Smart Moves (24 page)

People of various sizes and ilks passed us. We walked through Times Square and Shelly suggested that we stop off for dessert at Streifer’s, which was about a half block away. He still had memories of our seven-course dinner for seventy-five cents. I had memories of the person with the hat who had followed us there, tailed us to the theater, and killed Povey. “No dessert,” I said. “I’ll watch you.”

“It’s not the same when you do it alone,” he said, looking longingly down Forty-fourth as we kept walking.

“True of a lot of things, Shell.”

“Don’t worry about Einstein and Robeson,” he said reassuringly. “The FBI will take care of them. Enjoy the city, the sea air, the good food. Hey, it’d take an Einstein to figure out who killed Povey.”

“Maybe that’s who we should ask.”

“We’ll just go brush out teeth and have a nice walk down Fifth Avenue. Maybe I’ll give Mildred a call,” Shelly went on. “That’s it. I’ll give Mildred a call. What did you say about Einstein?”

“Nothing important,” I said. “Let’s go brush our teeth and call Mildred.”

15

When we got back to the Taft after lunch, Shelly tried to call his wife in Los Angeles. Mildred wasn’t home or wasn’t answering.

“At her sister’s,” Shelly said, hanging up. He called the sister, who said she hadn’t talked to Mildred in a week.

“A friend’s,” Shelly said, putting down the phone with a shrug. “I wanted to tell her about the convention.”

“You can surprise her with it all at once when we get back,” I suggested. “Meanwhile, let’s get into those tuxedos and over to the Waldorf.”

Lady Macbeth from Leone’s Costume Shop had been right. The tuxes fit us perfectly. Shelly looked like a waiter, and I looked like a hood at the testimonial dinner for Little Caesar. It felt like the cardboard backing was still in the shirt, and a few stray pins were waiting to get me, just when I thought I had them all out and neatly stowed in the hotel ash tray.

“Shell, I can’t guarantee that this is going to be a quiet afternoon and evening with a string quartet,” I said, trying to stretch the stiff white collar so I could breathe.

Shelly was busy admiring himself in the mirror over the dresser as he replied, “Hey, it won’t kill me, but if it does, I can live with it. How do you think I look?”

“Like Eugene Pallette in
The Male Animal
,” I said.

“I know that name,” said Shelly, looking at me.

“A movie star,” I said, looking at my reflection but not admiring it. “Let’s go.”

The phone rang as we were about to leave and Shelly waddled back, his tails flapping in the hope that it might be Mildred or a mad dentist with a scheme for making false teeth out of synthetic rubber. It was neither.

“For you,” Shelly said, disappointed, glancing one more time at his rotund reflection in the mirror and holding out the phone for me. I took the phone and a look in the mirror, seeing nothing there that would account for the pleased smile on his face as he adjusted his shiny black collar. Did he see Robert Taylor where I saw Eugene Pallette?

“Toby?” It was Pauline’s voice. I feared another assault on my bachelorhood.

“Pauline, we’re on the way out. We’ve got to get to the Waldorf.”

“Carmichael is looking for you,” she said. “He called in about twenty minutes ago and said he was on the way, that it was important and I should tell you to wait for him.”

“We’ve got to go, Pauline,” I said, examining myself in the mirror over Shelly’s shoulder to see if and how much my gun showed under the jacket. It showed. I unbuttoned the jacket. It was better but not perfect. “Carmichael can find us at the Waldorf. I’ll talk to you later.” I hung up before she could tell me more. I prodded the Narcissus of the Taft Hotel and he reluctantly parted from his reflection and went to the door.

Tuxedos bring you respect. They also earn you some snickers and odd stares if you look like stand-ins for Abbott and Costello. We were the comic relief of Easter Sunday. We were a few light-moments away from the war news. We were nothing special in the Manhattan Easter light show. The doorman got us a cab and held the door open. The only other person who had ever held a car door open for me was a hood from Chicago who, along with his partner, had taken me for a ride and a talk about my rude behavior. The partner had stood behind us with his hand in his pocket, holding on to a pistol of European origin. But the doorman, ah, the doorman at the Taft recognized gentry, even comic gentry. As we got in the cab, I felt like Herbert Marshall.

“You guys doin’ some kind of practical joke or something?” the jowly cabbie said, looking over his shoulder at us.

The doorman closed the door and backed away.

“We’re going to the Waldorf for a private concert,” said Shelly.

The cabbie shrugged and looked into his rearview mirror so he could pull out onto Seventh. “No skin off my nose,” he said.

The ride was short and the cab fare about what I expected. I entered it in my notebook as Shelly got out of the cab. The doorman at the Waldorf hurried to open the door for us. “Good afternoon,” he said, big-chested and blue-uniformed with braid.

“Good afternoon,” Shelly said, adjusting his cuffs. “We’re here for the concert, the charity concert.”

“Certainly, sir,” the doorman said. “Which charity do you represent?”

“We don’t represent any chairty,” Shelly said, grabbing for his glasses as they slipped down his nose. “We …”

“Excuse me,” the doorman said, moving past us to open another cab door.

“Let’s go, Shell,” I said, taking his sleeve.

Shelly glared back at the doorman who had forgotten us and mumbled, “Charity, charity. Do we look like charity cases?”

“We don’t look like patrons of the arts,” I said, and pushed through the door into the lobby. The lobby looked like an MGM set. People were crowded together, talking like extras. You couldn’t make out what they were saying but you could hear the busy hum. A waiter in a red jacket danced gracefully past carrying a tray covered by a starched white cloth in one hand. Signs indicated that there were restaurants all over the place. I moved from under a fancy chandelier hanging from the ceiling and toward the busy desk. No one backed away from us, but I felt a few glances.

The guy behind the desk looked as if he had just stepped out of a barber shop. His dark hair had one wave, not a strand out of place. He wasn’t young. He wasn’t old. He wasn’t skinny. He was elegantly slim. “Yes, sir?” he queried with a small professional smile and both hands resting gently on the desktop, ready to spring into action and meet any request we might have.

“We’re here for the relief concert,” I said, “the Einstein-Robeson concert.”

“Yes,” he said. “The extra waiters aren’t scheduled to arrive till three.”

“We’re not waiters,” Shelly said. “Look at us. We’re guests, guests. Do you know whose guests we are?”

The clerk’s mouth moved. It was too good a straight line to pass up but he was too good a clerk to take it. He was a class act. “I’m sorry, sir, I don’t know.”

“Albert Einstein,” Shelly said, looking around triumphantly to see if anyone was listening to us. No one was.

“Your names?” the clerk said.

“Peters,” I said. “Toby Peters. You can check with either Professor Einstein or Mr. Robeson about us.”

“Certainly, sir, I’ll do so. Meanwhile, if you’d like to wait in one of the lounges or the lobby till the parties arrive …”

Shelly put on his pouty bulldog face. A trickle of sweat rolled over his white collar as he prepared to growl. I pulled him away and told the clerk we would have a drink and be back.

“I’m not accustomed to that kind of treatment,” Shelly grumbled as I dragged him away. He kept his eyes fixed on the clerk, who was on to other problems.

“You are accustomed to that kind of treatment and worse, Shell,” I said, nodding at a tall woman in black with a small white dog in her arms. “We’re both accustomed to it. Let’s get a couple of beers and complain while we wait.”

We were in the middle of the lobby, people bubbling around us, when I heard my name called from behind. I let go of Shelly, turned, and didn’t see anyone I knew. Then the voice called, “Peters, Mr. Toby Peters.”

I grabbed the caller by the arm as he moved past me into the lobby. “Hey,” I said. “I’m Peters.”

The kid, a blond who looked as if he should be a lifeguard, examined me from floor to head and said, “A Mr. Carmichael would like you to join him in room three-two-four-one as soon as possible.”

“Okay,” I said, “thanks.”

The kid held his hand out. He didn’t want me to shake it. I fished into my pocket, where I’d thrown my loose change. The pocket was stiff and the fit too snug. I struggled for change doing a little dance while people moved around us. I managed a couple of quarters with lint and handed them to the blond kid.

“Thank you, sir,” he said politely, pocketing the change.

“You like this work?”

“Sure,” he said, “but this is my last week. I’m taking next week off and then I’m going into the army.”

“Good luck,” I said.

“I hope the fighting’s not over before I can get into it,” he said. “I want a crack at the Nazis.”

I felt like coming up with an extra few quarters, but they wouldn’t change his mind, save his life, or make me feel any better. I wished him good luck again and turned back to find Shelly. He was doing something with his face when I found him standing in front of a mirror near a bank of phones.

“What are you doing with your face, Shell?” I asked.

“Ecmo-plasmics,” he explained, looking up. “Variation on dynamic tension. You know, the thing Charles Atlas does on the backs of comic books? I’ve got the literature back at the hotel. Dentist named White in Mississippi thought it up. Tightens teeth, strengthens gums, and you can do it anywhere.”

“If you don’t care about people thinking you’ve lost your mind,” I said. “Let’s go. Carmichael, the house dick from the Taft, wants to see us.”

Shelly got up, still making faces, and almost bumped into a woman in a frilly white blouse, who backed away from him in fear. We found the elevators and made it up to the thirty-second floor. The room was around to our left. We padded down the carpeted corridor, and I kept trying to find some space in my collar, which was cutting into my neck.

There was no answer at the door of 3241.

“Shelly, cut out the exercises,” I said, knocking again. “It looks …”

“Grotesque,” he said. “It’s supposed to. It means I’m doing it right.” He looked like a bloated gargoyle.

Something moved behind the door. A shuffle. A sound.

“Tightens everything,” Shelly explained. “You see here?” He pointed a stumpy finger at his jaw. “It puts tension on the muscle here. Now if …”

The door to 3241 opened, but narrowly, maybe enough to stick a finger or two through, if someone were dumb enough to risk losing a few fingers. I wasn’t. I waited. Nothing happened.

“… you massage with the fingers like this, you can build jaws and teeth that can bite through wood.”

I pushed the door with my left hand and reached under my jacket with my right. Carmichael should have thrown the door open. He should have been standing there in front of us, barking out orders and information with a touch of the Old Sod in his voice. Shelly noticed nothing.

“I know what you’re going to say,” chuckled Shelly at myside as I pushed the door open wide. “You’re going to say, Why would anyone want to bite through wood? They
woodn’t
.” Shelly giggled, poked me to be sure I got his joke. He laughed louder so I knew it was a joke, but I didn’t turn. I stood staring at Carmichael across the room. It was a nice room. Much larger than the one I was sharing with Shelly at the Taft. No one seemed to be staying in it, not even Carmichael. He was still wearing his best Easter suit, still looked spiffy, but his face was pale and his mouth was open. He swayed back and forth like an Orthodox Jew in prayer. But he wasn’t praying. The trail of blood on the floor showed what he was doing. He was dying. Shelly didn’t notice.

“Well?” Shelly said to Carmichael, adjusting his tuxedo jacket. “How do we look?”

I jumped forward to grab Carmichael’s arm. Shelly just stood there watching. Carmichael was trying to say something. I eased him onto the bed, careful not to touch the knife, not to let him slide on his stomach. He half-curled like a baby, but he winced and coughed when he tried to raise his knees toward his chest.

He whispered something and I leaned forward to catch the odor of blood and fried onions, and the last few words he was saying: “… a good day for a Catholic to die,” he whispered, his Irish accent in full bloom.

“Good day,” I said, watching his eyes dart around the room, his thoughts wandering, and I wondered where they had been, where they were going.

“Too late for a priest.… Get one when I go.”

“I’ll get one.” Behind us Shelly moaned.

“The FBI,” Carmichael said, turning his head to me as if he had remembered the very thing he wanted to tell me.

“I’ll get the FBI,” I said.

There was no strength left for him to speak. He shook his head “no” once, his eyelids fluttered, and he went limp. I stood up.

“He’s dead,” Shelly said behind me. “One second I’m telling you about, about gum exercises, and the next I’m looking at a dead man with a knife in his back. This has got to stop, Toby. There’s a history of heart attack in the Minck family.”

“I’ll bear that in mind, Shell,” I said. “Let’s get out of here.” I checked Carmichael’s pockets and found the room key.

“Okay, let’s go,” said Shelly, pulling at my sleeve. “Let’s go, get a cab, pack a bag and go home.”

I stood, looking down at Carmichael’s body and trying to make sense of this. He had learned something, figured out something, noticed something important, something he had to talk to me about. It had to involve the Einstein case, to be something the killer knew he knew, something worth murdering Carmichael for. It beat the hell out of me what it might be.

“We’ve got to find Einstein before the killer does,” I said.

“Before the … What if this guy with the knife factory finds us?” Shelly cried. “Huh? You thought about that?”