To Catch a Spy (4 page)

Shelly squinted in our direction, fumbled for his glasses, and managed to drop them down on his nose, although there was a serious tilt to the left.

“I know you,” Shelly said, looking at Grant.

My new client looked at me.

“This is Dr. Minck,” I said. “This is his office. He’s a dentist. He’s hungover.”

“Why don’t you add that my wife left me?” Shelly said checking what was left of his cigar and searching his pockets for a match. “Then you’d have my whole life story. Four sentences. That’s it.”

“Pleasure to meet you, Dr. Minck,” Grant said.

“Got it,” Shelly said, leaning forward but not getting out of the chair. “George Kaplan, Jefferson High. You were a few years after me. You did imitations for the annual Maskers Night. You’re doing someone now.”

“I’m not George Kaplan,” Grant said.

Shelly looked again.

“We’ve really got to get going, Shel,” I said, moving toward the door.

“If you’re not Kaplan, you look a hell of a lot like him,” Shelly said suspiciously.

“It’s my curse,” said Grant. “People are frequently confusing us. I’ve sent apologies to Kaplan a number of times, but he doesn’t respond.”

“Sounds like Kaplan,” said Shelly. “I mean it sounds like Kaplan not to answer. Not that you sound like Kaplan. You sound like the actor. David Niven. But you don’t look like him.”

“I’ll be back in a few seconds, Shel,” I said, my hand on the doorknob.

“I’m alone, Toby,” he said. “No patients. No Mildred. No friends. Well, not many friends.”

“It’s a sad story, Shel,” I said, opening the door.

“It was a pleasure meeting you, Dr. Minck,” Grant said, following me out. Shelly didn’t answer.

In the hall, Grant asked, “Is he always like that?”

“He’s having a good day,” I said. “You should see him when he’s depressed.”

“I think I’ll forgo that pleasure.”

“Stairs or elevator?” I asked.

“I took the elevator up,” said Grant, moving briskly toward the stairs. “I don’t really have the time to take it down.”

So I stood at the railing, watching him as he moved quickly down the stairs.

CHAPTER

3

Shelly was still slumped in his dental chair when I went past him heading back to my office. He looked up and shook his head.

“How much can one man take?” he said with a massive sigh.

A hell of a lot more than you’re dealing with, Sheldon, I thought. But aloud I said, “You’ll make it, Shel. You’re a resourceful human being.”

“I am, aren’t I?” he asked, looking up.

“That’s something I’ve always admired about you,” I said, my hand now on the knob of my office door.

There really wasn’t much I admired about Shelly, and certainly not his resourcefulness. My experience with him was that whenever he tried to fall back on his instincts or intellect, he took a dive instead.

I went into my office and sat behind my desk. It wasn’t noon yet. I had most of the day to go before I had to meet Grant at Wally’s. I opened the center drawer in my desk and pulled out the sheet of paper Violet had handed me two days earlier. Then I took the black-and-white composition book from the bottom right-hand drawer and placed it in front of me.

The book contained my notes on jobs I still had open or on ones not completed either to the client’s satisfaction or my own. I opened the book. There wasn’t much in it. I wasn’t much for details. I flipped through, spotting names written in pencil.

Wayne Bonidavente. Wayne owned a bar in Van Nuys. Someone had been dipping into the cash drawer. He had been losing about thirty dollars a day. Only Wayne, his wife, Ellie, and his brother, Warren, tended bar and used the cash drawer. I had sat there for a week, drinking beer very slowly and listening to unhappy wives and husbands tell me their tales.

I was an easy target, sitting alone, nursing the hell out of a beer night after night. Every approach was the same. The man or woman came up to me, drink in hand, smiling and saying, “Mind if I join you?” Meaning, I’m lonely as hell and I want to tell someone my story and I’m willing to listen to yours and give you advice if you’ll listen to mine but I wouldn’t mind it much if I didn’t have to listen to yours.

I’d spent a week in Wayne’s bar listening to stories and watching Ellie and Warren on their shifts. Never saw them pocketing a dime. I did hear a few good stories, though.

Wayne reported each day that a different amount was missing. What was being rung up on the cash register simply didn’t match what was in the drawer when he counted the take.

I liked Ellie, who had thin, stringy hair, and an understanding smile. And I liked brother Warren, who was pushing late middle age with thin white hair, a thin mustache, and a little pot belly. He liked his little Cuban cigars and thought he looked like Gilbert Roland.

“Which one?” asked Wayne, about fifty, his hair too dark and definitely dyed.

When he asked me the question, I knew, but I couldn’t tell him. He wouldn’t believe me. I had to say that it was a mystery I couldn’t solve, that I didn’t believe either his wife or brother was pocketing the money.

What I didn’t tell him was that I had, after six nights, and just before Ellie was about to leave on her two-to-ten shift, asked Wayne’s wife and brother if I could talk to them.

They weren’t busy yet although there were some regulars I recognized, a few of whom had nodded at me. We talked at the bar, the two of them next to each other, leaning forward.

“I’m a private detective,” I said. “Wayne hired me. Someone’s dipping into the cash register every night. The profits are going. If it doesn’t stop, this place will fold. So it stops tonight. Now. We understand each other?”

Ellie and Warren looked at each other, and Warren nodded to her.

“Wayne is taking it,” she said. “He pockets cash. I’ve seen him.”

“Then why did he hire me?”

“He doesn’t know he’s doing it,” said Warren. “At least, I don’t think he does. He gets this kind of zombie look when he does it.”

“I don’t get it,” I said.

“There’s something wrong inside Wayne’s brain,” said Ellie.

“Happened to our old man too,” Warren added. “When the old man died, they found a thing on his brain. We think maybe Wayne’s got it too. We’ve tried to get him to see a doctor about it. He says there’s nothing wrong with him.”

“What does he do with the money?”

Warren shrugged.

“Beats me. Maybe he’s putting it in a box somewhere. Maybe he throws it away.”

“He’s not buying anything with it,” Ellie said.

“Got any suggestions? We’re listening,” Warren said.

I had none, so I told Wayne I couldn’t figure it out and offered to return the money he had already paid me.

Wayne’s case was in my composition book. I sometimes wondered what had happened to the three of them. My last meeting with Wayne had been about four years ago. I kept thinking I would call the bar sometime and ask Ellie or Warren how Wayne was doing, but I could never bring myself to do it. I just kept the case open in my book.

Then there were the Cherik brothers. They were bulky, almost twins who were arrested for nearly beating to death a hot dog vendor in Pershing Square. The vendor identified them. They had records, nothing big, and made what looked like an honest or semi-honest living taking small bets on everything. The hot dog guy was one of their customers. They hired me and swore they hadn’t done it. I believed them.

For four days I looked for two guys who might resemble the Cheriks. I talked to the hot dog vendor. He was certain. He had no reason to lie. I talked to the Cheriks again and still believed them. They got sent behind bars for six months and dished out a fine that wiped them out.

I still believe them. In my book, I had penciled in the last thing Tony Cherik had said to me, “Sometimes you pay for something you didn’t do to balance it out with stuff you did do, you know? So maybe we do some time and that wipes us clean for other stuff.”

The Cheriks were not philosopher material, but I liked their attitude. They wouldn’t take back the money they had paid me up front. The Cherik case was still open.

Then there’s the one I promised not to talk about. All I can say is that the client was Greta Garbo. That one had a conclusion. It just wasn’t one she wanted to talk about, and I had promised never to say anything about it. I can, however, say that I remember one thing she told me.

“I don’t really like being alone,” she had said. “I’m just very particular about whom I am willing to spend my time with.”

There were more such cases. Eleven altogether. But I had the feeling that I might be about to get the list down to ten because of the note Violet had given me.

I looked at the entry in my book. There was a photograph tucked along the binding. It was a picture of a cat looking right at the camera. A fat cat. I had been told the cat was silver with black streaks. I had been told that his name was Granger. I didn’t have to be told by his owner, Louise Antolini, that Granger had a hunk of his left ear missing.

“He went out one night and came back like that,” Mrs. Antolini had explained. “You have a pet?”

“No,” I said.

My brother and I had had the German shepherd, Kaiser Wilhelm, when I was a kid. I don’t remember much about him other than that he seemed to like me and not my brother, especially after Phil came back from the war they now called World War I. A cat named Dash had sort of started living with me about the time Louise Antolini lost track of Granger, but Dash wasn’t a pet. He had saved my life once. I owed him. I left my window open at Mrs. Plaut’s, and Dash came and went when he felt like it. I fed him. Sometimes he slept on the small couch in my room. I always slept on a thin mattress on the floor. Bad back. Long story.

The note from Violet. I had failed to find Granger, and Louise Antolini, as regular as the seasons, sent me letters demanding to know what progress I was making. She had paid me a total of seventy-five dollars. I had used all of it and more to run small ads once a week in the
Times.
The ads read: “Missing one-eared cat. Reward.” I added my phone number. Once in a while I got a call. I never had to go out and look at the discovered cats or ask the finders to bring them to me for the reward. I had a series of questions about the cat for each caller. All had failed to answer the questions, but the one on Violet’s message held promise. It read:

Call Samuel Stinovenov in the Acute Unit at County Hospital. He’s got a gray cat with black stripes and a missing left ear. Says you’d know.

Violet had taken no phone number. None had been given. I checked the greater L.A. phone book. No Stinovenov.

I called the hospital and asked for the Acute Unit.

“Samuel Stinovenov,” I said to the woman who answered the phone.

“He’s off today,” she said.

“I’m his brother Julian,” I said. “I’m in town for one day. Can you give me his phone number?”

“Brother?” the woman asked.

“Julian,” I repeated.

She put her hand over the receiver, but I could hear her muffled voice say to someone, “You know Sam has a brother?”

I didn’t hear the answer, but she came back on and said, “I’m looking.”

She hummed while she looked, came back quickly, and said, “You don’t have an accent.”

“I’ve worked on it,” I said.

“Say something in Russian.”

“Huh?”

“You’re Russian,” she said. “Say something.”

“
Vosnushev leskronik menchovenola,
” I said.

“What does that mean?”

“It means ‘you have a very melodic voice,’” I said, relieved that she knew no Russian.

She gave me the number. A detective was at work here. I dialed the number. It rang five times and a man with a Russian accent answered.

“Hello.”

“Samuel Stinovenov?”

“Yes.”

“I’m calling about the cat.”

“How much?”

“The reward?” I asked.

“Yes, how much?”

“Thirty dollars,” I said, hoping I could get the money back from Louise Antolini.

“Where you want me to bring cat?”

“Some questions first,” I said.

I didn’t ask him to call the cat Granger and see if he came running. Cats answer or don’t answer, depending on their mood. I asked him how old he thought the cat was. He said he thought it was not a young cat. I asked him where he lived. It was near the hospital, just off of State Street. I said I’d be right over.

“With cash money,” he said.

“With cash money,” I agreed and hung up, pocketing the photograph of Granger.

Shelly was still in the dental chair. He was eating an apple and talking to himself. I couldn’t hear what he was saying. I didn’t say good-bye.

My car was parked right in front of the Farraday Building. Normally, it was so crowded on Hoover and on Main I parked two blocks away at No-Neck Arnie’s. But this was New Year’s Day and a Saturday, to boot. So I had had my choice of spots.

I drove to Arnie’s. His rusting metal garage doors were open. I drove through them and stopped behind a blue Oldsmobile. Arnie, dressed in his grease-stained gray overalls, was looking into the yawning car. He pulled his head out from under the hood and turned to look at me when I got out of the Crosley.

“I wasn’t sure you’d be in today,” I said, joining him next to the Olds.

It wasn’t true that Arnie had no neck. But it was close. Arnie was short, compact, and looked a little like Winston Churchill. Arnie had more hair and no accent.

“Couldn’t stay home,” he said. “I was too excited.”

Arnie didn’t look excited. He looked sad, but Arnie always looked sad.

“What?”

“Arnie Junior’s coming home,” he said. “He called from a hospital in Hawaii. Wounded again. Shrapnel in the leg. He says he’ll be fine. They’re sending him home.”

“That’s great,” I said.

“It’s great,” he agreed. “Wife’s goin’ all around telling her sisters, friends. Me, I just felt like coming in here and taking another crack at this thing.”

He looked inside near the engine.

“What’s the problem?”

“Damn automatic transmission,” he said. “Never works right. Clunks when it changes gear. G.M. says they’re got the problems licked and are going to try it on the Buick after the war. Mistake. Never catch on. What’s so damn hard about shifting gears?”