Down for the Count: A Toby Peters Mystery (Book Ten) (8 page)

“Suits me fine,” Meara said with a smile. “How’s it suit you, kid?”

“Fine,” said Belleforte.

“Lawyer will take maybe an hour to get back to you, go for the papers, get down to the station. Hell, our friend Peters will be lucky to be out in three hours, and by then we can get him through every book in the library. Let’s go.”

I turned my back on the two cops and pulled my copy of the names in the notebook out of my pocket. I pressed my list into Anne’s hand, blocking Meara’s view with my body.

“I’ll be fine,” I said. “My lawyer’s name is Leib. He’s in the book.”

Meara’s thick hand on my shoulder indicated that I was a slab of ribs and all his. Meara, Belleforte, and I left with me in the middle. I asked them to bring my car, but Meara said it would be safer right there and so we got into his black, unmarked Chrysler at the front of the driveway. I had a moment of panic, thinking the wild-eyed Belleforte might drive, but Meara got behind the wheel. I got in the back seat with Belleforte.

“You know, Peters,” Meara said joyfully as he drove up Main Street. “I’ve got a kid in the Army, training now in Missouri. Good kid. My wife worries about him. Hell, I worry about him too, but we pray. We wait. You know how it is?”

“I know some people in the service,” I said.

It went on like that for the four miles to the station house in Santa Monica. We were almost buddies by the time we went up the four concrete steps. I was thinking of giving Meara my recipe for apple tacos.

Belleforte didn’t say much, just rubbed his curly hair every once in a while like Stan Laurel. The Santa Monica station was old, but bright and sunny with lots of windows. It seemed a little sleepy on a Monday afternoon as Meara guided me to some steps leading down.

“This way,” he said. I went ahead of him. “Library. You like dogs, Peters? I mean you ever have a dog?”

“I had a dog,” I said at the bottom of the stairs. Meara pointed to a door. There wasn’t much light from the bulb in the hall, but I could see the door. Meara touched his nose like Santa Claus in “The Night Before Christmas” and turned his left hand to show me that he wanted me to open the door. I opened the door. There was no lady, no tiger.

“My kid has a dog,” Meara said, coming in behind me with Belleforte silently at his side. “Sort of like a collie.”

“That’s nice,” I said, looking around the room. There was a wooden table, badly scarred. There were four wooden chairs, badly scarred, with one held together by rope. There was a bench running along one wall, and a small window that wouldn’t have done much to brighten up the room even if there hadn’t been a blue chintz curtain covering it. The only other thing in the room besides the four gray walls was a Los Angeles telephone book on the table.

“The library,” Meara said, pointing at the book. “We can read or talk. Let’s try talking first. Have a seat.”

I had a seat. Belleforte leaned against the door with his arms folded and looked at Meara and me, though we were on different sides of the room. Meara picked up the floppy book in two hands and moved toward me.

“Heavy book, must be, what, half a million names in it? Maybe not that much. Now you got an education, Peters. Let’s see how smart you are. Who was the nigger on the beach?”

“I’ll wait for a lawyer,” I began, and the book came down on my head. My chair screeched back an inch or two and pain shot through my skull to my chin. I didn’t fall out of the chair.

“Okay,” Meara said. “Let’s see what you learned from the book. Books can be very educational, right?”

“Very educational,” Belleforte said from the door.

I turned my head up to Meara. His face looked blurry blue in the weak window light. He was happy, a natural teacher.

“Who is he?” Meara repeated, showing me the telephone book.

“Cab Calloway,” I said.

The book came down, and this time I had to reach between my legs to keep from falling.

“Who is he?” Meara repeated.

“Rochester,” I said. This one didn’t hurt as much. Meara was getting mad, swinging hard but not as accurately. He was getting a little old and drank too much. He was already panting from the exercise. I figured he’d tire soon. All I had to do was hold out till then.

“Who?” he said, getting the whole thing down to one word.

“Sugar Ray Robinson,” I said with a grin, which made Meara wild enough to almost miss, but not quite. He caught me with the edge of the book, and the pages scraped against my right cheek like a rusty razor blade.

“You’re a stubborn student,” Meara panted. “Maybe you need a special tutor. Professor Belleforte, you want to give our student a private lesson?”

“I don’t think so, Sergeant,” Belleforte said quietly from the door. I blinked my eyes, ran my finger across my bruised cheek, and looked at my bloody fingers and then at Belleforte, who wasn’t enjoying all this. He might not be up there with Meara in the professorial ranks, but he was smart enough to stay out of this one.

“See?” Meara said, appealing to me. “See what I’ve got to work with? That’s a partner.”

“I sympathize with you,” I said, trying to ignore the pulsing in my head.

Meara leaned close to me and whispered, “Has he got something to lose or something? A book doesn’t leave marks. Who’s in here but us?”

I showed him my bruised cheek.

“Nothing’s perfect,” he agreed. “I’ll ask you again and then I’ll hit you again. We’ll keep this up till I can’t hit you anymore or you tell me what I want to know. That’s education. Who was he?”

“You hit me with that book again, and I go for your fat gut,” I said sweetly.

“Oh,” he said, putting the book down. “You touch me and you go on to the college of hard knocks. Higher education, cuffs on the wrist, and typewriters. Can you type, Peters?”

Meara, or what I could see of him through my bleary eyes, looked, to use the psychiatric phrase, a little nuts. But I’m not in the business of humoring the mentally ill.

“Can you type?” he repeated. “Let’s get your clothes off, some cuffs on your wrists, and I’ll go for a typewriter. How’d you like that?”

I didn’t say anything, just watched the telephone book rise over his head in two blasts. I leaned to the right and caught the book on my shoulder as I threw my left hand into Meara’s unprotected gut. The book splayed into the corner, and Meara staggered back against the wall, gulping for air. I got up on wobbly legs to go after him, but Belleforte said, “Don’t move, Peters.”

I looked at him and saw the gun. It was leveled at my chest and about six feet away. Even a cockeyed cop couldn’t miss at that distance.

Meara inched his way up the wall till he was fully standing and gasped, “You … really are … a dumb son … of a bitch.”

I got behind the wooden chair I’d been sitting in and grabbed the back. Meara tried to grin through his pain.

“Ain’t we got fun,” he said, his breath coming back. “Pick up that chair and so help me God I’m going to put a bullet in you. I’ll aim for your kneecaps but I’ve just been attacked and I may not shoot straight.” His gun came out of the shoulder holster, and he showed even, false teeth as he aimed.

“Sergeant,” Belleforte pleaded, but Meara wasn’t listening. School was out and it was my move. We listened to each other breathe for a few seconds, and I let go of the chair. Meara was taking a step toward me when Belleforte went flying across the room, his gun sailing out of his hand through the chintz curtain, through the small window, and into the afternoon.

The door had blown open behind him and a man was standing in it, a burly man with a cop gut, an angry look, and short steely hair. He wore a suit and tie, but the tie was open around his thick neck.

“Back off, Meara,” my brother said.

“Get the hell out of here, Pevsner,” Meara said, his gun still out. “This isn’t your land.”

The dazed Belleforte was on his knees, looking for his lost gun. I didn’t feel like helping him.

“Meara,” Phil said wearily, “you call me Captain Pevsner. Captain. And I go where I want to go, and I want to be here and I don’t want to explain anything to you. Toby, you get the hell out of here.”

I got the hell out of there and met my brother’s former partner, Lieutenant Steve Seidman, on the stairway. Steve was a cadaverous guy who never smiled, never seemed to be disturbed by the madness of the world, and always seemed reasonable. A recently botched dental job by Shelly Minck had shown a new side of Seidman’s personality, however, complete with threats to turn the myopic dentist into corn flakes.

“Hi, Steve,” I said.

He nodded and looked over at the door to the library. “Anne Howard called him,” Seidman explained. “I was on the way into his office. He turned me around and we got here in eighteen minutes, probably a new record.”

Phil had kicked shut the library door, and we could hear his voice booming and Meara bleating back.

“He never liked Meara,” Seidman explained. “They had a run-in back in about thirty-six or ’seven. Meara put Phil’s name on a list of cops who used unnecessary force in getting confessions.

“There’s an irony somewhere in that,” I said, leaning against the wall and rubbing my head.

“Telephone book?” Seidman said, looking emotionlessly at my bloody face and handing me his handkerchief.

“L.A.,” I said, putting the cloth to my tender cheek.

“Could have been worse,” he countered. “Could have been Chicago or Manhattan.”

Phil came out, slamming the door behind him, gave me a mean look, and pushed past me, spitting, “Come on.”

Seidman and I followed him through the station and into the late afternoon.

“Get in the car,” said Phil.

We got in the car. Seidman drove, and Phil sat next to me in the rear.

“Where’s your car?” Phil said, looking out the window.

I told him, and Seidman headed for Anne’s house.

“Thanks, Phil, I—” I began.

“I wasn’t there for you,” he said. “I always liked Anne. I thought she might have a chance at turning you into a human being.”

“She tried,” I admitted.

“You know she still sends the boys birthday presents, and the baby. She still calls … I did it for Anne. Besides, I hate Meara’s putrid guts.”

We didn’t say anything for about five minutes. Phil kept looking out of the window, and I urged my senses to come back. The scrape on my cheek had stopped bleeding and screaming. The pain was down to a mild throb. I began wondering if I could make my appointment with Parkman at seven.

“Now,” Phil said. “You tell me what’s going on. You tell me everything. I’m not in a good mood. I have a shitload of cases on my desk and a duty roster I can’t figure out. I hate that goddamn duty roster. You talk. You talk straight, or what Meara was planning for you will be party time compared to what I’ll do. And you can trust me on that.”

I trusted him on it. My experience told me to trust Phil when it came to violence. If my brain weren’t still rattling I probably would have come up with a dangerous barb, but a wheel was loose, I was late for an appointment, and I owed him one. I talked and Phil and Steve listened. I told about Joe Louis, the guys he had seen on the beach, Parkman, everything. We were pulling into Anne’s driveway when I finished.

“And that’s all?” Phil said, turning to look at me. I looked at his face closely for the first time. Promotion didn’t look good on him. He looked worried. The shadow of the duty roster fell over his beefy face. He had put on a few pounds he couldn’t afford.

“That’s it, Phil,” I said.

“Get out. The case’s Meara’s. Stay out of his way. If something turns up, I’ll reach you.”

Seidman had hit the gas before I could say thanks or return his bloody handkerchief, but I knew Phil didn’t want thanks and Seidman probably didn’t want the handkerchief either. Phil wanted to be home with his wife and three kids, or choking an ax murderer till he confessed. What he didn’t want was to go back to his office and prepare a duty roster.

I told Anne I was all right when she shuddered after getting a good look at my face. I thanked her for calling Phil, took my copy of Ralph’s notebook back, and refused her offer to help me clean my face. She kissed my good cheek, and I wanted to stay when I smelled her. I had the feeling that she might let me, too, but Parkman was waiting.

I got the right time, adjusted my father’s watch for no good reason, and got in the car. While I drove I listened to six student nurses beat out six members of the Des Moines Kiwanis Club on “True or False.” I had just changed the station to catch a few minutes of Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray in “Ball of Fire” on the Lux Radio Theater when I found a parking space in front of Reed’s Soldier’s Gym. It wasn’t quite dark yet and the evening was getting a little chilly.

I tried the door of Reed’s, found it open, and started up the dark stairs. China Rogers wasn’t on his stool and there were no sounds. The lights were out, but there was still enough of the waning sunlight coming through the windows to see there was no one in the gym.

“Parkman,” I called. An echo answered.

There was a hallway at the end of the gym near the ring where Jerry and the kid had simulated battle. A dim light came from the hallway, and I went for it.