So, “What’s up Gunther?” I said soberly, “besides you and me.”
“I am sorry to have startled you, Toby,” he said as precisely as usual, “but I thought I heard you in here and was sure you would like to know about the events that took place a short time ago.”
“Cops came,” I said, sitting up. My back felt all right, but my stomach hurt like the Huns at Rostov. “Chased a guy away and came in here asking questions?”
“Precisely,” said Gunther. “There was a shot fired. The police asked if we knew an Italian neighbor named Armetta. I’m afraid Mrs. Plaut provided them with no solace or information.”
“Come in, Gunther,” I said. “And leave the door open. I don’t want to turn on the lights.”
Gunther came in. I could see now that he was properly dressed in a robe with a sash and slippers. In contrast, I was wearing a pair of undershorts and a torn YMCA shirt with a hole in the navel.
“Does the man in the yard relate to your spy inquiry?” asked Gunther.
“Right,” I said. “Have a seat, Gunther.”
He climbed up on a wooden chair near the table, and I got up to heat some water for tea. Gunther preferred tea to coffee and I didn’t want coffee to keep me awake.
I told Gunther about my most recent exploits and the fact that I seemed to be running into a hell of a lot of Germans in Los Angeles. He explained that there was a colony of German refugees from Hitler in Los Angeles and that it was growing all the time.
“Most of them arrive in New York,” he explained, “and move as far away from Europe as they can. Hence, Los Angeles.”
“Well, I have some hard evidence that what they ran from might have followed them clear across the forty-eight states.”
We drank our tea and I got hungry, so I fumbled in the dark and opened the can of pork and beans I had bought that day. Gunther politely accepted a cup of pork and beans and I ate the rest out of the pot, trying to avoid my torn cheek.
“If it will be of any help,” he said, wiping his mouth with my last paper napkin, “I will make some inquiries among my clients for whom I am translating, on the chance that they will recognize the cadaverous man and the man with the wheeze whom you encountered.”
“I’d appreciate that,” I said.
Gunther thanked me for the snack and said goodnight. I cleaned the dishes and settled back in bed.
In a few minutes, I was asleep. If I dreamed, I don’t remember it.
CHAPTER NINE
Breakfast consisted of a very slowly eaten bowl of Kellogg’s corn flakes and a glass of milk with Bosco syrup. The pain in my cheek where I had bitten off more than I wanted to chew had not subsided during the night and made eating unpleasant. My stomach and head were still sore, and the hint of humidity in the air threatened my back. In short, it was a typical morning for Toby Peters.
While I was brushing my teeth with my finger and Doctor Lyon’s tooth powder, Mrs. Plaut knocked and came in without waiting for an invitation. She began padding around the room.
“Mr. Peelers, you should have seen. Police and shooting. We could have used your comfort. Little Mister Wherthman says you are a private police officer. It’s a comfort to have you here when there’s trouble, a comfort, but you weren’t here.”
She stared at me peevishly.
“I’m sorry,” I said innocently, rinsing my mouth and wincing at the pain. “What happened?”
You should have been here,” she repeated and left the room. The phone rang and I raced Mrs. Plaut for it. I was handicapped by a sore stomach, but I beat her by half a length, despite her one-length lead. Breathing hard I said, “Hello.”
“Toby,” came the familiar voice of my only sibling, “get to my office fast. Now. Don’t go for a walk. Don’t see a client. Don’t have breakfast.”
“I already ate.”
He hung up.
No one tried to kill me when I walked outside, which gave me renewed hope. So, full of confidence and with almost a half bottle of Jeris Hair Tonic on my head, I dodged the marathon rope-skipping girls, who had moved to the sidewalk, and headed down the street toward my car. Behind me I could hear their melodious young voices joyfully chant:
Rooms for rent; inquire within;
A lady got put out for drinking gin.
If she promises to drink no more,
Here’s the key to Barry’s door.
I could still hear their giggling half a block away.
I put my.38 back into the glove compartment and in fifteen minutes I was semi-legally parked near Phil’s station. I pulled down my visor with the “Glendale Police” card on it. It was old and frayed and I don’t think it had ever saved me from a ticket, but it was worth a try.
The squad room was almost empty, a morning emptiness of smokers coughing and bleary eyes of a new shift with too little sleep and an old shift that had been up all night. A cop with his jacket off played with his suspenders while he listened to a fat woman who leaned toward him and croaked, “You woulda done the same. Anybody woulda, wouldn’t they?” The cop with the suspenders nodded in boredom and looked toward the squad room door for his relief or the Second Coming.
I knocked at Phil’s door and walked in without waiting for an answer. If it was good enough for Mrs. Plaut, by God, it was good enough for me.
Phil was behind his desk with three dark folders lined up neatly in front of him. He was drinking a steaming cup of coffee from a white mug.
“Sit down, Toby,” he said evenly. “And listen. Listen quietly before you say a word. You understand?”
I told him I understood and sat down. Phil drank a little more coffee, looked at me, drank more coffee and opened the first folder.
“The gentleman we found in your office yesterday,” he began, “was covered with type A blood. His was type B. The gentleman was carrying false identification. His name wasn’t Frye. It was Schell, Wolfgang Schell. I know that because the FBI told me. The FBI came to look at his body and papers before we even had him at the morgue. It seems Mr. Schell is an illegal alien, a German with a bad reputation-I don’t have enough corpses of my own, the goddamn Nazis have to send me more.” Phil had no love for the Germans since they got him almost fatally wounded in his first battle in the big war in 1917.
The look Phil gave me made it clear I was somehow responsible for his present problem with the Germans, and in a way he was right. So, I said nothing. Besides I was learning a lot. Schell was the name of Hughes’ butler, the butler Toshiro had described as less than pleasant. But the butler’s name was Martin, not Wolfgang.
Phil pulled out a pile of photographs from one of the files on his desk and shuffled through them. He went through them quickly and finally stopped at one that made him bite his lip. He held it up for me to see. It was a black-and-white picture of the message written in blood. It still looked like he had written “unkind” to me.
“What the hell does this mean?” Phil asked, almost crushing his still hot coffee cup in his big fist. “Was the Nazi nuts, or was he leaving some information?”
“I don’t know,” I said as Phil replaced the photo.
“You’re in good company for a change,” he said. “The FBI doesn’t either. Think you might tell me where you were yesterday between about noon and two?”
He was about as disarming as a charging rhino.
“Having lunch with Rathbone,” I said. “Why?”
“Guy named Barton, Air Force major got a few bullets in his pump out in Westwood,” Phil said, staring at me.
“So?” I said blankly.
“So, Schell, the dead Nazi in your dental chair had Barton’s phone number in his wallet. Schell knew Barton, and they both wind up dead on the same day, and you discover one of the bodies.”
“So,” I said.
“So,” said Phil standing up, “the call to report Barton’s death came from a guy with a phony Italian accent. Do we know anybody who likes phony Italian accents?”