyes were not in a dealing mood but he wasn’t too far gone yet to forget what he had come for.

“Deal, Wylie,” Conrad urged.

“My arm is busted ’cause of him,” whined Wylie. “Conrad, don’t you know we have been humiliated? You got no pride or something?”

I reached back to the open window with the envelope and dangled it outside.

“What are you up to?” Wylie asked.

“Here’s the deal,” I said. “I’m dropping the MacArthur papers out the window. They’ll go flying all over the place, but you might be able to get it all together if you hurry. I’m counting to three and and then I’m dropping the envelope. You can start shooting or go out the door and down the stairs and see if you can put it all together.”

“Hold it,” hissed Wylie.

Shelly groaned.

“One,” I said with a grin.

“I want to shoot him,” Wylie said, fluttering his slung arm like a broken wing.

“We can do that later,” Conrad said.

“Two,” I went on, my Luger aimed just above my .38 in Wylie’s hand.

“It started like … I don’t know, such a good morning,” Shelly said to Conrad.

“Three,” I said and I dropped the pages.

“Shit,” cried Wylie. He backed toward the door, unable to grab for the knob with one hand in a sling and the other holding my gun. Conrad reached back and threw the door open. I kept my pistol leveled at Wylie’s chest. I could see him considering a shot and then giving in. “Not over,” he said and following Conrad out, running.

When we heard the outer door bang open, Shelly said, “That was Mrs. Plaut’s book. Why the hell do they want to kill you to get Mrs. Plaut’s book? It’s good but it’s not that good.”

I reached for the phone and dialed the police. I told them two guys in overalls and carrying heat were in the alleyway behind the Farraday, throwing Nazi propaganda leaflets and shouting “Heil Hitler.” I told him the two were shooting at the peace-loving tenants of the building, and to prove it I fired a shot through the window. I screamed once in mock agony for good luck and hung up.

“Toby, what the hell is going on?”

“Secret stuff, Shel,” I said, looking out the window. The last sheets of Mrs. Plaut’s chapter were coming to rest on the grease and grime of the alleyway. Zanzibar and a few of his pals, who were busily pulling the seats out of the DeSoto, paused to gather in stray pages.

“I’m a dentist,” groaned Sheldon Minck. “How does this kind of thing look to my patients? If Sam comes in and …”

“I don’t think Sam’s coming,” I said, as Conrad and Wylie dashed through the Farraday’s back door and surveyed the mess of manuscript pages. Wylie started by ripping sheets out of the hands of Zanzibar Al and his boys. Conrad kneeled and gathered them in. He looked a little dizzy, probably delayed reaction from the bashing in by Mrs. Plaut, as formidable a toyweight as any who ever trod the canvas.

“Not coming …” Shelly sputtered.

“They’re not reading it,” I said, pleased. Conrad and Wylie didn’t even glance at the sheets. They had too much to do and didn’t know how much time they had to do it. Also, they may not have been able to read.

“They’re saving it for a cocktail and a warm bath,” sighed Shelly.

Shelly joined me at the window to watch Wylie and Conrad, with some unrequested assistance from one of Zanzibar Al’s boys, who seemed confused about whose side he was on. They had gathered the final sheets when the siren squealed somewhere in the direction of Alvarado.

The keys to the DeSoto were in the car door. Wylie got in the passenger side. Conrad grabbed the keys and got in the driver’s side.

The engine turned over, the DeSoto backed into a brick wall, then shot down the alley, narrowly missing Zanzibar Al himself, who danced out of the way. The police car caromed down from the other end of the alleyway and Zanzibar’s crew pointed in unison at the retreating DeSoto. The cops paused, saw them and shot out after the fleeing pair.

The alley went quiet and Al looked up at me.

“I’m sorry,” I shouted. “About the car.”

“I am not,” he gargled back. “Material goods, You become attached to them. They’ve relieved me and we have relieved them.”

Zanzibar Al pulled the DeSoto radio from behind his back.

I put in a call to No-Neck Arnie the mechanic, who tried to convince me to apply for a C gas-ration book so he could make a deal with me for the coupons I didn’t use.