A Fatal Glass of Beer (31 page)

Authors: Stuart M. Kaminsky

Tags: #Fiction, #General, #Mystery & Detective, #Historical

Violet nodded.

“And send this,” I said, handing her the vial, “to W. C. Fields with a note saying, ‘The trophy is yours.’

Violet nodded again and took the vial. I gave her Fields’s address.

“I get paid by the week?” she asked.

“When times are good,” I said. “Might be some lean months, but you’ll always get paid. Two dollar a week raise. You can read on the job, do your nails, write poetry and letters to your husband, and handle whatever business comes our way.”

Violet smiled and left. I called Anita and told her I was in my office. She said she couldn’t talk, early lunch customers, a crew working on the sewer down the street.

I checked the window. Same view as from the cubbyhole in Shelly’s office: the alley, some wrecks. No people.

I was tired before I even did anything, but I went through the mail and messages. Messages from No-Neck Arnie, a man named Walter Simmons with a scrawled “insurance salesman” under his phone number. There were two that might have been clients. The letters, six of them, contained no checks or cash. A few former clients still owed me money. I didn’t really expect to ever see it. Three of the letters were bills. One was an invitation to visit an exciting new subdivision in the valley, deep in the valley. The letter said the value of the houses would triple when the war was over. Servicemen would be coming back, moving their wives out of small apartments, or getting married, wanting to have a real home. It was, the letter assured me, a great investment. The war will be over soon. Don’t wait till it’s too late. I junked the letter, put the bills in a pile, and put the other two letters in another pile, the possible clients. One wanted to know if I could come to San Diego and find out if her husband was cheating on her with a Wac. She had heard of me through a mutual friend she didn’t name. It was a possible, a two-day job at the most. The wife’s number was in the letter. The other letter was more interesting. It had been hand delivered. No postmark. It simply had a telephone number. Below the number was a signature—Gary Grant.

I was already tired, in no condition to talk to an important potential client on the phone, if the letter wasn’t a joke. I’d call in the morning. I limped into Violet’s reception room, which now contained four wooden chairs and a very small table against the wall opposite her desk.

“For clients,” she said. “We thought we’d surprise you.”

Four people waiting to see me at one time merited inclusion in
Believe It or Not.

I told her it looked great and that I’d be back the next day. I moved past the man in white, paint-stained overalls who was putting my name on the door and headed past Shelly’s office. I couldn’t stop myself. My name had already been removed from the door. I walked in. The waiting room was empty. I walked into Shelly’s chamber of horrors and there he sat in his dental chair. His glasses were on the end of his nose. The cigar in his fingers was down to a stub, and his white lab coat had a few fresh coffee stains. He wiped his eyes and looked up at me.

“Toby,” he said. “You lost your toe. Jeremy told me. You know they’re doing experiments on sewing toes and fingers back on wounded soldiers.”

“Too late for that, Shel,” I said. “Look, I’ll be right next door. I’ll stop by, see you, have lunch once in a while, and you can come and see me.”

“That’s not why I was crying,” he said. “Mildred wants to come and work here half days. I can’t stop her. She’s on a mission. She says she can straighten me out, make calls, get patients, make money, keep Violet and you from visiting. Toby, she’ll be here half the time. She won’t let me smoke my cigars. She’ll … I can’t stop her. Look what you’ve done.”

The prospect of seeing Mildred Minck almost every day didn’t appeal to me either.

“She won’t let me have lunch with you,” he said. “She won’t let me eat tacos at Mann. She won’t let me go in your office, past Violet. She may, if I behave, let me breathe once in a while. She wants your old office and I’ll have to go back to taking care of the waiting room. Think of something. Save me. I love Mildred, you know that, but this is my sanctuary. You’ve heard me sing while I work. The singing’ll stop. Mildred says I sing like an iguana. What the hell does an iguana sing like, I ask you?”

“I don’t know, Shel,” I said. “I’ll try to think of something to change Mildred’s mind.”

“No use,” he said, sagging and adjusting his glasses. “Once she decides … no use. All because you moved out.”

“I’ll work on it, Shel,” I said.

He nodded, a nod without hope, and I left.

Two days later, Anita and I went to the reception after the wedding of Anne and Preston Stewart. I wore a new suit from Hy’s for Him on Melrose, picked out with Anita’s help. I was walking a little better, but I had to wear the slippers. Doc Hodgdon had changed the bandage on my toe the day before and he had given me more of the pain pills.

Anita had gone all out. She looked great, wore a blue suit and her dark-yellow hair piled on her head in the latest style, like Mary Beth Hughes or Ann Dvorak. The hotel ballroom was filled with movie people, a few I knew from working for them on cases, most I recognized—Paul Henreid, Danny Kaye, Joan Crawford were the big names—but there were character actors, directors, producers, and, in one corner, looking uncomfortable with a drink in one hand and a little piece of cake in the other, was Harry Cohn himself, surrounded by Columbia yes-men.

We made our way through the crowd and across the dance floor. A small band was playing and a few people were dancing. I found Anne, congratulated her, kissed her cheek, and shook the tuxedoed bridegroom’s hand. His golden hair bobbed boyishly when we shook. Preston Stewart had a great, friendly smile.

“Glad you could make it,” he said. “Anne’s told me a lot about you.”

I looked at Anne. She was dark, beautiful in a white dress, her hair down. Her eyes were pleading with me not to say anything. I introduced Anita.

We were a study in contrasting couples. Anne was dark. Anita light. Anne was a few years younger, but neither looked her years. Stewart was smaller and thinner and younger than I was, a lot younger.

“Anita and I have to take off soon,” I said, seeing relief on Anne’s face, a nod of thanks and a small smile. “Good luck to both of you. And if you ever need a private detective, I’m in the book.”

I suddenly got an idea and headed Anita toward the dance floor.

“I like her,” Anita said.

“So do I,” I answered, slightly elbowing Bill Demarest.

“You did fine,” Anita assured me, squeezing my arm.

The band was playing what I thought was a fox-trot. I had recently taken lessons from Fred Astaire for a job I did for him. I couldn’t hear the beat and I was, he had said, not likely to compete with him for roles, but I could dance. I led Anita to the floor, which was not particularly crowded.

“Dance?” I said.

“Your toe?”

“I’ll ignore it,” I said.

“You want Anne to see,” she said as we stepped onto the floor.

“And I want you in my arms,” I said.

“That’s a Preston Stewart line from
Brigands of Bengal.
”

“I know, but it’s true anyway. Just tap me on the beat so I know where to start.”

The band was playing “Long Ago and Far Away.” I ignored my toe and danced, hearing Astaire’s advice in my head, ignoring my feet and counting on them to do the right thing, keeping my back straight and my arms up, being sure to give Anita the right leads. Over her shoulder through the break in the crowd I could see Anne looking at us past Dorothy McGuire, who was talking to her. Anne’s large brown eyes were filled with what I took for disbelief. The Toby she knew couldn’t dance. The Toby in front of her was moving around the floor in the right direction, going backward and forward, executing turns. I didn’t make a mistake, if you discount the stupidity of dancing with a recently missing toe.

When the song ended, the crowd applauded politely and I led Anita out of the ballroom without looking back.

“I’m taking you out to dinner,” I said in the hotel lobby. “We’re all dressed up and there’s no point in wasting it. Name the place, any place.”

“You’re kidding?” she said.

“Nope,” I said. “Name it.”

“The Brown Derby,” she said, and the Brown Derby was where we went.

When I got home that night after taking Anita to her place, I gave in, walked on my heel, and as I walked past Mrs. Plaut’s door, her hand came out with an envelope in it.

“I’m in my nightie,” she said, closing the door.

I took the envelope, and as she closed the door I could have sworn I heard Lou Caton’s voice inside say, “Where did I put it?”

I made it up the stairs to my room. Dash was out for the night and Mrs. Plaut had made up my mattress and left it on the floor. I took off my slippers and, with a pain greater than I had imagined, removed my white socks. A trickle of blood had stuck my right sock to my foot where my toe used to be. I eased it off and went to the kitchen alcove in my shirt and underwear. Even though I had just eaten at the Brown Derby, I prepared a bowl of Corn Krispies while I read the note in a scrawling script that took me some time to decipher:

Thanks for the gift. I shall display it enigmatically in my office and change the subject when anyone tries to probe me with questions of its history. Might scare off a few pests from time to time. The plasterer and window repairman recommended by Mr. Butler did a job worthy of the Pope’s ground crew. Thanks again for the toe. Best gift I’ve received since I performed before the Maharaja of Wonderpar, who gave me an elephant which I donated to the Fort Worth Zoo. Got the elephant for juggling six burning Indian clubs from the Maharaja’s private collection. Juggled them blindfolded. Juggling was easy. Getting blindfolds on burning Indian clubs, however, was no mean undertaking.

The note was signed, Snidely J. Whiplash.

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This edition published in 2011 by
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