“You all right?” she said.
“Wife just had a baby,” I explained. “Been up all night.”
“Congratulations,” she said with an accent out of Missouri or Oklahoma. “Boy or girl?”
“Girl. Eleanor Roosevelt Peters.”
She took my groaned order: two egg sandwiches with mayonaise and a chocolate shake.
When I finished eating, I pulled a buck out of my pocket, but Missouri wouldn’t take it.
“Boss says it’s on the house. For the new daddy.”
Her smile was crooked and nice, and I felt like an Italian in Ethiopia. I smiled back and left.
Some time late in the afternoon I pulled in front of the Farraday Building into a no parking zone. The next trick was to get out of the car. While I was trying, Jeremy Butler stepped out for some Lysol-free air and saw me.
“You get shot again?” he asked, taking my arm.
“No, it’s my back. Can you help me up to the office?”
Butler picked me up as if I were helium-filled and walked me into the building.
“I’ve known lots of guys with bad backs,” he said, going up the stairs instead of taking the elevator. I weighed a solid 165 pounds and it was dead weight, but he didn’t seem to notice.
“Know any body builders?” I asked.
“Some,” he said, moving steadily upward. “Different muscles from wrestlers. They’re top-heavy. No center of gravity.”
The pain was still there, but I could tell Butler was doing his best to be gentle.
“I mean personalities,” I said.
“All kinds,” Butler said. “Some fairies, some skirt chasers. A few momma’s boys. All exhibitionists. They want people to look at them. Someone. A mother, father, someone didn’t pay attention, and they’re making up for it. Some of them are good guys.”
“You’re a poet, Jer,” I said as he elbowed his way into the alcove of Minck and Peters. The alcove was barely big enough for both of us. He hurried through. Shelly was eating a sweet roll and smoking a cigar while he read a Western in his dental chair. Butler told him to get up, and he deposited me carefully in the seat of honor. I groaned once for sympathy. Butler wasn’t even breathing hard.
“Get shot?” Shelly asked with more curiosity than sympathy.
“No, buddy,” I said through my teeth. “It’s my back. You got something to kill the pain?”
“Sure,” he said, and went for the needle. “I’ll give you a shot and some pills, but you’re better off going to bed for a few days and letting it take care of itself.”
“I may not have a few days,” I said. Shelly rolled up my shirt and gave me a shot in the lower back.
“I use it on gums,” he said to Butler, “but it’s supposed to work anywhere.”
He gave me an unmarked bottle with about ten pills in it. I took one out and swallowed it, gasping for water. Shelly turned on his dental chair water, and I drank out of the dirty glass cup. I curled over in agony waiting for the shot and the pill to do their stuff. While I waited, I told Shelly and the landlord about Judy Garland, the dead Munchkin, and the two attempts on my life. Shelly had heard part of it before, but he had been so busy saving the tooth of Walter Brennan’s double that he had forgotten.
“Let me try something,” Butler said, picking me up. I didn’t want to be picked up; the dental pain killers hadn’t done their stuff yet. But I was in no condition to argue. Butler put me on the floor and rolled me on my stomach. I didn’t go completely over because I was in an almost fetal position. He put his left hand on my spine and his fingers over my kidney. He grabbed my collar bone at the top of my back. The push down and pull up was sudden and without warning. There was a sound like an inner tube snapping, and a rush of pain.
“There,” said Butler. “How do you feel?”
I started to roll back into my protected fetal position and realized that the bad pain was gone. My lower back still felt sore, but it was tolerable.
I got up a little shaky, but I knew I could walk and feel something besides pain.
“Shot’s working,” explained Shelly, pointing his cigar at me with professional pride. “Take those pills and you’ll be fine for a day or so.”
Butler said nothing. He just looked tolerantly at Shelly with tiny blue eyes.
“Thanks,” I said to both of them, and hobbled into my office. There was almost no pain when I got to my desk and picked up the phone. I could hear the door open and Butler leave. Shelly began to hum “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” off-key, and I asked the operator for M.G.M. Hoff wasn’t there. I called his home number. He answered.
“Hoff, did Cassie tell you about the other midget, the one Wherthman says was chummy with Cash?”
“It’s Sunday,” he said in apology. “I can’t reach anyone, but I’m sure I’ll know by tomorrow.”
“Today would be nice,” I said. “Work on it. Who’s Wherthman’s lawyer?”
“A guy named Leib, Marty Leib. His office is on…”
“I need his home number,” I said. “I may not have until tomorrow. Is he listed?”
Hoff didn’t know, but he had the home number written down. He was a good leg man.
“One last thing, Hoff. Where were you late last night?”
“Why?” he asked.
“Someone about your size took a shot at me in a motor court up the coast.”
“Why the hell would I want to kill you?” he shouted. The anger sounded real, but I’d seen him change personalities almost in mid-sentence.
“Where were you?” I demanded.
“Here. Right here all night.”
“You’ve got a witness?” I pushed.
“My wife,” he said pulling himself together. I could see his hand touching his hair into place. I wondered if he was wearing a purple velvet robe and slippers and holding a copy of the New Yorker in his hand.
“Wives have lied for husbands,” I said.
He didn’t answer.
“You there, Warren?”
“I’m here. You need anything else?”
“You owe me another day’s pay and expenses. I’ll send you the bill,” I said, and waited for him to hang up. We played “you first” for about twenty seconds and I hung up.
I called lawyer Leib, whose bass voice almost knocked me off the chair.
“Ah, Mr. Peters!” he boomed. “I wanted to get in touch with you. Our client has a message for you. The name of the other midget, Cash’s friend. It’s John Franklin Peese.”
I asked him to spell it while I fished around for my gnawed pencil and an envelope to write on. I found the envelope addressed to me by Merle Levine, the lady whose cat I never found.
“I’ll work on it,” I said, and I told him about Clark Gable’s confidence that the arguing suspect was shorter than the victim.
Leib said that was great, but he was hoping Peese would lead to something better. He wanted to avoid a trial and publicity. Having Clark Gable as the key witness for the defense in what looked like an open-and-shut case wouldn’t do anyone any good. Leib said I should call him at any time, and we hung up good pals.
The next trick was to find John Franklin Peese, but first I called Andy Markopulis. He told me Woodman and Fearaven were at Judy Garland’s house and nothing had happened. Records of present and former employees were at the studio, and Peese would surely be listed. Andy said he could meet me at the studio if I wished. I said I’d think about it and call him back.
While I was thinking about it, Cassie James called. She said she wanted to know how the talk with Gable had gone and how I was. I told her about it and the attempt on my life. I had liked the way she moved toward me the last time I was almost done in. Her voice did it over the phone. Then she told me she knew the name of the midget Gunther Wherthman was trying to think of. She gave me Peese’s name, and said she could get into the personnel records and get an address. That sounded like more fun than meeting Andy Markopulis and I asked where she’d be. She said at home, and invited me over for dinner. I accepted, and she gave me a Santa Monica address and a couple of hours to get to it.