Now You See It: A Toby Peters Mystery (11 page)

“You’re not a private detective,” I had reminded Shelly on the landing outside his office.

“I know. I know,” he had said impatiently. “But we’ve worked together on so many cases. I’ve helped a lot. You know that, Toby. I’ve helped a lot.”

That was true, but he had also nearly gotten me killed more than once, and I had been called upon at least five times to keep him from getting killed or sent to prison.

“Pancho’s in your old office,” Shelly had said earnestly.

I had rented a cubbyhole with a door and window in Shelly’s office till Phil and I had become partners. The cubbyhole was big enough for a desk and two chairs, one behind the small desk, one in front of it.

“You’ll love him,” Shelly had assured me, thick hand on my shoulder. “I’m telling you. Have I ever led you wrong?”

“Always, Shel,” I said.

“Well,” he said, waving it away, “That was in the past. Pancho’s worked with the best. He’s Dutch.”

“I see the connection,” I said.

“Good,” Shelly had said, adjusting his glasses.

I knew he had a patient in his dental chair, waiting. Even with the door to his office closed and the inner door shut, I could hear some poor victim gently moaning.

“You should get back to whoever’s in there,” I had said.

Shelly looked at his office door as if he had never seen it and then smiled sadly.

“Mrs. Shmpiks,” he said, shaking his head. “Molars like rotten little rocks. A challenge. But I’m up to it.”

“You always are,” I said. “Pancho can stay in his office when we meet.”

“Toby, please,” Shelly said, putting his hands together. “I’m pleading with you. This is important to me. He’ll be quiet.”

“I don’t think Phil will go for it,” I said.

“He’s your brother.”

“Yeah.”

“Toby, after all we’ve been through together,” said Shelly.

There were actually tears in his eyes. The door to his office had opened and his receptionist, Violet Gonsenelli, who also took messages for me and Phil, stuck her head out and said flatly, “I think your patient is dying.”

“She’s not dying. She’s not dying,” Shelly said. “She’s hurting. It’s natural. She’s fine.”

“I think she’s dying,” Violet said.

Violet was young, brunette, pretty, and the wife of a promising middleweight whose climb in the ratings had been postponed by the war. Rocky was somewhere in the Pacific.

“Okay, Shel. I’ll talk to Phil. Don’t be late.”

And now Pancho Vanderhoff sat at our conference table.

On the wall behind my desk in the corner were two things: a painting of a woman holding two babies, and a photograph of a young Phil, me, and our father with Phil’s German shepherd, Kaiser Wilhelm, in front of us. Our father was wearing his grocer’s apron. He had an arm around each of us. Young Phil didn’t look any happier in the photograph than he did standing next to the blackboard. The painting was a genuine Salvador Dali, given to me by Dali in appreciation for a job I did for him. Only a few people knew knew it was a real Dali. Three of them—me, Gunther and Jeremy—were seated at the table.

There was coffee in large reinforced Dixie cups and three bags of tacos from Manny’s down the street. All of this would go on Blackstone’s bill.

Everyone but Gunther was working on a taco. Phil and Gunther also worked on their coffee. Pancho Vanderhoff had consumed three tacos by the time Phil said, “Okay, let’s get started.”

It was a few minutes after noon.

“Toby and I went to the hotel this morning to check out the space at the Roosevelt. The dining room, lobby, kitchen, toilets, exits,” Phil said.

He turned to the blackboard and drew a rough but accurate sketch of the spaces. Then, in the box labeled “dining room,” he drew a rectangle and then made eight circles in front of the rectangle, numbering them from one to eight. He said, “These are the tables. There’ll be eight people at each table. Here….”

He pointed at the rectangle.

“Here, on a three-inch high platform, Calvin Ott, also known as Marcus Keller, will be seated with Blackstone.”

“Ott is the one we’ll be watching,” said Shelly with a knowing nod.

“No,” said Phil. “Ott is the one Toby and I will be watching. Jeremy, you’ll be at table four, near the kitchen. You watch the kitchen door, the people at your table and tables five and six and the exit door near the kitchen.”

Jeremy nodded.

“Gunther, you’ll be at table one, watching the entrance to the dining room, and tables one, two, and three.”

“I understand,” said Gunther.

“Minck, you’ll be at seven, watching that table and eight plus the exit behind you.”

“Why do I only get two tables?” Shelly asked. “The others get three.”

I knew what Phil was thinking. He paused, held it in. He didn’t want Shelly watching any tables, but we were running thin on free help.

“Those two tables are the most likely ones to have people who might want to hurt Blackstone,” Phil lied.

He had been a cop for nearly thirty years. He was a better liar than I was, and I’m pretty damned good.

Shelly nudged Pancho Vanderhoff, who was working on his fourth taco. Pancho nodded.

“Toby?”

“Wear tuxes,” I said. “If you don’t own one, rent one. Blackstone will pay.”

I knew Gunther had a tux. I knew Phil and I didn’t. I didn’t know about the others.

“Pancho will be there,” said Shelly.

“This dinner is for magicians,” Phil said.

“Something might happen,” said Shelly. “It could be a big scene in
Dentist in Disguise
. I’ll pay for his ticket and his tux.”

“It is a dinner, isn’t it?” asked Pancho, cheeks full.

“Yes,” I said.

“Do you happen to know what will be on the menu?” asked Pancho.

“No,” Phil said.

I knew he was close to throwing them all out. There was the voice of a demon ominously lurking behind his words. I got up.

“Other questions?” I asked.

“What do we do if we see something happen?” asked Gunther.

“Stop it,” said Phil.

“Where will you and Toby be?” asked Jeremy.

“Here and here,” said Phil, pointing to a spot next to the kitchen and another one at table six. This last was directly in front of the rectangle that marked the platform on which Ott and Blackstone would be sitting.

“We’ll be watching Ott and Blackstone,” he said.

“You’ll have guns?” asked Pancho, sensing the meeting was almost over and pocketing a wrapped taco.

“You don’t need to know that,” said Phil.

We would be armed, though there was almost no chance that I would shoot with a room full of people. I’m not a bad shot, I’m a terrible one. I’ve accidentally shot myself twice on cases. Phil was a good shot, but he far preferred to use his hands and fists. Phil took crime very personally.

“We meet in the Roosevelt lobby at seven-thirty,” Phil said. “Come earlier, if you like, but no later. That’s it.”

I took a final bite of the taco I had been working on and bit into something hard. I fished what looked like a small gray pebble from my mouth and dropped it in the wastebasket near the table.

Everyone rose. Shelly whispered to Pancho as they left. Gunther and Jeremy, as unlikely a pair as a man could imagine, left together.

When the door closed, I started to gather taco wrappers, bags, napkins, and coffee cups.

“If Cawelti gets wind of this, of me working with them …” Phil said, looking at the closed door and shaking his head.

“He’ll make some stupid jokes,” I said.

“If he does, I’ll punch a hole in his stomach,” said Phil, moving to his desk and sitting.

There were three small framed photographs on his desk facing his chair. One was of him, his dead wife Ruth, his two sons, and his baby daughter. The baby, Lucy, was in Ruth’s arms. They were all smiling. There was a wedding photograph of Phil and Ruth and one more photograph he never explained to me. That last photograph which had turned a brownish color, showed three men in muddy uniforms looking down at a square box in a muddy field. All three men held helmets in their hands. Phil had been in the First World War. He had come back making it clear that he was not going to talk about what he had seen and done.

“You check the waiters, the kitchen staff for weapons,” Phil said.

“Right.”

“I’ll be at the door to the dining room,” he said. “I’ll check the magicians for weapons.”

I knew Phil had no intention of actually patting down the magicians, not because he was afraid of coming up with a rabbit or white pigeons, but because he knew they wouldn’t stand for it. It didn’t matter because Phil could tell with about a two percent margin of error if someone was carrying a gun. I had seen him do it with people whom I could have sworn were clean. He could spot the smallest bulge, the slightest abnormal motion that would signal a concealed weapon. He could also detect the hint of guilty sweat or overconfident swagger. My brother was a master of suspicion. Everyone was definitely guilty until he decided they were innocent.

I moved my tongue to the tooth that had bitten down on the pebble. It felt like something was stuck between the teeth. I felt with my finger. Nothing was stuck. A piece of my upper right molar was missing, leaving a jagged remnant. It didn’t hurt. I knew I’d have to take care of it. I hadn’t been to a dentist in at least twenty years, but I’d find one when I had time. Shelly was not an option.

My plan was to go to the hospital and talk to Gwen Knight. Phil’s was to go home, spend the afternoon with his family, have dinner with them, and put on a tux.

We both had to wait. There was a knock at the door. Before we could answer Calvin Ott, a.k.a. Marcus Keller, stepped into the office and closed the door behind him.

        
Put a dozen pennies, each with a different date, in a hat. Turn your back and tell someone to pick a coin, hold it to his forehead, and put it back in the hat. Have them shake the hat. Turn around. Take each penny and put it to your forehead until you come to the penny the person has selected. Show them the penny they have chosen. Solution: Chill all the pennies. The penny the person selects and puts to his or her forehead will be warmer than the others. Go through the pennies. The warm one you press to your forehead is the one selected. Note: The trick works best if you do it rather quickly so the coins do not have time to warm to room temperature
.

—
From the
Blackstone, The Magic Detective
radio show

O
TT WAS WEARING DARK SLACKS,
a blue blazer, a white shirt, and a red tie. He was also wearing a smile. In his right hand was a black pebble-leather satchel with a gold clasp.

“Good morning,” he said cheerfully, placing his satchel on the conference table.

“You look like Calvin Ott,” I said.

“Keller, Marcus Keller,” he corrected, still smiling.

“But you don’t sound like the Ott, excuse me, Keller we disagreed with last night,” I said.

“It’s a new day,” he said, snapping the gold clasp and opening the satchel. “And I’ve come to present you with an offer.”

“Get out,” Phil said.

Phil did not like games. Phil did not like banter. Phil most definitely did not like Calvin Ott.

Ott paused and looked at Phil.

“I have a civilized offer,” he said.

“You’re a weasel,” Phil answered, taking a step toward him.

I sat back down in the chair at the table where I had sat a few minutes earlier.

“Not very colorful,” Ott said with a smile. “Not very creative. Weasel, weasel. How about marmoset? Or reptile. No, you should be more specific. Cobra?”

“To increase the possibility of your survival,” I said as Phil took another step toward Ott, “I think you should close your bag, pick it up, go out the door, and call for an appointment.”

“You don’t want to hear my offer?” he said with less of a smile now that Phil was about four feet away from him and definitely not smiling.

“Not particularly,” I said.

Actually, I did want to hear what he had to say. He was our prime suspect in a murder and an attempted murder. He was the one who had threatened our client and was planning a surprise party for Blackstone. He was the one with the big fat ego that might make him say something that would help us and hurt him.

Phil was now almost in Ott’s face.

“Look,” Ott said with something that was supposed to be a let-bygones-be-bygones little laugh. “I’m not a bad person. I’ve got a mother, a sister. I give to charity. I follow the war news. I read
Captain Easy
in the comics.”

Phil said, “Out.”

Phil’s right hand was now around Ott’s tie.

“When you tickle me,” said Ott, “do I not laugh?”

“How the hell should I know?” said Phil.

“Well then, when I tickle you, do you not laugh?” asked Ott, trying to decide whether it would be a good idea to reach up and try to remove my brother’s hand from the red tie.

“He doesn’t laugh when you tickle him,” I said. “Never did.”

This was definitely not going the way the great Marcus Keller had planned. Good entrance. Nice bit with the satchel. Good line about an offer. But he had the wrong audience.

“When you torture him, does he not cry?” Ott said, looking into Phil’s eyes.

“I doubt it,” I said. “Now take me. You torture me and I make a funny sound. Something like uhh-uhh. Drawing in my breath. Not loud. Do you cry when you’re tortured?”

“Ten thousand dollars,” Ott said, looking at the satchel.

I reached over for the satchel and looked inside. It was filled with green bills in neatly wrapped bundles.

“Phil,” I said. “Let’s listen.”

“It’s some full-of-shit trick,” said Phil, eyes fixed on Ott who must by now be thinking that he had made a very big mistake.

“Sure,” I said. “But the money’s real.”

“He’s trying to pay us off,” Phil said.

“No,” said Ott, his voice a little reedy like a clarinet played wrong. “May I speak?”

Phil removed his hand from Ott’s tie. Ott adjusted the tie and said, “If you prevent me from doing what I have planned for the dinner tonight,” he said. “I’ll give you ten thousand dollars. This ten thousand dollars.”