Ott 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.”
“If we stop you from killing Blackstone?” I said.
“I didn’t say anything about killing Blackstone,” said Ott.
“You threatened him,” Phil said.
“No, I …”
“Why?” I asked.
“Why?” Ott repeated.
“Why do you want to give us all that money to stop you?” I said.
“I don’t,” said Ott. “I’m offering it. I’m confident you won’t collect it. I intend to let every magician who will be at the dinner, newspaper, every radio station know that I’ve made this challenge. But my goal isn’t to pay you ten thousand dollars. My goal is to make that strutting, pompous Blackstone look like a fool. This offer will give the moment of his humiliation publicity and poignancy. He won’t be able to live it down.”
Ott was looking from me to Phil now, his eyes darting. He was smiling again. He was most definitely a little nuts.
“How do we know you’ll pay if we stop you?” I asked.
“With all that publicity? I wouldn’t dare not pay. I’ll have this satchel with me. Stop me, and I’ll present it in front of everyone in the hall.”
“Deal,” I said.
“Toby,” Phil warned, looking at me.
I didn’t say anything, but he knew what I was thinking. He had three kids, had just started a new career with a brother who lived on the edge of poverty. He shook his head and backed away from Ott.
Ott closed the satchel and snapped the gold clasp shut.
“Tonight,” he said, satchel in hand.
With his free hand, he reached into the breast pocket of his jacket and pulled out his white handkerchief and waved it in the air. Then he snapped the handkerchief and a small bird flew out from under it. The bird flapped past Phil, made a small circle, and perched on my desk.
Ott nodded as if he were waiting for applause.
“How’d you like to see me pull a rabbit out of your ass?” Phil said, his face red moving back toward Ott.
“I don’t have a …”
“Well we can just check to be sure,” Phil said.
“Phil,” I said, trying to keep my voice even, trying to sound like Lewis Stone as Judge Hardy telling Andy to curb his enthusiasm.
Phil paused just long enough for Ott to make it through the door. The slam it made as he exited started the bird fluttering around the office over our heads.
“Open the window,” Phil said, moving to his desk.
I got up and did as he asked.
“Tell the bird to get the hell out of here,” he said as he sat down.
I chased the bird around the room two or three times before it found the open window and dived into the smog.
Phil got out of the chair, went to the window, and closed it. He turned to me.
“People are dying,” he said. “Thousands of people. Kids. There’s a war going on. And that grinning rich monkey in a fifty-dollar jacket is playing games with people’s lives.”
His fists were clenched.
“If he comes back …” Phil began and then changed his mind.
“He won’t come back,” I said. “He’s saving his next trick for tonight.”
“I’m going home,” Phil said.
“I’ll tell Blackstone what’s been going on,” I said.
“Do that,” said Phil, heading for the door.
“See you at the Roosevelt,” I said.
“Yeah.”
“I’ve never seen you in a tux,” I said.
“You’re in for a treat,” Phil said, slamming the door as he left.
When he was gone, I called the Pantages and found out from Pete Bouton that his brother had gone to the hospital to see Gwen.
I turned off the lights, went in the hall, locked the door, and listened to the late morning sounds of the Farraday: The muffled whimper of Shelly’s patient. From above, the badly tuned piano of Irwin Duncan, “voice teacher to the stars,” as he batted out Rum and Coca Cola and his latest off-key client tried to mimic Patty Andrews.
I took the stairs, hearing a typewriter clacking on the third floor, a drum beating on the second floor, and a floor polisher on the lobby floor. Jeremy was pushing the polisher gently and evenly. He saw me and flipped it off.
“I just saw Calvin Ott leaving,” he said.
“Right.”
“And Phillip was not far behind,” Jeremy said, rubbing the side of his bald head with two fingers.
“Ott offered to pay out ten thousand dollars if we succeed in stopping him from doing whatever it is he plans to do to Black-stone tonight. Like a challenge.”